Throwing his head back, he let out a deep-rooted bellow over the injustice of this life that had despised him over his whore of a mother.
Over a father he’d never known.
Neither had wanted him.
And he wanted nothing to do with this world or its people.
He must return to the battlefield. There, he knew himself, his place. There, no reminders existed of his childhood, or the nights he’d lain beaten and forgotten. Unwanted. A useless thing.
On the battlefield, no one dared whisper behind his back or curse him to his face.
Aye, he would send another messenger to William in the morning, and this time, he would demand his brother release him from his duties.
Belial drifted out of the courtyard, giddy with delight. It almost seemed a sin for his plot to go so easily.
He had the upper hand and the stupid bastards still hadn’t realized he’d left the playing field.
Or more to the point…
Battlefield.
Muffling his laughter, he crossed the yard, past the men who couldn’t see him, and left through the gates to venture into the dark forest that waited for his mischief.
Following the guttural chant of the crone, he made his way through the trees to the small fire she’d started in the middle of a clearing. How he loved accomplices. They eased his job considerably, and what was more, he always got two souls for the price of one, or in this particular case, three of them.
In order not to frighten her, and in spite of the fact it greatly diminished his powers, he returned to the form of a human man and approached the crone, who stirred a thick, pungent liquid inside her black cauldron.
“What the hell is that?” He wrinkled his nose in distaste.
She looked up at him with a malevolent smile. “’Tis vengeance. I would have thought you of all things would know its sweet scent.”
“Sweet?” He coughed as a stiff breeze blew a whiff of it in his direction. “Smells worse than one of Lucifer’s farts.”
She shook her head, her eyes glowing from the light of the fire, and from the inner light of her madness. “Were they together?”
Belial backed a goodly distance from the pot and its odor. “Aye. He wants her. But Valteri is a man of fierce control. We’ll have to weaken him.”
The crone pulled the ladle from the pot and tapped it twice against the side. “What do you think this”—she gestured to the pot—“is for.”
Driving away bad neighbors and all sanity by the stench of it.
Belial frowned. “What are you going to do, wave it under their nose until they faint?”
She gave him the nastiest glare he’d ever received and Belial wondered about her sanity to insult him so. “This is my part of the bargain. Yours is to supply the heat to their loins.”
“Lust is my specialty.” Belial floated up to a low-hanging tree limb where he could watch the crone and her concoction and not be in danger of being gassed by that foul stench. “Have no fear. After the wet dreams I’ve sent… well, I’d hate to be in the physical pain he’ll experience come morning.”
Belial started to laugh, but another thought struck him. “Come to think of it, I know just a way to make our little Nasaru herself a little less resistant.” With a wicked smile, he faded back to shadow. “Trust me, she’ll succumb. You can bet your soul on it.”
Then again, she already had.
Gentle music floated through Ariel’s dream. Images of a sweet childhood spent with her brother and parents accompanied the song, until it woke her.
She jolted upright from the bed.
For a moment, she thought her dream had left her, but with each frantic beating of her heart, she recalled more and more of her dream, her life, until she thought she’d burst with happiness.
She remembered herself!
