Chapter 42

ChapterForty-Two

They rode together on the hunt, Greed and his bride, with the sands kicking up behind them as they charged toward their mutual enemy. His mind told him to be frightened. That she would soon find herself in a predicament that neither of them could fix. What if he lost her? What if she was attacked?

But his heart knew that she could handle this. His heart crowed with glee that he’d found someone just as feral as him. Someone he could fight beside rather than hide away like the treasure she was. She was both a hauntingly beautiful gemstone and a sharpened blade. A weapon as much as she was a safe haven for his mind.

By the gods, he was a lucky man.

She rode like she’d been born on the back of a horse. And though her mount could not keep up with his, they still rode together regardless. He watched her strong thighs grip the beast beneath her, watched the look of determination on her face warping into one of pure malice as they followed the Horde’s trail.

The last time they watered their mounts, he grabbed her by the waist and drew her closer to him. Whispering so no one could overhear them, he asked, “What do you think?”

“I think we’re hunting the hunters,” she muttered in response. “They seek to do damage. To draw us both out of hiding, but I do not know why.”

“I think I do. Your Horde leader seemed fixated on me, yes?”

He’d been thinking about it on their ride. The Horde wanted to take over the kingdom, and they knew they couldn’t as long as he was standing in their way. Which meant they needed to take care of the king first.

The attack. The fog. The magic. Wounding Varya. It all made sense for them to be attempting to draw him somewhere they could capture him for good. Exactly what Wrath was terrified of happening and spreading out to the other kingdoms.

Gluttony appeared beside them. His brother’s eavesdropping really needed to stop. But at least Gluttony had decided to be helpful.

His brother pensively stared at the scouts around them. “So you think Wrath was right.”

“I do.”

Varya looked between them, confused. “Right about what?”

“He thinks that there are groups throughout the kingdoms trying to spread the idea of trapping us all. People who wish to put us in cages for the rest of eternity so that others can rule our kingdoms. And now I’m thinking perhaps that is exactly what they are doing.” Greed rubbed the back of his neck. “Unless it is all about you.”

“I doubt that. They didn’t care in the slightest who I was or where I came from.” She frowned at him, and he took the time to adore how expressive her face was. Her thoughts played across her features long before she said them. “If they’re trying to take over the kingdom, you would be the first person they’d need to fight. You’re right in that.”

He sensed she wasn’t entirely on board with his thought process, though.

And, of course, his treasure pointed out something that neither of them had considered. “Why are they going toward a town, then? They know you won’t stop them. You never have before.”

Greed looked at Gluttony, who just shrugged. “Don’t know. Why don’t we ask?”

He loved the feral grin that crossed Varya’s face at the thought. Who would have ever guessed that he would find a bloodthirsty woman so damned attractive?

He had. Of course, he’d always hoped he would find someone who was as bloodthirsty as he was. He’d just assumed that he would never find someone like her. Women didn’t exist who wanted to tear apart the world like he did, and then this one had fallen into his lap.

As they gathered their mounts, ready to make the last stretch toward the town as the sun dipped to the horizon, he watched her swing up onto her horse and pull out one of his blades. It was one of the twin blades that he always carried with him, and here she was, somehow having stolen it from him.

He loved her. It hit him as hard as the hammer had when all of this started.

He loved her so much that it was like she’d crawled inside him and become a part of his very soul. He wanted to hold her all the time. He wanted to hunt with her just like this for the rest of eternity. But mostly he wanted to kiss her, because she had ruined him for anyone else.

The light in his soul affixed on her. She was the guiding star in his night sky that drew him toward good and better and best.

What he wouldn’t do to offer her a life that she deserved. A partner who was better than Greed, more than just a demon who only knew how to satisfy himself. He wanted her to see him and to light up just like he was now.

And that was the thought that spurred him forward. The thought had consumed him as they raced into a blood red sky, toward a town that might very well be destroyed by the time they got there.

They made it in time. Or at least in the midst of what the Horde had planned to do.

The buildings in her hometown were made of stone, which was good. The fires that consumed the town only raged through the thatch roofs and the wooden pillars holding up the stalls in the center of the street. But the Horde had brought a new weapon with them, one that he had not seen in ages.

The gauntlet used to be used by the miners deep in the ground. They had carved out entire kingdoms beneath the sands with that powerful metal, but then it had been used much in the same way the Horde was using it. The man who wore it was not the leader of the Horde, but an equally large beast who pounded through the stone of a home until he could stand aside for other members to rush in. Women and children screamed. Men fought back, their wives brandished pans behind them as they tried to remove the Horde from their homes.

Fires burned hotter, the screams rose to a crescendo, and Greed knew what they had to do.

He leapt from the back of his horse and landed on the ground, his hands already curving in massive claws. They were hunting, and now he got to track his prey.

Though he only had his scouts, he already knew there were a few who had headed back to his oasis. The rest of his army would arrive soon enough, but they would likely find the battle already complete.

Varya strode up beside him, both of them standing on the top of a dune that looked over what had once been her home. “Don’t underestimate them. They were looking for that map so they could gather more magical artifacts, but that means they have at least a few of them in their grasp. Almost no one even knew that map existed.”

“Magic won’t stop me.”

“But that gas will.” She cupped his cheeks, forcing him to look at her when he would have just run off into the fray.

And he paused. Allowing her to touch him, to stroke her fingers over his cheekbones as though she were memorizing every angle of his face. She took her time, though perhaps they should have been rushing.

Greed smiled. “I will see you again, Varya. You don’t have to worry about me.”

