Chapter 2 Demons Are Never Nice
DEMONS ARE NEVER NICE
Kalypso
“You fucking oversized eggplant, I’m going to kill you!” Kalypso rammed her shoulder into the door again. It didn’t budge. “If you touched her, I swear to the gods I will flay you with your own weapons!”
No, better yet, she was going to peel those spikes from his body and impale him on his own barbs. She’d make a flask out of his horns, though they were pathetically small and would barely get her drunk. But that was fine, because she’d be drunk on the power of choking him with his own tail.
Kalypso screamed as much, even though she was fairly certain he’d abandoned his post on the other side of the door. But just in case he was still there, she didn’t let up.
The only issue with her continued ramming was that her energy was waning much faster than normal.
Her shoulder throbbed just as much as her head, and her legs were barely holding her upright.
But if that stupid demon thought the lingering fog of sorcery was going to keep her from escaping to find her sister, he was going to learn just how deep Kaly’s stubbornness ran.
It ran about thirty more seconds.
She slammed into the door one last time, then slid to her knees, pressing her forehead against the wood. She would not cry, but there was a burn in her throat beyond what her screaming had done to her, and it had everything to do with where she’d found herself.
Achreos Barrens. The demon realm. Trading one horrific place for another, even if the building she’d found herself in was concerningly clean.
This had to be where the demons experimented on the humans they stole.
It was the only explanation for the metal band on her wrist with intricate symbols carved into the surface—some medical identifier on what tests they could perform.
She’d seen that blue-haired woman with the green demon during her escape attempt, and while she wasn’t her sister, Kalypso had felt the urge to save at least someone else from this nightmare. And maybe in doing so, she’d be able to find Kat, wherever she was being kept.
If she was still alive.
Kalypso’s memories were foggy, disjointed, but she could piece them together now that she was forced to sit still instead of sprinting into defensive action.
There was the warehouse, the first and last time Kaly would ever listen to her sister about a lucrative job that would set them up for a lifetime.
She should have trusted her gut that it was all a setup, but Kat had given her those eyes and that little pout, and Kaly had seen just the edge of that scar on her cheek and caved immediately to her weakness.
She’d fought—gods, she’d fought—to get to her sister before it was too late. Before those slavers had finally taken her and her blood-soaked hands down. And during those bouts of consciousness as they were transported, Kaly had been driven by the only goal she’d ever lived by.
Protect her little sister.
She’d failed again. Monumentally. Seen Kat limp in a pile of other women’s bodies. Barely been reassured of her breathing before Kaly herself had fallen back into a state of lethargy.
Until the demon.
That purple bastard who had not only held his blade to her throat, but had tackled her, threatened her with his fangs and spikes, and dragged her back to this…
wherever she was. He had taken them, prevented Kalypso from finding her sister, and done whatever horrible things to the other women she’d seen in the slavers’ cart, and it was much easier to direct her anger toward something tangible like a demon.
It was better than directing it at her sister.
“Kat, what have you gotten us into this time?” she whispered to herself.
“Who’s Kat?”
Kalypso whirled, fist raised, only to find…
Boobs.
Human boobs, which was not at all what she expected, nor was the bright, smiling face as she lifted her gaze.
The woman was short, which wasn’t saying much since Kalypso was a giant, even when on her knees. Her bright red hair was loose around her shoulders, and she wore a dress that did her full features a great service, especially considering their predicament.
“Who the fuck are you?”
If the woman was deterred by Kaly’s growl, she didn’t show it, her smile remaining bright. “Brioni. I was in the slaver cart with you. I think. Well, I don’t think, I was, I just, you know, don’t remember it. What’s your name?”
“Kalypso.”
“That’s really pretty.”
A hand was shoved in Kaly’s face, and she had to force her eyes away from what the movement did to the woman’s chest.
Slowly, Kalypso took it, and then quickly realized the gesture wasn’t a handshake but an attempt to help her off the floor. Brioni tugged, and when it got her nowhere, Kaly stood on her own.
And from this angle, she could see just how well-endowed the woman was.
Fuck, those things were distracting.
Kalypso cleared her throat. “I need to find my sister.”
“That’s Kat?”
“Obviously.”
Brioni shrugged, still undeterred by Kaly’s sharp responses. “I’ve only seen Rosalind, but she said all six of us made it here. You’re the last to wake, I think.”
