Chapter 16 - Fallen's First

“What in frenzied Hellsfire were you thinking?”

Neyu needn’t have told Saer about her comings and goings the night prior while he planned and plotted in his hut.

Unfortunately for Saer, she seemed to enjoy provoking him, especially after his dismissal of her. Neyu shared every detail, second for second of her and Ahraan—conversing as they walked through the village, seen together by many. Bitterness and betrayal washed over him.

“He refers to us as cousins, did you know?”

He curled his lip, refusing to be needled. “Where is Kalia?”

“Asleep still.”

Saer made a disapproving noise. “Asleep. There’s enough heat in this desert sun to avoid sleep for days if not weeks.”

“You could do with a little more rest. We all could.” Neyu lowered herself to the edge of Saer’s bed and laid back, stretching out with a quiet groan.

She had to know the effect it would have. Saer fought to ignore it, but only found himself staring harder. This damnable, irresistible—

“I know him.”

His traitorous thoughts screeched to a halt. “What?”

Neyu blinked her eyes open and met Saer’s gaze with a shrewd one of her own. “Ahraan. We’ve known one another since before this village.”

The implication of her words, the thought of another man with her drove him to the breaking point. “So help me—”

Neyu sat and put her palm against Saer’s chest. He hadn’t even realized he’d approached her. The touch burned through him, and while she didn’t use her strength, he stopped nonetheless. Eyes locked, Lust shook her head, her voice quiet. “That’s enough. It’s time to think clearly again.”

Snarling, Saer pulled away from her, raking a hand through his hair. “Then for the sake of the Hells, tone it down!”

Neyu’s expression sobered. “I don’t want to play games anymore.”

“This coming from the Queen of Want.”

“Don’t be unbearable when I’m trying like you asked.”

With his head tilted back, Saer tightened his hold on the hairs at the back of his neck, hoping the minor pain might help him find the words he needed.

“It’s difficult to be around you again,” he confessed, the words quiet and damning.

“I can’t help what I am,” Neyu said.

“You know that’s not the issue.”

“Saer.” The demoness stood and walked towards him. Saer took a step back but she whispered, “Shh, don’t.”

He stiffened at the words, but remained in place. Neyu raised a hand and pressed her palm to his cheek, and his eyes fluttered shut.

“Neyu…”

“I have thought about what I would say to you, so many times.” Neyu’s voice came soft, belying her next words. “I was angry at you. Unbelievably angry, for so many years.”

It stung to hear, and he had enough of a mind to admit he’d have felt the same—because he’d raged against himself for the decision to leave after their one night together.

A conflicted growl rumbled in Saer’s throat, and he tried to pull away, but his demoness inched closer, refusing to let him leave her proximity. “You didn’t let me say goodbye. You kissed me. You left me. You summoned our kin, but never me.”

The hurt in her words threatened to rip him in two.

How did she balance him at the same time she unsteadied him?

For the first time in decades, peace tried to worm its way into his heart at the lightest touch of her hand.

His match.

Saer let out a shaking breath. “I can’t allow you to be hurt, punished, or taken away from us all. I want to keep you safe.”

“I know, Dearest.”

Dearest.

The First blinked his eyes open to see her, so near, and his heart leapt into his throat.

“This is dangerous, Neyu. Our maker—”

“He won’t find out.”

Saer answered as though the fallen angel were in the room with them. “You know what would happen.”

“We can’t change what we want or feel.”

“Wanting and feeling are human things, Neyu.” She didn’t stop him when he tore away from her grasp.

“We learn. We grow and change. We could be unstoppable.”

Saer paced away from her, then whispered more to himself than the demoness, “So you’ve said before.”

‘Welcome, my First, my son, and servant. I’ve created you, and so you belong to me wholly and completely. You are bound to protect me, obey me, honor me, and put no one above me…’

“No one is above our maker. We agreed. We both agreed, and if we don’t…I can’t risk it,” Saer muttered under his breath. I can’t risk losing you.

Neyu grasped Saer’s elbow to stop him. “We deserve more than we are given.”

“No, Neyu.”

