Home. He can send me home? I do not owe the Grim a debt, though I paid it. I saved the omega’s life. We are even.
But now that the offer is there, I’m hesitant. I don’t want to go back there to be hunted relentlessly, to be reviled and feared. If I go back, I will run until I can’t anymore, and then I will die.
But there’s something he says that suddenly gives me hope, gives me pause. Something I want, enough that I’d be prepared to work with them.
“You can teach me about living here?”
Diablos chokes on his tirade. After a long moment, he clears his throat. “Yes, I can try to teach you how to live here.”
I consider the options. I don’t want to go back home. Eventually, I will run out of luck, and I’ll become food for something else. I want to live. Family, love, peace. That’s what my mother spoke about. A place where you can dream of what you want to be and be it. A place where a mate stays with you, cares for you. You don’t have to run and kill to stay alive.
“Okay. I will come to your boot camp.”
“And hunt the beings who shouldn’t be here? Will you protect the humans of this planet?”
I hesitate. That is a much longer promise. I’m backed into a corner, and I suspect this demon creature knows it. With great reluctance and an avalanche of loathing, I surrender.
“I will,” I mutter, my teeth tightly pressed together, almost disfiguring the word.
“I will,” Leaf says, echoing me.
“Well then, uh, that was easy. Let’s go to our camp, then.”
And suddenly, with the horrible sinking sensation and the scent of sulfur, I’m falling into a hole.
Chapter 7
Brio
Diablos appears, standing tall and as proud as anyone can be for a demon. I mean, if I were born with skin such vibrant red or horns that big, I might very well hide in a cave for the rest of my life. But to each his own. He snorts sulphuric-scented smoke out of his nostrils. It’s weird.
Demons are weird.
Leaf whips around, glaring right at us, as Mei crouches like a freaking animal under attack. It’s hard to see her as anything but a wild beast with the way she moves.
I click my tongue in distaste.
The demon immediately looks for the moron who has chosen to align himself with him in a mating bond. It is baffling, and their song is nauseatingly sappy. The throb of everyone’s conflicting melodies makes my eyes water and my ears pound. This world is loud.
“Brio?”
I shift, brushing my shoulder with Lirin, letting him know I’m okay, I’m here. But my attention wanders back to the songs and the lack thereof.
And then there’s her. And him.
Leviathan’s song is a deep bass with curling notes like an orchestra building in intensity, something I loathe that I love. While hers is…absent.
The fact that she has no song is baffling and alarming. Everything has a song. In all the worlds and all the people and creatures I’ve met, every single thing has had a song.
But not this monster. Not when we met her on the beach on our island, and not now, here in this human world.
What is she?My unease and distaste grow.
Her hair glints in the day’s fading light, and she absently scratches her arm before tracing her thumb over one of the strange markings on her skin. Only then does she stand up, dislodging the animalistic qualities like she’s taken off a coat. She could pass for human now, if you ignore the blood spatters and the menace that radiates off her.
This Strega should appear vulnerable, helpless, but that’s not what radiates. Instead, she appears confident and untamed. Fierce. What happened to the tiny creature who looked so breakable? Who ate from our fingers? She should have died so easily; how did we misjudge her so badly?
This thing before us is the monster who set our skies on fire.
