Demon Bound: The Camelot Archive - Book One

by R Taylor, Nicole

  The demon seemed furious, but I couldn’t tell through the pounding. “When he finds out—”

  The man moved fast, lunging towards the demon and fisting his hand into the creature’s straggly hair. With one fluid motion, he slammed its head into the wall, the crack of splintering bone echoed off stone.

  “He’s not going to find out,” the man snarled as the lifeless body slid to the ground.

  Then he turned towards me. His eyes were two pits of blackness, and I began to regret my decision.

  “Your demon is showing,” I told him as my hands slipped away from my ears.

  He shook his head, the motion seeming to clear the unyielding darkness, and his gaze returned to normal. Holding out his hand, he gestured for me. “I told you not to let go.”

  Reluctantly, I slipped my hand into his and he tugged me close.

  It turned out that the cave was actually part of a larger complex of tunnels and caverns. We emerged from my alcove into a massive cavern, then into a side tunnel before finding another larger room.

  I knew little about rocks and formations, but I knew about stalagmites and stalactites. Massive points dangled from the ceiling, their partners reaching up out of the gloom towards them. The faint dripping sound of their ancient growth echoed as we waited.

  “Why have we stopped?” I whispered.

  “Shh,” the man hissed. His grip tightened and a moment later, a ripple ebbed through me, its source unknown.

  I looked at him but he didn’t acknowledge me. Once the cave had settled, he urged me down another twisting tunnel.

  The ground was smooth, worn by the constant tramping of footsteps. I gathered we must be near the exit, which meant the chance of discovery was at an all-time high.

  I looked over my shoulder and for a split-second, the dank cave shimmered and another existence radiated through a veil of Darkness. My eyes widened at the exposed world hidden underground.

  The walls were polished to a smooth obsidian, and from within the glossy surface, eyes peered back at me. Carvings. Skulls, death, twisted gods—who knew what demons liked to decorate their hidden lairs with. Torches hung at regular intervals along the tunnel—points of red flame suspended in midair with nothing to hold them aloft.

  “Don’t look back,” the man said as he pulled me along the tunnel.

  Cold air blasted my skin and I gasped as the wind took my breath away, along with the imposing despair the cave had pressed down on me.

  Overhead, the stars shone between patches of clouds. The moon was almost full, its light illuminating the icy vista before us.

  The man let go of my hand and turned towards the side of the cliff where a path had been carved into the solid rock.

  “Can you manage it?” he asked.

  I felt warmth pulse through my veins as Light began to ease into my body. Whatever had dampened my power was gone. I was free.

  I flexed my fingers and the throb in my head began to ease. “Yes.”

  The man nodded in understanding and began to move. He intended to lead me down the mountain, and I was glad.

  “Hey, I don’t even know your name,” I said, the wind tearing at my hair.

  He turned, his mouth pulling up to one side. The grin made him look roguish in the murky light and my insides fluttered.

  “Elijah,” he said. “My name is Elijah.”

  6

  I waited in a bush while Elijah secured us a cottage in a budget campground.

  The cave they had locked me up in was a few miles from Ben Nevis, a mountain in the Scottish Highlands. If anyone had been searching for me at Camelot, they’d be looking in the wrong place. We were four-hundred miles away, in a twist I hadn’t seen coming.

  Honestly, this wasn’t one of my smarter moves. I was putting my trust into a demon. A demon. This was unprecedented. I’d never heard of anyone crossing enemy lines and making friends. Bloody hell. If I wasn’t going to get thrown out of the Sanctum before, I was now.

  I could see Elijah through the window of the small stone reception cottage, talking to an employee. He looked human enough, but he could turn on the scary demonic stuff without even thinking about it.

  I had so many questions.

  Turning my gaze onto the path, I scanned the campground. A few cabins seemed to be occupied, but other than that, there wasn’t any movement. This time of year, it was far too cold to pitch a tent. At least nothing had followed us down from the mountain…yet.