That didn’t surprise her, but the other woman was surprisingly calm, so she took a moment to glance around.
A small room, fairly empty beyond the two beds, but the burning fires in the sconces seemed…
off. Flickering between red fire and a strange yellow flame that burned her eyes and made her want to try smashing through the door again.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“An infirmary.”
“They have infirmaries in the Achreos Barrens?”
“Oh, the demons call it Heck.”
Kalypso blinked. “That’s the dumbest fucking name I’ve ever heard.”
She stormed past the woman to the first bed, vaguely remembering how she’d scrambled out of it not long after she came to. What she hadn’t noticed in her fog were the shirt, pants, and boots set at the foot of the bed. Which, of course, were her size.
“Creepy fucking demons,” she muttered, shaking out the pants and shoving a leg into them.
Maybe she should be more concerned that some unknown creature had measured her while she was unconscious, but she was also not going to complain about being out of that shift the slavers had tried to squeeze her into.
And these clothes were much more practical for what she intended to do.
Brioni came to stand beside her, rocking on her heels and completely unbothered by Kaly trying to get dressed. “The demons are actually really nice.”
Kaly froze with her pants halfway up her thighs. “Did you not see the purple dick manhandle me?”
“Oh, I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”
Kalypso glared.
The woman finally huffed. “Okay, most of the demons are really nice. Which is a good thing since we’ll be working with them now.”
Kaly snorted, hiking her pants up and then sitting on the edge of the bed to slip on the socks and boots. “Fuck that. I’m finding Kat and getting us out of here.”
“Wait, you can’t!”
Kalypso shook her head. “Whatever. If you want to stay here and be a slave for these demons, not my problem.”
Which she wasn’t actually going to do—she’d throw the woman over her shoulder if she had to—but a willing escapee was a lot easier to manage.
“No, I mean”—Brioni held up her wrist, the silver cuff flashing in the firelight—“you can’t. These keep us within Heck. They called them runes.”
Kaly inspected the band on her wrist. Tight. Maybe too tight to simply dislocate a thumb and slide off. But if she could get to the edge of Achreos Barrens with Kat, she’d figure something out.
“And we aren’t slaves,” Brioni continued, shuffling around to stand in front of Kaly.
She crossed her arms and glared down at her…
well, sort of. It looked about as innocent and soft as one of Katarina’s glares.
“We can’t leave now that we’ve been inside Heck, and honestly, I don’t think that’s a bad thing once you see.
The work is a protection program. Rosalind called it a sponsorship.
We did these interviews to help us match with a job and get us adjusted.
A stipend, a living space, food… that seems like a much better option than traipsing through their creepy forests trying to go back to a world that wanted to sell us as slaves. ”
Brioni hadn’t succeeded in intimidating Kalypso, but her words did silence any rebuttal she’d intended to make. Was that the woman’s own experience bleeding through her speech, or did she know more about Kaly than she let on?
Kaly huffed. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Pouting. And distracting me with… those.” She gestured to the woman’s chest.
Brioni glanced down and smiled. “Oh, yeah. I love this dress.” Her smile turned sheepish as she looked up again. “And if I were into women, it would definitely be you. Tall, muscular, very beautiful. So much hair to braid. And I’m a sucker for a grump.”
“I’m not a grump; I’m just angry.”
“At what?”
Well, Kalypso had a long list of things that she was angry about, starting and ending with that spiky purple demon, but she didn’t have time to explain the thousands of reasons, so she gestured to… everything.
Brioni nodded like she understood, even though Kalypso was pretty certain this bubbly woman had never experienced an ounce of anger in her life. “Well, you’re very good at being angry. Those threats were impressive.”
Kaly snorted then stood, tugging up the hem of her sweat-dampened smock. “I intend to follow through with them, once I find Kat.”
It wasn’t until she’d slipped on the new long sleeve—obviously a demon’s shirt for them to have accounted for her torso’s length—that she realized everything had gone silent.
Brioni stood in the same spot as before, but her smile was replaced with a parted mouth and wide eyes. She might not have been breathing.
“Brioni?”
The woman swallowed, then shook her head and whispered, “Kind of regretting only being into men.” Her smile was back as she lifted her gaze. “You have a lot of tattoos.”
“I get bored sometimes. The pain is centering, and a better alternative than—”