Page 99 of Blood Oath
“For now. Don’t worry, that only lasts twelve hours. Unless your heart is returned, which it won’t be. In the meantime, enjoy hell on earth.”
He’ll be in agony as a living corpse until the spell fades and his heart stops. The adamantine has already nulled all his powers, so he’s a nonissue now.
Less than an hour later, I sit on the curb outside a gas station on the route back to Everbound University. Snow falls softly from the night sky, and a brisk wind blows, but I ignore the cold and glare into the dark distance as I wait.
“Devils and dicks, look who it is in the flesh. You’re a mite smaller than I expected, telum,” Melchom says as he steps out of nowhere using dark transportation magic and hunkers down beside me.
I spare him a passing glance. He has a strongly hooked nose, beady eyes, finely groomed facial hair, and that same malicious sparkle in his black eyes that all demons do. And, of course, he wears a hat over his long black hair to hide his horns in the mortal realm. His tail is tucked away unless he went the extreme route and cut it off to try to blend in with mortals better. Some demons do that.
When I make no reply, he snorts. “Yikes, you’re a lot more lifeless in person than you were on the phone.”
I stare at him.
Melchom blinks and then throws his head back in a sharp, resounding cackle. “Wow, sorry—insensitive much? But really, you look like you just went through some shit. What’s got your gooch? Wanna talk about it, telum?”
As if I would confide in a demon.
Changing the subject, I ask flatly, “Who’s Kevin?”
He blinks several times. “What?”
“You mentioned a Kevin on the phone.”
The demon huffs. “He’s the cuntfaced asswipe who stole my girlfriend.”
“I thought your girlfriend was out of town.”
“Yeah. With him. Lying bitch thinks I don’t know, but I do.” Then he tips his head. “Gotta say, I think you’d be the type to get into the nitty gritties of someone else’s personal life.”
I hardly care about his personal life. Or his life, for that matter. I just want any kind of distraction from the pit in my stomach that’s only gotten worse since I made my exit from the inn earlier.
Ever since before arriving at Everbound, I knew legacies were grossly competitive. In their world, might is right, and brutality is rewarded. They do what it takes to survive and excel. So why the hell didn’t I put it together sooner?
Of course, my rejected matches had ulterior motives. That should have been my first thought when they refused to let me go after I rejected them. No wonder they were so hard to shake—they weren’t after me at all. They were after their prizes. They were interested in besting one another, another chapter in their long list of spats since their childhoods. I was an object in their game, nothing more or less.
Why should I be surprised? I always knew quintets were bullshit.
Letting them in, even briefly, was my fault. And now I’m paying the price of naiveté.
It won’t happen ever again.
The intimate, pleasant moments I thought I had with them are like acid in my chest, so I quickly distract myself by reaching into the bag at my feet and withdrawing Lykoudis’s still-beating, still-bloody heart. It pounds steadily in my hand, and Melchom’s brows shoot up.
“Infernal hells. You really did it. Not that I ever doubted you,” he adds quickly when I arch a brow. “That’s just…damn. Ever thought about joining the black market? You’d make a killing. Pun intended.”
“Shut up and give me the powder, Melchom.”
He makes an inhuman hissing sound and darts his gaze around. “Stop, stop, stop. No more using my name, okay? Here, here’s the fucking nightshade root powder. Over a gram, I might add.”
He clearly expects me to be impressed as he hands me the tiny bottle of violent fuchsia powder. I’m not. I’m just tired and want to get out of here before any of them manage to track me down.
I look the demon in the eye. “If I find out this shit isn’t real, I’ll hunt you down and reach down your throat to pull out your heart instead.”
Melchom takes the beating heart from me, studying it with fascination. “Huh, that’s not a bad threat. D’ya mind if I steal that one the next time I talk to good ol’ Kevin?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Good doing business with you, telum. If you need anything else?—“