  I never knew how evolved the Dark had become. The truth of those caves had been hidden from me, but when I’d looked back… How many underground networks did they have? The walls had been smooth and constructed with care, and there were carvings which denoted intelligence beyond the need to consume.

  Cut off from the One, demon-kind had created its own civilisation. They were gathering as one, rebuilding. And once they had, who knew what they’d do?

  I had to get back to Camelot and warn the others.

  “Madeleine.”

  Elijah materialised out of thin air, peering at me behind the bush. I must look real put together right about now.

  I hesitated—the sound of his voice soothing yet chilling at the same time. “H-How do you know my name?”

  “I know a lot about you.”

  “How?”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “We better go inside. It’s cold out.”

  “Why did you help me?”

  “They gave us a cottage at the far end,” he said, ignoring me. “C’mon.”

  Short of hot-wiring a car, I didn’t have a way out of here, so I followed—rather reluctantly, I might add.

  The cabin was tiny. A kitchen with a dining table big enough for two joined into a small living area with a hideous floral couch, two matching armchairs, and a television. Two doors led to more rooms—a bedroom and a bathroom—but that was it.

  “You need to start talking,” I demanded as soon as the door closed.

  Elijah rolled his eyes and folded his long limbs into the armchair. “You’re really bossy, you know that?”

  “If you won’t tell me, I’m leaving.” I strode towards the door but barely made it halfway across the room before he yanked me backwards.

  I fell onto the couch with a cry and rolled onto the floor. Landing on my knees, I scowled at Elijah, who was still sitting in the armchair. He hadn’t moved an inch.

  “What have you done?” I demanded.

  “I told you…” he replied with a smirk. “You’re the one who chose not to listen.”

  Link with me… I cried out in frustration. He was right, the son of a—

  “You bound me to you?” I exclaimed. “Arsehole!”

  Elijah shrugged. “I had to make sure you’d hold up your end of the bargain.”

  “You tricked me!”

  “I didn’t trick you,” he argued. “I just omitted a few details.”

  “That’s the same thing!”

  “You really need to lower your voice.” He stood and walked the two steps to the bathroom and opened the door, then turned on the light. “You want a shower? You smell.”

  He was so irritating. I vaulted over the couch, grabbed the door handle, and slammed it closed.

  Nausea spread through me and I winced. He was tugging at the link. “Stop it.”

  “Just making sure you’re still there.” He smirked, pleased with himself.

  “Why did you kill that demon?” I demanded, deciding to start small. “The one at the club. You had no reason to help me.”

  “It was a Wanderer.”

  I frowned, not understanding. “Wanderer?”

  “For all your prowess, you Naturals never knew much, did you? Still don’t.”

  “If you won’t tell me what it was, then why did you kill it?”

  “It was in my way.”

  “Your way of what?”

  “I can see beauty and intelligence aren’t mutual concepts. How disappointing.”

  “You’re really mean, you know that?”

&
nbsp; “I am a demon, or have you forgotten?” he scoffed at me. “You Naturals are all the same…just a bunch of arrogant arseholes.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Your Twin Flames were nothing but a fluke,” he went on. “The Druids didn’t know what they were doing either. They saw a lost cause and did the smart thing…they left.”

  “Was not,” I argued. “The Druids were hunted by—” Wait. How did he know these things? I thought he was a hybrid like I’d been—a human mutated by Human Convergence.

  Elijah looked at me, his eyes flashing silver in the muted light.

  I tensed and flattened my back against the wall. “You’re a greater demon.”

  He snorted. “Hardly.”

  His gaze raked over me and despite myself, my heart fluttered. I could think of at least ten regulations I’d broken just by standing here. Wilder was going to blow a fuse when he found out. Scratch that last and make it if he found out.

  “Tired?” Elijah asked.

  I swallowed hard. “What?”

