Stacia Kane - Demon Inside

“What about—are we going to decide now what to do about him? What to tell Winston, I mean?”

He finished his drink. “Why don’t we see what he has to say first. You might change your mind when you hear his story.”

Orion, shivering and wrapped in a blanket, catapulted into the room. The reason for the dramatic vault was soon clear; Malleus stood behind him with an amused look on his face.

“Hello, Orion,” Greyson said. The contrast between himself—sharp, clean, well dressed—and Orion in his blanket with blood caked in his hair and along the side of his face could not have been clearer.

She had to hand it to Orion, though. He stood ramrod straight and nodded with the dignity of a duke. “Greyson. Cal eptari retchia.”

“Retchia senshar.”

The formalities thus apparently dealt with, Orion started to sink into one of the cushy armchairs behind him.

“I don’t recall giving you leave to sit,” Greyson said.

Megan glanced at him, then back at Orion, whose face flushed. “I apologize, Gretneg Dante. May I sit?”

Greyson nodded. He’d made his point. Orion was in his house; Orion was in serious trouble.

She’d been so focused on the ritual she hadn’t thought about what it meant, hadn’t even paid attention to the difference in Greyson. Power curled through the room, the same easy, confident strength Templeton Black and the other Gretnegs she’d met bore. Now Greyson was one of them.

Of course, so was she, but by default. Her power hadn’t increased, she didn’t live in the Yezer Iureanlier, she hadn’t done a ritual and wasn’t expected to, save the Haikken Kra. Which she still wasn’t sure about.

Maybe it would help her, make it easier to accept and deal with the feral urges. Maybe it would make them harder to resist. She wished she’d asked more about it before everything started going haywire, but it hadn’t seemed like such a complex decision then. They’d wanted her to consolidate her demon power, to allow it free reign in her body and become, essentially, demon. She didn’t particularly agree. It was that simple—or had been.

“You came to give us information, Orion. Might as well start.”

Orion licked his lips. “I’m thirsty.”

Greyson flicked his gaze to Spud, who moved to pour a drink. Orion accepted it with both scraped, bloody hands, like a child. Megan’s demon heart gave a little leap. She looked away.

“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.”