As Jaren had done, the man went stock-still, frozen in place a second time as Tyriel paced a long, slow circle around him.
“Now, what to do with you? Death is too good for you, but it’s the most sensible solution. Perhaps we could let the—”
Something knocked her down, unseen, unfelt, but there all the same. A black, stinking evil filled the room, and Tyriel’s eyes narrowed as she climbed to her feet. Drawing in a careful breath, she tested the air. Then with a disgusted mutter, she looked at the human once more.
“Bad, bad little human…calling up a demon, don’t you know what they can do to you if they don’t catch their prey? You become the prey.” Turning, she tried to track the new creature that had let itself into the chamber.
“I don’t fear you, darkness,” she whispered, waiting for it to manifest. She reached up, closing her hand around the moonstone and crucifix she wore. As her mind cleared, she slowed her breathing and willed her heart to calm.
A conjured demon could only take what you yielded to it, whether through fear or bargaining. Tyriel would give nothing.
Something cold twined around her ankle. She held still. “Really? This is boring, creature. Show yourself.”
Her captive sorcerer sneered, his amusement sharp and cutting. But it quickly turned to dismay as the shadows gathered in on themselves and began to take form.
She shot him an annoyed look. “You called this thing from a hell plane and have no idea how to care for it, control it? Such a stupid creature you are. Demons feed on fear. Their power comes from it. Their illusions stem from it—he is not truly invisible, on this plane, or any other. Not since you summoned him here. I don’t fear him—I didn’t call him and he can’t take anything I don’t yield to him—that destroys any power he might have over me.”
The shape forming in front of her was a frightening one, yet…lovely, a gleaming white spear of ivory beauty, carved into a sensual temptation of perfect man flesh. Until she looked into its eyes and saw the very fires of hell gleaming there.
“Leave me to the master, long-ear.” His blood-red eyes slanted toward the sorcerer, still silent, and a cold smile creased the demon’s face. “I will not harm you. Just let me have…him.”
“Not going to happen.”
The demon’s head whipped to her and ice flooded her veins in response. “He’s mine.”
“If he survives long enough for you to claim him in your hell, fine.” She shrugged. “As much as we’d like to wash our hands of him, it’s not going to happen. He deserves the death you would mete him, but then you would not be bound to him or any place or thing. And what creature, mortal or fae, deserves that, other than him and his ilk?”
“It is not your fight, go now.” The gleaming demon turned away.
She studied his horned head, the spiked shoulders, his long, oddly slender form so stretched and out of proportion. Her eyes closed and she remembered. “Mevitecar.”
The demon froze.
“Mevitecar.”
He whirled to face her with a roar and lunged for her. Throwing up her hands, she braced herself just as the ward formed and he struck it.
“The Kin hold the Book of Demons. We learn it, each page, before we ever learn our first spellwork. I know who you are and why you were banished from the Fifth Plane. Shall I send you to an even lower level?”
The strangely beautiful demon shrieked.
Aryn moved to rush forward but Jaren said softly, “No. Just watch.”
Chapter 12
It was hours after dawn and Aryn had still not slept.
Tyriel lay on the bed, so pale and still.
Before disappearing earlier, Jaren had told him she was only drained, her magic bottomed out.
That didn’t sound good to Aryn, but the fae male told him she would be fine.
Fine.
She’d battled a demon—a fucking demon and now she was stretched out and taking a nap?
He needed a drink but couldn’t leave this room until he spoke to her himself and knew she would be well.
Irian, too, was restless.
Tyriel had banished the captive demon, and according to Jaren, sent it to the lowest level of hell just as she’d promised.
All Aryn knew was that the thing had fought hard and long, and when it all over, Tyriel had been on the ground and bleeding.
She’d bear a mark from this night—a mark from the demon—a long silvery slash that had torn across her breast, slicing through her clothing to brand her. There was bruising around it, but the mark itself was silver and felt hot to the touch. Aryn had touched it while cleaning it and it had left a burn on his hand that had blistered and even now pained him.
Her mark crossed from her right shoulder down her breast, just below the nipple and on down her torso, stop in a slight curve around her hip. How much worse must her pain be? He couldn’t imagine and he’d take it all if he could.
“It will heal, but scar.” Jaren stood at the foot of the bed.
“How did you get in here?” Aryn asked wearily. The door bloody well did not open.
Jaren simply shrugged.
“Tyriel is strong. This weakened her, but she will be fit and whole within a few weeks,” Jaren said, his gaze on her face, not the damp cloths Aryn used to cover the wound, changing them out as soon as her body leeched away the cooling comfort and replacing them with fresher ones. “But how much of the night she remembers, I do not know. The heat of a demon battle sometimes takes on a strange quality. We oft times forget them, in pieces, or in whole. But the mark may remind her. The one who summoned the demon escaped, but the others are dead. I would hunt him but I must get the child to Averne.”
“Tyriel—”
“She needs you at her side,” Jaren said coolly, lifting a black brow. “She will not go back to Averne. If I send back warriors to bring her, she will level them with a blink. But she cannot be alone. If by chance I encounter her mother’s people, I will send them.”
“I wasn’t about to leave her alone, but we can’t allow him to just flee and hide himself, can we?”
Jaren’s eyes gleamed red around the edges. “Neither man nor beast can hide from De Asir. I have his scent, his name, his magic. I will hunt him, I will find him. But not now,” Jaren said softly. His eyes, his thoughts drifted down the hall to the sleeping young woman on his bed.
There were others he’d need to care for as well. Some of those they’d rescued had families here, but most didn’t.
The town constable had offered—insisted—on handling the task, but Jaren would trust no humans with this task. Perhaps Tyriel’s swordman, he could have trusted, but that man needed to be at Tyriel’s side as she healed, so Jaren would handle this ask well. “I must help those with families return to their homes, find places for the others and….”
When he didn’t elaborate, Aryn pushed. “And…? The woman with fae blood? What of her?”
“That one, I’ll take to my people. She’s a wounded soul, part of her shattered from how the sorcerer let the demon feed on her power,” Jaren said, looking away. His fury still burned inside him, so hot it was a wildfire
“A wounded soul?” Aryn snorted. “You think I buy that rot? Your people threw Tyriel out because her mother was Wildling. And you want me to believe you’re will they care for this girl who has hardly any fae blood at all?”