  “Your Light holds back the pain, but the more you struggle, the worse your injuries will get.”

  “Shows how much you know,” I drawled. “Given enough time, my Light heals me. It’s been enough time.”

  He snorted and took a step towards me. “Have you been seriously injured since your Light returned?”

  “I—” I thought about my final months of training at the Academy and the years I’d spent patrolling London. Apart from some bumps and bruises, I’d never been to the infirmary for anything other than routine check-ups.

  “If you’re so sure, then let go of your Light.”

  I was never one to back down from a challenge. Call me stubborn—or arrogant as everyone liked to tell me—but I wasn’t about to lose face in front of a demon, no matter how hot his outsides were.

  “Fine,” I spat.

  The effect was instantaneous. My knees buckled as the full force of pain I’d been holding back hit every nerve ending in my body. Elijah caught me before I hit the floor, sliding his arms underneath mine.

  “See?” he murmured.

  I was shaking. “I don’t understand…”

  He eased me back onto the couch. “That little ball of demonic energy hiding inside you is to blame.”

  “I never knew it was there,” I murmured. “How could…”

  “I’ve been asking myself the same thing.”

  My head throbbed. “Something else is going on here.”

  Elijah raised his eyebrows. “Is that a question or a statement?”

  “Both.”

  He shook his head and picked up the throw blanket from the back of the couch. “Think about it,” he said, draping it over me. “You have all the pieces.”

  I let my Light flow back into my limbs and as the pain subsided, I thought about his mysterious ‘pieces’. At Adrenaline, the demon—or the Wanderer as he’d called it—had led me into the crowded club only to attack and almost reveal me to the humans. Elijah had saved me, only to lead me outside and away from the scene. He led me away. What did he do next? He’d helped me escape from the Balan.

  Now I was lying on a couch in a cottage in the middle of the Scottish Highlands, with a demon who’d just put blanket over me. It was feeling like a perverted doctor-patient fantasy.

  Then there were the demons who had attacked me and Trent. They’d said she knows it. She knows it, like I already knew why they were there.

  My gaze met Elijah’s. “They were looking for me from the start. At the club, you… They were going to take me then.”

  He nodded. “And now you’re free, they will try again.”

  “But I’m not special, I—”

  His eyes flashed silver. “Stop underselling yourself. It’s irritating.”

  I shook my head, though my temples still throbbed. There as only one reason I could think of why they’d want me. “That Balan wants to bring back Human Convergence?”

  “I’m not sure. It could be many things.”

  I narrowed my eyes. So far, Elijah had done nothing but protect me from the Dark, but he was one of them. His motives were cloudy at best, yet here I was. “And where do you fit in with all this? What am I to you?”

  “You were mutated,” he stated.

  “Thanks for the reminder. It’s not like I’d prefer to forget that time in my life or anything.”

  “And now you’re not,” he finished his earlier thought. “How?”

  “We were cured when Mordred was vanquished,” I told him. I had no problems telling him—it was common knowledge.

  Elijah’s expression fell. “Your people researched the program. They must’ve found out something. They…”

  My revelation seemed to have thrown him and finally, I understood what he wanted from me, because he was me. Elijah was a demon-hybrid looking for a way out.

  “You’re looking for a way to cure yourself.”

  Something was different about his mutation. He wasn’t a part of Human Convergence…not like I’d been. A different strain ran through his body, but where had it originated from? Had someone reopened the project?

  “Elijah?”

  His expression twisted and he grabbed me around the throat. “If you tell them about me, I’ll kill you myself.”

  It was then that I realised there were two halves of him. One light and one dark, both in constant struggle to dominate. It’d only been a few hours since he’d busted me out of that cage, but I had already noted the times when he’d been gentle, and those times when his mood seemed to have snapped a complete one-eighty to arseholeville.

  Now I understood why he’d sought me out. Elijah thought I’d been through the same thing and conquered it.