Though she must know it was the truth, Varya still sighed and shook her head. “This isn’t about me, Greed. You aren’t going to fight against the Horde for me. Do you understand? If you go into that town, it’s to save the people there.”

He did not understand, nor was that the truth. He wanted to rush into that madness because he loved the sound of flesh squelching beneath his claws. The screams of his dying enemies lulled him to sleep at night. Nothing inside him wanted to save, he just wanted to punish because that was what he was good at.

Except...

He turned his gaze to the town, and he saw all the people there. People who had accepted him during the Festival of Lights. Who had seemed surprised he was there at all, but still wanted to make sure he knew how to put a lantern together and showed him the right steps for the dance.

These were the people he was supposed to protect. Varya had reminded him of that, and it hurt to know that he had forgotten it after so many years of serving them.

They were the reason he’d taken this throne. He’d remembered that at some point, and he’d been greedy for their love and devotion at the time. Now? He just wanted them to be happy. He didn’t need them to worship him like a god, only that they live their lives in a better way than before. And perhaps that he was the reason they were living better lives.

He would save them now. All it would take was a bitter battle, and that was really no cost at all. They had been kind to him. They deserved this.

With a curt nod, he pressed a firm kiss to her lips before saying, “So be it.”

“You’ll do whatever it takes to save them?”

“I promise, treasure. And I don’t make promises I won’t keep.”

He stalked toward the city, shaking out his arms and feeling the battle form rolling over him. He could sense how dangerous he was becoming. The claws, the hardening of his skin, the way his muscles and body swelled in preparation for a fight that would live throughout the ages as the most terrifying battle his kingdom had endured.

Because he was going to bathe in their blood. He would coat his skin with it, dousing his entire body in every bit of their life force until no one could tell who or what he was.

The Horde wanted a demon king? They would have one.

He waded into the madness, all claws and gleaming blades. And then his thoughts faded out of his head. Gone. All he thought about was the bloodbath and the death that came at the ends of his claws. He saw their faces blinking in and out. Men and women wearing the skulls of animals, each of them believing they could fight the famed demon king and all of them failing.

He barely registered the pain of blades slashing across his flesh. That was the beauty of this form. He did not feel pain. He did not feel fear. All that remained was the brief intelligence to let him know when there was a person in front of him who did not need to die.

He came close, once. A little boy stood in front of him, skidding to a halt as Greed’s claws slashed down. But he froze before he ever touched the young man. Only a drop of blood splattered from his claws and touched the boy’s cheek.

He let the young one run. He had no intention of killing any of the villagers and even in this form, he knew that. He was their protector. They would run and hide from him later, but right now they used his massive body as a shield and begged him to help.

So help he did. Over and over, death came from his hands. So many of the Horde fell, screaming and crying out for a mercy he did not know how to give them.

He remembered seeing his brother. Greed had charged down an alleyway at the sound of screams, only to find Gluttony with his back pressed against a wall and his fangs dug deep into a man’s neck. His brother sawed his teeth through tendon, all the way to bone, gulping at the blood that gushed out from a severed artery in the man’s neck.

They’d locked eyes. Two monsters who were likely more plague on their kingdom than they were saviors. And yet... This was their moment. Their chance to prove that they were more than just nightmarish creatures from the depths. They were men who would stop at nothing to save their people.

He’d left Gluttony in the shadows and returned to the fight with renewed vigor. He hadn’t seen Varya, but he already knew why that was. She was helping to get the survivors out to his waiting scouts that would bring them to the castle where it was safe. Where his army already had fortified the walls and stood at the ready to battle any and all who thought to attack Greed’s home.

One by one, he would get these people safe. He would.

Greed didn’t know how long he’d been fighting when he first came across the Horde leader. The man stood in the center of so many dead bodies, surrounding him in piles where they had tried their best and failed. His massive chest heaved, those gigantic arms somehow seemingly even larger from the use. And he held a hammer in his hands. A hammer that looked rather familiar.

“You,” Greed snarled.

The Horde leader turned with a grin on his face that was full of malice. “So we finally meet, Greed.”

The screams swirled around them, a breeze kicking them up along with a massive amount of sand that coiled around the man’s legs like a snake. Greed wasn’t afraid of him. But he was afraid of the bright light that appeared behind the Horde leader. One who smelled of spice and who had illuminated his future.

Varya stood behind the Horde leader with her blade already raised. She locked eyes with him, and he knew what she wanted. She wanted him to let her take on this behemoth of a man and to continue getting her people out.

He wouldn’t. Not when it was such a risk for her.

But she took the choice from him. Varya let out a scream of rage, a battle cry like the warrior goddesses of old as she charged at the Horde leader. The man barely even turned. He reached out with his hand and caught her by the throat, watching for Greed’s reaction.

“Make your choice, demon king.”

There was no choice. He would murder this man and he would feed his heart to his bride. The battle form he was so comfortable in grew even more powerful, stronger, larger, throbbing with the need to kill.

But then he heard her. “No!” Varya screamed. “Get them out!”

And he saw the rest of them in that moment. All of his people who were still failing to beat back the Horde. And he knew... Damn it. He knew he had to keep his promise.

Gluttony drew up behind him as the Horde leader backed away from them, using Varya as a human shield. She watched him with eyes that glimmered with rage. Not for him, but for the man behind her.

Greed pointed at Varya, his claw curled and warped. “Stay alive, woman,” he snarled. “I’m coming for you.”

And then he turned this attention to the people who needed him more. Even if it broke his heart to let her go.