Wulfe Untamed (Feral Warriors #8)(47)

Lyon finally answered her questions since Wulfe had no intention of doing so. “Satanan and his horde nearly destroyed the other races, the humans included. The shifters and the Mage joined forces, and with the help of the Ilinas, managed to incarcerate them in a magical prison, the Daemon Blade.”

“So they’re not dead,” she asked, turning to Lyon. Finally.

“We don’t think so, no. We believe that the current Mage leader, Inir, became possessed by a powerful wisp of Satanan’s consciousness some years ago and began stealing the souls of his own Mage in order to begin a campaign to free the Daemons. They’re very close to accomplishing that.”

“So Satanan isn’t yet free, but he’s becoming very strong within his host. Strome can feel that.” Vivian paused and looked away. “All right, let me try.” Meeting Lyon’s gaze again, she said, “He wants to speak to you directly. I’m not sure how it’s going to work, but I’m going to try to let him borrow my mouth.” She grinned suddenly, a woman’s smile. “Behave, Strome.”

Vivian closed her eyes and took two long, deep breaths, then went still. When her eyes opened, they turned to Lyon, a hardness in their depths that hadn’t been there before.

“If you hurt her . . .” The voice was Vivian’s, yet not. That hard gaze tightened with frustration. “I can do nothing. So I will entreat you . . . do not harm her. She is light and beauty and goodness, and poses no threat to you whatsoever. I will help you defeat Satanan’s rise in any way that I can so long as you vow to protect Vivian Mars. Satanan’s evil knows no bounds. He has destroyed or enslaved more immortal races than you probably knew existed, including his own.”

“If Satanan doesn’t rise, neither do you.” Tighe lifted a single pale eyebrow. “Why would you want to keep that from happening?”

Vivian/Strome turned his way. “Even if the Daemons fly free of the blade, my true self and I cannot be reunited without destroying the vessel in which I reside. Without killing Vivian. That would be a poor way to repay her kindness. And it is unknown if the male I have become is still worthy of this world after being enslaved by Satanan and incarcerated in that blade for . . . how long?”

Lyon answered. “Five thousand years.”

Vivian’s eyes widened. “Five thousand?” Her voice suddenly became her own. “No wonder I couldn’t find a trace of the places or people you knew. They were prehistory in most of the world. Okay, okay, I’ll give you back the mic.” She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, Strome was back.

That intense gaze turned to Wulfe. “You are only part Daemon.”

Wulfe glared at him for several seconds before answering. “A fraction. At most.”

“You are a son of Ciroc. I knew him and his shifter mate quite well. She was a beauty and much in love with her Daemon husband, as he was in love with her.”

Wulfe shook his head, one eye narrowing. “We’ve seen Daemons. They’re feeding machines, pure evil. And they sure as hell don’t have the equipment to father children. So how . . . ?”

“You don’t speak of Daemons, shifter, you speak of Abominations. If the Daemons were imprisoned five millennia ago, perhaps you’ve never seen a true Daemon, only the three Abominations I felt fly free.”

“Wraith Daemons,” Lyon said. “That’s what we call them. The Mage managed to free three from the blade a month ago. We killed them.”

“I’ve seen real Daemons,” Kougar said. “I was born before the defeat of Satanan.” He turned to the others. “A true Daemon is much like an Ilina, in that they can become pure energy or take fully corporeal form. Unlike Ilinas, their natural state is corporeal, and they generally look quite human.”

Vivian/Strome frowned. “Satanan created his Abominations to empower him. Through their terrorizing of others, the Abominations feed him the rancid energy that makes him stronger than any other Daemon—than any other creature of any race. It is why we could not stop him.”

“You would claim that not all Daemons crave death and destruction?” Kougar asked tightly.

“I would. I do. The Daemons I knew were not evil. Some of us were warriors, certainly, but ours was a great and varied society. We lived in peace with our human and immortal neighbors. As a race, we were once in perfect synchronicity with the earth’s energies—solar, magnetic, heat—giving as well as taking, in a natural cycle that once stabilized the Earth, that healed and strengthened the living beings in our vicinity, humans included. It’s a cycle that has . . . or had . . . existed for hundreds of millions of years.

“Satanan, alone, fed on human suffering. And he, alone, possessed the powerful ability to tap into the life force of others, stealing our strength. An ability we learned of too late. Once he’d weakened us, he began to control us until we were unable to do anything but what he commanded. I watched it happen to my friends and brothers as they fell under his control. I fought the same fate. And lost.”

“What’s going to happen if the Mage free Satanan from that blade?” Lyon demanded.

“I don’t know. Those imprisoned with him will likely be free as well, but it’s impossible to say what state they’ll be in or whether he’ll still control them after all this time.”

Vivian shook her head, her voice slipping through. “Five thousand years.”