Demon Bound (The Infernal Bond #1)

Prologue

Syrus

The bone in the ephilium’s wing snaps beneath my boot with a satisfying crack. The fallen general arches his back in agony, his golden armor scraping against the cobblestones as a guttural cry escapes his throat.

A smile spreads across my features when he tries to scramble free, though I feel no joy.

It’s the cold, hungry flame of hate that fuels my expression, and it flares with triumph to think my face is the last thing the ephilium will see.

I dig my heel in harder, watching his white feathers turn muddy as he writhes in the dirt.

I’ve been hunting him too long not to take my time with him now.

“I warned you that I always keep my promises,” I say, leaning down to slide the tip of my blade up beneath the edge of his breastplate, nipping at the flesh of his stomach.

As my face draws closer, his eyes finally widen with recognition, and he bucks hard.

It drives his stomach up against my blade for a moment, slicing skin, but he’s still supernaturally strong, and the sudden movement loosens my foot, allowing him to rip his wing loose with a scream.

It’s almost impressive, the way he refuses to accept defeat, scrambling backward down the street, though his mangled wing hangs pathetically by his side.

The edges of his feathers are splashed with silver blood leaking from the fresh cut to his abdomen.

Somehow, he finds the will to pull himself up on one elbow and to lift his sword with a shaking arm.

A crackle of lightning snakes along its blade, lashing out at me, but it’s a weak attempt.

The last desperate bite of a creature too stubborn and arrogant to admit it’s done for.

I lift my shield, and as the lightning hits, the shadows coursing across the metal surface block the attack, parting in a swirl to absorb the ephilium magic before settling into place again.

Still, when I look down at the general, he doesn’t beg. Instead, his lips twitch up at the corners in the ghost of a smile. The sight sends a fresh shard of rage through my chest.

“Is there something amusing about the fact you’re about to die, pale-blood?” I spit.

“Pale-blood?” he repeats with a mirthless chuckle, even as he tries to drag himself away from me, sword kept raised to defend himself.

“I guess you picked that one up from your new friends, along with that fancy shield.” He inhales sharply, voice shaking as he tugs his body backward over his own twisted wing.

“Tell me, what cursed deal did you make for it? For all this death? I hope it was worth it. But somehow I doubt—”

The clash of metal meeting metal drowns out his words.

I swing my sword down, sending his own flying from his grip.

In the same swing, I wedge my blade beneath the plate of armor curled over his shoulder, carving through his armpit.

He folds backward, a rag doll tossed to the ground by an angry child.

I’m pleased to see that trace of a smile wiped off his face as I step over him. Ash drifts down around us from the scorched sky, settling in my hair like snowflakes. I know very well what price I paid for victory today, and I’d pay it again.

As for the wretch lying before me…I could end it quickly for him, or I could leave him to slowly bleed out here in the street, his silver lifeforce mingling with the streams of red and green blood already spilled all over the city.

The three eyes etched into his shoulder plate might mark him as one of the brigade’s most important soldiers, but he will die alone, his final words lost in the screams filling the air.

No one is coming to save him.

The way he’s fallen displays his one unbroken wing, spread out as if he’s in flight.

It strikes me that it might be nice to have a trophy after this is all over.

Something to keep the memories of the sweet taste of revenge fresh in the long days that lie ahead.

I position my blade, calculating the best place to carve away at his body.

The general doesn’t even appear to notice, his gray eyes staring glassily at the sky. And then…a wind ripples through his stained feathers, though there’s no breeze in the air.

“You won’t win,” he croaks. His gaze turns toward me. Something in it chills my blood. “Your kingdom is doomed, Syrus Kaldare.”

I squint at the ephilium’s eyes, now growing brighter by the second.

“Stop your parlor tricks,” I snarl, lifting my sword to finish this at last. Except my sister always said there was something to the ephilium’s fabled gift of foresight. Even as a sliver of fear worms its way past my defenses, I stay my hand. I want to hear what he says next.

“No tricks.” He coughs, a trail of silvery spit leaking from the corner of his mouth.

His next words come out in a rasp, but they hit me like poisonous fangs burrowing deep into my flesh.

“Your kingdom will fall. I see it now. It will crumble into the abyss and…” He pauses to drag air through his lungs.

“You’ll watch it happen, unable to stop the abomination responsible. ”

“Lies,” I hiss, but his cool, focused stare stinks of truth. I believe him. Gods damn me, but I do. “What abomination?” I demand. “What do you see?”

He blinks at me sleepily, his consciousness hanging on by a thread as his words slur. “A mixbreed…an ephilium with a demon heart.”

I’d leaned down closer to catch those last words—incomprehensible as they seem—and now hear the slow release of his final breath.

No. It’s not enough; I need more. I wrap my hand around the top of the general’s breastplate and pull him up from the dirt, as if I could shake the answers loose from his dead body. The ephilium’s neck lolls backward, empty eyes reflecting the blackened sky.

“Your Majesty.”

I recognize the voice of one of my lieutenants behind me, but I don’t take my gaze from the ephilium’s face, hoping some clue about his prophecy might still reveal itself.

Maybe if I stand here long enough, the rage will return, filling me as it did before, feeding the hungry animal within so that there’s no room for fear or doubt.

“Your Majesty,” my lieutenant tries again. “We’ve cornered a contingent of ephilium down by the river. If we strike now, victory will be ours.”

I release the corpse, letting it sink. The general’s crumpled wings fan out behind him once more in a corona of stained feathers. Let them stay there until he starts to rot. My desire for a trophy died with him.

“Then we will strike,” I say, my voice firm and steady as I turn to my lieutenant. I won’t lose my head over the last nonsense words of a dying pale-blood. Perhaps the ephilium was telling the truth about what he thought he saw, but I was telling the truth too: I always keep my promises.

And I swear here and now that the day I let my kingdom fall is the day they drag my soul kicking and screaming into the darkness.