She leaned forward so close, their noses brushed against one another.The fluttering in Pride’s abdomen surged.
“You almost destroyed me,” Neyu said.
The fluttering plummeted, ice cold.Saer shook his head and tried to move away, but Neyu’s arm snapped up, her palm gripping the thick horn at the side of his face, keeping the First near.Unable to move, Saer could only utter against her lips, “I wouldn’t have—”
“You would have.”She emphasized the accusation by squeezing Saer’s metallic horn with such ferocity that her limb shook.“If Father hadn’t stopped you, I would no longer exist.”
Neyu’s accusation echoed off the walls and inside Saer’s skull.
“Neyuukhan,” he beseeched her.“You’re my mirror, my match.I wouldn’t end you.”
“Swear to me you won’t.”Her voice dropped, and something about it snared his insides.
“Neyu—”
“Please, Saer.”Her thumb stroked his cheek.
He wanted to reassure her at the same time it unsettled him that she required it.
“Why ask this of me?What are you afraid of?”
“I have one father, one master,” she hissed with the brittle edge of a plea.“I will not have two.”
Saer’s frown deepened.“I have no intention of becoming your master.”
Lust shook her head.“If you hold power over me, you command me.If you command me, I’m your slave.”
“I’m older than you.My power is greater than yours whether I have the ability to destroy you or not.”
A deceptive rumbling, like a kitten’s purr, vibrated in Neyu’s chest.She leaned and brushed her lips against Saer’s ear as she whispered, “Not right now, it isn’t.”
Saer growled in turn and pulled away.This time, she allowed it.
“Are you threatening me?”
The demoness paused, jaw tense.“I won’t harm you unless it’s commanded of me, Dearest.All I want is the same reassurance from you.”
Saer regarded her words, the silence falling heavy between the First and Second.‘Dearest,’ she called him.The term sent his tired mind into a swirl of confusion and bewilderment...and something else.
Something warm and glowing, a balm on seeping wounds.
“Consider yourself reassured,” Saer murmured.
“Do you swear it?”
He groaned and shut his eyes.“Yes, I swear it.Let me sleep, Neyu.”
She nuzzled Pride’s cheek.“Thank you, Saer,” she said.
He fell back asleep before Neyu exited the chambers.
Lucifer completed theDaemoenica’shuman skins while Saer recovered.The moment for his kin to transport to Earth came, and they each shifted into their two-legged frames at the foot of their maker’s dais.
The Twins, Arek and Alus, departed as a pair.Golden skin and lean but muscular anatomy gave them the appearance of athletic males in their prime.They came almost, but not quite, to Saer’s above average height.Wavy, sun-bleached hair fell in a charming and disheveled mess on their heads with bronze patches at their temples.Arek’s eyes remained lavender, and Alus’s, steel gray.
Runeak, in human form, stood four inches shorter than her eldest brother at slightly under six feet, her flesh carrying hues of the darkest earth kissed by midnight.The demoness’s hair hung past her shoulders in thick, ruby ropes, save the two segments at her temples—these glittered with the same obsidian hue as her hooves, claws, and horns reflected in her fullDaemoenicform.With a final glare from her equally onyx eyes, she disappeared to the surface in a blaze of Hellsfire.
Errshek and Kalia bickered about going to the surface as a disgruntled and unsure duo.