  But I hadn’t…

  There hadn’t been one second that I’d been able to switch between two different sides of myself. The mutation had been in control, only allowing me to come out when it wanted to remain hidden—there was never a choice. In the end, it was only Scarlett who’d been able to stop it from taking over entirely.

  I gasped as his fingers bit into my skin. “Elijah. Stop.”

  “What that Balan did in the cave will pale compared to what I do to you.”

  My vision began to explode with black spots, and I pushed a burst of Light through my body into Elijah’s hands.

  He grunted as my power zapped him, the air cracking as if he’d brushed up against a live electrical wire. His grasp loosened and he fell to his knees, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

  I sat up, the blanket falling away. “Elijah?”

  “Can you see now?” he whispered.

  I nodded. “I can see.”

  The Dark wanted to make me turn again and use the remnants of my mutation for unknown ends. Elijah simply wanted my help and had bound himself to me to make sure I’d follow through. His allegiance to either side was muddy at best, but I was stuck with him until he decided to let me go.

  Whatever I chose next—or was forced to do—would put me in a precarious position with Wilder and the Regula.

  “You’ve put me in an impossible position,” I said, kneeling in front of Elijah.

  My heart thrummed a wild rhythm. I remembered how easily he crushed the skull of that demon back in the cave and swallowed hard. There was nothing to stop him from doing the same to me, but something unspoken said I could trust him. Well, at least as far as not killing me went.

  “I still remember what it was like…” he whispered, lost in some memory, “before they took me.”

  I reached out and took his hand, unafraid. When our skin met, an image flashed in my mind, transported by Elijah’s link.

  A wild, overgrown forest. A ring of standing stones. Smoke from a campfire. Bare feet dangling in a stream. The rest was blood.

  I wasn’t sure he meant for me to see it, but I did. How much had he lost at the hands of the Dark? What had they made him do?

  “Wait…” I drew my hand away. “How long have you been like this?”

  His
lips curved into a grimace. “A while.”

  * * *

  Elijah wouldn’t tell me any more. After he’d composed himself, he was back to being a complete smart arse, but at least I knew the deal between us.

  There were gaping holes in his story and a whole heap of unanswered questions, but it was a start.

  I slept through the last hours of the night, and when the sun rose, I dragged myself into the shower. Despite knowing the Balan’s visions were bogus, I checked my reflection. My face was fine.

  Elijah was waiting for me when I emerged in a waft of steam. My clothes were still caked in mud and Light knew what else, but at least the stench had lessened.

  His feet were kicked up onto the dining table and the chair leaned back precariously on two legs. The worlds ‘effortless arsehole’ came to mind.

  In the daylight, he looked totally different. He still had his menacing disposition, but it was as if I was looking at him for the first time. His eyes still kept their silver sheen, but beyond the veil, they were a steely blue, almost like a stormy tropical ocean.

  In that moment, I was agonisingly aware that at his core, Elijah was a man—the feeling was unsettling and totally foreign.

  “We can wait until you’re fully healed or we can go now,” he said, unaware of the internal dilemma going on inside me. “It’s your choice, but I thought you’d want to keep your demonic, whatever that thing is, a secret.”

  He was right, but I wasn’t about to admit it. I didn’t want anyone to know I might still harbour a mutation after the things I’d done.

  “I’m feeling much better,” I said. “It’ll take me a few hours to get back to Camelot, so I suspect the last few bruises will be gone by then.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “You?”

  I stared at him and shrugged. “I know how to drive a car.”

  “That’s nice, but I’m taking you,” he stated. “I have to make sure you get there in one piece.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And here I thought you just longed for my company.” He tugged on the invisible link between us and I coughed. “That’s going to wear real thin, real fast.”

  “I thought you might want to go,” he declared, kicking his boots off the table. “While you were shaving your legs, the neighbour was nice enough to loan us his car.” He took out a set of keys from his jacket pocket and began to twirl them around his finger.