Defying Instinct (Demon Instinct Series) Read Online Free

half-caste had to
be raised in the human world until their sixteenth birthday.  The humans who
wrote their names on the bottom of that Treaty thought it was only fair to give
a half-caste the chance to be a good person.  A good human .  They
believed that could never happen if they were raised among demons.
    The Human-Demon
Treaty was why I’d never met my demon mother.  And could be why I lived
every day wearing an involuntary mask of mismatched features—so a complete
stranger could get her way someday. 
    I
could only speculate about why my mother had a Sorcerer disguise my real
appearance when I was born.  I’d decided it was to get me to move to the
Underrealm when I came of age.  After all, what better way to make your
half-caste kid choose the ‘realm than by making life Up Above as crappy as
possible?
    She
miscalculated though.  Glancing at Benn, who beamed as he soaked in every word
Dmitri spoke, I knew I’d never leave my life.  On my birthday four years ago, I
stayed.
    Half
of the class went by without my knowledge as I reminisced.  Dmitri wasn’t
exactly saying anything I didn’t know, and I was anxious to get to the active
part of the night. 
    Benn
loved this class because he was so interested in demons.  But I kept coming
because I needed the contact.  I never sparred with anyone but Dmitri, never
laid a finger on a human.  Dmitri more often than not took me to the mat at
some point during the evening class.  I needed that. 
    Maybe
that was why I liked him.
    “All
right, all right.  That’s enough history for today.  Get changed.  We have
sixty minutes left.  Let’s spar before we run out of time,” Dmitri said, and
the class cheered as people shot up from their seats and charged the doorway.
    I
changed in a bathroom stall, tight quarters but I didn’t care.  Many of the
girls undressed openly in front of their friends, in front of the mirrors.  No
need to subject anyone to seeing me unclothed.
    “Do
you see how he dotes on her?” I recognized Camille’s voice as a group entered
the bathroom, no doubt to check their hair before sparring. 
    “She’s
the only one he lets call him Benn.  Have you noticed?” Another girl asked.
    “No
one else calls her Savvy either, I bet,” said a third.
    “Who
else?  Isn’t Bennett her only friend?  She hardly speaks to anyone else.”
    “Can
you blame her?  If I had that face…”
    As
Camille laughed and made fun of me with her friends, I knew I was supposed to
feel angry or embarrassed.  But my demon instinct was tucked away in the back
of my thoughts, whispering ways to disfigure them but nothing I couldn’t
ignore.  All that was left was impatience for having to wait.
    I
exited the bathroom stall when I was sure everyone else had gone and joined the
class already in progress.  We didn’t have enough time to do anything but go
through the standard punches and kicks, blocks and dodges that we’d been
taught.  When I looked at Dmitri, regretful that there would be no
demonstrations today, I saw his eyes on me.
    The
full-caste never looked at me.  Not directly.  Not even when he was pummeling
my face into the floor with the ease of a creature twice my height and three
times my weight.
    So
when he spoke to me after class, I nearly swallowed my tongue.
    “Savannah
Cole,” Dmitri called as I was about to make a break for the door.  “May I speak
with you for a moment?”
    So
polite.  The demon wasn’t polite.  Not with me.
    “Yes,
Dmitri?”
    His
eyes bored into mine, the widow’s peak of his black hair pointing down to the
ridge between his eyes that he didn’t, or possibly couldn’t hide behind
glamour.  Up this close, his cobalt blue eyes were striking.
    In
private?   He asked, and it took a
heartbeat to understand the words were inside my head.
    Twice
in one day.  Something bizarre was going on.
    And
now I knew Dmitri knew all along what I was, even though I looked nothing like a
half-caste Razer.  I