Chapter 105: Chapter Eleven

Timber

Hatred filled me.

Black tendrils of heat wrapped themselves around my body, squeezing it tight like a smoke-filled prison. And I breathed. In and out I breathed. It pissed me off.

The only time I could feel was when I allowed the darkness to take hold. Every other minute of the day, I was numb. Filled with a heat that could never be dampened.

Filled with needs that were never met. Lust that would never be sated.

I was in a constant state of ruthless agony and a never-ending thirst that couldn’t be quenched.

With a snarl I tossed the cup of human blood back. The liquid spilled against my parched throat and slowly, the cells knit across my flesh, from the inside out, and peace settled over me.

This one.

I stared down at the cup.

She had been good.

~So good.~

And that was why I’d killed her.

Not because I loved death and destruction— but because a part of me would always be jealous that she could smile, that she felt a temperature other than heat, that the smell of sulfur mixed with a deep burning wood wasn’t her constant companion.

That when she closed her eyes she didn’t even realize the air called to her, the mountains trembled with her human presence.

Idiots.

All of them.

And too soon, the cells died in my throat.

I felt their death as if it was my own.

And I was back to square one.

An ~empty~ demon.

A heartless monster.

Darkness laughed.

Engulfed.

I wasn’t sure what I hated more. Myself for what I was— or the being who refused to hear my cry long after my voice went hoarse and my lungs burned with injustice.

I was helping to lead a war I wasn’t sure we could fight— let alone win, if Bannik didn’t pull his head out of his ass or at least leave his dungeon of doom.

That was what the boys and I had started calling it. The dungeon of doom. Nothing good ever happened there. And nobody ever left breathing.

I found a sick satisfaction in the fact that Bannik, with all of his powers, was still having trouble keeping his brothers from ripping his throat out.

The last one that got loose ended up nearly tearing out the being’s intestines with his teeth. I laughed while Bannik limped back to his office and screamed at the top of his lungs.

It made me downright cheerful that the man could still feel pain, though at times that cheerfulness turned to jealousy.

The only time I felt anything was when another being’s blood ran through my body.

Demons were by nature, feeders. Without another human’s essence, we lost control of our human appearance, which was bad enough, but without their blood, we also lost our damn minds.

With a chuckle I tossed the last drop of human blood down my throat, my tongue rejoicing with the moment of sanity and peace it brought me.

“Timber.” Bannik’s voice rumbled and shook through my office.

“Well.” I sighed and stood. “Speak of the devil himself.”

“I’m much better looking,” Bannik said in such an arrogant tone that I had half a mind to call upon whatever forces of evil still were willing to fight on my side just to prove him wrong.

Then again.

That was the trouble with darkness; it rarely took sides. It mindlessly fought for whoever had the most power, and right now, in this moment.

That person.

That being.

Was standing before me, all ten feet of him. With dark brown hair and shots of red.

He looked like he’d been formed from the side of the mountain, and his glaring white teeth gnashed into a snarl as he drove his hand through the front of my desk, splintering it in two.

Sighing, I stared down at the ruined piece of furniture. “That’s three, Bannik. You know I can’t simply walk into an Ikea and ask for another. Last time I nearly killed the woman. Hell, she smelled like sunshine.” I licked my lips, still remembering her taste.

It was nothing compared to Stephanie. The little angel I’d been tempted to devour, then again, I wasn’t sure what would happen if I actually drank from a Dark One. I’d probably go crazier.

And as much as I wanted to taste her…

I actually ~liked~ her.

Unfortunate, since she was my enemy. It would be a pity to spill that much angelic blood— but it couldn’t be helped.

Not while Bannik still held my balls in the palm of his hand, one small squeeze, and I’d be damned.

And the last thing a demon wanted was for his eternal flame to get snuffed before being promised another chance at redemption.

Though every six hundred and sixty-six years, when my judgment came.

I was met with silence.

So maybe I was already damned.

Bannik rolled his eyes while I pushed thoughts of my miserable existence away. “Maybe if you learned to control your urges I’d let you off your leash.”

I had never, in all of my existence, wanted to kill someone as bad as I did Bannik. And that included Sariel or any other archangel that dared step in my way.

I would kiss Cassius on the mouth before I would ever admit to Bannik that he had power over me.

Power I gave him.

Blood I gave him.

Loyalty—no matter how misguided—I gave him.

“We have a problem,” Bannik barked, finally relaxing into a chair and propping his enormous booted feet up on the shards left of my desk.

“We?” I arched my eyebrows and crossed my arms. “What is this ‘we’ business? If I remember correctly, last time I tried to help you drain your brothers you told me to go kill myself.”

Bannik grinned.

Sadistic bastard.

“Well, it seems now, I need your help. They aren’t cooperating.”

“Gee, maybe if you didn’t torture them,” I said in an innocent albeit mocking voice. “They may be more amiable to your terms?”

“As long as Cassius still lives,” Bannik clutched his fists so hard, I felt faint, like he was sucking the air from the room, from my very lungs. I learned long ago that each of the Watchers had control of the elements. And lucky for me, Bannik had oxygen under his thumb just like the winds.

I sucked in a healthy gulp of air and waited.

“Has he been located?” Bannik finally released his hand and glared at me, his once blue eyes going completely black like his soul.

The only bonus of being under his thumb.

I was given a firsthand seat to his destruction.

He was drunk on power.

And darkness chuckled darkly within him.

He thought he was in control, but even now, a dangerous war raged inside him. He wasn’t meant to be dark.

Therefore, the light still fought.

It was the only reason his brothers lived and still fought him.

Pathetic, even now they cried out to him, tried to save him.

He’d taken the ten remaining watchers and chained them to his wall like pets. Their blood drained, but once he touched it— it turned black.

I smiled. “Cassius has been located, but there is also the issue of his mate, there hasn’t been a mated Dark One in over—“

“Spare me a history lesson.” Bannik barked.

I couldn’t help but grin again.

And then a laugh followed.

“What the hell is so funny?” Bannik roared as the door to the office burst open and Damon stumbled in.

I could hear the demon’s thoughts from a mile.

“Interesting.” I rubbed my chin and chuckled again. That sneaky bastard!

“What?” Bannik looked between us. “What is it?”

“Cassius,” I whispered, feeling my eyes burn red. “It seems has been transformed.”

“Transformed,” Bannik repeated. “What does that mean?”

“Sariel has transferred his power,” I said in an awestricken voice. “To a Dark One.”

“No,” Bannik shook his head. “No, that is impossible, that would take—”

“The ultimate sacrifice,” I whispered reverently. “Yes. It would.”

“But—”

“It gets worse.” Damon’s eyes went completely black before burning bright red, and suddenly a solitary tear of red slid down his cheek, creating a burning trail down his face, one that would scar him for eternity. There was only one reason a demon would cry red.

Why a demon would be so moved by emotion, that he wasn’t capable of feeling.

Why he would risk spilling whatever blood he still had remaining in his body.

“They’ve returned.” Damon fell to his knees.

Bannik gave me a confused look.

Then again, while Bannik had been guarding the deserts.

I’d been fighting wars.

He stared at sunsets.

And I’d saved an entire demon race.

While destroying the most precious thing ever given us.

“Who?” I needed to hear him say it. Needed it more than my next breath.

~“A time such as this, Timber,”~ he whispered in a voice that was not his own, and then, his heart exploded leaving nothing in its wake but ash.

And just like that—warmth filled me from the inside out.

For the first time since them.