“Precisely. Especially because I lost my entire soul army when I died. I’m utterly defenseless at the moment.”
Belial blinked. Yes, it was shameful for a demon to admit he was defenseless, but this was important, damn it.
“Well, shit,” Belial said, slumping back in the chair.
“Indeed,” Murmur replied.
“Sorry about your skin,” Belial said in a tone that implied he wasn’t sorry at all.
Murmur looked at himself. His arms were charred, and his torso hadn’t fared much better. It was a good thing he’d braided his hair earlier, or he would have lost most of it.
“Sorry for stabbing you,” he replied in a tone that made it clear he wasn’t sorry either.
Belial stood. “All right, Necromancer. You’ve got your alliance. But don’t think I don’t realize that you need my help as much as I need yours. If Lucifer knows that I opened that door, he also knows that it was your magic that broke the seal and got me there in the first place.”
“I’m aware,” Murmur said.
“You need to build your own allies or Lucifer’s going to finish the job I started of turning you into hamburger meat. And he won’t stop when you ask nicely.”
“I’m also aware,” he said wryly.
“Fuck with me and my brothers again, inanyway—and that includes twisting our words, lies of omission, manipulatingus, withholding important shit to maintain the advantage, whatever—and I will throw this tenuous alliance of yours right out the window and kill you myself. Is that clear?”
“Fine.” Murmur rolled his eyes.
“And don’t chain my brothers up again, even if they trespass.”
He made a face. “Raum tried to steal from me.”
“Don’t care. We’re allies now. What’s mine is yours and vice versa.”
“Fine,” he bit out.
“Good.” Belial smiled. He seemed much happier now that he’d regained the upper hand.
Murmur ground his teeth.This will be a challenge. His ego is so big, I can taste it, and it’s bitter.
“Now,” Murmur said, “I do believe Suyin would like it if we got out of her house.”
He spoke casually, but it was only to hide the fact that the thought of leaving her hurt worse than Belial melting his skin.
Funny things, emotions.Invisible and intangible, they cut deeper than any blade, and they left wounds one might never recover from.
After trying in vain to fix the front door and then offering to pay to replace it, Belial left. Suyin got the impression that he was used to breaking and repairing stuff.
When both Iris and Murmur had told her about Belial, they hadn’t mentioned that he turned into a giant flaming rage tornado. She damn well could have used the warning.
While Murmur had talked Belial down from his murderous rage, Suyin had hidden in the living room. It was a perfectly adequate survival response, since there was nothing she could’ve done against an eight-foot-tall demon with murder on the brain, but she was still annoyed at herself.
Luckily, Murmur had managed to defuse the situationwhile revealing some very interesting information that she was still processing. She was still processing a lot of shit, but underneath it all, there was an underlying hurt in her heart that wouldn’t go away. And it worsened every time she looked into Murmur’s eyes.
The sheer scale of his plans baffled her. He’d been organizing this for centuries, and he hadn’t told a soul. She couldn’t help but think about how difficult it must have been for him to manage plans of that scale while fighting the instability in his own mind.
She’d never met a more incredible person. From the moment they’d met, his intelligence and determination had amazed her. She’d learned more from him in their short time together than she ever could’ve imagined, and every instance he’d offered her a peek into his mind had felt like a precious gift.
But it still didn’t change what he’d done, and it didn’t make it any easier to trust him now. Unfortunately for them, there were no debts he could nullify to prove a point as he’d done for Belial.
The only way for Murmur to regain her trust was if she chose to give him a second chance. And Suyin had never been good at forgiveness.