“Yes, Saer.” She dug her fingers into his leather coverings and pulled him to her as she lifted herself to her toes.

Neyu’s lips met his with unexpected ferocity.

Saer’s hands went to the demoness’s shoulders, at first meaning to push her away, but desire swallowed him—the ridiculous, human rush of needing to be near her. To smell her, touch her, consume her. Pulling Neyu closer, Saer’s fingers clutched tight enough to leave bruises on mortal skin, but her Daemoenic flesh held fast against his iron grip. Goosebumps rose on his skin despite the heat between them. The familiar fluttering in his stomach intensified, a sensation he’d forgotten in their years apart, and a yearning sound hummed in his throat, almost a whine.

Neyu shivered and returned the noise in kind, her arms sliding around his waist and curling up to press her body against the length of his, and his tumultuous world made sense in a way it hadn’t since he’d forced distance between them.

He needed her. The realization rankled and righted him.

If they went down this dangerous, terrifying path, they needed to work together. They could do this. He’d make sure of it.

First and favored; he’d outwit their maker.

Hells, but she smelled wonderful. Lavender and roses. Calming and enticing all at once.

Saer broke away with care, hands still on her shoulders. He swallowed, taking a moment to focus. “Ahraan—”

“Means nothing,” Neyu said.

Longing and jealousy flitted in his stomach as Neyu leaned back to brush one of the insistent, silver strands framing his face.

“It shouldn’t matter to me,” Saer whispered.

“I’m glad it does.”

“Why?”

Neyu reached for him again, but Saer stopped her with a finger to her chin. “Tell me about Ahraan.”

She snarled. “I have told you, there’s nothing between us. Nothing beyond words and posturing.”

Something tight in his guts loosened to hear it stated so plainly. He believed her. But there was still something off about the hooded man, and Neyu might have the answer.

“He isn’t human, is he?”

“How can you think about something like—”

“Neyuukhan.” The use of her extended name, more than anything, forced her to give him the authority he deserved.

“I like you when you’re more human, less Daemoenic,” she growled.

Saer gave her a subtle smile, the first true one he remembered experiencing in too long. “If we’re unstoppable as you say, we’ll work together in truth. We tackle problems, one at a time, as a unit, and that includes the golden-skinned donkey.”

Neyu opened her mouth to argue, and Saer laid a light finger to her lower lip, speaking low, “I’m postponing the inevitable while I still have my wits about me. I promise, it’s more difficult than it looks.”

She huffed against Saer’s finger, and it almost broke him. “He finds me beautiful, but is unaffected by me. Even if I sense the smallest spark of lust in him, I can’t pull on it, the same as our kin. By that alone, he can’t be human.”

Saer nodded, a hand sliding around Neyu’s waist. “Good. And how did you know him before?”

“Your hand is distracting me.”

A knowing smile lifted the corner of Saer’s lip further, but he stopped the motion.

Neyu’s tense jaw relaxed. “Ahraan’s immunity diverted me. I was meant to harvest a town. Ahraan managed to turn them all against me and I was forced to leave.”

“You failed.”

Neyu stiffened in Saer’s arms. “Don’t say it as if you’ve never experienced it.”

“I never made the same mistake twice. You would do well to learn from your experiences.”

“Don’t treat me like a child.”

“Don’t force me to.”

Neyu almost pulled away, but Saer tightened his grip around her middle. “Tell me how you’ll avoid another failure from his hand, Neyu.”

“You are insufferable.”

“I know. Tell me how.”

A mirthless scoff left her, but then she whispered, “Hellsfire, I missed you.”

That pang hit Saer’s chest again, and even though warning bells sang in his brain, he squeezed his match closer to him. Brushing his lips against Neyu’s forehead, he murmured against her soft skin, “I missed you too, Dearest.”

His demoness relaxed in his arms, and she did her best to answer Saer’s prior query as concisely as possible. “Ahraan’s weakness is in those he serves. He will do anything to please them while preaching the goodness of the Grandfather.”

“You don’t know what he is, then?”

