Demons (Eirik Book 1)

by Ednah Walters

  “It’s the same half-moon shape as the ones on her chest and thigh,” the nurse tending my foot wound whispered.

  Blood drained from my head. Three identical wounds made by three identical objects. Bite marks by the two incisors of a dragon and a third lone bite by another dragon. Had both Eirik and his grandmother bitten me? Who had bitten me first?

  I reached the back of my thigh and my fingers came out bloody. I gagged and leaned to the side to throw up.

  EPILOGUE

  My wounds were healed, but fatigue made my movements sluggish despite the runes. Still, I made it to Windfall Medical Center. This time, Rhys had opened the portal to her room. Celestia lay still under a hospital blanket, the lights in her room dimmed.

  Her friend Hayden looked up, anger on her face when she recognized us, but she didn’t speak and I realized why. Celestia’s father was asleep on a chair at the other side of her bed. Hayden jabbed a finger at me and indicated outside.

  Yeah, like I was going to leave. She left her chair and I took it. Rhys followed her outside. I didn’t hear what they said, and to be honest, I didn’t give a shit about her anger. My focus was on Celestia.

  I leaned against the edge of the bed and took her hand. As though she knew it was me, she murmured, “Eirik.”

  My heart damn near stopped, then picked up tempo. My dragon stirred restlessly.

  “I’m here, Dimples.”

  Her eyes opened and she looked straight at me. Then she stiffened and pulled her hand from mine. “Go away.”

  I stared at her in shock. She didn’t mean that. She must be in pain. There were no other fresh injuries on her face, except for the abrasion on her cheek, and no wounds on her arms. “Are you hurt?”

  “Please. Get away from me.”

  No matter how often she asked, I wasn’t leaving. “No, Dimples. I can’t.”

  “You did this to me, Eirik.”

  “I know. And I’m so sorry.” I wanted to ease her pain, but how could I when I didn’t know how badly hurt she was? “Please, tell me where it hurts.”

  “Everywhere.” Tears welled in her eyes, but she turned her head away as though she didn’t want me to see her cry. “Just leave me alone.”

  I wanted to tell her not to say that, but all I could do was swallow with difficulty. I couldn’t leave her. Not like this. Of course, she didn’t have to see me. Not when I was a reminder of everything that had happened to her. I engaged invisibility runes and stayed. When she turned and searched for me, it took every ounce of control not to get rid of the runes.

  Tears raced down her face and silent sobs raked her body. With every teardrop and every sound, my heart squeezed until I couldn’t breathe. My dragon moaned, unable to withstand her crying and her pain.

  I pulled out my artavus and etched sleeping runes on her. She sunk into a deep sleep, yet the tears continued to slip from underneath her closed eyelids. I wiped them away, but more replaced them. I put my blade away, settled beside her, and stroked her face and arm until she turned and nestled underneath my chin. The tears stopped.

  No matter how painful it was, I’d be back every night to hold her, until she healed and stopped crying in her sleep. Because she was right about one thing. Everything that had happened to her was my fault. She didn’t have to ever see me again and be reminded of what she’d gone through.

  THE END

  T

  HE RUNES SERIES READING ORDER:

  Thank you for reading DEMONS. If you enjoyed it, please consider writing a review. Reviews can make a difference in the ranking of a book.

  Amazon http://bit.ly/EdnahWAmazon

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  Check out the other books in The Runes series (See below).

  I still have one more Echo/Cora book and Torin/Raine book to release in 2016. To be updated on more Runes exclusives, the next book in Eirik's story, giveaways, teasers, and deleted scenes, join my newsletter.

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  READING ORDER

  Runes http://bit.ly/RunesKindle

  Immortals http://bit.ly/ImmortalsKindle

  Grimnirs http://bit.ly/GrimnirsKindle

  Seeress http://bit.ly/SeeressKindle

  Souls http://bit.ly/SoulsKindle

  Witches http://bit.ly/WitchesKindle

  Demons http://bit.ly/Demons-Kindle

  PRE-ORDER THE NEXT IN THE SERIES

  Heroes, A Runes Companion Novel.

