Ruby Shadows (Born to Darkness #3)(58)
“No!” Gwendolyn looked at me. “Laish, you’re not going to let him…let him do that to me? Are you?”
I do not often lose my temper but this was beyond the pale. At the sight of the cruel, wicked-looking soul-hook in Druaga’s hairy hands and the terrified look on Gwendolyn’s face, my protective wrath rose too fast to control it. I could feel my anger overflowing at what he was suggesting, bubbling up like a pot of oil with no lid over a raging fire.
“You…dare,” I roared and I felt myself lose my carefully kept human form, shedding it like a snake sheds it skin in favor of something larger, stronger and much more deadly. My immaculate suit split and then ripped completely asunder, lost in the change. “You dare to suggest that I allow you to take part of Gwendolyn’s soul?”
For the first time, Druaga looked somewhat discomforted. Clearly he’d had no idea I would react this way. I have a reputation for coldness in the face of conflict—a fact which had made me all but undefeatable during the Celestial Wars. But this time I could not stop the wrath that rose in me—nor did I wish to.
“Well, I am owed some compensation, after all,” he muttered.
“For sending the devilkins out to get my concubine’s shoe, then allowing them into your hotel to trick and attack her?” I roared. “How dare you even claim such a thing? You put her life in danger and then you think to take part of her soul right in front of me? I should kill you where you sit!”
I was towering over him now, my breath hot in my chest, my voice a menacing bass rumble.
“You don’t dare!” But there was a trembling in the Wendingo’s voice that said he didn’t believe what he was saying. “The Demon Council would—”
“The Council would say I have every right! You have offered me insult heaped upon injury.”
I moved towards him, my coils sliding, the scales rustling against each other. I knocked aside the forgotten breakfast tray with a contemptuous flick of my tail. There was a metallic clang and its contents spattered everywhere. I paid not the slightest notice.
“Please, Lord Laish, calm yourself,” Druaga begged. “I don’t understand why you are so upset! She is just a human!”
“She is my human!”
Within I was a furnace of rage. I wanted to breathe a wave of fire over the cowering boar-demon, wanted to roast him to a crisp but something held me back—the fear that the fire might get out of control and hurt Gwendolyn. So I held back…but only just.
“I am your host!” Druaga squealed, cowering in his white leather chair. He was sounding more like a boar every moment. “You dare not kill me! The laws of hospitality—”
“Laws of hospitality be damned,” I snarled, liquid fire dripping from my jaws. I was standing directly over him at this point and a large drop of it fell upon him, singing away his right tusk. He squealed again, his hand going to the smoking stump.
“My tusk!”
“You’re lucky I don’t rip an arm or a leg off…or perhaps something else.” I eyed his exposed genitals with burning disgust. “In fact, I think I’ll castrate you here and now—maybe that will teach you a lesson about lusting after the property of others.”
Druaga gasped and scrambled backwards, trying to get over the back of the chair without taking his eyes off me. But in this form I was as quick as a striking snake. I aimed a carefully controlled column of flame at his disgusting shaft, crisping it to a shriveled, charcoal black stump. It looked like a sausage that has been forgotten in the fire.
The boar-demon gave a high, whining shriek that hurt my sensitive ears as he groped between his legs, writhing in pain.
“No! No! Ah, the pain!”
“Why are you so upset, Druaga?” I growled, glaring at him. “You are a demon, after all. It will regenerate, much like Gwendolyn’s soul would have, had you carried out your plan.”
“But it will not be so long again for years. I have been growing it for millennia. And my tusk…” He patted the right side of his hairy face. “It is gone forever.”
“The rest of you will be too if you do not leave my rooms now,” I snarled at him. “Go before I decide to erase your miserable existence from the face of the Infernal landscape.”
Whimpering with pain, Druaga managed to scramble up and hobble towards the door. He was still clutching himself, alternating between grabbing his face and his mutilated crotch when he made it through the doorway and was gone.
“Oh…oh my Goddess.”
The soft, broken murmur brought me out of the all consuming rage I’d been in and I scanned the room, my eyes reading heat signatures as well as visual cues. The form I was in was a very useful one to have—though it was somewhat large and bulky, especially in such a confined space.
At last I found what I was looking for—the source of the voice.
Gwendolyn was huddled in the far corner of the room, shielding herself behind one of the large white leather cushions from the sofa. She was trembling and tears were leaking from the corners of her eyes. With my current vision they looked like white rivulets on her red cheeks.
“Gwendolyn?” My voice was harsh as I slithered towards her but I attempted to soften it a bit.
“Get away! Stay away from me!” Her words were sharp—panicked. I thought she must be afraid that Druaga was still in the room, menacing her with the soul-hook.