She gave a short laugh. “No, no, that’s pretty much it. My demon half gives me certain…advantages over full-blooded humans. I can smell better, my sense of taste is stronger, and I’m physically stronger than a normal human woman. Or human man, for that matter.” She grimaced. “Of course, there are definite disadvantages, too.”
He didn’t take his gaze off her. “Like what? Seems to me being stronger than most others around you and having more acute senses would outweigh any disadvantages.”
“You don’t know what it’s like…” Nix shook her head. “You’ve never seen me go demon.”
He frowned. “I’ve seen your eyes go from brown to yellow. Which, by the way, they are a little right now and it’s kinda creepy. Just sayin’.”
She rolled those eyes. “That’s just the tip of the horn, my friend.”
“Meaning…?”
Maybe it was because she was a little off her beat due to seeing Tobias again. Maybe it was because she had no problem trusting Dante with something so personal. Maybe it was because she was just so tired of always hiding part of herself. Whatever the reason, she looked him in the eyes and said, “I sprout horns. Literally.” At his look of surprise she qualified, “They’re really horn buds, but they pop up from under my skin just beneath my hairline. But that’s not the worst of it.”
Dante leaned closer, one shoulder against the wall, his entire stance one of protection as if to shield her from prying eyes. “What’s the worst of it?” His deep tones were hushed, eyes conveying concern and compassion.
Could she adequately describe the raging needs that came with being a demon? “Since it usually only happens when I’m angry or upset, those emotions are intensified. If I was angry before the demon came out, then afterward I’m enraged. I see everything with a tint of yellow. The only thing I can think about is violence. And sex,” she added as an afterthought. When his eyes widened slightly, she said, “It isn’t only men who think about sex a lot.”
“So, when you get mad you want to rip a guy’s head off or maybe do a little somethin’ else with his other head?” He waggled his brows.
She didn’t laugh. Dante didn’t understand exactly what could happen. “My mother is from a clan of demons that drain the life force from their mating partners. If they’re not careful they do it all at once and kill the man they’re having sex with. Sometimes that’s the way they want it, to orgasm while their mate is dying.” She pressed her lips together and looked down at the sidewalk. “That’s what my mom eventually did to my dad. I was just a baby, and she killed him.”
He gave a low whistle. “So your mom is a praying mantis of the demon world, eh?”
“Something like that.” It was why her grandmother had resented, even hated, Nix so much. After her mother had dumped her with the old woman to raise, Grandma had provided a roof over her head, food to eat, and clothing to wear, but not much love or acceptance. Nix had thought that was normal because she hadn’t gotten much love from her mother, either. Then her grandmother died, and, at sixteen, Nix became a ward of the state and was placed in a foster home. She’d never really fit in, and seeing firsthand what a loving relationship between parents and children was supposed to be like had been too much for her. She’d run, living on the streets, getting into trouble, learning how to survive.
She shook herself free of the past and said to Dante, “It’s her kind of demon—my kind of demon—that gave rise to stories about succubi and incubi.”
His eyes widened again. “Are all demons like that?”
Nix shook her head. “There are different clans with different…abilities. Some are assassins and have the requisite abilities to be damned good ones, some can induce fear and panic in others, some are empathic. It’s quite varied. But one thing all the clans share in common is that they’re considered the lowest of all preternaturals.” She tamped back the natural outrage she always felt whenever she thought of the way demons were looked upon by other prets. “As far as the rest of the pret community is concerned they’re bottom feeders.”
Continuing to talk about it dredged up old memories that brought anguished emotions rushing to the surface. Nix felt pain skittle below her hairline and brought up one hand to rub her forehead. She looked at Dante. “Anyway, the more I lose control of the demon the more I lose my humanity. There haven’t been that many, but most hybrids like me, children born of a pret and a human, go insane by their early twenties. It’s too much for their human brain to handle the violent and sometimes sexual demands of their inner preternatural. If I can keep the demon at bay I can keep my mind intact.” She crossed her fingers behind her back. Unwillingly she glanced past his shoulder and watched Tobias for a few seconds. God, she’d missed him. She’d loved him. Hated him. And now her emotions were so conflicted she wasn’t sure what she was feeling. Her head ached beneath her bangs, like a sinus headache only focused higher, and her eyes burned as the demon used her emotional upheaval to make itself known.