“Yes. Enter,” I forced myself to say.
He lowered to his knees in front of me and undid the laces of his trousers, leaving them open. We stared at each other for a long moment, both of us breathing hard. Both of us stripped bare. Both of us willing to sacrifice our comfort, our morality,everythingfor each other.
I went to tell him how much this meant to me, but Bastien held up a hand. “There’s something I need to say first.” I waited, bracing for what was to come. But he simply said, “I’m sorry.”
I wasn’t expecting “I’m sorry.”
He ran a hand through his tousled hair. “I’m sorry for what happened that night.”
“I already told you that you don’t need to apologize.”
He ignored me, barreling on. “I’m sorry I let things go too far, that I was blind to the intentions of the people around me. I’m sorry thatyouwere the one who had to suffer.”
The apology landed hard in my stomach. But I had a strange sense that he wasn’t talking about that night in the graveyard. He was talking about something else. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Pain flickered across his face. “I’ve been keeping a secret from you, because…” His voice broke. “Because I’m ashamed.” Bastien dipped his head, and I saw tears were brimming in his eyes. “I didn’t stumble on the idea of acceptance and tolerance. It wasn’t something that just came to me one day. It happened,” he drew in a shuddering breath, “because I-I befriended a demon.”
My mouth fell open.
“Yes. Long ago. Before the Choosing. When I was still a Witch of the Light. When I was just Sebastien Bassett of Amara.”
Amara. I softened more. I knew there was a reason why he’d been chosen for me. He was born in Amara, beside the banks of the Starfall River, the place I’d loved the most in the world, where the sound of rushing water always made me feel at peace.
“The demon—Gorrath—he and I became close.Veryclose.” Our eyes met. “Do you understand what I mean?”
A flash of realization tore through my body like a bolt of lightning, making my heart race faster. “You two would… kiss? And…?”
He nodded. “Yes. We would see each other in secret.”
Suddenly, everything began to make sense. It wasn’t just my own want. It wasn’t just my own attraction. The demon wanted him, and there was a time when he’d wanted the demon too. It was all caged inside me.
“It was a very long time ago. Before I was a vampire. Before I knew you existed,” he said quickly.
“Of course,” I said. Strangely, I wasn’t jealous of the demon. Instead, I felt like I knew Bastien more.
“The more I got to know him, the more I realized he couldn’t be trusted. Banishing him became my only choice. Especially after… my family…” he said, trailing off, but he didn’t have to finish for me to fully understand what he meant. I knew the price people were willing to pay to be accepted.
His attention settled on the horn covered in black liquid. “I didn’t recognize it at first. Or perhaps I didn’t want to see the truth. But now I know that is one ofhishorns. The one I cut from his head.”
I thought of the night I pleasured myself with it. Of the candles I’d lit. Of the shells that appeared. Of the passageways that opened. Of the feeling like something had inhabited my body. I stared at the horn now.
I’d put a demon’s horninsideme. The same demon Bastien had once taken to his bed.
“And you liked it.”A deep, gruff voice sounded inside my head.
I knew it belonged to the demon.
Now I understood why I was having such strong feelings—the anger, the want, the restlessness—they were coming from a demon who could influence sex and disease.
“Why did you banish him?” I asked, needing to know more about this strange connection between the three of us.
“He was gathering sacrifices, planning to do something that would’ve changed the world. He had to be stopped.”
“You’re going to love this story. Ask him what I was planning,”the demon urged.
Because I was curious, I indulged. “What was he planning?”
Bastien shook his head and let his gaze settle somewhere off into the distance. “There’s an old story about Damien and Diana’s daughters.”
