12. Dagon

12

DAGON

" A re you sure about this?" I grumble, looking up at the alehouse signage. My brother has no mercy for my foul mood as he shoves me through the wooden doors.

"Trust me on this," he smirks, meeting the smoky room with an easy smile.

Call it brotherly love, but I normally wouldn't be caught dead in a dive like this.

The smoky tavern assaults my senses with a barrage of harsh laughter, clinking tankards, and the reek of stale bodies. I squeeze my eyes shut, drawing a fortifying breath through my nostrils. Why in the nine hells did I agree to this?

Tagar claps a heavy hand on my shoulder, jostling me forward. "This is just what you need, little brother. A night of debauchery to clear that pretty human fog from your brain."

I grit my teeth, restraining the urge to shrug off his vice-like grip.

"I'm fine," I insist, hoping to convince myself as much as my brother.

Tagar looks less than convinced as he pushes me towards a seat at a table. Every breath of stale tavern air has me longing for the crisp, green scent of the courtyard gardens back home. Of Callista's unique floral notes dancing on the breeze as she moves amongst the blooms.

Curse that brave, foolish woman and her soul-deep stare for burrowing under my defenses so thoroughly. I should have guarded myself better against her disarming warmth and spirit.

"You're quiet over there, Dags," Tagar taunts with a sharp elbow to my ribs. "Don't tell me you're already pining after your little human plaything?"

A possessive growl rumbles up my throat before I can stop it. I slam it down, nostrils flaring as I turn a withering glare on my insufferable sibling. "She is no mere plaything, brother. You'd do well to show Callista more respect."

The words are out before I can rein them in. Tagar arches one thick brow, his obsidian eyes glittering with undisguised delight at getting such a rise out of me.

"Oh? And here I thought we were going to enjoy a nice evening drowning our sorrows in ale and disconnected flesh." His lip curls in a cruel smirk. "Unless you'd prefer disconnecting differently with your precious little human?"

White-hot fury lances through me at the thought of Tagar's hands on Callista's soft, delicate skin. I lurch to my feet, fully prepared to wipe that vile look off my brother's face with my fists.

But a buxom she-demon has already slid into my lap, all cloying perfume and vapid smiles as she trails painted claws down my chest. "Now, now, boys, is that any way to treat a lady?"

I meet Tagar's taunting sneer over the demoness's shoulder, hating how easily he can undo me with a few crude words about Callista. As the she-demon continues her simpering game, I've never felt so utterly removed from my surroundings.

The demoness's inane chatter washes over me, my mind still caught in a loop of Callista's radiant smile, her teasing laughter as she tosses flowers at me in the garden. So lost in the memory, I barely register the hulking shape looming over us until a meaty hand grips my shoulder.

"Get your filthy claws off my female, you smirking pig," a gruff voice snarls.

I blink, finally focusing on the brutish demon glowering down with bared fangs. The demoness shrieks, shoving off my lap as her apparent ex rears back his fist.

Before I can react, Tagar is on his feet and driving his shoulder into the brute's midsection like a battering ram. They go down in a tornado of flailing limbs and spittle-laced curses.

"You want to dance, wretch?" Tagar spits, raining down blows. "Should've picked an easier opponent."

I aim a warning hand toward my brother. "Tagar, don't! He's not worth the Coven's wrath again."

Tagar's fists are a blur of motion, raining down strike after strike on the hapless demon foolish enough to challenge him. I watch in sickening fascination as that scarred face contorts into a rictus of ecstasy with each sickening crunch of bone and spatter of hot blood.

"That's enough, brother!" I bellow over the roar of the tavern crowd egging them on. "You've made your point!"

But Tagar is too far gone in his frenzy, savoring the pathetic demon's agonized howls like a fine vintage. With a final brutal crunching of knuckles against the skull, the creature goes limp and still beneath my brother's heaving form.

Dead. Of course, he had to take it that far.

Raucous cheers and jeers erupted from the assembled hellions, putting me instantly on edge. If I don't act fast, this could easily devolve into a full-blown demonic melee - the kind that leaves entire city blocks razed to rubble.

Jaw clenched, I surge forward and haul Tagar up by the scruff of his collar like a misbehaving ur'gin pup. His obsidian glare smolders into mine, that sadistic grin still twisting his lips into something vile.

"Get a hold of yourself, damn you!" I give him a violent shake, uncaring of who bears witness to such brazen insolence from a younger sibling. "You want the Coven's Archons raining hellfire on us again? Over some pissant tavern brawl?"

For a long, tense heartbeat, defiance flares bright in Tagar's onyx eyes. My breath catches in my throat, waiting for the explosion that could ignite this brewing disaster.

Then, slowly...blessedly...the berserker haze seems to bleed out of him. Tagar's shoulders slacken as some of the demonic firelight banks in his gaze.

With a casual shrug of his shoulders, he tosses me a mocking sneer. "Relax, baby brother. I'm just having a bit of fun for once."

"Your fun nearly got us both killed."

"Ah, did you feel that blaze in your veins, brother?" Tagar's eyes shine with dark glee as he claps me on the shoulder. "Just like the glory days carving through the ranks of those sniveling humans on Aerasak. We were born for battle and conquest!"

I shrug off his grip, crushing the tiny flicker of excitement that memories of war stir within me. "Those days are behind us. I won't return to that path of endless slaughter, no matter how you try to rouse my inner demon."

The words have barely left my lips when Tagar's face contorts in a rictus of rage. Shock seizes my lungs as I watch that simmering menace boils to the surface with terrifying swiftness.

Cold dread lances down my spine as blazing wrath eclipses his eyes into twin pits of obsidian fury. At that moment, it's all too clear what unholy maelstrom is about to be unleashed upon me.