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Her chin rose. Defiance. Not fear. “I rescued you,” Devon said. “Turning me into cinder wouldn’t be very nice.”
Instead of anger, he cocked his head. Who was this mortal that didn’t quake before him? “I’m not nice. Although I’m being rather generous to you right now. I’m offering to give you whatever you want. All you have to do is give me your shuwt and all of this,” he waved his arm to gesture at the surrounding landscape, “this bleak underworld is gone. You’ll live in a world with no pain, no hunger.” He didn’t mention that while she’d see and hear the illusion he put her in, actually, she’d be doing his bidding and feeding his power.
“What’s a shuwt? Would this new world be real?” She shook her head. “No. I want to go to Ulterra. Since you’re being generous, could you take me there before I turn into a harpy?” Her request caused a surge in the rune magic, tugging the threads between them together, but she hadn’t quite asked for her boon, and the magic faded.
A snap of wind tousled her hair, and he caught a faint scent of citrus. Like walking through an orange grove back when he livedin Ulterra. A flash of warmth stirred in his chest, and he studied her fully.
She had shiny blond hair to her shoulders like a succubus, but her form was toned and her fingernails blunt with a bit of dirt underneath one of them. No succubus would ever perform physical labor. Or wear plain, burlap pants and a baggy, ill-fitting linen shirt. But she was far lovelier than any succubus.
As he studied her, she stared at him right back, meeting his gaze without flinching. Most mortals averted their eyes and groveled. Groveling got old fast.
A frisson of lust snapped like the crack of a whip. He never desired mortals. Never. “What do you mean, you’ll turn into a harpy?” Harpies were vile creatures. This mortal was far too beautiful to become one of them.
Devon’s mouth tightened, and her lush lips straightened into a tense line. He wanted those lips greedy and wet. Perhaps wrapped around parts of his anatomy. “Answer my questions first,” she demanded. “What do you mean, give you my shuwt?”
Another order? He should turn her into a heap of ash. However, he could use her curiosity to his advantage as he worked to make her his thrall. “I’m the Harvester. When some mortals die, their shuwt comes to me.”
She frowned and her lower lip curled in a way he’d enjoy biting. “I don’t understand. Like their soul?”
“It’s a bit more.” He pointed to the ground at her feet. “It’s like your shadow, always there, always a part of you. Your essence. Those who become a bit, well, twisted during their lifetimes, come to me when their body no longer exists. I harvest their shuwt.” He smiled. “But the wise mortals come to me before their body turns to dust. They know I can give them exactly what they desire.”
With a flick of his hand, piles of gold appeared along the path. “I can provide riches. Or the pleasures of the flesh.” Awiggle of his finger and two nude succubi appeared, undulating their hips. After millennia locked away without sinking into a soft body, he could use a couple of succubi bouncing on his lap, but when he tried to picture it, only the image of Devon and her lips appeared.
Devon waved her hand, and again his illusion wavered and faded away. A flare of anger spurted through him. How was she doing that? His illusions were the most powerful among all the immortals. It was one element that made him a god.
She shook her head. “It’s all fake. Why would anyone want to live a fake life?”
“You can live out whatever you want. Your deepest desires.”
Devon’s lips thinned again. “When they become your thrall, do they die?”
“They die eventually, like any mortal, but not because they gave away their shuwt.” He waved his hand and the gold in the illusion glittered. “And just imagine living your life in perpetual happiness. Your every wish granted.” The illusion of happiness, anyway.
Her eyes narrowed. “And what do you get?”
“Barely anything for the great gifts I give them.” He shrugged one shoulder. “It’s a rather uneven trade. For only a paltry link between us, they get everything they’ve always wanted.”
“A link?”
“Something a thrall can’t feel and won’t care about. A small exchange of their shuwt every day. Just a touch.” Thrall crawled to him, begging to escape their lives. Willing to give him anything. At the snap of his fingers, they’d do whatever he wanted. Obey his every command while also feeding his power daily. When Devon joined him, her will would become his. His gaze dropped to the ring on her thumb again.And he’d control the boon.
Devon stepped backwards, so the boulder was in front of her again. “No. I don’t want the illusion of Ulterra. I want the real thing.”
“Come now, little mortal, you know you won’t be able to return to the sunny land above. You were sent down here for a reason.” He cocked an eyebrow. “What was it? Slaughter a few people? Dabble with black magic? I only remember immortals getting cursed to live down here. You must have done something quite naughty.”
Her hands fisted. “No. My mother and a group of her fellow villagers in Ulterra did something bad enough to earn the name betrayers, but I’ve never learned what they did. When my mother was banished to Peklo she was pregnant. I was born down here.”
He frowned. An expression he rarely indulged in because he usually got what he wanted and had nothing to frown about. What was this stirring in his chest? Pity? Ridiculous. “Give yourself to me, and every moment, you’ll believe you’re in Ulterra.” He snapped his fingers and a verdant forest spread around them, a light rain splattering against their skin.
She gasped.
“You could live in this every day.”
As she stared at the forest he’d created, her face smoothed and her gaze turned sleepy, the same drugged expression all his thrall got. All he had to do was whisper her true name in her ear, and he’d have her.
“I’ll turn into a harpy by tomorrow. I don’t want to become one of them.” Her words came out sluggishly.
“What?” His illusion fell. “Why do you keep saying that?”
