Page 143 of In Between Death and the Devil

“Don’t lie to me. I felt it, Fen.” I crossed my arms, not bothering to hide my irritation. He’d promised me answers. If he wouldn’t give them to me, there was no hope for us.

“The pain… is part of it, but it’s not…” He scrubbed a hand down his face. If it weren’t for his turmoil I could feel through our bond, I would have thought he was stalling instead of looking for the words to explain.

“Power,” he said finally. “I crave power. Pain is just the easiest, fastest way to get it.”

My brow creased in confusion. Power? It was the exact thing Death had accused him of when she’d told me he hired Colt, what Talia must have been about to say in the hidden throne room when Fen cut her off. I thought about his memory with Talia I’d seen in the Dungeon. I’d been so horrified by his enjoyment of feeding on pain that I’d overlooked what happened to it once he took it in, the way it filled his stores. “Is that why you kept me from drawing as much as I needed?”

He pressed his lips together as he nodded.

An angry flush crawled up my neck as the connection between the two finally clicked into place, because this was worse than I thought. Why did it have to be power that he was addicted to? The one thing I needed more than anything else to defeat Death. Did the Guardian want things to come back into balance or not? Because they seemed to be going to ridiculous lengths to make it as hard as possible.

Fen was looking at the floor, his shoulders slumped, and I realized he had mistaken my anger for condemnation. I wasn’t angry at him. Well, maybe a little. I was angry at the unfairness of the situation.

Making an effort to rein in my feelings, I cleared my throat and sent a wordless apology down our bond. “How long have you had these… cravings?” I was proud of how level my voice sounded.

He took a deep breath and met my gaze, his jaw set in determination. “Since I first became the Devil.”

My lips parted. That was over a hundred years ago.

“I didn’t know what they were at first. It was like an itch I couldn’t scratch. Then I realized, every time I transferred a soul to the Dungeon, the cravings were sated.”

“Every time you generated power,” I said, recalling what Sasha had said.

“Yes. They weren’t always so bad. For the first decade they came and went. I didn’t notice a pattern until I realized they were worse when I was around souls who were in the most pain. The first time I fed it was an accident. I acted out of instinct. And it made the soul feel better. What I absorbed no longer tormented them. It made me feel good to give them relief. And then I realized that I also got a power boost from it.” He took a breath, his shame intensifying, and I felt a trickle of sympathy for him.

“When I felt the itch, I would go looking for souls that needed relief. I thought it was a sign that I was meant to help them. It took me another two decades to realize that, because Death and I weren’t bonded, the more power I generated the more it threw the In Between out of balance. But by then I couldn’t stop. It was no longer an itch, it was a need.”

He sounded so defeated, I didn’t doubt he was telling the truth. His end of our bond was more open than I’d ever felt it, so much that I could feel the edges of the ocean of power he carried. My anger was now a thin thread, cooled by a gentle flow of sympathy that grew with every word he spoke.

“I fought it as best I could,” he continued. “I tried exercising, drinking, jacking off. They were distractions at best, only giving me short bursts of respite. My only consolation was that when my cravings got the better of me, I still gave souls relief. Even if the In Between was suffering, I could tell myself I was still doing good. But that changed too.” He glanced at Titus’s still form on the bed.

“Not long after he joined my inner circle, I was feeding and the soul started screaming. Their pain ramped up instead of down. And it was intoxicating.” He closed his eyes as if remembering, and I could feel his internal struggle—the euphoric pleasure and how guilty he felt afterwards. “The power boost from it was bigger than I’d ever gotten before. It scared the shit out of me how amazing it felt, how much I wanted it. I swore to myself I’d never do it again. I made sure I was never alone with any souls, stopped siphoning off their pain altogether, and for a while everything was fine.”

“But then things got stressful again and… things weren’t fine. My resolve wavered and I occasionally let my cravings take control.” His cheeks pinked.

That must be what I’d seen in his memory with Talia—him slipping.

My chest ached at his admission. Knowing him as I did, I didn’t doubt he’d worked hard to suppress his urges and took it as a personal failure when he couldn’t. But it was clear as I listened that his addiction was something he couldn’t control.

“I hated myself every time it happened. I tried to be more careful. I went back to siphoning off pain so I could feed, but I did it more often, in smaller doses. I thought if I gave myself a steady diet of power, even if it drove the In Between further out of balance the increments would be smaller, and it would keep me from hurting anyone. And it worked. Until you arrived.” His expression turned apologetic and regret crept into our bond.

A lump formed in my throat as I realized why my arrival had changed things. “I made it worse, didn’t I?” Just like I made the imbalance worse.

“When you first arrived, things weren’t that different. Even when we formed our Death Chord they didn’t change. But then you were living with me. When we were together, my cravings almost disappeared. I craved your presence instead, and I thought maybe you’d cured me.”

My chest ached at the emotion in his voice. I had very little experience with addiction, but based on what he’d said I suspected it wasn’t something that ever went away. Even if it could be managed, it would always lurk in the background, waiting for a weak moment. He was fighting against something he couldn’t defeat, otherwise he already would have.

And instead of helping, I’d made it worse. I swallowed.

“But when you pulled power from me to practice or after we had sex…” He sucked in a breath as if the memory physically pained him. “They returned worse than ever.”

Understanding dawned. “All those times you worked in the Dungeon all day and came back relaxed and yet jittery at night. You’d fed.”

“Yes.” Fen looked at the floor again, unable to meet my gaze. “I needed to feed more and more, and it was harder and harder to hide. Colt arrived in the Dungeon not long after you fled Death’s castle. I chose to feed on him, in part because his self-loathing is strong enough that I don’t have to take much to satisfy a craving, but also, I was angry at him for what he’d done to you, so I didn’t care about hurting him. I’m not proud of it, but I don’t seem to be able to maintain a level head where you’re concerned.” His eyes finally met mine.

My stomach fluttered at his words. I’d never had someone want to defend me like that. Colt didn’t deserve it, but I wasn’t sorry. “Why didn’t you tell me all of this?” I thought I knew the answer, but I needed to hear him say it.

“I was afraid you’d leave.” He looked stricken.