“I don’t. But he’s no more powerful than one of us, and certainly no more than you and I, together. We’ll find a way to turn the tides.”

Saer trailed kisses along her temple, her cheekbone, her jawline, gratified with her shiver. He ignored all common sense when he whispered against her lips, “We can strategize after.”

“After?”

Saer covered her mouth with his, and Neyu didn’t ask any more questions.

* * *

“Saer.” Neyu’s low voice hummed through him.

He hadn’t slept so well in years. With her back pressed to his front, he spooned her with the crook of one arm cradling her head, the other around her waist. After they’d succumbed to one another, losing themselves to pleasure and release, he’d fallen asleep to the lilting rhythm of her deep breaths.

Bliss.

He didn’t want to wake up, and he also didn’t want to miss a moment awake with her.

Saer answered her with his eyes shut. “Hrm?”

Her quiet laugh lightened his heart, and he couldn’t help the curve of his lips. “What could I have possibly done to amuse you so?” he asked.

“It’s a rarity to witness you so relaxed. I consider myself lucky.”

He parted his lips to refute her with another tease, but stopped and huffed instead. “Only you.”

“Only me?” Neyu’s fingertip ran soft trails along his forearm at her waist.

“Yes.” Saer tilted his neck forward to kiss the crown of her head. “You, calming me. You, reversing my mindset. You, convincing me I can’t be without you, after all. You…” He squeezed his arm around her middle, nuzzling her hair, and she all but purred against him. “I fought so hard to not need you, and only you could have broken through every defense I’d fortified like they were built of straw. Within minutes.”

“Perhaps you should just listen to me next time.”

He chuckled despite himself, and Neyu wiggled to flip around until they faced one another.

This close, the contented glint shimmered in her beautiful eyes. Words came to his mind, but he stopped them just before they left his throat.

She was too perceptive for her own good. Something in his body language or expression must have given him away, because she said, “I wish you’d speak your mind.”

The sin he’d been molded from didn’t want him to say it, yet he desired more than what made him. With Neyu. Saer lifted his hand and cupped the side of her face. “Thank you,” he whispered.

The corners of her eyes tightened, like she knew what it took for Pride himself to utter the words. Neyu leaned forward to brush her lips against his, a feather-light kiss. “Don’t thank me yet, we still have to get you out of your mess with Ahraan.”

He frowned and gave a bare shake of his head—not a subject he wished to discuss, but if they had to, better to do so while he held her this close. “I’d collected half the villagers’ vows when Ahraan showed up.”

Neyu pulled back enough to see his eyes. “What did you promise the humans?”

Saer’s lower jaw jutted forward, some of his aforementioned relaxation forgotten. “That they’ll ascend into godhood when they die.”

Neyu gave him a considering raise of her eyebrows. “You pulled on their pride to make them believe it.”

“Then Ahraan arrived and healed one of them with some sort of…” Saer made a vague gesture with one hand, unable to elucidate further. “The guard would have died otherwise.”

“Ah.”

He smirked. “Yes. Ah.”

She smacked the front of Saer’s chest with her knuckles, and he couldn’t help his amused grin as he swept her hand in his. He bowed his head to kiss her fingertips. “Careful with these, or I’ll pin them down.”

Her breath caught, precisely as he’d hoped, and he grazed his mouth on Neyu’s knuckles. “Since then, he and I’ve been at odds with one another. I just need to find the right tactic to convince the other half of the settlement to come back to me.”

His demoness laced her fingers through his. “You could take half of the village and move on.”

Saer made a point to look as unamused as possible.

Neyu scoffed. “Pride himself won’t settle for anything less than the entire village, will he?”

“I’m better than him.”

She rolled her eyes, but with placating humor. “Be that as it may, sometimes one must take what one can get—”

“Neyu.”

“Saer.”

The way she threw his name back at him surprised a laugh out of his throat, and he snapped his arms around her, pulling her into him quick enough to elicit a quiet squeak from her lips. Her heart slammed behind her breastbone, so hard he could feel it against his chest.

We’ll take the entire village, he wanted to say. Instead, staring into her fathomless blue eyes, he found himself whispering, “I love you.”

