“Are you going to cite specifics for me again?” Kilian hoped he would. Stephen’s odd trivia was familiar and more entertaining than watching him play games.
Stephen huffed. “I wish. They won’t give me books, so I pretty much have to settle for what I knew before I got infected by a demon. It’s torture.” He drew out the last word, mangling it into four or five lilting syllables. “So, why a Judas vamp? Of all the supernatural creatures out there, I don’t think of them as being Army-compatible.”
“What do you mean?” Kilian struggled to keep his voice even when he wanted to rail against the unfairness of everyone assuming all vampires were evil. All the cursed lines dealt with discrimination, but Western culture had a special hatred for Judas vamps. Stephen shifted on the couch so that he could sit sideways and fold his legs under him.
“Nothing, really, but you said that if you had bitten Mia, you might have killed her, which means that the kill instinct is a little stronger than the arrest-of-the-bad-guy-so-he-can-go-to- trial instinct.”
Kilian winced at the accuracy of his observation. Two months ago he would have denied that he was any more likely to swing at a commanding officer than any other soldier—vampire instincts or not. Now he wasn’t sure. But he was talking to someone who carried a demon, so Stephen should’ve understood. “Lots of people have a skewed impression of Judas vamps.”
“I would say that people have a skewed impression of demons, but they pretty much don't. Death, destruction, torture, maiming—those are pretty much a demon’s happy place. But demons don't belong in this dimension. Vamps do.”
The matter-of-fact tone Stephen used for such horrors broke Kilian’s heart. “I'm sorry you're having to deal with this.”
Stephen shrugged as if his life hadn’t been upended. “Before all this happened, I felt like my life had no meaning. At least my life has meaning now. I get to spend my days controlling a demon, and if I slip for even one second, that demon might kill everyone who is near me. That feels very meaningful.” Stephen held his hand out and the digits elongated and the knuckles became thick and gnarled. Blackness spread like smoke from his hand and writhed around it. A cold shiver went up Kilian's spine. “I hold everyone’s life in my hand.” Stephen closed his fist and the demonic features vanished, leaving behind only slender fingers with nails that had been bitten to the quick.
Kilian took a deep breath and fought down his own urge to attack. He’d understood intellectually the threat Stephen posed, but until this moment, he’d never felt it in the core of his being. His instincts had never screamed at him to either run or attack. And now terror ripped at his guts, urging him to defend himself, to destroy the enemy. Stephen chewed on his thumbnail while Kilian took several deep breaths and imagined Silas talking him through his instincts in a bored tone. It had been years since he’d struggled this much.
“Stephen,” he whispered, caught between sympathy and horror. Hands grabbed Kilian and slammed him back into the wall before he could register that Stephen had moved. Kilian’s eyes grew warm and the colors faded from the world as his predator vision turned the world sharp with contrast. He grabbed Stephen’s wrists, but despite Stephen’s seeming fragility, Kilian couldn’t pull the hands away. Fear and anger tangled in his gut, and Kilian focused on controlling his emotions.
“Don't assume I have altruistic motives,” the demon snarled, its eyes black.
Kilian slammed his knee into the demon’s thigh hard enough to disable it. He had planned to flip Stephen and trap him against the worn linoleum until Stephen understood how much Kilian did not like being manhandled. Instead the creature laughed, black veins spreading from its temples onto Stephen’s cheeks. He stretched his head one way and then the other, showing the curve of his vulnerable neck, but the gesture was not one of submission like a werewolf might show. It was power—-a show of how little the demon feared Kilian.
The demon pulled Kilian away from the wall and threw him so he hit the couch and tumbled over it. Even though Kilian’s bones were denser than a human’s, he landed hard enough to crack at least two ribs. The feeling was distressingly familiar. However, it took more than broken bones to stop him. Kilian grabbed the heavy coffee table and swung it at the demon’s head when the demon leapt toward him. The demon batted it away and landed on top of Kilian, his clawed hand pinning Kilian to the floor. Still, guards didn’t appear. The locked door didn’t open.
Out of options, Kilian drove his own claws deep into Stephen’s back, near the spine where the venom would reach the most vulnerable nerves. The demon smiled, his sharp teeth an inch from Kilian’s face, and Kilian smiled back, his fangs dropping as he pushed venom through his claws.
For a moment, neither moved. Red eyes stared into black ones. And then Stephen arched his back, lifting away from Kilian before he screamed. That scream was followed by a second shriller one. That transformed into wild laughter as Stephen rolled away from Kilian. “Vampire venom,” he said between pained breaths, “is powerful shit. You could bottle and sell that. Governments would pay a fortune.”
“Hard pass.” Kilian sat up and then stood on shaky legs before moving to the couch. It was the nearest piece of furniture, and he didn’t want to embarrass himself by trying and failing to walk across the room.
Stephen lay on his back, his arms spread wide as he stared at the ceiling. “Mia’s choice of a guard makes a little more sense now. That is an exquisite pain you command.” Kilian wondered if this was the demon or Stephen speaking. The weariness in the voice made Kilian think it was Stephen, even if the words had a more demonic bent.
“Stephen, you don’t have to hold out forever. Sooner or later, Mia will find the right sacred object and banish the demon. I assume sooner.” Mia probably had them on overtime in their search. He didn’t trust her motives, but he did believe that she would want to protect herself and her people from an out-of-control demon. Kilian rubbed his shoulder where he had landed on the floor. Vampire healing was already mending the cracked bones, but it hurt.
Stephen turned his head to give Kilian a long look. “I assume later. In fact, sometimes I wonder if she doesn't already know where the demon is from and if she isn't prolonging this because I'm a useful attack dog.”
“That would be a pretty shitty thing for her to do.”
Stephen chuckled. “I keep telling you, if she were a man with good abs, she would be hot as fuck. She is manipulation personified.” He blew out a long breath. “Help me up?” He held a hand toward Kilian.
Despite aching with a need for blood, Kilian couldn’t show weakness. This was Stephen, but he was also something infinitely more dangerous. As long as Kilian was bound to his side, Kilian needed to maintain the illusion that he was Stephen’s equal. He took Stephen’s hand and pulled him to his feet.
Stephen winced. “Sorry,” he said softly, and then he dashed toward the bathroom before Kilian could say anything. The magical leash pulled tight, and Kilian lurched several feet toward the bathroom door before the spell’s fifteen feet rule was satisfied. That left Kilian standing out of reach of the ugly chair they had knocked over in their fight. In fact, Kilian couldn’t reach anything.
Cursing his stupidity in taking this job, Kilian slid down the wall and closed his eyes. This was going to be a shitty month , but if the situation didn’t improve after then, he would ask Stephen to undo the bonding ceremony, assuming that Stephen could still make decisions at that point.
The demon was much closer to emerging than Mia had led him to believe. Either that or Mia had no idea that her attack dog was about to become a nuclear bomb sitting in the middle of her base.
