I'm not a victim. I'm the villain. The bad guy that killed millions. Controlled and manipulated thousands. I stained my own hands with blood of innocents. I may have become one of Morgiana's puppets... but that doesn't give me a pass.
Even if she sa...
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"Damian," Cressa-la says in a warning tone.
Suddenly there's a pull from her, the same pull that brought me to her while I was a wolf. The thrall Morgiana had placed on me dissipates and I grab Cressa-la by her arm and touch her on her forehead, the image of her village filling my mind as green light wraps around her, her true features coming to the surface through the glamour and then begins to disappear, her body transporting elsewhere. When the last of her has gone, I turn to a seething Morgiana.
"You could have weeded out all the gifted early," she says through a taut jaw. "You could have put everything into motion early and we wouldn't have to wait."
"I'm not ready for all that," I tell her, a smirk on my face as my heart races. I enjoy the confrontation. I always have. Always will. "Besides. The tsunami was my idea, was it not? So should I not have say over when I carry it out?"
"You shouldn't have a say on when you disobey me,"she says, taking a step forward. With a sadistic smile, tendrils of light slowly expand from her fingertips, as if taunting me. I stand my ground, staring her down, my own energy beginning to radiate from my own fingers, crackles of cyan lightning striking the ground as my anger toward her grows.
"You don't want to fight me, Damian," Morgiana says. "You will lose... and there will be blood shed."
"Only yours," I say with a smirk.
She doesn't find that amusing at all.
"I'll make a deal with you," I say, grinning now. "I know how much you love deals, Reaper."
She inclines her chin at this, a tendril touching my chin and lifting it slightly. I tilt my head, removing myself from its touch. A small smirk forms on her own mouth, her eyes resting on mine.
"What kind of deal, child?" Her voice is low and slow over the rushing waves at the shore. It laps at our feet.
"You don't touch a hair on the heads of anyone in the villages, and you will have me at your beck-and-call. I will carry out your will... on my terms."
"That's your deal?" She laughs. "You want to put borders around my half of the deal?"
"I will not kill nor torture any living being you send me to take down," I say. "That is my only rule."
She grins. "In exchange for me to keep my hands out of the villages, I can make you do anything I want, aside from killing or torturing? That doesn't seem like a fair deal, Damian. I didn't get the name Reaper from being merciful to my enemies or to those who get in my way."
The tendril wraps around my neck and squeezes, but only enough to try and scare me. She doesn't take away my air flow.
"I can make you do whatever I want, Damian. You are my puppet. You are my plaything. I only spare you because you hold my blood in your veins."