  Eirik Book2.

  To be released on March 2016.

  PRE-ORDER NOW

  Amazon http://bit.ly/HeroesPre-OrderKindle

  Amazon UK http://bit.ly/HeroesPre-OrderKindle-UK

  NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR

  In Runes, readers are introduced to three best friends, Raine, Cora, and Eirik. Runes, Immortals, Seeress, and Witches chronicles Raine’s story and her journey to fulfill her destiny and find true love with Torin St. James, a Valkyrie (there’s one more story left). Grimnirs and Souls chronicles Cora’s journey to fulfill her destiny and find love with Echo, a Grimnir. There’s one more story left in their story.

  Eirik’s story starts with Demons and I promise you, you won’t be disappointed, so buy your copy NOW. It is only fair that Eirik gets the same love as Cora and Raine, so his story continues with Heroes (coming March 2016) and ends with Gods (June 2016). Why did I write Eirik’s stories before finishing Raine/Torin and Cora/Echo? Torin and Raine are going to need him and his connections in Hel to kick some serious Norn booties.

  Check below for amazing reads from some of the best YA

  Indie authors.

  A

  BOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ednah Walters holds a PhD in Chemistry and is a stay-at-home mother of five. She is also a USA Today bestselling author. She writes about flawed heroes and the women who love them.

  Her award-winning, International Bestselling YA Paranormal Romance—Runes Series—started with Runes and has a total of 6 books to date. The last one, Witches, released in March 2015, was a Readers Choice Awards winner. Her most recent addition is Demons, A Runes Companion Novel (Eirik Book 1). Demons is the story of Raines best friend and former crush Eirik Sevill.

  Her international bestselling YA Urban Fantasy series, The Guardian Legacy Series, focuses on the Nephilim, children of the fallen angels. —started with Awakened and has a total of 4 books in this series. The latest Forgotten, released in June 2015 (which

  She also writes Contemporary Romance as E.B. Walters-from The Fitzgerald Family series, that started with Slow Burn (she has a total of six books in this series) to her new series Infinitus Billionaire: Impulse (book 1), which was published in January 2015. Indulge (book 2) was released in August 4th, 2015 and Intrigue (Book 3) will be released early 2016. Whether she’s writing about Valkyries, Norns, and Grimnirs, or Guardians, Demons, and Archangels, love, family, and friendship play crucial roles in all her books.

  If you enjoyed reading her books, please consider leaving a review. Reviews can make a difference in the ranking of a book. To be updated on more Runes exclusives, the next book in Eirik's story, giveaways, teasers, and deleted scenes, join my newsletter.

  http://bit.ly/EdnahWNewsletter

  For the discussion about the series, join her private page on FB:

  http://bit.ly/EdnahsEliteValkyries

  I like to hear from readers, so drop me a line.

  Ednah Walters’ Website: http://www.ednahwalters.com

  Follow Ednah Walters in Facebook: http://bit.ly/EdnahWFans

  Follow Ednah Walters on Twitter: http://bit.ly/EdnahTwitter

  EDNAH’S RECOMMENDED READ.

  ENJOY THE FIRST CHAPTER OF

  CURSED

  (Book One)

  By S.J. West

  Since she was eight years old, Lilly Rayne Nightingale felt like Fate was trying to wipe away her existence through a series of odd, near
fatal incidences. Luckily, her best friend Will was always one step ahead of Fate preventing her from being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Will was her knight in shining armor until he broke her heart after their one and only kiss.

  On Lilly’s first day of college, she meets Brand Cole. Intrigued by Brand, Lilly must decide whether or not she can give up her adolescent fantasy of being reunited with Will and allow Brand the opportunity to conqueror her heart.

  Not only do Will and Brand both love Lilly, they share a dark secret neither wants Lilly to discover. Lilly thinks Fate is after her once again when a new series of attempts on her life start to take place, but she soon learns someone of flesh and blood is trying to kill her this time.

