“Cassandra,” Donatello says, his voice strong for once. “He’s talking about Cassandra.”
“Cass?”
“He will use her powers.”
Realization hits me. Her powers! He’s been after her powers all along, and now that he has her body... “Wait.” I shake my head. “No. You can’t do that. She’s... She’s d—...” I can’t say it. I still can’t say it. The mere mention of her name still hurts like fire stoking insidemy chest.
Kayn puts his empty glass away. “She is. But you see, her powers are not in her spirit. They’re in her body. It’s a genetic trait, really. That’s why her father had the powers, then she did, and her progeny probably would have, too.”
More big words I don’t understand. My chest heaves, rage bubbling inside me, simmering into my blood. “You won’t touch her. She’s d— She’s gone. She’s gone, and you can’t touch her. Besides, you can’t use her powers if she’s...”
Donatello moves, bracing himself on an elbow to look up at me. His eyes are veiled and angry red, blood racing down the sides of his face. Even beaten down, he looks every bit as furious at Kayn as he used to. He looks every bit as ready to defend Cass all over again.
“Tristan,” he says, his voice rasping with urgency. “He has her body. If he finds a necromancer, he can bring her back from the dead.”
Hope flares in my chest. “What?”
Donatello shakes his head, hard. “Not like that. It wouldn’t be our Cassandra. It would be a husk. An empty body, with her powers, ready to obey him. She would be a slave to Kayn.”
Oh, no. This is so bad.
CHAPTER11
CASSANDRA
“So, you’re a sex demon,” I start before the silence drives me mad. My voice booms, too loud in the sudden silence of this place. What is this place even? We’re trekking up the side of a hill, so far from any city and roadthatwe’re drenched in permanent semi-darkness.
This place drips magical power. I feel it buzzing along my skin, pressing into my pores. There’s a power I can’t understand, a presence underlying every inch of the ground we step on. I raise my head to gape into the horizon. To one side, there’s still the gate, the hurricane of color diminishing with every step. On the other side, the neon lights of a city. I wonder what the place looks like. The Devil’s palace.
“You sound interested,” Zaki replies in that purr of a voice. “I can show you some of my powers if you want.”
“No, thanks.” I try to sound bored, but my mouth still tingles from his kiss. Shit. This jerk can’t sway me like this. “I was just wondering about, you know... How that works.”
He shoots an amused look over his shoulder, brow arching. “How does sex work? I thought you would know about that, what with having a bunch of mates and everything.”
Putting my best annoyed look on my face, I glare at him. “How being a sex demonworks.”
“Oh.” And he turns to face ahead once more. Zaki makes the trek look easy, his long limbs moving with smooth motions. I’m not out of breath because it’s impossible, but I can’t pretend the rough terrain is easy to climb. “Well, it has its low and its high points. There’s a lot of sex. All kinds of hot sex, the sort of mind-blowing fuck that humans can merely dream about...”
“Sex, yeah. I imagined as much. But what else?” I ask, blinking at his back. “Do you spend your entire day fucking?”
“Sometimes.” And he slows down to stand next to me. “Especially in celebrations. We have proper orgies for every holiday.” He grins.
This guy is working hard to get under my skin. I roll my eyes and keep moving. “Then I don’t know how you can be bored. You said you wanted to go up because you’re bored, but you spend your days fucking.”
Zaki licks the corner of his mouth, burning eyes drilling into mine. “The Underworld is a nightmare of bureaucracy. It’s been many years since the Abyss was drawn into it. You’re either sitting through meetings, back-stabbing your neighbors, or fucking. There’s not much to do besides that.”
I’m guessing he feeds from the sex, so he wouldn’t even need to eat or sleep. A life between political meetings and sex? Hard pass, thank you. “Are you immortal?”
“Pretty much. Succubi and incubi, which is me,” he says, spreading a hand on his chest, “live long, long lives. Ifrits, that’s another kind of demon, they live way longer. Basically immortal because they’re elementals.”
I clear my throat. “What happens when you die?” Would he go to the Underworld? Is there an afterlife for demons? So many questions. A headache blooms between my brows,and I reach a forefinger up to massage the spot.
Zaki looks away again. “Nothing. We don’t have souls.”
“That is...” Sad? I don’t know. They get to live long years. Maybe some of them even tire of life. I chew on my bottom lip and let the silence create a bubble around us. My gaze hits Oreo, stomping the ground next to me. “Do hellhounds have souls?”
“No. But they’re also elementals, so they live extremely long lives, too.”