Chapter 28

ChapterTwenty-Eight

He awoke to chaos.

Smoke burned his nostrils and tangled into his lungs. Greed rolled, taking Varya with him as he automatically kept her beneath him. But the flames were already licking closer to them, far closer than they should have ever gotten.

Blinking open watery eyes, he tried to see through the thick, black smoke that coiled around them. What the fuck had happened? They’d been fine. Sleeping. He’d woken up before this to pet the long blonde waves off her face where they’d stuck over her eye after their last enjoyable romp and everything had been exactly as he’d left it.

She jolted awake as though he’d slapped her. Varya tried to sit up, but he banded his arm around her chest. Forcing her to stay below the line of smoke.

“Crawl,” he growled, turning her onto her stomach and pointing at the back of the tent. “There.”

“We can’t.” But then she looked at the front of the tent, completely engulfed in flames, and nodded. “Right, no other option. Do you—”

Her voice was thick and raspy with smoke, but he lifted a clawed hand and flashed her a rough smile. “Go.”

He watched her as she moved, crawling low to the ground and using the sand to her advantage. She grabbed a few skins as she went, placing them over her back to help with the heat.

Smart, his woman. She knew how to take care of herself, and something dark and ugly rose in him. Whoever had given her reason to learn those skills? He would destroy them. He would rip them apart with his hands right after he held the still beating heart of whoever had set his fucking tent on fire.

She reached the edge before him, but not by much. Greed sliced through the thin fabric of the tent and shoved her through first, and the flames roared higher behind them with the introduction of new, fresh air.

His back sizzled as nothing protected his skin from burning. It would heal faster than humans, and all it did was make him even more enraged. He needed to get them out of here. Now. And once the ashes had cooled, he would return here and start his hunt.

Or maybe he would start it now.

Greed rolled into a crouch at the first sound of her hoarse shout. A man stood over Varya, his face covered with the skull of a predator. The massive cat stalked the sands at night, and they were difficult to kill. It was not this man who killed it.

The idiot raised a sword over his head, but he didn’t have time to bring it down upon Varya. Greed lunged, his shoulder striking the man in the soft part of his stomach first. A loud exhalation of breath exploded before he hit the ground hard with Greed on top of him. And then all he could see or hear was a blinding red rage.

It was the battle that had always drawn him to this point. He loved the scent of blood in the air, the feeling of it slick on his hands, but most of all, he loved it when they screamed.

He was greedy for it, just as they were greedy for life. For there was no point in a mortal life when they were less greedy as they grasped onto the last moments, struggling and fighting.

He palmed the man’s head with both of his hands, grinning down into his face as the man’s eyes bulged in fear. Hard fists struck his ribs, over and over again, but he could not escape his fate. Taking in a deep breath of all that greed, the demon inside him whispered for death.

And so he squeezed.

He crushed the man’s head between his palms, lip curling in disgust at how easy it was. How quickly the man died and barely even fought as the skull mask cracked and then the next hidden underneath.

Blood coated the sands, soaking into the ground as the desert devoured this life that had been sacrificed to it. It was lovely. It was beautiful. It was...

“Greed,” Varya croaked, her voice still raspy. “We have to go.”

Ach, he’d gone and done it now. Glancing over his shoulder, he tried to see just how terrified she was of him now. And though there was a look of wariness on her face, she didn’t look... frightened? That was good, wasn’t it?

He stood, stretching out his long limbs and holding them carefully at his sides. Blood dripped down his claws, and his battle form shimmered underneath his skin. He had a hard time convincing himself to not change right here and right now. He didn’t want to frighten her, but he also saw what had happened.

Behind her, the entire encampment burned. Tents everywhere were on fire. Voices lifted in a symphony of screams as a horde of masked warriors descended upon them. Even as he watched, the silhouettes of people fighting appeared. And lost. The masked creatures always seemed to cut down anyone who stood in their way, far faster than the civilians who tried their best to fight. They were unprepared.

And they would lose.

