Lock her away in a tower

—Lucius

I felt the flare of my demon's magic another night after Lott's pact, but this time, it was far more intense and wild. It reverberated through me, and I shot up in my bed, excited.

Depravity sang in my blood.

Lott's wife's pregnancy had been a success, it seemed, and the child was born right in time for the sun to fall. By the time I was readied and dressed in a black Rolling Stones shirt and some cargo pants, it was time for all demons to be let loose on the earth.

I willed myself to his house and then focused. The magic pointed in the direction of a child, directed me to what would be mine in exactly 18 years, but the direction was more precise the nearer I was. I got the bearing and willed myself to the new location.

"Oops." I said it softly. Evidently, his wife had given birth in a very prestigious hospital.

In my excitement, I hadn't considered that fact somehow. I had materialized right in the middle of a hallway. But fortunately, at night, there wasn't anyone around.

I was safe to look in the window where Mr. and Mrs. Lott held their firstborn together. Beside them were expensive little dresses and pink balloons that let me know-

Their firstborn was a daughter. My demon giggled in my veins, already imagining her father's horror when I took her the day she came of age.

His pact would haunt him until the day he died, and the little girl would still remain mine. Of course, I would keep her safe and honor him enough to never harm her.

Truth be told, I wouldn't have been capable of harming a creature pledged to me in the same way I had been so harmed and violated.

But he wouldn't know that, would he?

As if he felt my demon's presence, his head abruptly snapped up, and the blood drained from his face as soon as he saw me.

His mouth fell open in a kind of horror that amused me, and I inclined my head with a small smile. He managed to leave his wife, who seemed all too happy to rest with the child that she would be taking care of for me.

Of course, she didn't know that she was merely a surrogate now, but it didn't matter.

I moved behind the door where she would not have to suffer my appearance. This pact was not with her.

No, it was with the man who walked out the door and stared at me in a panic. "Lucius, you can't do that. You'll give someone a heart attack one day. What the bloody hell are you doing here, and how did you find me?"

I smiled a calming smile before I answered, deliberately and slowly. "Your firstborn is a beautiful girl."

He stared at me for a long while, and, of course, he didn't even comprehend at first. He had thought it a formality, hadn't he? But then his lips fell open, and he choked out, "You can't mean it. Here? Now?"

I waved my hand in exasperation, enjoying his fall to madness while it happened before my eyes. "Of course not here and now. Did you not listen to the pact at all? It doesn't take effect until she comes of age. That's 18 years from now."

His panic was fast evolving into that other emotion of desperation. Anger. "You will never take her. You will not have her. You will never even see her again. I revoke any and all invitations to my house for you."

I inclined my head politely and quietly said, "I am saddened to hear it. It is a rare thing when I get to enjoy another's company, and I enjoyed yours, Lott."

Perhaps if he had stopped to consider it, he might have realized that I had been undeterred by the rest of his words.

As it was, he snarled at me. "Get the f*ck out, Lucius, and I never want to see you again. I will lock her away from you if I have to lock her away from everyone if I f*cking have to. Leave."

That was all rather rudely said to the demon hybrid who would be taking his daughter from him, but who was I to judge? I nodded again. "As you wish."

I walked past the window one more time to look at her through the glass, curious to the demon's reaction to that child.

He was... purring. He was 'happiness' in my bloodstream.

Together, we decided that we would push Lott. His threat had been to shelter his daughter if we didn't stay away, and we both wanted her sheltered and protected, safe and well taken care of.

I decided that a little glimpse of me here and there when he was out and about would do the trick.

I started stalking him, teasing him with little sights of me watching while he ate with business partners while he made deals while he got so much as a coffee.

He was true to his word and locked her away in her pretty castle of a mansion, like a princess in a tower that I could not enter for the time being.

Schoolmistresses were called to homeschool her in all things, and he never allowed her to leave the estate. It was all very excessive, very insane.

She had no friends, except for very close family members, and even during the daytime hours, I suspected she was not allowed to so much as go and buy a cookie.

What was I saying before that bit? Oh, yes. People do very insane things out of desperation. Lott went fiercely insane with my tormenting him.

It was quite a bit of fun watching what he would do, all for such futility. He had already given her to me.

No command would keep me from what was mine by demon pact, be it vampire invitation or a Sire Compulsion. Demon pact was an incredible thing.

***