Accueil / Fantasy / Demon Law : Lost Isle Book 1 / Chapitre 41 - Chapitre 50

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41. The Threads We Sew

41: Ayame - The Threads We SewAyameI finally understand my father’s words when he said, “it’s never the world that changes. Just the way our experiences and awareness makes us see it.”I choose to see last night as breaking the chains. The ownership that the Yon had over me, since the night Sai and I met. Regardless of the brand between my shoulder blades, the price for my defiance. The one that eternally proves I was their prisoner, I can choose to see that differently too.Even if Sai can’t.I’m only free because of the Sani. The monster everyone else fears, and regardless of how awful it is, I feel a sense of power in that. Vanity or something like it. Knowing that I was Sai’s first, just like he was mine. That he is brutal, merciless, and could easily destroy most anything.He’s rude, vulgar, utterly savage, and chose to be gentle with me. For me. To offer me pleasure and grant me mercy.I know his blood is the only reason I’m not a walking bruise, but at the same time he could

42. Ayame – Sugar and Smoke

42: Ayame – Sugar and SmokeAyame“Way to get your Lunamin on!” Soko saves me from a moment of embarrassment with a stranger, only to launch me into the immediate and undeniable consequences that will come from my choices.I’m certain that I’m masking the scent of the clothing I’m wearing. More sure that it’s not too terribly different from my usual boy clothes. Regardless, it’s like Yon have a nose for it. “Oh, how was your first time? Who broke you in? When? Where?.....”Soko’s vivacious chipperness is almost enough to numb the lighting flash from Ren’s jealousy rocking through my system. No avoiding it at this point. “It was fine,” more than fine. No need to rub it in though. “A friend who knew how to help me through my first burn.”I guess the cat’s out of the bag, in the whole Consent department, so I might as well just get it all out in the open. Just maybe not all at once. “I was actually on my way home to change, before meeting you in the Hall.”“No, absolutely not! We are not

43. The Sweetest Sting

43: Ayame – The Sweetest StingAyameI don’t want to be bad company. I also feel like a caged animal—cornered and pacing. I tuck the flask back in my boot. Her grin is the only signal the bartender needs. Two cups of something new are poured. I haven’t seen them in the Valley before. Hallowed and polished horns for drink, are a northern if not Stepan staple.Soko wriggles in delight at her first sip. Letting me take notice that her fangs out, and her irises are fully extended. It’s not for the dim light, I know.If I can see perfectly, she can.Assessing the room. Every presence. Sound. Scent. It’s instinct. Taught. Trained. Essential.This place is Stepan. From the carvings to the furniture, the drink displays to the weave work. Everyone here is Oni. Spotted. Horned. Fanged. Demon-marked. Fey settings don’t normally allow such display.I missed it at first—because I’m used to it.Even in our region, Stepans are marginalized. Still, several of their design styles appear throughout the

44. A Dance for the Lost

44: Ayame – A Dance for the LostAyame Just when I was starting to feel okay again, the sun inside me dimmed—smothered by the glowering presence I didn’t need to see to recognize. Not one. Not two. But three dark storm clouds rush through the enchanted space like turbulence. Like the rain you smell before you feel or the storm that has creatures scampering to their burrows.“Heard you went to the training grounds,” It’s a growl. Not a hiss. Not a whisper. A guttural sound from the last one I expected.“It’s illegal to walk now?” I can’t help the fury. That slick and real irritation that wiggles its way through my body like a snake. Only it’s not rage anymore. Not irritation or frustration for knowing how much is under that prickly surface.It’s heat. Raw. Pure. Electric want that will betray me. Betray him. Betray the secret that just looking at Sai, brings an echo of what it felt like to have him inside me, and there’s nothing I want to remember more in the moment, than how he made

45. The Other Hosa

45: Hiro - The Other HosaHiro POV ‘Who the fuck are these people,’ rips through the spiraling fracture of my mind.One minute I’m holding Ayame.... Am...... No. Not real. Not real. Not real.No one saw it. No one could possibly know. She’s safe. I’m an idiot, and I’m still no closer to figuring out what the fuck my broken mind is trying to tell me.Only that it feels like an egg launched directly into the fire rather than cast iron. The look on Sokin’s face—suspicion, jealousy, cracked pride—as he stares between me and the snoring blonde he was too afraid of breaking in and I....... I can’t handle this. Can’t process this.Tien is still with Iken..... ‘Who cares, sweet fucking Sages,’ his voice echoes the pleasure. The surge that has every muscle in my body shivering in euphoria. “He’s so...fucking...huge....′ Sensations I don’t want. Imagery I don’t need and echos of what actually happened slam.I see the entire scene of me making torrid, passionate love to Toru while she screamed

