Chapter 22 #4
I’ve barely managed to orient myself when a dark shadow falls upon me. The protective ward I placed on myself earlier must’ve disintegrated because sharp claws sink into my skin as my attacker pins me in place.
I scream at the sensation of my skin shredding, my back arching from the pain as my eyes rise to meet a pair of slitted pupils.
Demon.
Demon? Gone is Memnon’s mirth. His voice carries that terrible intonation, the one that usually precedes unfathomable violence. Only he’s Goddess knows where, and I’m here, pinned down by said demon.
The creature’s eyes are fixed to my neck, its lips drawn away to reveal its gumline and sharpened canines.
My magic thickens in my veins, throbbing most intensely at my palms, where it gathers.
I’m about to shove my power out at the creature when it’s ripped away by Kane’s clawed hand.
The shifter tosses the demon off me, sending the thing tumbling.
And then Kane is lunging after it, his body rippling, not quite a man, not quite a wolf but somewhere in between. Snarls rise as the two roll.
Blood drips down my shoulder as I stand up.
Are you on coven property? Memnon asks. I can sense the terrible violence rising in him.
Yes.
Good. I’m coming. Until then, est amage, release your wrath on that hellspawn. Make him regret ever targeting you.
“Release me, wolf, and you won’t be harmed,” the demon commands Kane. “I’m not after you. All I want is the woman.”
His words send a chill through me. He knows who I am—he’s been hunting me. Just like Maelverynox.
I stumble over, determined to help Kane as he slams his fist into the demon’s face. The violence seems to trigger the lycan’s change because a moment later his back sprouts fur and his face elongates.
Maybe it’s the shift that destabilizes him, or perhaps it’s the demon’s sheer strength, but the two roll again, and then it’s the demon who’s on top. I make out now that the thing is a man, one with long brown hair that’s tied back.
The malevolent creature rises, dragging Kane up by his neck scruff.
The lycan twists in his hold, caught mid-shift.
The demon hisses, and then, with inhuman strength, he throws Kane clear across the woods. The lycan’s body hits a tree trunk with a sickening crack, and Kane goes still.
My scream lodges in my throat. This is the second time Kane has been brutalized on my behalf. And tonight, it was because he was trying to protect me.
The demon wastes no time lunging at me, sending the two of us careening.
We roll, twigs catching in my hair as the demon’s hands go to my throat. Already I’m reaching for my sheathed daggers. I withdraw one and slam the blade into the demon’s side.
The creature cries out, the unholy sound echoing through the forest. The weapon makes a slick, slurping sound as I pull it out of his body and slam it in again.
The demon shrieks again, the sound raising the hairs on my arms. This time, however, he lunges for my throat, sinking those sharp teeth into my flesh.
I scream as my skin parts and I feel the warm wetness of my blood.
The demon groans, and I feel something hard press against my thigh.
Oh, that is so sick.
I withdraw my blade again, and I have every intention of shoving it back into the creature, but fuck, I’m distracted by pain and the nauseating realization that I’m getting fed on.
I can hear slick, slurping sounds coming from his mouth. I nearly gag.
Selene! Memnon sounds alarmed. I am nearly there. Fight back!
His words snap me back to reality, and for a third time, I stab the demon in his side.
I feel the blade carve up the soft tissue, feel more of that black blood spill out from his side, and this time I’m certain I’ve hit important organs.
It doesn’t seem to matter. The demon doesn’t respond to the pain at all, not even when I yank out my blade.
It’s as though bloodlust has completely eclipsed every other sense.
And, fuck, I can hear the creature gulping down swallow after swallow of my blood.
… Emmmpresssss …
… Forgotten queen …
I close my eyes as the whispered voices rise from the earth.
The demon stills, then pulls away from my neck so it can peer down at me curiously.
“Queen?” it echoes, eyeing me. “Who are you, and how have you caught the attention of the Old Ones?”
Rivulets of blood are still slipping out of my neck, and my vision is clouding at the corners. I part my lips as though to answer the creature, lightly placing my hand on its side.
“Sleep,” I incant.
The spell works better than it should have.
The creature’s eyes flutter closed, and it goes limp. Its body cants to the side, sliding off me. As soon as it hits the ground, however, it startles awake, its eyes open, its brows coming together.
I sit up, and now my vision fully darkens as I grope for the demon again. “Obso,” I say in Sarmatian.
Sleep.
This time when the creature closes his eyes, they remain shut.
