A breath of wind curled around me, an almost living prickle against my skin. It slid around my body sinuously, cool but not calming, not calming at all. I shuddered and the current shivered along with me. And a jagged cut on Pritkin’s arm softened, faded and melted into the golden skin over his bicep. I blinked, and when I looked again, there wasn’t even a scar. It was as if the wound had never even existed.
I was dazed and extremely confused when we broke apart. Pritkin lifted his head and his eyes were fever bright and slightly unfocused. He radiated a barely leashed violence that was strange and nearly alien—but also echoingly familiar.
I screamed and started scrambling away, but he caught me, holding me fast. “No! It’s me! It’s only me! Rosier isn’t here!”
My own face coalesced in front of me and there was honest emotion in those striking eyes—worry, pain and a healthy dose of self-loathing. I stopped struggling. I was willing to bet Rosier had never had an honest emotion in his life.
“But I felt—”
“I’m wounded,” Pritkin said, flushing slightly. “It’s . . . something of an automatic reaction. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Automatic?” He didn’t take time to explain, just levered himself to a standing position using the counter.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I demanded.
“We need to get out of here,” he said as another barrage hit.
“You can barely stand up, much less fight!”
“I’m perfectly fine,” he said stubbornly.
“Not after attacking half a dozen demons on your own! What the hell did you think you were doing? You had no weapons, no shields, nothing.”
“They would have killed you.”
“So what did you think they were going to do to you?” He didn’t say anything. “Or was that the idea? While they were busy ripping you to shreds, I’d have time to escape?”
“It was the only reasonable course of action.”
The matter-of-fact tone had anger surging through me. “Reasonable? That was my idea—my stupid, stupid idea! If someone died for it, it should have been me!”
“Your plan would have worked, had you been with anyone else.”
“What are you talking about? Those things—”
“Cannot normally attack the living. The demon lords made a covenant long ago not to ruin Earth—the hunting ground they all share—by overfeeding. Each race was limited to taking only one form of energy. In the case of the Rakshasas, they can only feed on whatever is left after death. But your body still lived; you should have been beyond their reach.”
“So did yours. And that didn’t seem to matter!”
“Rosier petitioned the Assembly of Lords to grant a special dispensation in my case.” There was an odd light in his eyes, not sorrow or pain or regret but some terrible combination of the three, a kind of emptiness that made me want to shiver. “One it seems he has managed to extend to you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Pritkin took a deep breath. “I have never explored the demon part of my nature. It’s what Rosier wants, why he performed his obscene experiment in the first place. He hoped by incorporating Fey and human blood with his own, he would create a demon without the limitations of his kind. By refusing to investigate my nature, I’ve denied him the results.”
“But you’ve also denied yourself. Don’t you wonder what else you can do? What abilities you may have inherited?”
“I worry about that all the time.”
“But that other side of you gave you immortality, didn’t it? So it can’t be all—”
“I’m not immortal, and my longer life span came from my mother’s Fey ancestry,” he snapped. “Nothing from my father’s side is remotely positive! As he is currently demonstrating. I thwarted him, you humiliated him and he wants revenge.”
“But Rakshasas can’t hurt me when I’m in my body. So how does he—”
“You heard Jonas—you can’t do your job safely without resorting to possessions. But they cause your spirit to become vulnerable, even if only for an instant. And with the Rakashasas, that will be enou
gh.”