  CHAPTER ONE

  My life is cursed. I’m not sure why I thought my fortunes would magically change when I entered the hallowed realm of college. Perhaps I believed the hype spouted by the recruiter on how I would be able to start a whole new chapter in my life just by going to college. According to her, I would be granted my heart’s desires and become a new person, with a sea of endless possibilities laid at my feet. If I had truly wanted that to happen, I suppose I should have moved to another continent instead of only sixty miles away from home. It simply didn’t put enough distance between my old life and the new one I craved, especially since I shortened the physical distance between myself and the one person in the world I never wanted to see again, Will Kilpatrick.

  As I was walking to my very first college lecture, I saw Will handing out flyers to welcome the freshman class of 2012. I hadn’t seen Will in two years, but my one-time best friend still looked the same, heartbreakingly handsome. He was dressed in a light blue button-down shirt tucked into a pair of grey slacks. His short blond hair was cut in the latest shaggy style, accentuating his lean, angular face and bright blue eyes. The friendly, welcoming smile he bestowed on the group of moon-eyed girls surrounding him involuntarily made my heart beat double time.

  Not wanting him to see me, I quickly made an about-face to head in the opposite direction of the boy I had shared my very first kiss with, someone with whom I had once upon a time hoped to share the rest of my life.

  Seeing Will again played havoc with my psyche and had my heart racing into my throat. I silently berated myself for allowing Will to have such an effect on my physical well-being. Intellectually, I knew by choosing to attend Southeastern College I would eventually run into Will. It was basic statistics. It was only after seeing him that I realized what a delusional fool I had been, thinking my heart had purged itself of the love I once harbored for Will. I began to wonder if I would ever find a way to leave my adolescent fantasies, featuring Will in the role of Prince Charming, behind and go on with my life.

  My first day of college had started off badly with the addition of Will back into my world, and it seemed determined to get worse from there.

  I ended up missing my first college lecture because I couldn’t find the classroom. The science building was like a real life version of M.C. Escher’s Relativity, with its meandering staircases in odd places. I finally asked someone for directions and found out the classroom I was looking for was one of the few rooms which could only be accessed from an outside stairwell since it was housed in the basement of the building. When I finally found the room, my class had already been dismissed. The professor, a kindly old man with thinning grey hair, told me not to worry about it.

  “There’s always one person each semester who can’t find the room, Ms. Nightingale,” Dr. Floyd said. “Don’t fret over this one failure.”

  Great; not only did I miss my very first college lecture, but I felt sure from Dr. Floyd’s tone he expected me to round out the bottom of the class’s bell curve.

  My second class, English Composition, went a lot better. My lifelong best friend and roommate, Tara, shared the class with me and saved me a seat right beside her. Tara and I had grown up living right next to one another in the trailer park her grandmother, Utha Mae, and my mother lived in. I always envied the close connection Tara had with Utha Mae, one I was never able to achieve with my own mother, Cora. Whenever I wanted to feel like a part of a real family, I would sneak over to Tara’s trailer and pretend we were sisters. There was no way anyone would ever believe we were actually sisters, considering how the dark ebony color of Tara’s skin contrasted so starkly against the pale ivory of my own, but if someone were to look beyond the superficial, I was sure they would find us more alike than not.

  Tara giggled when I told her about missing my first class.

  “Sounds like something you’d do.” She just shook her head at me like I was completely hopeless, which wasn’t that far off the mark, if I were being honest with myself.

  After English Composition, I had General Chemistry I. Tara had tried to get the same class as me but wasn’t able to, due to her job.

  In order to afford to live off campus in an apartment of our own, we each had to take a job working on campus. Tara found work in the library, and I found a position as a teacher’s aide for a professor in the chemistry department. Neither of us made that much money, but, pooled together, we were going to be all right. Plus, Utha Mae had secretly been placing money into a college fund for each of us over the years.

  My mother wasn’t as prepared.

  Cora gave me what little she had in her savings account and told me to ask for help if I needed it. I wasn’t completely sure, but I got the distinct feeling my mother was jealous of my attending college, of trying to make a better life for myself. I suppose there had to be a time in my mother’s life when she envisioned herself living the perfect life of a white-picket-fence-type family. Who dreams of becoming a single mother at the age of eighteen, living in a trailer park, and barely scratching by month to month?

