Next to me, Lenora cries out as the demon pulls her up onto her knees. Her fingers are forced around the metal bars. In the light, her skin glistens. Black stripes of hair cling to her temples and the smooth column of her throat. Her full, delicious breasts bounce as she’s ridden from … somewhere. I’m not entirely sure how he’s doing it or where he actually is, but he never stops.
And I get the pleasure of watching her soak the sheets between her parted knees. It runs down her thighs. I get to see the ecstasy on her face as she drops her head back and groans her pleasure.
I’ve never shared a woman. Not with another man nor a demon. I considered it the night I realized my sons were sharing Lenora. I lay in bed and tried to picture how that would work.
If a third could be added.
In my head, in that moment, I never saw Ames or Eliah. It was never their faces or their bodies. All I saw was her splayed in the center of a small crowd of men, all wanting to be inside her.
Seeing it now, sitting witness to Lenora’s arched spine bowed too far back, head resting on, seemingly, a shoulder. I vaguely wonder if she can see him or if he’s invisible to her, as well.
Focus,I tell myself, moving before I get caught up again. I push to my feet. Slumped across the floor, Sarai tracks my motion. I’ve seen enough death that I am curious how she’s still alive when she’s cut her own stomach open and shredded her intestines.
On the vanity, the phone holds only silence. I wonder if the friend hung up or if Sarai disconnected. But the screen is black and I catch a glimpse of my reflection as I lean over.
From amongst the bloody remains of what Sarai sliced off, I unearth the razor.
Sarai wheezes a sound whistled through the gash in her throat. I recognize it for the death rattle it is, but she’s alert and terrified when I kneel next to her.
“Did Julen kill my brother and his wife?”
Blue eyes blown wide with terror dart between my face and the blade.
She nods.
She tries to speak, but she’s cut her tongue out and all I hear is the gurgle of blood she’s choking on.
“Thank you,” I tell her before moving over her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lenora
Theworldisathick murky haze soaked through with the copper scent of death and feces.
It clings with an oppressive stubbornness that should make it impossible to sleep, but my eyelids refuse to stay open as I drop down on Sarai Duval’s ruined sheets.
My channel pangs. Sore and tender and still pulsing with residual aftershocks of a million orgasms.
I no longer feel the demon moving and writhing inside me. I don’t feel the tiny kisses of his blades carving poetry across my flesh. Despite the magnitude of his presence, he’s so careful. So delicate not to slice more than a fine line. The sensation is less than a paper cut, but it lingers faintly with every shift of my body.
“Still here?” I hear Marcus ask.
He’s not talking to me, so I keep still, floating in the blissful afterglow of my happiness.
“Yes.”
The demon’s voice is a gruff rumble somewhere behind me, but close. Like he’s perched on the edge of the mattress.
“Do you have a name?”
Silence extends as if he’s deliberating the question.
“I have many names.”
Marcus huffs a sigh. “What do they call you at the moment?”
Another stretch of silence followed by a somber,“Veyn.”
