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  For the first time, Druaga looked somewhat discomforted. Clearly he’d had no idea I would react this way. I have a reputation for coldness in the face of conflict—a fact which had made me all but undefeatable during the Celestial Wars. But this time I could not stop the wrath that rose in me—nor did I wish to.

  “Well, I am owed some compensation, after all,” he muttered.

  “For sending the devilkins out to get my concubine’s shoe, then allowing them into your hotel to trick and attack her?” I roared. “How dare you even claim such a thing? You put her life in danger and then you think to take part of her soul right in front of me? I should kill you where you sit!”

  I was towering over him now, my breath hot in my chest, my voice a menacing bass rumble.

  “You don’t dare!” But there was a trembling in the Wendingo’s voice that said he didn’t believe what he was saying. “The Demon Council would—”

  “The Council would say I have every right! You have offered me insult heaped upon injury.”

  I moved towards him, my coils sliding, the scales rustling against each other. I knocked aside the forgotten breakfast tray with a contemptuous flick of my tail. There was a metallic clang and its contents spattered everywhere. I paid not the slightest notice.

  “Please, Lord Laish, calm yourself,” Druaga begged. “I don’t understand why you are so upset! She is just a human!”

  “She is my human!”

  Within I was a furnace of rage. I wanted to breathe a wave of fire over the cowering boar-demon, wanted to roast him to a crisp but something held me back—the fear that the fire might get out of control and hurt Gwendolyn. So I held back…but only just.

  “I am your host!” Druaga squealed, cowering in his white leather chair. He was sounding more like a boar every moment. “You dare not kill me! The laws of hospitality—”

  “Laws of hospitality be damned,” I snarled, liquid fire dripping from my jaws. I was standing directly over him at this point and a large drop of it fell upon him, singing away his right tusk. He squealed again, his hand going to the smoking stump.

  “My tusk!”

  “You’re lucky I don’t rip an arm or a leg off…or perhaps something else.” I eyed his exposed genitals with burning disgust. “In fact, I think I’ll castrate you here and now—maybe that will teach you a lesson about lusting after the property of others.”

  Druaga gasped and scrambled backwards, trying to get over the back of the chair without taking his eyes off me. But in this form I was as quick as a striking snake. I aimed a carefully controlled column of flame at his disgusting shaft, crisping it to a shriveled, charcoal black stump. It looked like a sausage that has been forgotten in the fire.

  The boar-demon gave a high, whining shriek that hurt my sensitive ears as he groped between his legs, writhing in pain.

  “No! No! Ah, the pain!”

  “Why are you so upset, Druaga?” I growled, glaring at him. “You are a demon, after all. It will regenerate, much like Gwendolyn’s soul would have, had you carried out your plan.”

  “But it will not be so long again for years. I have been growing it for millennia. And my tusk…” He patted the right side of his hairy face. “It is gone forever.”

  “The rest of you will be too if you do not leave my rooms now,” I snarled at him. “Go before I decide to erase your miserable existence from the face of the Infernal landscape.”

  Whimpering with pain, Druaga managed to scramble up and hobble towards the door. He was still clutching himself, alternating between grabbing his face and his mutilated crotch when he made it through the doorway and was gone.

  “Oh…oh my Goddess.”

  The soft, broken murmur brought me out of the all consuming rage I’d been in and I scanned the room, my eyes reading heat signatures as well as visual cues. The form I was in was a very useful one to have—though it was somewhat large and bulky, especially in such a confined space.

  At last I found what I was looking for—the source of the voice.

  Gwendolyn was huddled in the far corner of the room, shielding herself behind one of the large white leather cushions from the sofa. She was trembling and tears were leaking from the corners of her eyes. With my current vision they looked like white rivulets on her red cheeks.

  “Gwendolyn?” My voice was harsh as I slithered towards her but I attempted to soften it a bit.

  “Get away! Stay away from me!” Her words were sharp—panicked. I thought she must be afraid that Druaga was still in the room, menacing her with the soul-hook.

  “You have nothing to fear—he is gone. He will not harm you.” Gently but firmly I pulled the white cushion from her trembling grip with my clawed hands. “It’s all right,” I repeated. “You’re safe now.”

  But she only balled herself up tight, withdrawing as far into the corner as she could.

  “Please, Laish.” Her voice trembled and every line of her body spoke of extreme terror. “Please, don’t hurt me. Don’t burn me—please!”

  And then I understood…it wasn’t Druaga she was frightened of.

  It was me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Gwendolyn

  I was scared to death he was going to kill me. Maybe not on purpose but it wouldn’t matter because I would be just as dead even if it was an accident. He had pried my only shield away from me—not that the white cushion would have stopped a jet of flame. But still, I felt better with it between me and the beast he had become—between me and the fire.

  Inside my head that awful night ran over and over—screaming and crying for my mother as Keisha and I clutched each other panicky-tight, the two of us crammed into a tiny closet—the place we’d been hiding when it started… hearing the crackling sound as the flames licked at the door…the overwhelming heat…the choking black smoke that had rolled through the house…the smell of burning flesh and the sound of her begging. And then, just as the firemen smashed the window and came in to get us, my mother’s high, piercing shrieks as she died in the fire.

  The fire set by a demon.

  “Gwendolyn…please,” I heard him growl in that deep, inhuman voice. “Please believe me—I would never harm you.”

  The fire…the fire is coming…the fire is going to get you. Oh, Mamma, I’m scared! Please, I’m so scared…

  “Please,” that low, rough voice said again. “You can come out of the corner—it’s perfectly safe.”

  His words tugged at me, pulling me back to reality. I opened my eyes and realized I was still curled into a trembling ball like a scared little girl who’s afraid of the monsters under her bed. But damn it—this monster was real. This monster was the man I’d allowed to touch me and kiss me and stroke me last night—the man I’d allowed to make me come.

  I felt sick at the thought. I forced myself to stand up, still hugging the wall. But I could barely make myself look at what Laish had transformed into.

  The beast was huge—a cross between a snake and a dragon with a scaly black hide—each scale outlined in golden-red as though its inner furnace was glowing through. It had a long, pointed snout filled with steak-knife teeth and pure black eyes with ruby slits for pupils. When it moved its long, sinuous body coiled and uncoiled restlessly and its tail was twice as long as I was tall.

  It didn’t look like it ought to fit into the luxury suite. It looked like it would fit better into one of my nightmares and it exuded a breathless heat I remembered all too well from the night my mother died. Standing near it was like standing on the inside of the closet door, listening to her scream all over again. The arid air around it seemed to singe my lungs and the scent of smoke and brimstone invaded my sinuses, making my eyes tear.

  “Please,” I begged it, unable to make myself leave the corner. “Please—can’t you change back? If…if you are still Laish in there.”

  “Of course I am.” The thing’s voice was deep and harsh. Its breath smelled like liquid metal and burning rock and death. “But it would not be safe.”