“Valentina!” I barked. “You’re speaking like you remember our past life!”
She threw her head back on a hearty laugh. “I remember everything, dumbass!”
This meant I might be able to get closure on the one thing that still haunted me. “Why kill Edwin? It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Because that damn know-it-all was a thorn in my side,” she snarled. “I couldn’t even possess you because you were obsessed with him!”
Several things spun into place and brought into question something I really should have thought of before. If Valentina could possess anyone, control people at will, why had she never done it with me?
Because she couldn’t.
Because even then, in his own way, Edwin had protected me.
She really had killed him in order to get to me. The horror ricocheted through me. I knew I’d be properly sick over it later, everything in me rebelling at the idea.
“I didn’t expect you to remember.” Her lips were still curled back in a feral snarl, rage chasing its way around her face. “It’s why you recoiled from me immediately in this life, isn’t it!”
“Bitch, if I could have skewered you on sight, I would have. I should have, in fact, and damned the consequences!” I lifted my bow and fired twice, but again her meat shields were quick to act.
She wasn’t healing as fast as she could be or she wouldn’t be using any shields. Either that or she was trying to conserve all her power to raise the Demon King.
Zinos take me, it was probably the latter, wasn’t it?
“How are you even in a princess’s body?!” I demanded of her.
She pulled an arrow out of her chest like she was removing some errant hair, gloating a little. “You thought the ward would fail all at once, didn’t you? But it wasn’t built right the firsttime, so after about eighty years, the ward started to crack. We were able to weasel a little energy through, a drip at a time, and then just enough to get me through. I chose a young princess to inhabit so I would have the right position to open the portal fully for my King.”
Fuck, she was right, I had assumed the ward would collapse all at once. Not fall apart bit by bit. No wonder, then, she had been able to come out and find a host. That poor baby princess hadn’t stood a chance against a being as evil as her.
But that also meant more demons could come through that failing ward. I couldn’t assume that just because the ward still stood, it would do its job. Clearly, it couldn’t. Not fully.
Urgency pushed me forward. I really had to stop her. I had to get past those human puppets, otherwise I’d have to fight the Demon Kingagain, and no part of me wanted to do that.
Sir Collins squeaked in alarm. “Your Majesty, if you go too far ahead—”
“If I don’t stop this now, it’ll be too late!”
Shit. Just that delay was one second too long.
A dark, inky energy flew from the cracks of the portal and descended like a wave into Victor. Shidteus’s balls, we’d been right. He was here to give a demon corporeal form.
All right, if I could just defeat these two and keep the portal from fully opening, I could prevent the Demon King rising again. Anything was easier than fighting him.
I turned my head and barked, “Seal the energy of the portal before she can call anyone else! We can’t afford the seal to break!”
Victor’s head snapped up and he let out a long breath. When he blinked, it was clear he wasn’t Victor anymore. His sclera and lips turned black, his mannerisms and facial expressions changing as well. The terrified, debauched prince was no more. A demon was fully in his stead.
Tilting its head back, the demon hissed at Valentina in rebuke, “This body is horrible. This was the best you could do?”
“Sorry, yes.” She apologized with a low bow.
Uh-oh. She’d brought in someone higher ranking. Demons never bowed except to someone much stronger than them. Just who…?
“I hate it here.” The demon looked at the ropes still binding Victor and made a face. “This isn’t even kinky.”
With a casual flex, the ropes split and he stood.
Wait. Wait a damn minute. I knew this voice. Dread filled me as I realized she had managed to do the one thing I didn’t want to happen. I actually started praying I was mistaken. There was no part of me that wanted to fight him again. I’d survived this nightmare once, survived years of pain, of war, of losing comrade after comrade, had somehow even survived dying at this demon’s hands. My body twinged with a sharp physical pain, a reminder of those mortal wounds, and I winced.
