Read Speak of the Devil for Free Online Page B

Name.”
    As king of the demons, Lugh was entitled to know the True Name of all his subjects who had earned one. If he knew a demon’s True Name, he could summon that demon to him from anywhere in the Demon Realm. That humans could use True Names to summon demons to the Mortal Plain was merely a… side effect. Lugh could have forced his brothers to reveal their True Names, but, in a moment of naiveté, he’d chosen not to, hoping his act of trust would repair their fraternal relationship. Instead, it had given Dougal the power he needed to launch his palace coup.
    “So what is it you’ve figured out now that you didn’t know then?” I prompted when Lugh fell silent.
    He shook his head, and I got the feeling he was shaking off memories. “You were right to think that Raphael always has some way to justify his actions, at least to himself. I don’t think he would have killed Delilah like that for the sole purpose of angering me. But since, at the time, we were practically at war withone another, it never occurred to me that he might have done it for my sake.”
    My eyebrows shot up, and I sat up straight, turning my body to fully face Lugh on the couch. “How the hell could that possibly have been for
your
sake?” I asked, my outrage clear in my voice.
    Lugh’s head dipped, his eyes now focused on his knee. He must have been really uncomfortable; it wasn’t like him to avoid eye contact.
    “Demons don’t marry like humans do,” he said. “We do form lasting relationships—it’s just that there’s no formal acknowledgment of them. So, while we don’t actually marry, it would be accurate in human terms to think of Delilah as my wife.”
    “Okay,” I said, giving him a keep talking gesture, which he probably didn’t see, since he still wasn’t looking at me.
    His voice dropped until it was so low I had to lean forward to hear him. “What usually happens eventually when a man and a woman marry?”
    It shows the frame of mind I was in that I didn’t even consider some kind of smart-ass quip. “They have children,” I answered, and Lugh nodded. I continued the thought. “But if you had a child with Delilah, you would have contributed a hell of a lot more energy than Raphael did.”
    He nodded again. “It would have been the only honorable thing to do. Besides, I wouldn’t have wanted to risk hurting her.”
    And now the lightbulb finally turned on over my head. “And how long would you have been … depleted?” I remembered Adam saying something about centuries, but it was hard to believe.
    “Believe it,” Lugh said. “If Delilah and I had had a child, I would still be … very weak. It’s virtually impossiblefor demons to kill one another in the Demon Realm—unless there’s a huge disparity in power. I’d have handed Dougal the opportunity he needed to destroy me, and he would now be sitting on the demon throne as king, rather than regent.”
    I chewed that over for a while. “So you think even back then, Raphael knew that Dougal was going to make a try for the throne?”
    Lugh nodded. “He even warned me of it, though of course I didn’t listen. I thought he was just trying to stir up trouble. As much as Dougal and I have disagreed on political issues, I never believed he would try to take the throne.”
    As you may have gathered by now, I am not the most sensitive, compassionate woman in the world. But even
I
could tell that Lugh was hurt and bewildered by it. For all that we’d talked about defensive strategies and plans to right the wrong, we’d never talked about how Lugh felt when his brother betrayed him. I knew how awful it had felt when my best friend had betrayed me and tried to have me killed. How much worse would it be if it had been my brother?
    Once again, Lugh didn’t bother to pretend he didn’t know my thoughts. “I am more disillusioned than hurt,” he said. “Dougal and I have never been close, so I don’t take his attack personally.”
    “Huh. You know how you