An exhale filled with relief and adoration left her. “I love you too. Impossible as you are.” She trailed a finger along his jaw, her clever gaze locked with his. A pause stretched before Neyu took a deep breath and made her offer. “I could try to find out more about Ahraan. Talk to him. See what he’ll say.”

Saer frowned.

“It could be to our advantage.”

She was right, much as the words burned like acid in his stomach. “I trust you. But he…” Saer growled and let his judgment fill the silence.

His love nodded, patient as always. She leaned forward to press a kiss to his lips, which he surrendered to with another quiet sound in his throat. Forehead pressed to his, she whispered, “Information-gathering only, Saer. Nothing more.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” he murmured, and was surprised to note it was true.

Neyu smiled, nudging his nose with hers. “Are you worried about me?”

“Yes. No. Not like that. I—” Saer cut himself off with a huff, gathering his thoughts. Now that Neyu was back in his life, he didn’t relish being away from her. He couldn’t be present when she gathered information from Ahraan, and he didn’t trust the man. Then again, she was the fiercest amongst them in the quietest way. If anyone could do it, it was his beloved, and he would give her anything she asked for. “I can’t not worry about you.”

She seemed to understand he meant so much more than their small time in the village. “In this, we’re alike. I’ll be fine.” Neyu brought her lips to his, then whispered against his mouth as though reading his mind from earlier, “We’ll take the whole village. Together.”

* * *

Neyu paced in the hut while Saer sat in the room’s only chair and watched her. Outside, a desert storm broke on the horizon and thunder echoed from afar. The evening sky sparkled with ill-intended lightning. She rounded to resume her back and forth pattern, muttering, “If not tonight, I don’t know when. Why has nothing happened yet? Were we not thorough?” The demoness dragged her fingers through her hair, pulling her veil away and back in the process.

Over the weeks, tensions rose to the boiling point. Despite Neyu’s close proximity to Ahraan, even going so far as laughing and joking with the man, she’d not uncovered anything to help sway the townsfolk. Families pitted against one another, Saer’s followers versus Ahraan’s.

At the risk of violence breaking out, they heard final arguments from Ahraan versus Saer and Neyu—while Kalia observed. Then the villagers demanded to be left alone to debate a final solution.

The deliberation lasted all day, seeping into the night.

“Neyu,” Saer said.

“I had them, I felt their dedication,” she went on, switching to pace the other way.

“Neyu.”

She snapped to face him. “What?”

Saer stood and went to her. Raising a hand, he brushed her hair back into place, letting the side of his thumb trail along her cheek. Neyu released a shuddering breath and shut her eyes. “Kalia will be back soon.” They’d remained careful through the weeks to keep the intensity of their relationship a secret from her, lest she take any extra information to Lucifer.

“Shhh.” Saer leaned forward and whispered across Neyu’s mouth, “You need to calm yourself. You’ll give us away.”

Neyu nodded, a stilted and anxiety-ridden motion. “I know.” She dug her fingers into his shirt. “It will happen tonight, yes? We have them.”

“That’s what Kaliaspher has stayed behind to find out.”

“What if—”

Saer cut Neyu off with another kiss, gentle but firm. The demoness resisted, but then leaned into the comfort of it, allowing the moment of much-needed peace. Upon breaking away, she sighed against his mouth. “What if they don’t choose us?”

Saer leaned back to tap the bottom of her chin with a fingertip. “Needing reassurance does not become the first lady of the Hells.”

Neyu swatted his hand away. Whatever retort she had at the ready died on her lips when Kalia burst into the shelter with a gust of the approaching storm.

“They’re coming.” Breathless, Kalia leaned half over, clutching her side.

Saer jerked his head towards the shelter’s door at the sound of the first angry shout, still far away, but audible. Several others lifted up with the storm’s wind—a rallying cry.

“What’s wrong?” Neyu crossed the room and took hold of Kalia’s arm.

She gasped for more breaths and shook her head.

“Talk to me,” Neyu pressed.