It was a bitter end and one that he knew he couldn’t spare them from. Before her, he would have stayed. He would have soaked in all the greed for their lifeblood, and the enemies greed for their death. He would have consumed so much power that he’d be glutted with it for days on end. But now he had her. He had to worry about Varya and her life because if someone ended that... He already felt his muscles tense and his fangs grow even longer in his mouth.

“Come,” he snarled, his tail lashing behind him. He grabbed onto her arm and pulled her away from the madness, no matter how tempting it was.

But she dug her little heels into the ground and pulled back against him, surprisingly strong in her fervor to get him to stop. “Wait, where are we going?”

“Home.”

“No, we’re not going home! We can’t. They need us, Greed.”

Him, a thief, and likely two guards who were watching in the shadows would make no difference here. Was she blind? She could see the numbers as well as he could. “That’s a losing battle, treasure.”

Those eyes that had been so full of warmth just moments ago suddenly widened with an emotion that felt a little like... disgust? “I can’t just leave them and run.”

“Battles are best chosen when one knows that injury will not occur.”

“You’re a demon king. Surely you can fight a few humans off.”

A few, yes. Perhaps even some of them would run if they saw him. But these were the same people he suspected had the spells that could knock him out cold. And then what would any of them do? The rescue would fail. He’d end up back in the clutches of the bastards who broke his tail, and then they would have Varya.

Gods, the things they could make him do if they used her as a threat.

Because she was his treasure, and she had agreed to be that. Just moments ago. Only hours ago, when she had screamed and clenched around his cock. She was his.

And he would protect her. She was more important than a tiny village that no one would realize had disappeared in the middle of festival season.

“No,” he growled. “We’re leaving. I am sorry to disappoint you, treasure, but there is nothing we can do.”

She took a single step back from him and the look in those eyes nearly sent him to his knees. All that work. All that time he’d spent building up her trust and showing her that he was a worthy man to give her energy and time to... it all disappeared.

In that crushing moment, when he felt like the world had ended, she ran from him. Again.

The damn woman was fast. He had known that. But he was a demon king, and he’d been so certain he could catch up with her. The desert worked with her body, though, propelling her forward and rolling her down the hill. Light on her feet. Whereas the sands slowed him down. It was mere seconds, but it was enough for her to disappear, nude, into the fires and the screams.

Bellowing her name, he waded into the chaos with rage simmering underneath his skin. He searched for her, ignoring all the people who ran toward him for protection. He did not care for them. They could defend themselves or run for all that he cared.

Until the first three people turned toward him, their bone white masks gleaming in the firelight. They were not like the other man he’d already killed. That one one had thought he could attack without others. The three of them moved as one.

They were faster than the first, better with their swords and more calculated with their swings. They would die easily enough.

He felt his entire body ripple with his battle form. His hair grew more wild, the claws on his hands lengthening into curved daggers. His tail lashed behind him even as his feet dug more firmly into the ground. Greed became thicker, stronger, more massive than ever before as he let out a roar of rage that shook the desert sands.

The three did not stop to look at this new form, nor did they slow. Their blades whirled, and he caught the first in his hand. It sliced through his skin, but he didn’t care. He used the weapon to yank the man forward and tore out his heart with savage glee. The still beating organ hit the ground before his blade did.

One of the others stuck a sword through his chest, but the pain didn’t even register. He just used the weapon to drag the warrior forward and then latched onto his throat with his teeth. Shaking the limp body like a dog, he felt the tendons and arteries tear long before the blood sprayed all over his front.

The third? Where was the third? He wanted to taste his blood. He wanted to feel it splatter all over his body as he tore and destroyed and killed.

Then he saw the last man who had dared to attack him, already in the arms of his brother. Gluttony stood in his pretty clothing, not a drop of blood on him. But all ten of his rapier thin claws, straight and narrow like pins, stuck out through the man’s chest.

Gluttony tilted his head to the side, watching as the man died before he slowly pulled out his claws. “Interesting when they die, isn’t it?”

“Delicious,” Greed snarled, his voice hardly recognizable.

“Ah, I forgot you feasted upon them as they died. And you think I am the problem?”

