I bite the inside of my cheek.
“That seems like an awfully long time to wait.”
Lenora’s lips purse. “You’re a demon. What is time to you?”
Nothing.
Her clever response only fuels that heat inside me that rages when she’s so close. When she’s so vivid and violent, and prepared to bathe in the blood of her enemies.
“That isn’t the point,” I say instead. “I have already held up my end of our arrangement, and you are negating yours.”
“I’m not,” she bites back. “You will have my soul once I’ve seen my baby grow up.”
It’s cruel to play with her this way, but I am a demon, resigned to live forever in this bleak existence of absolute isolation. I must take what amusement I can get.
“Does this mean you wish to stop what we started? There are four Duvals left. Are we letting them live?”
“No,” she retorts with equal sharpness. “They must all die. My baby can’t be born in a world where they exist.”
There is that bloodthirsty woman I…
I immediately redirect those insane thoughts.
“But I cannot take your soul for years to come,” I press, raising an eyebrow.
“Please.” I was not expecting the jagged, but firm plea. “Please,” she repeats, voice broken, but her expression, painfully fierce. “Don’t let my baby grow up alone.”
Something in my chest aches.
A vicious pang that has me gritting my jaw as if it were a physical blow. I have to resist the urge to touch the spot, certain she’d shot me with an arrow when I wasn’t looking.
But she isn’t holding a weapon.
What I see instead is worse.
It’s heartbreak.
It’s pain, in a way that cuts me to my core. A desperation that I refuse to ever allow on her face never mind feeling for even a moment.
My feet abandon the platform, and I find myself moving towards her. The distance is a mere ten feet, but she may as well have been standing on the other side of the world.
Small.
Alone.
So fucking alone I reach her in three strides. My tendrils scoop her up before my arms can. I gather her into my chest. My free hand twists the candlestick from her fingers and I toss it somewhere. The metallic clang reverberates through the chamber, but all I care about is the woman clinging to me like I’m the only rescue boat to save her.
And I suddenly understand.
I understand the human’s need to solve her problems. To hold her close and shield her from the world.
While I still believe she is beyond capable, I don’t want her to be.
“You keep sayingyourbaby.” My lips brush her temple. “It is not onlyyoursto raise, little one. You are my woman. You will never be allowed to be alone.”
Her arms tighten around my neck, and I feel her quiet exhale against my jaw.
“Then I can live?”