Ahraan rushed through the open doorway and stood just inside the frame, glancing at the women, then locking on Saer. He dressed in linens as the rest of them, but the hood fell back from his face, leaving metallic-hued eyes and golden-tinted skin clear to see. Tension rose from waist-deep to choking.

“Saer.”

“Ahraan,” Saer replied, his tone gravelly with contempt.

The man took the acknowledgement as an invitation and stepped towards Neyu and Kalia. Baring his teeth, Saer stepped in Ahraan’s path.

“They are...coming to kill you…Neyu,” Kalia said, still breathless.

“What?” Neyu addressed Sloth first, then turned to the two men in the room. “What?”

“Neyu,” Ahraan said.

Saer growled at the other man and Ahraan held up his hands, entreating, “We don’t have much time. Neyu, they come for you by mutual consent between the two factions of this settlement. Saer’s followers believe you’ll live regardless of what they do to you. Mine trust you’ll die without blood to sustain you.”

“Without blood to sustain me,” Neyu repeated blandly, blinking.

Hands balled into fists, Saer glared at Ahraan. “Why Neyu?”

A flash of discomfort crossed the silent man’s face. Saer snapped his attention to Kalia. “Why her?” If he could get them to focus their attention on him…

Kalia shifted on her feet, just as uncomfortable. “They’ve seen her with both of you…” Her voice faded as she drew her bottom lip between her teeth, gaze darting between Saer and Ahraan.

Both of us. Saer’s mind whirred, jealousy threatening, yet he knew what they’d seen. Neyu on his arm, Neyu on Ahraan’s arm, her charm and her laughter, her swaying hips and her demure glances under thick eyelashes. I can’t help what I am—my components, my sin—any more than you.

Saer lowered his voice. “Kaliaspher.”

His threatening tone spurred her to let the rest escape in a rush, “They think Neyu is the key, that she holds influence over both of you, and this decision will bring the truth to light, one way or another.”

The words might as well have slapped him across the side of the head. “The key?” If they were all convinced Neyu was the catalyst, how in the Hells could he convince them in another direction? Saer’s mind raced, putting pieces into place.

Kalia tugged on Neyu’s arm, her face equally dazed. “We should leave before they all get here.”

So be it. If this was the hand they were dealt, they’d play it.

“We need to run!” Kalia half-yelled.

Saer swallowed and shook his head. “No.”

They couldn’t turn back, now.

“No?” Neyu asked.

“No,” Saer repeated with more finality. A new plan formed in his mind, the components fitting together as quick as the darting glances they gave one another.

“Saer, I don’t think you understand—” Ahraan began.

“No.” Saer interrupted the man with finality. “Get out. Keep them at bay for as long as possible.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then just get out.”

Ahraan stared at Saer, then shook his head and started for the door. Before he exited, he turned to address the three from over his shoulder. “Running is your best option. Stars know I didn’t perpetuate the rumors leading to this bloodthirst.” His gaze shifted to Neyu. “Though I don’t disagree with their intentions. You’ve brought this on yourself, Neyu.”

“Then why not try to kill me yourself?”

The gold-skinned man inclined his head. “All life is precious. I don’t want to harm anyone, but I follow the will of my people. They’ll determine your fate and, if I must, I’ll carry it out.”

“You won’t succeed,” Saer said.

“No,” Ahraan replied just above a whisper, “I don’t suppose any of us will.” He turned and left.

The moment Ahraan exited, Neyu opened her mouth but Saer spoke before she could. “We can still overtake them.”

She gaped at him. “Have you gone mad? Can’t you hear the crowd gathering? We didn’t anticipate this.”

“This is better.”

“Saer.” Neyu’s incredulous tone rose with her dread.

“The spectacle in and of itself will convince them—”

“It’s not your bloodless body on the line,” she hissed.

Kalia stumbled to the only chair in the room and dropped into it with her arms wrapped around herself, her face lined deep.

Neyu swallowed, looking like she wanted to embrace Saer and strangle him at the same time. “If we do this—”

“Take a breath, Neyuukhan.” He moved to Neyu and put a hand on her cheek. As she leaned into Saer’s palm, his voice softened. “They can’t destroy you. I won’t allow it.”