46. Tomorrow is Today

47: Hiro - Tomorrow is TodayHiro Sages scorch and damn me.It’s a burn. No, a blister. The type of injury that doesn’t need salt, friction, or even pressure to be a raw festering wound that rips through every layer of tissue.Just air. Just the existence on any part to make you understand how acutely vital it is.I prolonged the trip back to Arnu’s just long enough to see the consequence. Thought that maybe I could buy my way out of my own guilt trip by satisfying their rowdy bellies, with a side benefit of coming home with a coffee and a pastry for Ayame.Instead, I get an even worse gut check. The lance to the bubble that bled my reality. Her at the training grounds. Not the Hall. Not with our Aunt. At Selection.Toeing the line of losing her forever.I said I needed rest. Needed time. But tomorrow is today, and if I don’t figure out how to get her through Assessment it really will be lights out. A severed limb. An essential part of me out there in the world where I can’t see. Can

47. A Different Kind of Strength

47: Hiro - A Different Kind of StrengthHiroOur parents say that there are different kinds of strength. No matter how hard she trained, hers was never in physicality. Just impact. Though her element’s water, Aya reminds me of the wind. That force you can feel rather than see. That has the power to demolish an entire village or ease the sweat from your brow in the Harvest heat.Close-knit as our community is through blood and chosen family. Everyone calling the other cousin. Bad things happen to good people and not knowing about them never spared anyone anything.The first things we’re taught in Ashi, other than history, is how to survive in our environment. Navigate by stars. Avoid hypothermia. What plants are safe to eat and how to avoid predatory species. Like I said, there are more commonalities between the Canoshin and Stepans than any of them are comfortable admitting, but the truth remains.You can’t learn your lesson if you don’t live to be taught it.Which is why my mother t

48. Brace For Impact

48: Hiro - Brace For Impact Hiro POVI know it’s a coward's move, but we’re talking about the reason I learned an infinity knot and can’t look at a pair of underwear without flinching here. Dignity is a small price to pay for keeping my anatomy where it’s meant to be.Besides. Women have a hierarchy just like men, and Mom is at the top of that food chain. Period.Considering that she can snap a man’s neck as quickly as she can her fingers or chemically castrate one on a whim. That position is pretty well-founded. Her great second niece and my third cousin, on the other hand, has all the bravado with none of the restraint.Kagarra never needed blood weaves to stop a man’s heart in his chest. She does that by looking at one. If that doesn’t do the trick, there’s always those claw daggers of hers that wind up in the vital points of people who don’t even get to blink before they’re dead.No, Shin are not strictly assassins, but Akuma.You have a better chance of sneezing with your eyes

49: Sinn - No Good Deed

49: Sinn - No Good DeedSinneous I swear it should be raining. Dreary. Gloomy. Ominous—for the way the atmosphere just shifted. There I was, finally able to enjoy drowning myself in the first decent cup of swill this backwoods spit of hell has had to offer, and bam. Wonder Twins fucking activate. More like triplets, but still. You get the idea.No clue who started sending shit through the portal… Wait a minute—I do. And I’ll either kiss them or kill them for the tease. It’ll have to be in the afterlife, whenever I happen to get one. What’s another ten thousand years in the most remote, desolate, and gods forsaken dot of the Cosmos? Honestly, it’s not half bad. Not since I had my first shower in a century. Amazing how it’s the small things that make the biggest impact.Regardless, no good deed goes unpunished, and it’s sheer dumb luck that the most feared—if not loathed—territory caught up with the rest a decade or two after the fact. It hurts and it helps. Stings as it soothes. Ta

50: Sinn - Eye of the Storm

50: Sinn - Eye of the StormSinneousHow in the actual fuck the Counsel saw me as a solution rather than a monkey wrench in their master plan for world dominance is beyond me.Granted, it was one of the key factors that allowed me to make peace with my position. Only before I realized it was all a bunch of hooey.The only tolerable idea of being exiled to the Last Stop was having a decent fight for the rest of my days. Cleansed doesn’t mean changed. Soldiering is my bread and butter. Blood and bone. I may have a conscience, and know how to apply my need to kill thanks to the Vlads, but that call to battle and itch for a shredding fight never dulled or dimmed.Just found clarity. Gave me point, purpose, and control.Sai joining while Sokin remains to bicker with the other one that looks like he ate a small village makes me shiver a bit. It’s like an unwanted mirror to the past. Well, would be if it weren’t riddled with dark sexual tension. Sai is too much like me—the old me—for comfor

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