Punish them… Steal, rape, murder…
There he was. Wrath. Her dark companion. Even remembering what he’d seen, and being worlds apart from those responsible, he urged her to seek vengeance against the Hunters. To show no mercy, no forgiveness for even the innocent among them, for all the harm they had caused, to hurt them far worse than they had hurt others.
Punish…
Cringing, she covered her ears with her hands. “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” she chanted. Sometimes she could resist him; sometimes she could not. That’s when he would overtake her, and her world would go black. For a little while, at least.
Though she was cursed to remain inside this deteriorating monstrosity of a castle, somehow Wrath was not. When he was in control of her mind, they could leave. He would use her body to castigate others however he wished.
Days later, she would wake up with blood on her hands, coating her skin. Of course, memories of what the demon had done would then deluge her. Sadistic, stomach-curdling things. And yet, nothing— nothing!—he had forced her to do was more disgusting than what the Hunters were doing to innocent humans.
Humans. How odd her new vernacular was to her. Once she’dbeen a human. Such a foolish human. How could I ever have thought the goal of the Hunters was theelimination of evil?
Well, okay, that was easy. As a teenager, she’d seen a vile demon in action—or what she’d thought was a demon—and the experience had freaked her out, convinced her that such evil was the reason her sister had been taken. Combine that with the shock of learning that humans were not alone, that there was an entire world of creatures at work around them…
The whole other-world thing had proven to be true, at least. But the rest, the demon she’d seen? While they did in fact exist, she hadn’t encountered one that night. Her Hunter boyfriend had drugged her—his preferred method of recruiting—created the perfect atmosphere to elicit fear, and her hallucinating brain had filled in the rest. Afterward, he’d fed her fear with stories of the evil they could fight and the good they could do, saying she might even be able to find and save her sister.
What he’d failed to tell her: humans made their own decisions, influenced by demons or not. They decided to embrace the dark or run into the light.
Not all Hunters cloaked their malevolence with righteous determination; she knew that, she did. Some were genuinely sincere in their desire to rid the world of evil, and wouldn’t create their own to do so. But the fact that she had once willingly contributed to such a warped cause, well, she would never get over that fact. Worse, shehad hurt Paris, a warrior who would give his life to protect the ones he loved.
There was no stopping the next flood of thoughts, each revolving around the man she had once harmed beyond repair. She had struck at Paris when he was at his weakest. Worse, she would have aided in his cold-blooded murder if he hadn’t escaped with her.
During that escape, she was shot down and she’d even blamed him for that, thinking he had used her body to shield his own. Oh, how she had despised him. Now, she despised only herself.
No, that wasn’t exactly true. She also hated the Hunters and everything they represented.
Cronus wanted her to punish them. Her demon wanted to punish them. Shewanted to punish them. But Cronus refused to simply unleash her. Instead he demanded she return to their midst and spy on Galen, the leader’s right-hand man, as well as the keeper of Hope. Yep, a demon was second-in-command of the demon slayers, and none of them knew it. They thought he was an angel.
“As devoted as you were to the Hunter cause in life, Galen will believe you wish to rejoin him in your death,” Cronus said, as though reading her thoughts. Maybe he had. “He will welcome you with open arms.”
“He won’t be able to see me.”
“He will. Leave that to me.”
“He won’t wonder why I’m demon-possessed? HowI’m demon-possessed?”
“He knows. My wife, hisleader, told him. But he is overly confident of his appeal and his strength, and he will think heis watching you.”
“In that case, he’ll never tell me anything.”
“No, he’ll feed you false information, and the truth can be garnered from that.”
“What if he asks me to prove my loyalty to him?”
“He will.”
And she would be forced to comply to continue her ruse. Would he ask her to hurt the warriors she now wished to aid? To hurt innocent humans? Well, the answer to both was the same. Never!
Look at me. Once a human who didn’t know about the supernatural, then a Hunter in the midst of it all, hating the demons I chased, and now I’m one of those demons—and hoping to aid the others.“Sorry, but I’m gonna have to stick with my first answer.”
Another flash of red streaked through Cronus’s eyes, brighter than before. If she was intelligent, she would view that red as a stoplight for her resistance.
Why start acting like a smartie now? “That’s a big-time no, in case you forgot,” she said more firmly.
“Your human superior ordered you to sleep with Paris,” he growled, “and you did. Do not try and act self-righteous with me.”
Yes, but her attraction to Paris had been immediate and overwhelming. She had yearned for him.
Yearnedfor him, even though she believed his demon was responsible for infidelity, the breakup of marriages, teen pregnancies, rapes and the rampant spread of STDs. Even though Paris had been, and would always be, at the head of a never-ending parade of lovers. A fact driven home by a coworker who had watched him for days, snapping pictures of all the women he bedded, then showing those pictures to Sienna after she’d brought him in. And yet she’d still had to fight a wave of jealousy, an emotion she never should have felt in the line of duty.
Had she mentioned her mental incompetence?
“If he asks you to kill for him, seduce him into bed instead,” Cronus said. “That will save you from having to do something unpleasant.”
They certainly had different definitions for unpleasant!“You’d be better served demanding I bring you Galen’s head in a magical box of starlight while riding on the back of a Pegasus through a rainbow, because he won’t want me sexually. I’ve never been the type to attract a man’s attention.”
She knew what she looked like. Hazel eyes too big for her face—ordinary. Lips also too big for her face—unappealing. Freckled skin—unfashionable. And wavy brown hair that was neither silky-straight nor perkily curly—ordinary, unappealing andunfashionable.
Cronus remained undeterred. “You’re right. You haven’t.”
The truth can’t hurt you,she told herself—while hurting.
“But then,” he went on, “your looks will not matter. Galen will be attracted to your demonic power. He’ll want to control you, to feed you all that false information, to use you. Yes, the more I think on this, the more I like it. You will sleep with him.”
She ran her tongue over her teeth. “Killing Galen will destroy the heart and soul of the Hunters far more effectively than pleasuring him.”
“Yes, but dying is not his fate.”
“What’s his fate, then? What is it, exactly, you think he can do for you?”
Silence.
Deep breath in…out… “Okay, there are two problems with your plan. Galen’s a douche bag, and I suck in bed.” Wait. That hadn’t come out right. “I mean, even if he only wants me for my demonic power—” just saying the words grated “—or because he thinks he can feed me false info, or control me or whatever other reason you think up, he’ll never come back for seconds because we’ll both be embarrassed by our performances, and the entire plan will be moot.”