  After my chemistry class, I met Tara in the Commons for lunch. I was never a big eater of lunch, so I just grabbed a pack of nabs and a soda from the vending machine. I scanned the crowded tables, trying to find Tara, but couldn’t locate her at first. She must have seen my confused face in the crowd, because she stood up waving her arms in the air like I was a plane that needed landing instructions.

  When I finally made my way through the maze of tables and students, I saw that Tara was sitting with a couple of girls I recognized from our English class.

  “About time you made it, girl,” Tara said as I sat down in the seat next to her at the table. “This here is Nora and Michelle.”

  “Tara says y’all know Will Kilpatrick,” Nora said with one of those almost fake- sounding southern accents, like some actors use in the movies. For a moment, I thought she might swoon out of her seat as Will’s name squeezed out between her glossy pink lips.

  “What about him?” I asked more curtly than I had intended. It wasn’t this poor girl’s fault she touched a sore spot with me so early on in our acquaintance.

  Nora looked over at Michelle a bit uncertainly, like she was afraid to talk about Will now.

  “Oh, it’s just that Michelle and I noticed him at the freshman picnic. He was in charge of it.”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  And that was the exact reason Tara and I didn’t go to the picnic meant to welcome the new class of students to Southeastern, but I didn’t tell them that. Why should I? I hardly knew these two girls. Plus, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know them any further if all they wanted to do was talk about Will.

  “Well, he wasn’t the only one we noticed,” Michelle chimed in to break the noticeable tension I had caused.

  Michelle was a bit of a mousy girl, short and thin with board-straight brown hair and plain brown eyes hidden behind a pair of silver wire-rimmed glasses, which only made her eyes disappear even further. She was a stark contrast to Norah who was blonde and beautiful, with a seemingly-perky demeanor.

  “Have you guys seen Brandon Cole yet?” Michelle asked breathlessly.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, slowly opening my pack of nabs, feeling my defenses slacken a little with the change of subject. “W
hat’s he look like?”

  “Oh, you’d know if you saw him,” Nora said. “The proverbial tall, dark, and handsome, except not so dark really. He has the palest skin, but it’s so beautiful, like porcelain, Adonis in the flesh.” Nora cupped her chin in one hand with her head tilted to the side, as if ogling this Brandon Cole with her mind’s eye.

  I really wasn’t warming up to Nora very much. Michelle seemed ok, like someone I might like to hang out with outside of class, but Nora was quickly setting my nerves on edge.

  “Well, I like my men a little bit darker,” Tara said taking a bite of her pizza. “Y’all can fight over the white meat.”

  I scowled at Tara, but she didn’t seem to take any notice, as usual.

  Thankfully lunch was short. I soon discovered Michelle and I had the next class together… Physics I. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief, having found a lab partner who might actually be a great contributor to our projects.

  After we took our seats in the lecture hall where our physics class was held, I heard Michelle take in a sharp breath, like someone had just punched her in the gut.

  “Are you ok?” I asked, worried she might become physically ill.

  “That’s Brandon Cole,” she said in a wispy voice, like she was having trouble breathing. She discreetly pointed to the boy who had just walked into the room.

  I followed the direction of her gaze and felt the earth beneath me give way, or at least that’s the message my brain was sending to the other parts of my body. Nora had been right. Brandon Cole was Adonis in the flesh--tall, at least 6’1”. He had perfect, glowing white skin, like he had a permanent spotlight on him, short, wavy, dark brown hair, and was achingly handsome. Well, that didn’t really seem to be enough of an adjective to describe him. He didn’t look eighteen. If I had to guess, I would say he was in his early or mid-twenties instead. He must have sensed me staring at him because, just before he took the seat right in front of me, his eyes locked with mine. He had the most beautiful grey eyes, with silver flecks that seemed to absorb the light around them and illuminate his entire face. When his gaze met mine, I wanted to look away, but just couldn’t. All I could do was smile, like a child who had guiltily put her hand in the cookie jar one too many times and had just been caught by her parents.