Demon Inside

“Winston is on his way, Orion. You came to ask Dr. Chase and me to show you mercy. You might want to start convincing us why we should.”

The silence beat against Megan’s skin. Orion wasn’t going to talk after all. He’d come to taunt her with his knowledge, to try and convince her to spare his life in exchange for hints. How could she even be certain he was telling the truth, no matter what he said? She trusted Greyson’s word. She didn’t trust Orion Maldon’s.

“I went to her father,” he said finally. “I found her. I moved to Grant Falls and I watched.”

“How—,” Megan started, but Greyson silenced her with a quick shake of his head.

Orion went on as if he hadn’t noticed. “We’d been looking for someone to help the Accuser for a while, me and Temp. You didn’t know we were friends, did you? We grew up together—well, he was older than me by a few years, but we knew each other.

“So I started hunting. On my off hours. I wasn’t a lakri then, I was just a soldier. I had time to look. I visited just about every town and city in three states before I found you.” His blue gaze fixed on Megan, and for a second the humbled petitioner disappeared, replaced by the man she’d met the other night. “If you could have seen her then, Greyson, you—”

“Malleus,” Greyson said smoothly and, before Megan or Orion had time to react, Malleus stepped forward and smacked Orion across the face with one beefy hand.

It looked casual, as if Malleus was brushing a fly away, but the sound of skin on skin rang through the room and Orion’s head snapped to the side. Droplets of blood flew from his nose and mouth. Megan’s stomach churned. Somewhere inside her the memory of what she’d seen earlier still lurked, the confused desire still simmered. She did not need to see more violence or smell more blood.

Orion clutched his mouth for a moment, glaring at Greyson, who looked back at him with utter indifference.

Orion looked away first. “I found her,” he said, his voice thick. “And contacted her father to make the deal.”

Megan saw it in her head, not a psychic vision but simply the events as Orion told them. He showed up at her father’s office one afternoon and presented himself as a man in need of tax advice. His bulging accounts certainly interested her father, and a friendship of sorts had sprung up.

It didn’t take long for the two men to get around to the subject of Megan.

“He said you were always in trouble,” Orion said. “That you were out of control, neither of your parents knew what to do with you. You started fights with their friends. The kids at school hated you. You—”

“That’s enough,” Greyson interrupted. Megan looked at him, but his gaze was focused on Maldon. “What was the deal, Maldon?”

The deal was, Megan would be the Accuser’s vessel. In return, David Chase, CPA, would find his business prospering, his position in town cemented, and the problems with his children—Dave had already been busted for marijuana possession, which was a surprise to Megan—would be ignored. Maldon had powerful friends who could take care of people’s nasty little memories and inconvenient problems like police reports.

“Did…” Megan’s throat closed up. She shook her head.

“Did the man know what he was doing?” Greyson asked the question for her. “What would happen to her?”

Orion nodded. “She was supposed to live in the hospital. The Accuser could gain strength there, using her body. Then when the time was right…” He shrugged. “He would emerge.”

“And Megan would die.”

“It wouldn’t have been much of a life for her anyway. Possessed by the Accuser and trapped in that building.”

Her palms hurt. She looked down and saw her own blood seeping between her clenched fingers.

Orion noticed too. His nostrils flared. “I’m awfully weak,” he said, staring at her hand. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep talking without a restorative.”

“You’ll keep talking,” Greyson replied.

“Retchia says you have to give me whatever I require.”

“Malleus,” Greyson said again. Malleus stepped forward, pushing up the sleeve of his black sweater. Spud drew his wicked-looking knife.

“No.” Orion put up his hand. “Not his. It’s not strong enough for me. You know the rules, Greyson. The Gretneg must offer his greatest hospitality to those under his protection.”

Greyson stared at him. So did everyone else in the room.

“Otherwise it’s a violation of retchia,” Orion singsonged.

Oh no.

Greyson sighed and shoved up his own sleeve. The wound made during the ceremony had not yet healed; the angry mark striped his forearm. Megan looked away, but the image stayed in her mind, bringing back every memory of what had happened earlier, every bit of squirming, sickening panic.

“You know, Orion, this really isn’t the best way to win my favor.”

Orion straightened in his chair, his gaze steady. For the first time he looked like something more than a small, irritating dog who’d been given power he didn’t know how to handle. “Let’s not play, Greyson. I know as well as you do that you’re not going to spare my life. If I hadn’t requested sanctuary you would have let those witches kill me, and your only regret would have been that it wasn’t by your order.”

The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Finally Greyson nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. “Fair enough. Spud?”

Spud didn’t reopen the old wound. Instead he made a second, smaller cut next to the first, slicing across a vein. Blood spurted into a thick crystal glass, in time with Greyson’s slow, steady pulse.

Red spots flared behind Megan’s eyes, spots filled with blood and pain and the memory of Templeton’s heart, of the flames filling the dungeon and Greyson’s naked form, his arms upraised, lord of Hell in his purest, most powerful form. The slash in his skin taunted her and Megan saw his back as it had been in her room, destroyed by their passion.

Her heart pounded. The demon inside her writhed and screamed as blood filled the glass, almost to the rim, before Greyson drew his handkerchief and Spud handed the glass to Orion. He raised it to his mouth, lowered it to show lips stained with red, and Megan couldn’t take any more. She wasn’t even herself, she was nothing but a desire, a need, something so fierce she could only do one thing to fight it.

She ran.

Her footsteps echoed on the bare white marble, so it sounded to her as though an army of desperate women raced toward the door, joined almost immediately by one determined man. One man who ran faster than she could ever hope to. She knew he was there but still screamed when his fingers closed over her arm.

She tried to yank it away but succeeded only in losing her balance and almost falling. The floor veered crazily in front of her until his arms closed around her from behind, pulling her to the warm strength of his chest.

“Jesus, Meg,” he gasped, his voice hoarse. “Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad?”

The words didn’t sink in. Nothing seemed able to penetrate the crimson fog in her brain, the choking need in her chest. She fought, struggling against his arms, finally bringing the sharp heel of her shoe down on his toe.

“Ow! Fuck!” His grip loosened, then tightened again before she could take advantage of it.

Dampness seeped through her dress at the waist. Greyson hadn’t stopped bleeding. Her stomach lurched. She could smell it, see it, on the sheets earlier, on his back, on Orion’s lips…she could almost taste it.

She screamed, one short yelp that echoed in the sterile hall, before her body finally gave out and she completed her humiliation by throwing up on the floor.

Her throat hurt, her stomach hurt. She felt like she’d been awake for years, like this day would never end, as she stayed bent over with his arms around her waist.