Page 73 of Demonic Division

“It was.” M smirks, only for it to drop into a frown in the next second. “If only it worked the way it was supposed to.”

“Didn’t it?” I snap. “It seems your betrayal worked out perfectly.”

He just shakes his head. “I was never supposed to be caught, never meant to be locked in Kaebl’s dungeons. It nearly caused my demise. If I was stuck there when Slaine attacked, I would have surely been buried beneath the rubble.” He shakes his head with a cold laugh. “For weeks, I waited down there in the dark and damp. For the end. For death. I stayed locked in that cell, recalling the years of reprieve I had as an individual. Remembering how Ilived. For days, the only company I held was my familiar, Nya, who would only occasionally come around to taunt me with her freedom. I could not blame her for her nature, yet it grew a seed of hatred in the pit of my chest—one where aheart should have been. I resigned myself to die. To be snuffed out, once and for all.”

His smile widens, splitting his face in two as he stares at me, unblinking. “But then,youarrived. And you changedeverything…”

I stare deep into that menacing red orb, a shiver running the length of my spine at the look of hunger shining beyond the feline slit. “What does that mean?” I whisper. “What did Ido?”

M smiles coyly, his claws scraping the floor gently as he walks the rest of the way to me. My eyes are stuck on the crimson bond mark glowing in the center of his chest, pulsing to the rapid beat of his heart. “Remember what I told you earlier, Dagny? That you were the key to it all? It’s not so much what youdidbut what youare.”

He crouches in front of me, that gleaming red eye casting harsh shadows along the angles of his face, illuminating the row of pointed fangs peeking out through his smile. I’m frozen in place, incapable of thought as M reaches out slowly, cupping his massive hand around my chin. His claws curl inward, scraping the sensitive skin along my cheek and cutting shallow grooves into the flesh as a rumbling purr builds in his throat. “I knew what you were the moment he put you in the dungeons with me, little one. You’re mymate. Abaddon’s one,truemate. Fated by the stars themselves—something stronger than any bond.” He breathes in deep, his pupil narrowing to a thin, feline slit. “I felt it the day you turned twenty-one. It’s why Cyprien’s familiar was drawn to you—why it immediately entered into a bond with you despite knowing nothing of your power or ability. It knew theminherently,Dagny, don’t you see? Do you finally understand? Do you see why I said those things to you the firstday we met, my wildfire? Do you see how true they were?”

M's voice grows more delirious by the second, filled with a desperation for me to understand. I try to speak but find I can’t. My voice is caught somewhere down my throat, but even if I could find it, I’m not sure I would be able to string a coherent sentence together.

Mate?

I shake my head, unable to believe it. “M…”

“There’s no need to call me by that false name any longer.” His eye lights with a fire that rivals the scorch of his tone. “Now that you’re mine, there’s no need for secrets.”

He leans in, stopping when our lips are just a breath apart. “I’ve been waiting so long for you to know the real me, little one,” he whispers, his words rolling over my skin like cooled silk. “So, so long.”

I swallow hard, not wanting the answer and needing it all the same. If Kaebl is the core—the logic—Cyprien is joy, Lir is grief, Roark is fear, and Fenryr is jealousy, then…

“Whoareyou?”

He just smiles, his one good eye glowing red, molten hatred. His smile changes, morphing into something inhuman, something far more akin to the nightmarish stories I was told as a child. And when he speaks, I realize I’ve never known true fear in my life. Not like now. Not when he leans in to whisper his darkest secret in my ear.

“Malice.”

The End.