I emerge from the mirrors over my chambers and fix my gaze on the dais. The scuffed and age worn altar that has stood at the helm of my power since the beginning.
It is interesting that they would be so stupid and brave. But this idea that they’ve patched together using their single brain cell certainly would fascinate me if they hadn’t put their filthy hands on my woman.
I start down the incline. My feet scuff along the steps one by one until I find myself at the table. Within, I feel its heart thrum. Still full from everything it’s been fed the last several days.
Lenora’s innocence.
The other human’s seed.
The blood and pain of the Duval family.
It has gorged itself on everything I have given it and still it hungers.
Perhaps, I will give it my brothers. There is little need for them now that they have proven themselves useless.
A cancer that requires immediate removal.
I indulged the fantasy of having others like me. Siblings like I’ve seen others have and enjoy. But mine continue to grow increasingly bold.
Impulsive.
Stupid.
“Rase. Dain.”
They arrive with the drip of blood. The rattle of chains. I hear them before my skin prickles with awareness. They shuffle from their hole with grudging glowers and hatred in their eyes.
And I begin to realize that they will never learn their lesson. That they will continue to push the limits I have set for them. Through it all, they continue to resist a life outside of their own suffering. And there is nothing I can do about it.
“Explain yourselves.”
Dain speaks.
Dain always speaks. Through blood stained teeth and bile.
“You are weak,” he spits with venom. “You pander to a human as if we are not gods to be worshipped. They bowed to us once. Now, you bow to them.”
“You are not a god,” I tell them slowly, with measured patience. “You are copies of me. A mimic. I can absorb you as easily as I created you and be free of your insolence.”
I straighten and turn my attention to Rase. The gray giant with the hollow eyes and tattered flesh remains eerily still. A statue with no actual thoughts of his own. No part of me believes him capable of masterminding anything.
Dain is a different story.
He has always had the ambitions of a real demon. The hunger to be more where he can’t while I still exist. A fact that has driven his fury for centuries. The very reason he wears his veins on the outside.
“Did you learn nothing from the last time? Was your punishment not enough?”
For the first time since entering the chamber, Dain no longer seems certain. All that bravado melts from the defiant slant of his shoulders. His weight rocks just enough for me to have my answer.
“Perhaps, you have grown used to the pain of all those raw, exposed nerves. Perhaps, you wish to experience something new…”
There is genuine fear in his eyes. A wild panic of a beaten dog. He scrambles back a step like I might rip his throat out … again.
“We want freedom,” he snarls at me with whatever tendrils of bravery he still possesses. “We don’t want to live in the hole anymore, feeding off your scraps. We are not pets you can keep chained and imprisoned—”
“You are when you get it in your head to try and overthrow me. You had freedom. You had power. You wasted it.”
“Let us go!” he shrieks, ignoring my logic.
