Immortals After Dark 07 - Kiss of a Demon King

was . . . curious about wicked females, always had been, but they weren't his type-no matter what Cadeon occasionally threw in his face when they fought.
    No, Rydstrom wanted his queen, his own fated female, a virtuous demoness to stand by his side and grace his bed.
    For a demon, sex with one's female was supposed to be mind-blowing compared to the random tup. After fifteen centuries, he'd waited bloody long enough to experience the difference.
    He exhaled. But now was not the time for her. So much at stake. He knew that if he didn't defeat his enemy this time, his kingdom and his castle would be forever lost.
    My home lost. His hands clenched, his short black claws digging into his palms. Omort and his followers had desecrated Castle Tornin. The sorcerer had set himself up as king and welcomed Rydstrom's enemies, granting them asylum. His guards were revenants, walking corpses, the dead raised to life, who could only be destroyed once their master died.
    Tales of orgies, sacrifices, and incest in Tornin's once-hallowed halls were legion.
    Rydstrom would die before he lost his ancestral castle to beings so depraved, so warped he considered them the most revolting beings ever to walk the earth.
    Gods help anyone who crosses me this eve. A ticking bomb -
    At last, Pogerth arrived, teleporting inside the bar. The pus demon's skin looked like melted wax and smelled of decay. The gauze he wore under his clothes peeked out at the collar and cuffs of his shirt. He wore rubber boots that he would empty outside in regular intervals, as was polite.
    When he sat at Rydstrom's table, it was to a squishing sound. "My lord and master seeks a prize so rare it's almost fabled," he began without preamble. "In return for it, he'll deliver something just as fantastical." Switching to the demon tongue, he asked, "What would you be willing to do for a weapon guaranteed to kill the Deathless One?"
    Castle Tornin The Kingdom ofRothkalina
    When a severed head bounced wetly down the steps from Omort's throne dais onto the black runner, Sabine casually sidestepped, continuing past it.
    The head belonged to Oracle Three Fifty-Six-as in the number of soothsayers that had been in office since Sabine had come to Tornin.
    The scent of blood cloyed as revenants mindlessly cleaned up the matching body.
    And Omort, her half brother and king of the plane of Rothkalina, was wiping off his bloody hands-which meant he'd torn the oracle's head from her neck in a fit of rage, piqued no doubt by whatever she'd foretold.
    Standing tall and proud in front of his ornate gold throne, he wore a raised armor guard over his left shoulder and a dashing cape on the right. A sword scabbard flanked his hip. Atop his pale hair sat the intricate head-wear that served as both a crown and an armor helmet.
    He looked suave and sophisticated, and utterly incapable of yanking a woman's head off her body.

    Omort had stolen so many powers-pyrokinesis, levitation, teleporting-all seized from his other half siblings before he killed them. Yet he couldn't see the future. The lack often enraged him.
    "Something to comment about this, Sabine? Growing soft?"
    She was the only one who dared defy him in any way, and the creatures at court quieted.
    Lining the halls were members of many of the factions who allied with the Pravus, Omort's new army.
    Among them were the centaurs, the Invidia-female embodiments of discord-ogres, rogue phantoms, fallen vampires, fire demons with their palms aglow . . . more beings than could be named.
    Almost all of them would love to see her dead.
    "So hard to find good help these days," she sighed. Sabine could scarcely be expected to feel sympathy for another. For far too many times she'd dragged herself up from a pool of her own blood. "Which is a shame, brother, because without her we are as good as blind."
    "Worry not, I will find another seer directly."
    "I wish you all the best with that." Soothsayers didn't grow on trees, and already they were wading deep into the recruiting pool. "Is this beheading why you summoned me?" Sabine's tone was bored as she gazed around her. She studiously avoided the mysterious Well of Souls in the center of the court, taking in other details of the opulent throne room.
    Her brother had drastically changed it since the rule of the mighty Rydstrom. He'd replaced the demon's austere throne with one made of blazingly bright gold. Tonight, blood lay splattered over the gleaming metal- from the oracle's squirting