Chapter 9

9

H e didn't enjoy her fear. Envy wanted her to be worshiping at his feet, or at the very least, allowing him to indulge himself in her body and power. What he did not understand was her willingness to die.

There was something deeply troubling about that. She'd threatened to drown herself, then kill herself in much more complicated and detailed ways. And he didn't know how to prevent such a thing from happening.

He'd lied when he said he could bring her back from death. Even he wasn't so gifted as to subvert the end. He just didn't know what the end actually looked like. For humans or himself.

Leaning back in the overly stuffed and well loved chair that he sat in, he pinched his lower lip and stared into the fire. This was the only room in his castle that wasn't entirely carved out of stone.

The warm wooden floors were remnants of a time when all of his people had lived above the surface. There had been trees larger than he could wrap his arms around, trees that grew fast and tall and strong. He still remembered the sound of the wind rustling through the leaves above his head and the giant dragonflies that had coasted through the dappled sunlight.

In those times, his kingdom had prospered. They had lived well and the people who hadn't liked him had easily hidden in the trees.

Until the end. He stared into the fire, remembering the flames that had consumed his entire kingdom. Back then, he'd only stolen a small amount of magic. A majority of what he had cast was druidic, and all that green magic had forced him to hear the trees scream.

The green things of his kingdom had wailed for days on end. Then, it all filtered down into a quiet moaning as they died slowly and painfully. It took a long time for their lives to end. Their roots went deep through his kingdom. Even now he had found some embedded in the rock itself. They were powerful beings killed to punish Envy, yet they ended up punishing the entire kingdom in their death. Their souls became the blood thirsty shadow creatures that haunted the realm above.

After that, he'd forgotten how to respect the humans. He'd never once thought that they were capable of so much harm, and yet, he had been proven wrong in the worst of ways. It was why he still consumed them. Why he hunted them.

The humans were incapable of seeing beyond themselves. Even this little oracle, who had seemed to be so different from the others, did not value life itself.

She'd rather die than live in a luxury that she hadn't chosen for herself, and that thought made him want to burn her to the ground.

Perhaps humans and demons weren't so different after all.

The sound of wings interrupted his thoughts, and Orphe glided through the window of a portal he always left open for her. She settled on a perch next to the fire, her usual spot when he was in this room. Even she appeared to brood as she stared into the flame.

The firelight reflected off her glossy feathers. He'd always appreciated how lovely she was, even after battle. Blood looked so pretty speckled across the obsidian coloring of her body.

"She is unhappy," Orphe said, her croak filling the room with a rasping anger.

"I know."

"She will not eat."

"She'll eat when she's hungry." At least, he hoped. If he had to force feed her, then he would. He'd pry that pretty mouth open and pour broth down her gullet if that's what it took to keep her alive.

Orphe turned her gaze to him, her eyes a little wide. "You are keeping her alive for... what reason?"

He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. It was the question of the century, and he wasn't certain the reasoning for it himself. When he'd taken her, he knew that he wanted her power. There was no other reason to keep one such as her. He didn't like the woman.

She was an angry harpy who scolded him at every chance she got, not to mention she threatened him that she would take her own life, which meant she was threatening to take away his newest obsession. It was ridiculous. If death had her, then he didn't. Then he was jealous of death itself.

He couldn't battle death.

If she died, then she won. Her power would disappear, waiting for another babe to be born who had the proclivities to become an oracle. He didn't get the power or the woman who wielded it. There was no way for him to win.

He sighed again, the sound coming out of his lips ragged and angry. "I believed that if I kept her alive, then I would still have the object that everyone else desires. And, I'll admit, the demon inside of me certainly did not enjoy seeing that circus man having claim over someone I did not. Especially someone so powerful."

"But will you use her if you keep her alive?"

He considered the question before shaking his head. "I do not enjoy the thought of others seeing her, either. Her prophecies will be mine. That is what I have decided. I will keep them and I will be the only one who knows them."

"For leverage over other kingdoms?"

"So I can say I knew it was going to happen, but that they should have begged me on their hands and knees to know what would occur." He grinned, knowing his expression was filled with malice. "I have no intention of saving any kingdom other than my own."

Orphe nodded. A spirit of ambition like herself knew what it was to desire to hold something over others. She searched for power. It was why he had given her the raven form, as it was easier to find power when not limited by the spiritual.

Envy and Ambition went together well, after all. They both understood what it was to covet power, and that they would do anything possible to get what someone else had.

A silence fell between them for a while, and he knew what Orphe was thinking. It took some time for her to piece together plans, but often she gave him an answer that made more sense than his own musings.

He watched the flames until he heard her beak chomp.

"Why keep her alive if you will not use her? You will be able to prophesize without her. Take her power for your own and get rid of the woman who has been causing so much strife."

He supposed he could. The thought of taking her life, however, was uncomfortable.

Perhaps it was her beauty that confused him. She was eerily stunning, with eyes that saw straight through him and a courage that was intriguing. He enjoyed seeing a woman like her. Someone who wasn't afraid to thwart him.

He liked the way her eyes softened when he had met her at the circus as well. She'd felt something for him then, even the briefest spark of it. So few people cared about him. They feared him, yes. They ran from him and hid their people. And yes, some of them found use for him in protection or magical objects. But no one would be overly upset if he disappeared.

