Oh, God.
“Watch it with the gun!” said Jack, his hands up. “Since I’ve done what you asked, can I leave now? We had a deal. I told you she’s mortal. She smells like a mortal, I swear to God. Burn her, have your fun, just let me go.”
“Fine!” Nama barked. “I can’t kill you since I might need you later. But if I ever catch you hunting demons, I’ll rip your guts out through your mouth.”
Jack turned and sprinted out through the tunnel.
I kept squirming, trying to pull at the ropes, but there was no point. Since I didn’t actually have demonic strength, all I was doing was scraping my skin off. With a thundering heart, I turned to look at Orion. His eyes were starting to open again, and he met my gaze.
“Why is he here, Nama?” I asked.
She grimaced. “I want him to see that you’ve been lying to him. You’re nothing but a filthy little doppelg?nger, aren’t you? I want him to realize that I was right all along. I’m the right person for him. And if you were actually a demon, you wouldn’t have such a hard time getting out of rope bonds, would you? It’s just rope. Any demon can break it.”
“Maybe I don’t care to prove myself to you,” I said breezily. “Maybe I don’t want to be part of your stupid little game.”
This was the very definition of being caught between a rock and a hard place. If I told them about the locking spell, I’d die at Orion’s hands. If I were a mortal, I’d die at theirs.
My body shook. “You think that he’ll love you after you shot him?” I asked. “You’re insane.”
She crossed to me, her eyes wild and fanatical. “He’ll see that I did it because I love him. All of this, everything that I’m doing, is for him. For us. We’re meant to be.”
Lydia crossed her arms. “Can we get on with it, Nama? Your obsession with him is frankly depressing, and it’s making me regret sharing a gender with you. I should have listened to Legion. The duke of the Sathanas Ward said you were a lunatic.”
“What, exactly, are we getting on with?” My voice was shaking so hard they had to know by now that I wasn’t Mortana. I sounded terrified. “I told you that I’m not participating.”
Orion’s eyes opened just a little wider, pure black now. I could feel the room growing hotter.
“Maybe you need a little motivation.” Nama pointed her gun at Orion. “Here’s how the trial will work. I’m going to keep shooting Orion. His knees, his hand. Maybe his pretty face.”
“You just said you loved him!” I shouted, sounding frantic. I couldn’t keep up the act anymore.
Her face beamed. “Yes, Mortana. And if I can’t have him, no one else will. That’s how much I love him.”
Lydia pinched her nose. “Oh, my God, Nama.”
“So here’s how the first trial works,” Nama went on. “You prove that you’re a demon and save him. Or you can stay tied to your chair like a weak little mortal and show him that you’re an animal.”
I gritted my teeth, my entire body shaking. “What if I don’t care what happens to him?”
Nama grinned, her eyes maniacal now. She turned to Orion. “Then you prove that you don’t deserve him! You don’t even care enough to get up to help him. And I care enough about him to do all this.”
“Excuse me,” the Duke of Mammon interrupted, his golden rings gleaming. “We’re not putting her on trial to see if she cares about Orion. I just want to ensure we’re not giving our hard-earned tax revenue to a mortal. If she’s a demon, I don’t give a fuck if she cares about Orion.”
“I do!” Nama bellowed, then whirled, aimed the gun at me, and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 37
Pain exploded through my leg, the agony so shocking I could no longer think straight. My mind went dark for a second, and when my vision cleared again, I saw that she’d turned the gun back on Orion.
Nama’s laughter echoed off the stone walls. “Now let’s try Orion, my beloved. Show us how strong you are, Mortana. Show us you can use that fire magic of yours.”
She pulled the trigger and shot Orion in his kneecap. I watched as his eyes went dark, and a blast of heat pulsed through the room.
I could feel it again—that rising anger. The rage. Pure strength coursed through my body, and an ancient fury that could melt rock to stone. Darkness spilled through my blood like ink. My shadow-self was rising to the surface like molten lava, and I could no longer feel the pain of the bullet in my leg.