Defying Instinct (Demon Instinct Series) (9 page)

Sleep never came that night.  That I had expected my
exhaustion to overcome the abrasive sheets on my bed and my debilitating gambit
of feelings was a testament to how unfamiliar I was with physical discomfort. 
And emotions.

So
I’d set out early the next morning, determined to find new sheets and clothes
that didn’t belong to and smell strongly like a blonde Hammer demon.  Seemed
like an easy next task to tackle.

I’d
been overambitious.

When
the five hundred dollar silk shirts and cashmere sweaters made me dip into a smoke-and-fire
rage—albeit a tame one compared to yesterday—I gave up.  Rowan said he didn’t
need his sweater back right now?  Fine by me.  I couldn’t wear it forever.  It
would have to be washed eventually.  But I couldn’t stand anything else.

Cyrus
must have pulled the short stick today, because he trailed behind me for hours
at a respectful distance, in spite of how many times I attempted to get him to
knock it off.  The poor Hammer had to play the whipped boyfriend, and I felt awful
about it.  Especially considering how ridiculous the entire endeavor turned out
to be.

With
two, measly little packages filled with a whopping three flouncy skirts that
poofed out enough not to touch my skin much, five pairs of extremely expensive,
rabbit fur socks which I’d had no idea even existed, and some embarrassingly
cutesy panties that were only slightly better than covering my backside with
sandpaper but were better than anything else I tried—and better than tramping
around in nothing—Cyrus and I walked the chilly streets back to The Bookstore
in silence.

One
revelation did come out of the day’s experience.  The mystery of why demons
didn’t wear coats was revealed.  Inside stores, the heat was on.  With the heat
on, and a coat to shuffle with, my body temperature had been going insane.  I
felt run down from the fever I must have spiked each time we stepped inside a
store.  The cold was uncomfortable, but walking into the heat was worse. 

So
Cyrus was carrying my purse, coat, and packages too.  All with a respectful bow
and an, “Of course, Scion.”

Apparently
it was called showing his allegiance.  Rowan told me that and said I was going
to have to get used to it.  Made me want to smack him.

When
we got back to the store, the demon juggled my belongings frantically so he
could open the door for me.  At that, I vowed to make it my life’s mission to get
Cyrus to treat me like a regular person.

“Here’s
what I don’t get,” I said to him as we walked inside, no longer able to hold my
tongue.  Because the day had been irritating, in every sense of the word. 
Because I was rundown, my emotions at full-tilt, and I needed words, and touch,
to help me through it.  Human comfort. 

Human
comfort from demons would have to do.

“Your
glamour, it’s…adorable.  Is that deliberate?  Floppy hair and dimples, but totally
hot.  What’s that about?”

Cyrus,
taken aback at the direct question, and the direct compliments, placed my
packages and coat on the untouched by my wrath couch and bowed his head, tilted
slightly to the side, which I was learning meant he would answer my question in
a moment. 

I
joined Rowan on the opposite side of the store, who had been hammering a nail
into the wall when we came inside.

A
hammering Hammer.  It made me grin. 

He’d
fixed one of the broken bookshelves while we were gone, and improved on what we
had before by bolting the shelves into heavy-duty beams screwed into the wall. 
Guess he expected me to lose it again, and was preparing for the inevitable.

I admired
his handy work as Cyrus took his time considering how to answer my question.

Rowan
did instead.  “There are things about the ‘realm you have yet to learn.”

“Tell
me, then,” I said, but to them both, willing Cyrus to speak to me.

Cyrus
narrowed his eyes, glanced around The Bookstore, and met Rowan’s champagne
stare. 

“She’s
Scion,” Rowan said with a matter-of-fact tone as if that was the only excuse
necessary.

At
Cyrus, I gritted my teeth. “If that’s your basis for telling me something, then
don’t.”

Then
I felt guilty, because Cyrus flinched.  He was so sensitive.  I had to remember
that.

