“Wait.” Sandranella rushed forward, hands out. “Don’t do this, Moloch. He deserves a trial.”
“The council can vote on his fate, if you prefer,” Moloch sneered at her. “But your side will lose.”
They would. With Baphomet allied with Moloch, and Astaroth out of power, the council was no longer in balance. Sandranella looked at Astaroth, and the grim look in her eyes said she knew how futile a vote would be.
Fight another day, he mouthed, hoping she would read his lips. The demon plane would need her in the dark days to come.
She nodded, then stepped back in line.
Astaroth began climbing the steps toward his doom. “I defy your reign of cruelty,” he said. There was no spell amplifying his voice now, so he spoke loudly, willing his words to reach to the back of the crowd and beyond. “I renounce any former alliances. I renounce my power and the cowardly choice I made not to reveal my heritage.” As he approached the platform, he met Calladia’s terrified eyes. “I choose the hybrids,” he announced, still holding her gaze. “And I choose these mortals.”
At the top, he knelt before Calladia. “I choose you,” he murmured, cupping her cheeks.
Tears shone in her beautiful brown eyes. “Please, no,” she said, voice breaking.
He would not be deterred. After a lifetime of manipulation and lies, Astaroth had found something more important than power.
“I choose love,” he told her. “I love you.”
All at once, his memories came flooding back.
* * *
Astaroth’s first memory was of his mother’s red hair and black horns shining in the sunlight. “You mustn’t tell anyone who you are, my sweet,” Lilith had said, cuddling him close. “They won’t understand. They won’t let you seize the power you deserve.”
She’d trained him in secret, teaching him about bargaining and how to access the magic within himself. How delighted she’d been to learn he’d inherited it! And even more delighted when, as an adult, Astaroth had ceased to show any signs of aging.
“You can pass as a full demon,” she’d crowed, spinning in wild circles. Her eyes had gleamed with a frenzied light, but love burned beneath the madness, and Astaroth had been determined to claw his way to power for her.
He’d enjoyed it, too: the deals, the stratagems, the wars and manipulations and seductions. It had been addictive. Every time a soul floated out of a mortal and into the demon plane thanks to his doing, he’d told himself he was as good as a pureblooded demon. Better, even, for he rarely left Earth, determined to craft a deadly reputation as quickly as possible. He’d fought, shagged, and charmed his way through witch after warlock, stealing their essence and sending it off, smugly thinking how fortunate it was he took after his demon mother, rather than his human father. He had no mortal soul to worry about, no fragile mortal emotions. He was Lilith’s true heir.
Except the mortal emotions had crept in anyway. Moments of doubt. Moments of sorrow. And sometimes, like the first time he’d used particularly brutal methods to force a warlock to fulfill a deal, a deep, gnawing guilt.
Bargainers shouldn’t feel guilt. They were perfectly in control, Lilith excepted, but that was due to vast age twisting her sanity. The higher Astaroth rose, the more he encountered demons who embodied everything he wanted to be: cruel, cold, untouchable.
Centuries in, he no longer sought power for his mother’s sake. Everything he did was to further his own ambitions. Act like who you want to be, and you will become it. He didn’t recall which mortal had given him that advice, but it had held true. Astaroth had acted as cold and vicious as any of the preeminent demons, and his tender emotions had withered, or else he’d buried them so deep he’d ceased to acknowledge their existence.
Moloch had been the example Astaroth had measured himself against. Perfectly devious, perfectly cruel, unbothered by regret. The demon was ambition personified, and as Astaroth had honed his own ambition to deadly sharpness, the two had come into frequent conflict. They’d spread rumors, sabotaged each other’s plans, and jockeyed for favor with Baphomet. There had been no greater day in Astaroth’s existence than when a council member had been beheaded during the Thirty Years’ War and he had been selected to fill the position ahead of Moloch.
Astaroth of the Nine at last.
Unfortunately, a second council member had died that same day, and Moloch had been chosen for the other vacant spot. The two had taken their battle to a higher stage. There was one position yet to claim: the center of the high council itself.