Sinners' Kingdom #1: The Book of Lust (Complete)

55

I froze, mind dropping like a dumbbell on carpet.

A predator? Of humans? If only I could see the expression he wore, then I would know how much of what he said was mischief meant to unsettle me and how much was meant in seriousness. But I already knew the answer. For once, Lust wasn't playing around. This was no joke, and now he waited for my response as if it was utterly reasonable for me to have a response to that at all.

At least the Princes could see and comprehend my expression, if not the other way around. My shock silence must have been answer enough, and the lecture continued without my input. Mammon, surprisingly, was the one who offered his two cents next.

"There are hundreds of different kinds of beasts that like humans best as their primary prey. But in the last ten thousand years, humans learning to band together and create defenses has made them turn to other options. That doesn't mean they've changed their tastes. If they see anything human-shaped, and if that human-shaped prey can't defend itself, they'll consume it. In the outer realms where humans are still scattered and haven't learned how to fight back, they're still caught and eaten in droves by those same species. Some will even capture and domesticate humans for livestock breeding."

I swallowed the rising bile before it could burn my throat and make me gag. They were literally talking about predator and prey. Like animals. Eating human flesh the way humans talked about eating chicken and beef. But I had to remember — I wasn't in the mundane, false world of magic-less humans now, where they thought they were the apex predator. That pretend life was over, launching me straight back into the real world where humans were just another competing species in the great board game of magical and natural selection. Predator. Prey. And had I already forgotten, just because Lust and Mammon had gorgeous faces and shredded bodies meant to attract their ideal prey? That was the whole point.

Because demons preyed on humans, too.

Maybe most of them didn't physically eat human flesh — well, maybe they did, but I wouldn't know since most of my miserably limited knowledge of them involved only cautionary tales about incubi — but they certainly enjoyed feasting on humans' life essence, the energy of our souls. And like they said, witches and humans shared plenty of overlap. I was literally looking at living, warm-bodied evidence of what they were saying. I shouldn't be struggling to process the things they warned me about right now, at all.

"Okay," I said after a pause. "So you're saying, what I'm hearing might not be an inanimate or generally-casted curse, but something specifically cast to hunt me. The bird calls that you can't hear, but I can."

"We don't want to think that way at all," Lust assured me. I jumped when he shifted forward, skin erupting in goosebumps when all at once, the heat of his body was way, way too close. His voice also came from somewhere a bit below me... Was he kneeling? Why? I awkwardly shied away when he cupped my face in both hands, the gentle scrape of his extended claws fluttering sensuously through my hair. "But it is a possibility, my Sable, and I won't risk your life on a vain hope that the threat is less dangerous than it appears. You must stay very, very close to me from now on, at all times. Do you understand, love?"

"I'm better suited to guarding her," Mammon countered. "I'll react faster than you ever could. And if the problem is what I think it is, I can scent them from a league off. You'll only know when they're almost on top of you."

"That will be plenty of time for me to dispatch them."

"They don't come alone, you brainless imp. They hunt in flocks. You might outclass any single one of them, as you fucking should if you're not a cut-rate, piss-poor excuse for a demon, but there will be so many diving you that there won't be enough of you to protect her."