Read The Demon Lord (A Demon Outlaws Novella) (Entangled Edge) for Free Online Page B

had enough force behind it to scour the entire world. That did not mean it wasn’t devastating still.
    She ran a hand over her shaved head—a symbol of her service to the goddesses—and tried to suck a few extra breaths into a chest almost rigid from exhaustion. Pain from her failing heart shot through her left arm.
    A shriek rang from one of the deeper chambers, splintering the unnatural silence, and Desire hurried toward the sound. Murmuring a small prayer at the door, she crossed the gleaming marble floor to the shrouded bed where a woman, belly grotesquely swollen, panted through the last of a contraction. Desire had suffered three stillbirths of her own in her younger years, and could only stand by and watch helplessly now.
    The contraction passed. The woman on the bed opened eyes of such a vibrant shade of indigo blue that Desire never failed to marvel at them. Sweat-dampened skin glowed golden in the muted light, the only indication that the woman was not what she appeared at first glance. In this world, the goddesses assumed mortal form and lived a mortal existence. Here, their lives were as fragile as any other.
    Yet no goddess had ever before given birth.
    After a few ragged breaths, the goddess’s eyes again drifted closed. “I am dying.”
    Desire feared she was right. “As soon as the baby is born, you can rejoin your sisters,” she said.
    The goddess shook her head. “I can never rejoin them now. Not after what I have done.”
    “Have you done something so terrible?” Desire asked gently. “You fell in love. That hardly seems such a great crime.”
    The goddess grabbed Desire’s arm. Her voice dropped, taking on an edge of formality. “Hear my confession, Priestess. I have lain with a demon.”
    “It is not my place to hear your confession,” Desire protested. She tried to draw back, afraid to listen to secrets not meant for mortal ears, but the goddess would not release her. “You are above this.”
    Not only was she above it, she had been forced into it. Her sisters had demanded this of her, yet had turned their backs and fled when she needed them most. Desire felt the pain and depth of their betrayal as if it had happened to her.
    “No one is ever above the laws of the universe. This isn’t our world. Death is to be my punishment for what’s happened here.” Tears choked the goddess’s weakening voice. “The child will be punished for my sins as well. It will be a monster. If it somehow survives the birth, you must promise to destroy it.”
    Desire had seen demon spawn born before, from demon matings with mortal women. They clawed their way into the world through their mothers’ bellies and fed off their mothers’ flesh. They were indeed monsters—but this spawn would be born of a goddess, not a mortal.
    “You had no way of knowing that falling in love would result in a child,” she said. “You should not be punished for that. Not even goddesses can tell their hearts whom to love.”
    “All of this—the destruction of the goddesses’ mountain, and the danger to our people—is because of me. He will not rest until every last trace of me is banished from existence. He believes I betrayed him.” Golden tears coated the goddess’s lashes. “I may not be able to tell my heart whom to love, but I knew what to do to make him love me. He will never forgive me for it.”
    There was little else Desire could say. She limped from the room to the fireplace in the center of the greater common area, where the priestesses received supplicants and offerings, and scooped a bowlful of warm water from the reservoir. An artesian well provided plenty of fresh water, and the storerooms remained well stocked, so Desire would not have that to worry about in the days to come.
    She carried the bowl back to the goddess and wiped the lovely, gleaming face with a soft cloth.
    Soon after, a baby’s cries replaced its mother’s shrieks of pain.
    “Look,” Desire said in a hushed, awestruck tone, arms