Greed stalked past his brother, blood dripping down his chin as he searched through the crowd for Varya. He felt the shadow of his brother moving beside him, the flames bothering neither of them. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard there may be a fight and why would I not indulge myself in a little fun?” Gluttony gestured with those massive claws, each now about a foot long, as he flicked them free of blood. “Besides, you could use the help finding your little lost bird.”

“Treasure.”

“Ah, whatever it is you call her.” Gluttony pointed at him. “You realize you’re naked, yes?”

He didn’t care. Greed grunted in response, only to have Gluttony lift a brow.

“If I feast on a little blood, would that really be such a bad thing?”

Right now? Greed didn’t care what he did. Another group of warriors ran at them and he felt his mind go blank. Greed did what he was best at. Fighting was no longer as much a part of his life, as he’d promised himself that he would be a better man. He wasn’t the warlord who needed to conquer and claim anymore. He had other ways to feed that side of him.

He was wrong.

The rage that coursed through his veins, the greed that he devoured was beautiful and unending. This was who he was. The monster that stalked through the sands, like the great beasts of old. Like the lions and the massive saber-toothed beasts that had haunted these people for generations. He’d taken this desert by force and he would remind them all why they feared him.

His first glimpse of Varya was of her dragging another woman out of a tent. They were both covered in soot and ash, dark streaks over her pale skin that made her look like a banshee. He’d screamed her name, but she hadn’t even looked at him before handing the woman off and disappearing into the crowd again.

Then he was back to fighting with his brother. The horrific sight of Gluttony with his fangs sunk into a woman’s neck, greedily drinking her dry while he fended off the others with nothing but his claws... It would haunt him for many years to come.

The second time he saw Varya was as she beat out the flames with one of the rugs she’d dragged out with her. Her naked torso gleamed in the firelight with sweat, his visible red marks dotting down her torso where he’d laved her with his tongue and sucked the sensitive flesh.

His roar of rage that anyone would see her in such a state of undress, anyone other than him, had sent her fleeing back into the crowd. And so he spent his evening fighting, seeking her out, and never quite getting close enough.

Until the last of the Horde gathered onto their horses and fled. They let out whooping calls as they ran, clearly still pleased with the damage they had done. A few women were strapped to the back of the horses, but there was nothing they could do. Greed didn’t have his nuckelavee. Even he could not run as swift as a stallion across the sands.

Exhaustion ran through him as the fight slowly leaked out. He staggered toward the center of the crowd, his brother in tow looking far too put together for a man who had fought for hours on end. Gluttony only had one single dot of ash on his cheek, where Greed was smeared in blood, mud, and ash. He likely looked like he’d crawled out of a grave.

Staggering, he sat down next to a familiar face and took the water Altan offered him with a grunt.

“Thank you,” Altan said, his eyes skating through the much smaller crowd of people who were splayed around them. There was nothing but destruction left.

“Don’t thank me for this.” Greed gestured to the shambles of what had been a lovely festival. “There is nothing here to be thankful for.”

“They are alive,” Altan said. “Less of them, but more than there would have been if you were not here. You see that, don’t you? Their lives are worth being thankful for.”

Ach, he didn’t see it. Greed had never understood the mortal obsession with life and living. All he knew was that his people had been attacked, and he had lost Varya. Both of which were harsh blows to his pride that he was unsure he could forgive.

With another grunt, he laid down and threw his blood smeared arm over his face to hide from the rising sun. “Tomorrow, I hunt. You will join us.”

Altan hesitated. “I do not know what this hunt is.”

Greed didn’t even have to respond. He heard Gluttony drag something over to the both of them and then sit upon it, as if he was too good to sit on the ash smeared sand. But then his brother responded, “He means we’re going to find who did this and Greed will punish them in the old ways.”

“Who are you?” Altan asked.

Curious how his brother would respond, Greed lifted his arm to look up at Gluttony’s far too pleased grin. So this brother was not going to follow Wrath’s rules, after all.

“Gluttony,” his brother replied, holding out a long nailed hand as his red eyes flashed. “A pleasure to meet you, sand walker.”

This was all going to shit. With a groan, Greed dropped his head back to the sands and ordered, “Someone find me pants.”