Page 52 of Her Demon Mate
Luckily, this is Sarziroch, where humans have no power, and none of the other demons gave me a second glance.
When I get home, I kick the door to my apartment open and carry Elia bodily through the door.
I lock her in the bathroom, ensuring that the window is also locked, and then I go back into the main area of the apartment and lock and double-bolt the front door.
Then I get out a chair and some rope.
When I finally return to the bathroom, Elia is curled up in a corner on her haunches, and her arms are wrapped around her knees.
She looks almost pitiful, and for a second I want to tell her to run very far away before I do something I know I am going to regret.
But I push the thoughts away and haul her onto her feet.
“I’m detaining you here while I make some calls. Once I tell my general about this development and we confirm that the xaphan sent you to spy on us, we will be able to end the ceasefire.”
Elia doesn’t answer me as I walk her over to the chair.
“Are you listening to me?” I shake her impatiently. “You’ve just started a war.”
These words seem to shake Elia out of her stupor.
She laughs bitterly. The sound takes me back to the bar, to the bakery, to the couch after I’d made her dinner. It threatens to rip me in two. I don’t want to be a part of this, to be bound by a military code that would force me to treat the woman I’ve begun to love this way.
I don’t want to be a part of a military code that would turn me into a target for a woman I thought I loved.
“You’ve done that all on your own. You and the xaphan. That’s what barbarians do.”
“Why did you do it?” I don’t know where the words are coming from. “Why did you betray me like this? And what could the xaphan have offered you to make you do this?”
Elia still doesn’t answer. When I look at her properly, my heart almost stops beating.
Her eyes are wide and fixed, and there is no sign of life in them. Her face is pale and waxy.
Now I feel like I am looking at a caricature of Elia. Of the human woman I have grown to love.
“You can’t deny that you have a xaphanian surname, Elia.” I shake her again as I grow angrier.
Why won’t she cooperate with me?
“And what are your mother’s ties to this? What are your mother’s ties to the xaphan? Elia! You need to talk! It is the only thing that is going to save you from a painful death!”
“I don’t care,” she says softly. And I feel it then. Elia has given up.
Her body is limp and her voice is devoid of emotion. Her face seems to get paler and paler with every passing second.
She looks like she is dying,I think to myself, and sudden urgency ripples through me. And the instinct to do something to save her kicks in.
I turn her to me, which is easy because she is no longer fighting me.
“Elia, you have used me. I’ve just been a pawn in your game. You have destroyed so much, and the demonic military will have your head for it. Please help me to understand.”
I don’t see it coming, when Elia breaks down. I don’t see it coming at all.
In one minute, she is emotionless. And in the next, she sags in my arms, her body shaking, before she throws her head back and screams.
Her scream is shrill and ear-piercing, and I don’t try to stop her. She tapers off into a gut-wrenching sob, a sob that is dragged deep from within her.
She trembles and shudders as she cries, and if I were a soz’garoth demon, I am sure I’d be able to hear her heart breaking inside her chest.