“You sound like akri. He worries about his mama getting out and hurting everyone.”
“At least she would kill them. Noir wants to enslave the world and unleash his demons for the sake of havoc and cruelty. No real reason. He’s just an ass.”
“Havocy demons can be fun. They taste good, too. And akri don’t mind when Simi eats them. So let them out, I say.”
He laughed at that. “I’ve never tried to eat one.”
“You should. But not their bones. Those are hard on your teethies.”
He let go of her hand, then tossed his cup across the room. “I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself, should I?”
“Maybe. That’s up to you. Akri say a pity-party can be soothing to the soul. But Simi never does that. It not producive.”
“You mean productive?”
“No. Producive. It don’t produce anything but achies. Sad things happen and they shouldn’t. People are mean and they shouldn’t be. The Simi would like to eat all the meanie people, but akri say I can’t. He say that meanie people are mean ’cause no one taught them right. And that when they aches, they want to share their aches. But wouldn’t the world be so much better if people shared their happies, instead?”
He nodded. “Yes, it would.”
“Then Simi will always share her happies with you, akri-Thorn.” She stood up in his lap and took her thumbs to make the corner of his mouth turn up into a smile like she did with her akri.
And just like akri, he laughed, then pulled her against his chest so that he could hug her. “You’re amazing, Simi.”
“No … the Simi’s just making sunshine on a rainy day like her matera taught her. She said that rain has to come to wash away the ick in the gardens and water our soil so that good things can grow. Don’t fret the rain, Simi. Think of the harvest to come and celebrate what it’ll bring us.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
She lifted her head up so that she could see his pretty eyes. “So, what harvest will you bring, akri-Thorn?”
“Hope. That’ll piss off my father and give me something producive to do.”
She clapped her hands. “There you go. We can both be producive.”
Thorn still wasn’t sure why he’d moved to Azmodea.
Other than the fact that he didn’t have a place in the human world anymore, and he’d enjoyed throwing Paimon from the palace before claiming it as his own. Bastard deserved it for “fathering” him, and Thorn was going to make sure the demon regretted his part in Thorn’s conception.
For eternity.
Though to be honest, his heart wasn’t in conquering humans, and it didn’t seem fair to fight against their armies given that he wasn’t one of them.
Unlike his real and adoptive fathers, he didn’t find honor in taking advantage of people who couldn’t fight back.
He wanted a challenge.
And so here he was, leaving his new home and walking into Noir’s palace to make a deal with the devil.
Mostly because he was bored, and there was only so much drinking anyone could do, especially when they were immortal and couldn’t die from excess. And as much as he might want to, he knew he couldn’t spend eternity in a bottle.
Simi was right.
Sooner or later, he’d need some kind of purpose.
“What are you doing here?” Paimon asked as he met him at the end of a long hallway in Noir’s palace.
Thorn’s reaction was swift and decisive. He punched the weasel who’d helped create him. The weasel who kept pretending he was Thorn’s father.
And Thorn gladly took the modicum of satisfaction he felt as Paimon doubled over and whined before dropping to the ground at Thorn’s feet.