Even though Kalia sat a touch straighter, her keen brown eyes aware and analytical, Saer dismissed it in the face of comforting his beloved.

One problem at a time.

Saer leaned in, whispering for Neyu alone, “Fight them, feed this frenzy, and in the end, they’ll all come to us. I have you, Dearest. We’re unstoppable, just as you said.”

She swallowed and leaned back to meet Saer’s eyes. Understanding filtered into her gaze, pushing away some of the initial panic, and he knew she reached the same conclusion he had. His brilliant demoness—how he loved her.

The voices outside the hut rose. Neyu nodded, took another deep breath, and stepped away. “I’m rea—”

Villagers broke past the doorway, filling the room with shouts. Three entered first, pointing at Neyu, yelling as they grabbed her upper arms. She fought, pulling away, but their grip held strong and more poured in. Her shrill scream dissipated against angry yells both inside and outside the hut. Trying to push through the swarm of people to get to Neyu, Kalia was shoved away as they dragged the demoness outside.

“My people!” Saer ran after the crowd and held up his arms. Half of the settlement stood outside the hut, their faces lit only with torches, the fading dawn, and every so often a great flash of far-off lightning. A stillness fell after his address, though Neyu remained their prisoner.

He had this one chance to say everything right.

Saer took a long breath, steeling himself. “Of those who follow me, where is your faith?” He lowered his arms as he spoke in a quieter but no less authoritative tone. “To those who are Ahraan’s believers, would you commit murder to prove you are right in this?” The questions hung on the stormy evening, answered only by thunder. Saer’s eyes blazed over the crowd, careful to skip over Neyu, settling upon Ahraan. An energy strung tight between the two males, dominance matching dominance. “And to you, Ahraan,” Saer growled. “I ask, does the Grandfather condone killing?”

The power in Saer was backed by aggression and an awful passion. Ahraan, staring back, emanated stoic control. It was subtle, but no less commanding, and the golden-skinned man carried it with terrible grace. “The Grandfather condones choice, Saer.”

Saer’s bark of short and humorless laughter was his only answer before dismissing the man and once more addressing the crowd. “My people, do this if you must.” From the periphery of his vision, he saw Neyu struggling against the villagers, just as they’d discussed. Fight them, feed this frenzy, he’d said. Something squeezed in his chest to witness it, yet he forced himself to continue. Stick to the plan. “However, know that this woman you choose to carry this outrageous sentence upon will not be kind to you at its end, for she will survive.”

The crowd stirred, uneasy. Again, Saer raised his voice over their mutterings. “Neyu has walked the same path as I. You all knew it the moment you saw her.” Only then did Saer turn to see his love’s face. The quiet intensity in her gaze bolstered him, and Pride put more conviction in his voice. “You may try to kill her in whatever way you wish, but you’ll only provoke the wrath of a vengeful goddess!” He tore his gaze from her lest he lose his nerve at the thought of harm coming to her. They were in this. A commitment had been made.

Saer allowed his words to linger, then filled the void one last time. “Is your doubt so great, my people, that you would take such a chance?”

More murmurs rose atop the thunder. From the corner of his eye, he saw Neyu resume her efforts to escape and he balled his hands into tight fists.

A villager noticed Neyu’s struggles, and a faceless voice from the crowd rose to match Saer’s. “Look how she fights. She’s afraid. We’ve been lied to!”

Playing right into their hands.

The words fed into the smoldering chaos. Shouting, challenges, and disagreements took over the mob. The crowd swallowed Neyu’s screaming form as they dragged her further away towards the center of the settlement.

“People!” Saer called with half-volume, putting no force behind the address.

He turned to see Ahraan’s half-smile, touched, as always, by sadness. The golden man lifted his hood over his head as the first drops of rain fell, leaving to follow the mob. Anticipation stuttered in Saer’s chest.

“Saer,” Kalia said. He jerked his head down to see her drained, stricken face.

Saer took her arm, tugging her towards the crowd in pursuit. “We don’t have much time, and we’ll have one chance at this. Listen carefully…”