Chapter 2

A thorny vine shot from the heel of my right hand, and it lashed out behind me, at the voice. I hit the roof, splintering a clay tile with a dull crack.

The demon snickered. "You always miss. Another thing about you that never changes."

I let out a scoff. "Of course I miss." My shoulders dropped and the vine slackened like an extension of my muscles. "They're your powers, a part of your magic inside me, Aculeus. My blows flow through you like air, but it does get my point across."

From the corner of my eye, I watched a swirling silhouette of shadows appear.

A mass of darkness and thorns, shaped like a tall, lanky person, limbs too long and too thin. Fingers too spindly and head too oval, too elongated. He didn't have a face. No eyes, no mouth, only a twisting void. But I could have sworn he was grinning as he turned to the other side of the street, following my gaze to Kerys who was brushing out her hair, frowning at her pensive image in the mirror.

I let out a growl. "What do you want? Why are you here?"

Aculeus locked his hands at his back and tsked. "So, she still doesn't remember? And you're still longing for her, watching her every single day since your lapdog of a head maid found her in that brothel catalog. Poor little Keryssa."

I bristled at the way he said her name. My hand moved on its own, protectively closing around the golden locket dangling from a chain around my neck.

"How long has it been now?" the demon continued. "Weeks of pathetic stalking. Weeks of leaving gifts. Ugh, weeks of looking at her through that window or following her through town using your vines to swing from roof to roof to roof."

Heat flared in my gut. He wanted me to lose my composure, and too often, he succeeded. But not this instant. His mockery didn't deserve a response.

"After all this time, you still genuinely yearn for her." He shook his head. "I never thought your infatuation would last this long."

Calling my affection for her infatuation was an understatement, an insult.

I huffed in irritation, taking my gilded cigarette case and a box of matches from my pants pocket. "Don't delude yourself—or me. You love when I'm miserable, demon. You feed on my torment. That part of our pact is the only reason you've stuck around for an entire cursed century. Sometimes when you help me, I wonder why you bother at all."

Aculeus shrugged. "If you have nothing, there is nothing to lose. Too much misery dulls its effects. Diminishing returns, as you businessmen call it."

A brief pause stiffened the air while I put a roll of tobacco between my lips and lit it.

"You still love her," Aculeus said.

I inhaled a deep breath of smoke, letting it stream from my nose as I exhaled into the expanding silence. Scowling, I tucked the case and matchbook back where they belonged.

Love .

A feeling so foreign, yet so familiar. One I had abandoned the day I struck my bargain with the demon. Such had been his price, that my soul may forget the warming fires of passion and the blaze of affection. He had taken my joy and my enthusiasm, too—had taken every positive emotion.

Until I found Kerys, so he said, I would never experience any of them again.

But she was my anchor, my reason to endure, even on my darkest days.

Though Aculeus's pact meant I couldn't feel it anymore during our separation, I knew how much Kerys meant to me. The knowledge was irrefutable, certain as the sun rising in the morning and the moon shining at night.

The memories of her were my light and my hope, a reminder that somewhere inside, I was still me.

All these decades without her, I had known only loneliness. Desperation. Grief.

And so much rage.

I forced myself to grow numb and fought to regain control over myself. My heart withered behind my ribs, but it was the only chance to survive. Had I given in to my fury, I would have destroyed myself and everyone around me, obliterated the life I built for us while I waited for her.

The moment I spotted her in that tattered brothel catalog, I recognized her. Not even a smudged, amateurish pencil drawing could hide her beauty.

I'd raced through town and hid on this roof. When I saw her for the first time again, through this very same window, I came to life. I was a man risen from the grave. My emotions returned, just as the pact promised—but all at once, they were too much.

I'd forgotten how to handle them, couldn't hold them in.

They dragged me under like a vicious torrent, a dam breaking, the first rain after an infinite drought, and there were moments I was drowning in them.

Warmth filled my chest and a shiver surged along the vine. My brows arched as it began to sprout at the base where it extended from a slit in my palm. A blue rose with silken petals emerged, just like the one I gave her.

Shit. Sometimes, when my affection for her got too intense, too overwhelming, I bloomed .

I tossed my cigarette into the street and broke the stem. A sting echoed through me as droplets of dark green liquid—my blood—welled from the injured stalk.

Physical pain I could handle, I shrugged it off like the breeze. It even felt good to bruise and bleed. For a long time, I got into fights on purpose, let my opponents get in their jabs and kicks, though my demonically enhanced strength and speed would've made them easy prey for me.

Agony reminded me that I was alive.