It had been a long time since someone had looked at him like a person. Even if it was just the barest flicker.

"I want to make her see me as someone other than the king," he said quietly. "I believe she is capable of that."

"She is not, Envy. She's already chipping away at the beautiful walls you made for her, searching for a way out. She wants you to let her go and she will never give up on her search for freedom. If you want her power, you need to take it for yourself. Sooner than you think."

He knew she was right. This woman wouldn't give up, and yet...

He was the king. He was supposed to do this. Envy had taken power from people his entire life and he had no reason to continue to put this off. Not when she was so unwilling to give him what he wanted. He'd just hoped for more from this one.

But that had been a silly thought. A moment of weakness because he'd seen what his brothers had. Nothing more, nothing less.

He stood, feeling older than he had in years. There was something uncomfortable about knowing he was about to kill this woman. It became a strange feeling in his chest that he couldn't rub away.

"You're right," he murmured as he lifted his hand to conjure yet another portal. "There is no reason to wait."

He stepped into the room he had built for her. A room of beauty and more loveliness than he'd thought he had in him. The creativity to build this room for a delicate woman had come from deep within his soul. Perhaps it had come from his own desire, as he'd continued to ask her about her own.

What a disaster this was. He would need to consume so much magic just to give himself something to do in distraction.

He expected her to be ready to throw a boot at his head again. Most often, she seemed to resort to violence or to shrink away from him in fear. Instead, he found her asleep on the bed.

She had laid out in the wrong direction, side to side on the bed like a lunatic. But her hair spilled down the edge of the skins there, a waterfall of pale color. One of her legs was hiked up, and he couldn't help but follow the graceful line of her hip and the rounding of her bottom with his gaze. What he wouldn't do to smooth his hand over that surface? To pull her pants from her legs, freeing the warmth of her skin to his touch.

Envy yearned for this woman. With every fiber of his being. He wanted to touch and be touched. He wanted to taste the salt on her skin and feel her power thrumming through her form. He wanted to rip it out of her and then give her even more power anew. Power that only he could give her.

Instead, fate had dangled a remarkable creature in front of him, and then bid him to destroy it.

He walked over to the side of the bed, ghosting his hand over her form as though he were touching her back. Something in him pulled toward her. A thread that yanked his very soul into the orbit of hers.

Even asleep, he wanted to please her. He wanted to hear the little sounds she made in the back of her throat. But even more, he just wanted her to open her eyes.

What a sad sap he was. Longing for a woman to just look at him when he knew damn well what would happen if she opened those lovely eyes. She'd scream when she saw him. She'd try to get away or attack him again.

Damn him. Damn her. Damn all of this for making him feel when that was the last thing he wanted to do. He had been fine before he saw her, and he intended to be that way again.

A woman could not distract him from his purpose. And his purpose was to consume as much magic as this form could take, and then he would spread that magic to all who followed him. If they were good enough. If they pleased him and proved that they were worthy of his attention.

It was how it had always been, and how it would always be. She, however, threatened that.

He had to let her go. Orphe was right. He was losing his mind to this little creature and if he didn't do something with this problem, then he would start to drown. He had a kingdom to run. He couldn't obsess over a woman like Gluttony had.

He had to focus.

So, ghosting his hand over her once again, he pulled at her power. Tugging, as it were, on the essence that made her... her.

He'd done this many times, usually intending to cause pain. He could yank at a power so strongly that it hurt the person that held it. Of course, that was difficult to do with an oracle's power.

Usually powers were like a thread that coiled throughout a person's body. He could yank on it, tugging and tugging until it popped out. It was easy enough, although usually fatal for the person he tugged from. Mist was something he had yet to gather up in the way that it needed to be gathered.

Her power rose from her skin. Like a fine sheen that turned into glistening gossamer all over her body. He could see it with his naked eye, not needing to use his own magic to know where it was coming from.

But when he pulled, it moved. Her power wasn't trying to flee or wriggle in her to get away from him. It was reaching for him.

"Do you want to leave her so badly?" he asked the magic, a soft smile on his face. "Then I will take you."

The moment it coiled around his wrist, he knew he was wrong. So very wrong.

It grabbed onto him and yanked. He pressed his palms against the bed, forced to loom over her as his eyes went wide with shock. It continued to travel up his wrists, pinning him to the bed with so much force he wasn't sure if even his own magic could make it stop. He could feel the greed in that power, the sheer need to see his future and whisper dark tidings in his ears.

It moved up to his shoulders until his view writhed with white mist.

"Lilith," he wheezed, jerking his neck back so that it couldn't wrap around his throat. "Lilith, wake up."

She opened those pretty blue eyes. Ice stared up at him, her expression hardening as she realized the circumstance he'd found himself in. With a sharp-eyed glare, she jerked out from under him and pulled on her power. The mist recoiled into her, a chided child who had been found playing with something it shouldn't.

He noticed she rubbed her arms, as though she patted the mist into her skin. "You shouldn't touch me while I'm sleeping," she hissed.

Envy tried to catch his breath, still braced on the bed with his arms shaking. What was that?

He stared at her, breathing hard, before he realized she wasn't going to tell him. She had no intent on making this easier for him, nor was she going to explain herself.

Letting out a long breath, he nodded at her. "Noted, oracle."

And then he conjured another portal and stepped through it. Because he wasn't all that certain what else he could do.