Garden of Serpents (The Demon Queen Trials #3)(15)

9





ORION





It felt haunted in here, in the old brick mansion where my family had once lived. My footfalls echoed off the dusty tile floors. I could have this place cleaned, but something stopped me from bringing it back to life. It was a mausoleum now, the air musty and stale. This home was a grave.

So why the fuck was I in here?

I supposed this was the only place where I could douse the fire of my lust for Rowan. Because when she was around, I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe when her image came into my mind. Every time I thought of her, my heart stopped. Her deep brown eyes, with the faint ring of gold at the edges. Her full lips painted red, the tiny smattering of freckles on her nose, the curve of her hips. The way she’d moaned when I’d fucked her—

Anyway, what sort of king would I be if I couldn’t get my mind off her?

This was the only place I could find respite from thinking of her. Sadness twined through this place like a heavy mist.

From the tile floor, I eyed the old busts in the hallway alcoves, their faces smashed, some shattered on the floor.

I felt the world tilting beneath me as my gaze roamed over the deep red stain on the floor. That was where my brother, Molor, had been murdered while I watched.

My breath sped up, and I couldn’t quite get enough air in here.

He’d tried to stand in front of our mother because he was so strong—

At least, my older brother had seemed so large and powerful to me then. I was shocked that the soldiers had knocked him down. Back then, I’d thought of him as a god. A titan. Someone who would always protect me. And maybe that was why I hadn’t unleashed the fire I had in me, because if only I’d been thinking clearly, I could have burned the mortals to ash. They’d weakened our power before invading, but I’d still had some.

But surely Molor would stop them.

Molor had been the one to teach me curses, and he’d tried to teach me to land a punch. Every time he’d left the house, I’d screamed that I wanted to go with him.

In a daze, I walked through the hallway to his old room. He’d always been tidy, and it was neat even now, despite the dust and cobwebs. His was a simple, elegant room with white walls and dark wooden beams across the ceiling, an old flagstone floor and a threadbare rug. Stags’ antlers jutted from the wall above the mantel. His bed was a four-poster, the mahogany posts etched with thorns. Pale light streamed in through mullioned windows onto a desk stacked with old books.

I opened his wardrobe, stunned to see how small his clothes were. Had he really been that small?

And the children’s toys in here—a doll in a white dress with black beads for eyes, and a wooden top with black numbers on it. I picked the top up, turning it over between my fingers. If the mortals hadn’t come, Molor would have taught me how to play this game. As it was, I had no idea what it was for.

When my gaze flicked up at the clothes, I felt my breath leave my lungs. How could he have been so tiny? So delicate?

I pulled out one of his old suits, one with black velvety fabric trimmed with gold. I remembered this one…Molor had been so proud of it. He’d planned to wear it at his fourteenth birthday. Fourteen was a big deal for demons, and my parents had been planning the party a year in advance.

I laid it on the bed, staring at it. He hadn’t quite grown into it by the time he was killed, and he never would.

With a lump in my throat, I crossed to the window and stared out at the Asmodean clocktower. At some point, it had stopped working, the hands frozen at six p.m. I couldn’t help but wonder if time had frozen there when the mortals had arrived at dusk, because that was when the world had stopped. Or maybe it stopped with Molor’s death—

When the Puritans cut out Molor’s heart on the living room floor, it had really felt like they were taking mine with it. The pain had been blinding.

Clouds crept across the sun, casting the abandoned town square in shadow.

I stared through the old glass at the clock tower, a beautiful work of art for its time—a stone structure with gold-painted discs that had once moved. It had not only told the time, but also the position of the sun and moon and the astrological signs. A stunning feat of technology, learned from the mortals. A faint memory flickered at the recesses of my mind—mechanical statues that had once appeared from doors on either side of those gleaming discs: a figure of the king, and one of the god Lucifer, appearing to hand him a crown.

Long ago, everyone in the town had set their pocket watches by those gold hands. I remembered staring at it, waiting for the king to slide out from the door. Captivated by the magic.

I couldn’t breathe in here anymore.

When the mortals came, my world had stopped, the sky had gone dark, and the air had turned to ash.

I could never let myself feel loss like that again. And what if I caused her to feel that pain because I let her love me? Because there really was nothing worse.

I turned, desperate to be out of this tomb.

I’d tried to create prison walls around me to keep myself safe, but Rowan was breaking them down. This was a problem.

I pulled her pen from my pocket, staring at the absurd chipped rainbow symbol on the side. A ridiculous thing. It shocked me how much it had hurt when she’d returned this to me. What the hell, Orion?

Furious at myself, I threw the front door open and stepped into the stone square.