"The way you've been going, Skrain, she'll never pay off her father's debt," Aculeus spoke up again. "She hasn't had a customer since you found her."

He kicked the large, black sack I'd tied around the chimney with a length of rope. A trail of wetness seeped from it, shimmering in the moonlight as it dripped down the gentle incline of the roof.

I'd almost forgotten about the corpse. What a pain.

He was the last one, had taken a little longer to track down, but he ended up like the other scumbags who visited Kerys. When I was done here, I'd weigh down the sack with bricks and toss it into the harbor before I returned to my ship.

"I'll pay off her fucking debt. That's not the issue, and you know it," I snarled.

"If clients keep disappearing at this rate, the authorities will start suspecting her soon," Aculeus countered.

"Authorities? In Hedonfel?" I barked a low laugh. "Nobody gives a shit. People get murdered all the time here. And don't start with the Council of Eight. They rule Zeridia, but they pretend like this Gods forsaken cesspool of a town doesn't exist. Besides, Kerys is not a fighter, and she doesn't even remember her magic. Not a soul would assume she'd hurt anyone. I just won't allow anyone else to touch her. The thought, it—" My stomach turned. "It makes me sick!"

I rolled my neck at the whirring sensation of the vine retreating into me, coiling around my bones to rest. As much as I hated the changes to my body at the beginning, as much as using my powers had hurt back then, now I couldn't imagine being without them. The discomfort stopped decades ago, all of me adjusting to the magic, being altered by it.

"Actually," I continued, jabbing a finger at the demon. "This is none of your business. Especially not after you tricked me."

Aculeus laughed, the sound more enmity than mirth. "Must we go over this again? I didn't trick you. The terms were clear. And it's so long ago. Do you intend to hold this baseless grudge for as long as you live?"

My legs twitched. I wanted to stand up, get right in his non-face, but even under the cover of the night I couldn't risk standing up on the roof. Kerys might have noticed me, and I wanted our second first meeting to be perfect. It had to be.

"My grudge isn't baseless. You promised you could save us both. Her and me. You said we'd be together!" I struggled to keep my voice down, my anger turning its pitch into a savage growl.

"Listening was never one of your strengths, Skrain. I said my powers would save you from your meaningless, self-inflicted martyrdom, which—" He gestured at me. "They clearly have."

"But you promised?—"

"Let me finish, mortal."

I chewed on the ring piercing the middle of my bottom lip. The sooner I let him finish, the sooner he would go away. If I kept on, he'd blabber me to death tonight. I looked back at the window to Kerys's room, just in time for a last glance at her before she drew the curtains and the light inside faded.

Fucking Hells. Aculeus had taken my attention for so long, I missed her evening routine.

"I said I could bring her soul back to the realm of the living, but such things aren't easy. They take time," the demon explained. "And I said you'd be together again, eventually . It's not my fault her soul was picky when choosing a new vessel, taking seventy-something years. And nor is your ineptitude my fault. Maybe if you searched harder, you wouldn't have taken another twenty-something years to find her."

I should have shoved him off the roof for insinuating I hadn't spent my entire life looking for her. Not that it would have hurt him, but it would have provided an outlet for my annoyance.

"Are you done?" I asked, and he gave a smug, slow nod.

"So you'll keep following the advice of that penpal quack who told you to stir her memories gently or her mind could fracture? Not even going to walk up and say hello?"

"He isn't a quack . His name is Erlan Mavix and he is Xar'vath's leading expert on magical amnesia. His advice is valuable." I pursed my lips, biting back a slew of curses.

Aculeus was right about one thing: I couldn't wait too long, or she might never recover her memories. There were a few days left before my birthday celebration, and then, at the latest, I'd take a more direct approach.

"Well …" Aculeus straightened, bending toward me like an old, creaky willow. "If you get sick of playing around, I could always help. For a price, of course."

Grimacing, I put the flower behind my ear before untying the sack. I tossed it off the roof, a wet thud sounding as it landed in a muddy puddle in the deserted, dim courtyard below. This block of houses stood empty—I knew because I had bought it and kicked out every tenant—making it an ideal vantage point to watch her. If it wasn't for its location across the brothel, I wouldn't have been interested in such shabby real estate.

"Forget it, Aculeus," I said, crouching at the edge of the roof, a vine shooting from my right palm, encircling the chimney.

"You'll bow to me in the end," Aculeus hissed.

"Whatever you say."

I swung my legs over the edge, and my tail swayed, keeping me balanced as I used the vine to rappel.

Kerys's image burned like the sun in my mind.

Only a few more days and she'd be in my arms again.

Only a few more days, and my wife would be mine again.