“We
don’t have unlimited glamour,” he finally admitted begrudgingly.  “We can’t be
any form we want to be.”

The
growl that came from Rowan made me snicker, even though I didn’t know why he
was upset.  The males were probably telepathing about something.  Obviously
Cyrus didn’t think I should know about their secrets.  That Rowan thought I
should know them made me feel something I didn’t recognize.

I chuckled
again because Cyrus’s reaction to one of Rowan’s aggressive sounds was to roll
his adorable brown eyes.

It
was the realest, most human thing the brunette Hammer had done all day.

“Two,
maybe three forms is typically the limit,” Rowan offered, and I smiled at Cyrus.

I considered
it for a moment.  “How do you pick the forms?”

Cyrus
answered, and I felt triumphant.  “When we’re young and struggle to use
glamour, we fight to maintain a form.  When we do, it’s such a relief that we
don’t have to constantly work at it that we keep it for a long time.  The
longer we keep a form, the more a part of us it becomes.”

The
words were out of my mouth before I could censor them, thinking about myself
more than them.  “Why use glamour at all?”

I
knew immediately it was the wrong thing to say.  There was a wave of something
in the air coming from Rowan that I didn’t know how to process, so I read it as
disapproval.  What did I know?  I didn’t know what demons really looked like. 
Maybe they preferred to stay hidden.

I
back-pedaled before either male could say anything, and asked Cyrus, “So those
cute dimples of yours?  And Rowan’s champagne eyes?”

I
had the good sense to feel embarrassed about drawing attention to the way I
classified Rowan’s eye color, but pushed it away and focused on Cyrus’s answer.

“Eyes
are a different story,” Cyrus said, finally seeming to come to terms with me
knowing this.  “We can’t get them to change much from what they naturally are,
just dull them a little.  Rowe’s eyes look like that no matter what form he’s
in.  Rowe doesn’t like glam—”

Cyrus
caught the nail Rowan threw at his face as if it were no more dangerous than a
wad of paper.

“What
about your eyes?” I asked, diffusing the growing hostility in the room, and my
lingering concern for Cyrus’s face.

“Brown,”
he said in a tone that, coming from a human, would have been accompanied with a
shrug, then added, “but metallic brown.”

“Do
you have another form, Cy?” I asked, trying out the nickname, wondering if it
would bother him.  Or encourage him to see me as any other female.

Right
before my eyes, the tell-tale tinsel-shimmer of changing glamour poured over Cyrus’s
body.  The demon who looked like the most adorable, young human turned into a
much heftier, much more menacing version of the same person.  His floppy, brown
hair turned darker, stringier, longer.  Brown eyes turned radiant.  He was
starker, in a way, more harsh looking.  Those dimples were gone.  And he seemed
to gain ten years, a foot, and a hundred pounds of muscle.

Involuntarily,
I shuddered.

The frightening
figure grinned like the adorable figure had, and tinsel-shimmered again,
returning to his dimpled form.

“You
can see why I choose this from my repertoire.”

“Any
chance Rowan would take the stick out of his backside for five seconds to show
me
his
other form?” I mock-whispered, and Cy snickered.

“You’re
playin’ with fire, girl,” that smoky voice tingling my ears.

“Eh,”
I smiled, a little shocked by my own words as I said, “A male like you needs
some play in his life.”

Cyrus
laughed, then realized that he was having a conversation with me and retreated
without moving.  I could see it in his expression, feel it somehow in the air. 
I’d gained a little ground, but he was gone again.

I
wanted to ask more about glamour.  I wanted to know if either of his forms was
close to his true form.  But it felt impolite somehow.  Didn’t make me any less
curious about it though.

“How
was your shopping trip, Savannah?” Grayson asked, entering the room from the
stairs that led to my apartment with a tool belt hanging loosely from his waist
and no shirt.  On principle, I didn’t look away with wide eyes and a blush, keeping
my stare defiantly on his face.

