Devil May Care by Pippa DaCosta Read Free Book Online

laughter clamps hold of my heart and freezes my thoughts. I try to turn my head to see him, but I only see his silhouette. The moon casts him in shadow. A shaft of light dances off a blade. He drops the chain and holds the scimitar high over his shoulder.
    My thoughts scatter.
    “I... warned... you.” He spits the words down at me. His spittle vaporizes as it drips onto my back.
    Begging won’t stop him; my mewing only excites him. My best chance is to remain quiet and still. I pant. My lungs burn, but I try to keep the fear locked away, to hide it from him. He knows. Fire pools outward around me. Tiny flames dance as they consume the fallen leaves. If I call the fire, his punishment will be worse. His grip tightens on my left wing. His claws press against the membrane. One by one, they puncture my skin. I flinch and swallow back my cries. He closes his fingers around a bone.
    “No, please...”
    When the blow comes, a shock of agony jolts through every muscle in my body. My jaw locks, until the scream escapes, echoes in my ears, slices through my skull, and pierces the night. I buck beneath him. My body blazes, but it’s no use. Hot blood spills over my back and sprays across my face, into my eyes, my mouth. Damien tosses something misshapen into the undergrowth. I can see parts of the thing protruding through the leaves. It doesn’t make sense. What has he done?
    He walks slowly around me and stops so close all I can see are his legs and the tip of the sword. Viscous black blood drips from its edge. My blood. He crouches down and coils the length of chain around his hand. “You. Are. Mine. Muse.”
    I can’t see him clearly. Something is wrong. I can’t feel the pain anymore. My entire left side throbs, but it doesn’t hurt. Blood dribbles over my shoulder. I turn my head and try to focus, but my vision blurs. A filter of acceptance falls in front of my eyes. I struggle to focus, but I can see that my left wing is gone. Just a stump remains. Blood bubbles up and dribbles across my back.
    I know what it is he threw away.
    He laughs again. I close my eyes.

----
    T ears are useless things ; tiny droplets of salt infused water, insignificant and pitiful. I hadn’t cried for Stefan, even when they’d told me he couldn’t return. I hadn’t cried when they’d stolen my demon from me a second time, when I woke with a yawning chasm of emptiness where she should have been. But I cried that night when the memories returned. I staggered retching into the shower.
    Scalding hot water pummeled my pink and vulnerable flesh. Steam bellowed around me, and I cried so damn hard my body ached. I buried my head in my hands and fell back against the slick tiles. Sobs juddered through me. I slid to the floor, pulled my legs up against my chest, and squeezed myself into a tight self-embrace. I cried until my voice failed, and the water ran cold.
    Adam, Ryder, Coleman and Hill, they had no idea what I’d done to escape my owner the first time around or what had been done to me. I’d barely touched on the details in the interview room and had no intention of laying my scars bare for them to pick at. Adam didn’t need any more excuses to examine me under a microscope.
    Still, I preferred them to Damien. The thought of him sent me into a fit of dry heaving. Not only had I—a lowly half-blood as far as any demon was concerned—done the unthinkable and killed my owner, but I’d trapped a Prince of Hell on the other side of the veil. It just so happened that Prince had been keeping the other demons away. Now he had gone, it was open season on me, and Damien hadn’t hesitated. If he caught me, death would be preferable to his alternative.

Chapter 8
    A waiting Adam’s assessment of my situation, I wandered the Institute’s many levels. The complex was a rabbit warren of old buildings and warehouses, all consumed over time by the sprawling embrace of the Institute. I’d been living on site for months and hadn’t yet scratched the