I’m trembling as I slide myself out from under the demon’s legs, trying not to panic about the amount of blood seeping from my wound, the woozy way I feel, or the fact that Kane still lies unmoving in the distance.
… Mistress of old, let us have another taste…the Hungering Ones whisper.
Ignoring them, I press a hand to the messy injury at my neck. “Seal the flesh, heal the wound,” I incant.
I grimace against the sickening sensation of skin, sinew, and muscles tugging themselves together.
It takes longer than it should before I feel the injury fully close.
Once the pain vanishes, I lower my blood-slickened hand and stand on shaky feet.
My mind is still a haze, but I know with absolute certainty that this demon will come for me as soon as it’s able to.
It cannot die nor, I assume, can it be banished to hell at the moment, and my spells will only hold for so long.
I wipe my dagger off on my pants, then sheathe it. Remembering my pouch, I open it up and rummage through it. I no longer have any holy water, which might’ve been useful … or it might’ve just pissed the demon off.
There’s chalk, which would be helpful if I were indoors but it won’t help here. My fingers close over another vial. I hold it up to the moonlight, hearing the grains shiver inside it. Blessed salt.
Unstoppering the vial, I carefully begin to pour its contents in a circle around the sleeping demon.
Somewhere behind me I hear a soft groan. Then the halting footsteps and labored breaths of what must be Kane.
“Don’t come any closer,” I say softly, afraid to rouse the demon before I’m ready.
A growl rises in Kane’s throat, clearly bristling at the direct order, but he follows it all the same.
“Your neck,” he says, his nostrils flaring.
“It’s fine now—I healed it.” I don’t mention that there’s a darkness that still clings to the edges of my vision or that I feel cold and lightheaded.
When I glance over at him, I see the wolf at the back of Kane’s eyes, and though his muscle spasms are not nearly as dramatic as Sybil’s, I can see the subtle way his body trembles with the need to shift.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Trapping a demon,” I say, closing the circle. “But if you break the line of salt, he gets out—oh and don’t reach in either—he can drag you in there with him.”
Fierce, cunning queen, I couldn’t be prouder, Memnon says with a conviction I wish I felt.
I don’t respond, but I have no doubt Memnon can sense the warmth that spreads through me at his praise.
“Bind this circle so that nothing may escape,” I incant. I add a little bit of the blood on my fingers to finish activating it.
My magic blooms around the circle like fire catching. I see the thin orange film of it rise, connecting like a dome at the top of the circle. Beneath the earth, I sense the rest of the spell circle form, the entire thing a solid, magical sphere.
“Obat’iwavak.”
Wake.
The demon doesn’t so much as stir, and I’m unsure whether my spell worked. I’m about to try again when there’s a blur of movement, then a grunt as the demon rams into the invisible wall of the active spell circle.
My heart leaps, and I stagger back into Kane.
Fuck, that is terrifying.
Kane must think so too because the lycan makes the loudest, most unnerving growl from deep in his chest.
The demon gnashes his teeth, his nostrils flared. “You mean to trap me, witch?”
If you feed us, the Hungering Ones whisper, we shall strengthen your spell and keep the demon here …
“I have already fed you,” I say in Sarmatian to the voices. The foreign language earns me a look from Kane.
The demon’s eyebrows lift. “The Old Ones bargain with you?” he says incredulously, his gaze appraising me again.
I can feel Kane’s attention volleying back and forth between me and the creature, and I sense that he cannot hear the Hungering Ones the way the demon and I seem to.
“I haven’t heard that language in an eon,” the demon says conversationally, its cold eyes fixed to my mouth. “Whatever my bondmaster was told of your existence, it was clearly not enough.”
“What were they told?” I ask.
The demon gives me a sly smile. “What good would telling you do me? I am trapped, my doom certain. Entice me with a bargain, and maybe I’ll confide in you.”
I step close to the salt circle, careful not to cross it.
It’s my turn to smile. “A bargain?” I say derisively.
“You think that is how I’ll get information out of you?
” I shake my head. “The last demon who crossed me was slowly dismembered then buried alive.” I don’t add that I didn’t do the dismembering.
“He might be there still, in unending agony, forced to feel it all.” A lie, but the demon doesn’t know this.
Kane, meanwhile, is eyeing me like he’s never seen me before.
My focus remains on the demon. “I don’t need to make a bargain with you to get what I want.”
The nifty thing about spell circles is that while things cannot escape them when activated, things can enter them. Including spells.
I lift a hand, magic thickening at my palm. “Only the truth shall pass your lips,” I say in Sarmatian.