I’d
never read a romance novel.  Only now did I even understand their appeal.  But
I had a good grasp of what they were all about.  And if there were any novels
with a handyman, Grayson today was the image they would use for the cover. 

As I
considered what that book cover would look like, I answered, “Shopping blows. 
And everything chafes.”

“Perhaps
you require a trip to the Underrealm.  I could have my personal tailor craft
you some—”

“What
were you doing in my apartment?” I interrupted, quickly getting acquainted with
Grayson’s sugary attempts to entice me.

Grayson
blinked once, but answered, “fixing the hole I made yesterday.”

“Oh,”
my disappointment in not getting to yell at him for invading my privacy was aggravating. 
“Thank you, then.”

“Cyrus,
would you take Savannah’s purchases to her room and hang them up for her?”

The
Hammer looked unsure for a second, but Grayson nodded.  Before I could say I
could do it myself, Cy put a hand on the pile of my things, and was gone.  Just
gone. 

“Wh-where
did he go?” I gaped.  Was he so fast that I hadn’t seen him span the room and
ascend the stairs?

But
I heard a yelp from my apartment, then something falling.  It sounded like
Benn, the way he might sound if a full-caste demon popped in beside him out of
thin air. 

“Hammer
demons can jump,” Grayson said, as if that was enough of an explanation.

The
question was nearly out of my mouth before Rowan explained, “Teleportation.”

With
eyebrows raised, I turned to him.  He looked pretty romance book covery as
well, now that I really looked at him.  A Hammer in a white t-shirt with a
hammer in one hand and a nail hanging from the side of his mouth, a sheen of
sweat on his neck…  Wow.

“Awesome. 
Can I do that?” I asked, covering up my analysis of how a basic undershirt
never looked so good. 

“Hammer
demon thing.”

“But
Hadrian yesterday…”

Grayson
seemed uncomfortable and disapproving when Rowan explained, “that’s a spell. 
More of an illusion than what we do.”

I
nodded.  Of course.  And all I could do was telepath and rip open minds with my
own…if half-caste Razers could even breach…and if I could learn how that was
accomplished.

I
stilled, disturbing myself.  I didn’t want to learn how to breach minds, the
Razer’s most well-known skill.  The idea made me queasy.

Benn
came stumbling down the stairs, locked eyes with me, and out of breath, cried,
“Hammer demons can teleport!”

I
laughed, and said, in an equally impressed tone, “They just told me.  How cool
is that?”

“Can
you do it?  Can they take someone with them?  What’s it feel like?”

Even
though there were two demons who knew the answer and one who would know from
personal experience, Benn asked me.  I wondered why, now that he was in the
presence of the demons he was so fascinated by, he seemed reluctant to talk to
them.

I
human-like shrugged, and raised my eyebrows at Rowan.  He turned away, and I
may have been hallucinating, but I could have sworn I saw him grin.

Benn
resigned himself to not getting an answer to his questions, so I let it go
too.  Though, I was starting to feel uneasy about how little I knew about the
demon world.  Wasn’t it dangerous for a Scion at the mercy of demon laws and
brutal demon customs to know nothing about them?

The
question I’d been avoiding all day struck me.  Now what?  I’d been tackling one
thing at a time.  First, getting myself under control.  Then, clothing myself
sufficiently.  I had no idea what I was supposed to be going towards.  Didn’t I
need to be making some sort of plan?  Did I go to the Underrealm to meet my
mother?  Should I consider how to get out of being the Scion?  Or…should I be
embracing it? 

I
didn’t have the tools necessary to figure this stuff out on my own.

“You
need to test your skills,” Grayson said, breaking the silence that had spread
while I questioned my situation.  It was as if he knew what I’d been thinking. 
Maybe he did.

“Being
able to telepath is your birthright.  You must learn to use it.”

I
can telepath.  Clearly.