And if they regenerated a third time, they came back petrified as a supreme power unlike anything imaginable.
That was the last thing anyone wanted to fight or encounter. An unholy hell-beast that only those well trained could stand against or kill.
Her eyes glowing softly in the dim light, she laughed again. Until her gaze went past his shoulder to focus on the other “Thorn” in the room. That sobered her quick. “Well, well. Bedding with your enemies these days, I see. How fast the mighty do fall.”
Fuck this. He had no tolerance for her or her insults.
Stepping back with a sneer, Devyl turned to Rafael. “Take her topside and set her ass on fire. Scatter her charred and besalted ashes over the waves, far out to sea.”
With those words, he headed for the ladder.
“Druid! Wait!”
Devyl froze as she let out the one tidbit of his past he never spoke about.
To anyone.
And it sucked every bit of oxygen from the room. Only Thorn and Marcelina knew about the days he’d donned the black robes of a pagan leader and counselor.
Only they knew the cost of that particular stupidity.
He took a deep breath to control his rage, then continued on for the exit.
“Wait!” she screamed again. “I can help you!”
“Can and will are two entirely different things,” he shot over his shoulder.
“I will help you! Duel, I swear it. Please!”
He paused to look back at her. “I should believe you … why?”
“Because the Carian Gate is cracking even as we speak. More of us are being unleashed. I know you want to find it and reseal it before she is released.”
Hardly. The bitch had no real, true idea how badly he wanted Vine’s neck within his grasp. However … “I don’t need you for that.”
“But you need me to find the Seraph she holds, if you’re to free him. You’ll never find him without me. Not alive or before she turns him.”
He steeled himself to show no emotions whatsoever. To give nothing away. It was the only way when dealing with a species so treacherous and cold. “What Seraph?”
“Surely the great Dón-Dueli knows about the Seraph Vine captured.” She cackled with laughter. “Is that not what brings the great Forneus here, too?”
At the mention of Thorn’s one true demonic summoning name, Rafael crossed himself and stepped back. He paled considerably from his sudden fear of who and what Thorn really was.
Thorn went completely stiff, while Devyl held his breath at something not even he had the bullocks to do. The use of his Leucious birthname was ballsy enough and as far as he dared take insulting the demon.
After all, in life, there were some actions just not worth the gamble.
Jumping from a cliff that overlooked a raging sea and sharp rocks. Eating glass. Throwing yourself into a raging inferno inside a volcano.
Touching the Dark-Hunter Acheron on the back of his neck.
Trespassing on the Chthonian Savitar’s island without his permission.
Telling the demon Simi no when she didn’t want to hear it.
And using Thorn’s summoning name.
“Your lack of discretion is foolish,” Devyl warned her. “Were I you, I’d stop before I lose more ground and my head.”
“Is what she says true?” Rafe asked Thorn. “Are you the demon Forneus?”
Thorn passed an irritated grimace toward the pirate. “No one can help who they’re born as. But we all have a choice as to who we become, and especially in who we are. The demon Forneus died an excruciatingly long time ago, as Captain Bane can attest. I’m not the same beast who led his army of demons over the lands of man to conquer this world for his father. I’m here to make sure creatures like her mistress pay for their crimes and harm no innocent.”
Rafe arched a quizzical brow at Devyl.
He met Thorn’s cold green gaze before he answered with the truth. “Thorn isn’t Forneus.” At least not anymore. Though to be honest, Devyl would have liked to have met that warlord. They could have been friends.
Better still, they could have been allies.
But the curse of this world was that it was ever changing. Friends today. Enemies tomorrow. And, as was presently true, even enemies could become friendly.
Life was ever peculiar that way, as it kept everyone on their toes. You never knew where it was going to land you, or how quickly.
Sinner to saint. Hero to villain. A person’s role could reverse itself in the blink of an eye. All it took was one good deed for redemption.
Or one misplaced lie by another that others were too quick to grab on to and hold close to their hearts, even though they knew it for the fabrication it was. In that one single heartbeat, your whole life was ruined. For no other reason than people didn’t want to do their own thinking or learn their own facts. Rather, all too many were willing to follow along like mindless sheep to the slaughter.
Or the lynching.
He’d never understand the human mind. Especially the hypocrisy of it all. Just as he’d never understand why Thorn had given him this chance to earn back his soul when they both knew he didn’t deserve it.
Thorn wasn’t the one Rafe should be cringing from.
He was. In his day, he’d made a mockery of the vile, evil creature Rafe had caged before them.
And with that knowledge firing deep in his gullet, Devyl turned on Mona and bared his fangs at the Blackthorn bitchtress. He let his eyes glow their true bloody color so that she could see he was through with her games. “Tell what you know, Mona! Where is she?”
“So you do care, don’t you now? Och, Du.” She tsked at him with her blackened teeth. “The truth comes out. Dark lord you might be, but me lady always held your nubby heart, such as it is. You should have been there when we fell, my lord. Vine herself lamented your death over it. She said that, had she not killed you, we wouldn’t have been taken. None to blame for it but herself, she said.”
He scowled at her nonsense. “Stop the riddles!” He blasted the cage with his powers.
The force of it knocked her from her feet and sent her straight to the ground, where she slammed against the side of the ship.
From the floor, she wiped one pale, black-veined hand across her bleeding nose and laughed. “Poor Du!”
When he went to blast her again, Thorn caught his arm. “Don’t bother.”
Growling deep in his throat, he curled his lip at Thorn’s compassion. “What are we to do with her? We can’t leave her here. Sooner or later, she’ll feast on them all, and well you know it. You banish her to return to her prison and she’ll only escape and be back to bother us all the more and wreak who knows what harm on the humans. She’s naught but a disease to plague and eat away at anything that she sets her roots to.”
An insidious smile curved Thorn’s lips. “I’ll plant her in a place from which there’s no escape.”