Claimed by the Demon Knight: Book One (12 page)

"I hate humans."

It was a bucket of cold water on Elsi's idea. There was a thoughtful pause before Tenuxhal continued.

"I kill people."

True. Or was it, Elsi wondered? Sure he'd certainly tried to kill people, but things had never actually worked out in the knight's favour.

“I’m a Cannibal.”

Oh right, there was that. Were demons even considered people? It was necessary that they consumed each other for survival...

Tenuxhal hadn't been in the real world more than a few times under Beelzebub's rule, and he'd only encountered Elsi, Mason, and to his own downfall, Olivia. And they had all survived. And then there was the matter of him being a people eater. Tenuxhal literally was hundreds of souls, an amalgamation of all the demons he'd consumed over the course of a few centuries.

If Tenuxhal had ever devoured a pure human soul, it must have been eons before now, when he first started out as a demon after his initial death. And that didn't really count to Elsi. Only the Tenuxhal of today really mattered.

"You do realize that you never actually killed anybody, right?" Did eating fellow demons count? She wasn’t sure.

It was an innocent question, but if looks could kill, Elsi would have gone up in smoke. Tenuxhal snatched the bottle back and took a long pull of sake before thrusting the bottle at Elsi and fixing her with a withering look.

"I killed another person," he said flatly.

Elsi cleared her throat. Oh. "Another knight?" Still didn't count.

"I ate him."

Elsi blanched and her mouth opened and closed several times before she decided to blatantly ignore that disgusting piece of information. She turned and studied the demon thoughtfully for a moment as it quickly dawned on her what that meant.

"Is... is that how you survived?"

"It helped.”

"So you killed a few... people." She waved a hand above her head as the sword was withdrawn and released. "You can change. You know, reform. You can kick the habit if you try."

"I'm a demon, Rhoads, not an alcoholic." There was a brief pause as Elsi smiled internally at the deadpan retort. It was nothing new to Elsi, though. If anyone paid attention, they would realize that Tenuxhal had a surprisingly intelligent sense of humour.

"Heh. Could have fooled me." The human looked pointedly at the nearly empty bottle in her own hand, most of it having been consumed by the thirsty demon.

The knight shrugged noncommittally, a slight upturn of the corner of his mouth belaying his bored expression.

"Ya well, it takes the edge off. And I blame you anyway. You're fucking irritating."

Cryptic is a paranormal and fantasy romance writer and has spent most of her life in Colorado.

Her current publications are: Claimed by the Demon Knight Trilogy.

Currently working on another series that will be released sometime in the Fall of 2014.

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