by Sunny
“Doing another check around the property,” Lucinda said.
“We still have half the night left,” Nico observed, sitting down on the top step, leaning back on his elbows. “What shall we do with the remaining hours?”
“We can do some sparring and training,” she said, “when everyone’s finished.”
“And you can show us how soft your skills have grown, rogue,” Hari jeered.
“As soft as you’ve gotten guarding the Princess instead of the High Lord,” returned Nico with parrying ease.
A low sound came from the demon.
“You’re both on the same team now,” Lucinda said, leveling them a look. “Behave. The both of you.”
Hari’s hackles rose at her same team comment. He clearly wanted to repudiate it, but didn’t.
Nico smiled slowly, lazily, in Hari’s direction, as if knowing how abrasive that concept was to Hari.
“No baiting the demon,” Lucinda admonished Nico.
“But it’s so fun and easy.”
Lucinda threw him a quelling look. Regretfully he subsided.
In that moment of stillness and almost peaceful calm, disaster struck. A strange energy trembled the air, and Talon cried a warning from within the house.
At first, Nico thought the danger came from inside. Then right in front of his eyes, a demon appeared, popping into existence from out of nowhere, only two feet away from Lucinda.
Derek! The very rogue demon that Hari and Ruric were here to guard against.
Shit! They should have sensed him long before he got this dangerously close to them. But still, it was two demons against one, three if you counted the Princess, Nico thought, then watched with mounting dread as Derek splashed both Lucinda and Hari with the liquid contents of a vial. Fuck! Oil of Fibara. A substance that subdued a demon’s power.
Nico didn’t even see Derek move. Hari just suddenly crumpled to the ground, his side raked open by demon claws. As he fell, his hand wrapped around Lucinda’s ankle, his teeth bared in a fierce snarl. Derek grabbed Lucinda by the arm. Then all three demons were gone, disappeared. Popped out of existence.
All that remained were three scarlet drops of Hari’s dark blood.
ELEVEN
HUMANS HAD A saying. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Well, whatever silly human came up with that hadn’t known any demons. Especially one like Derek, who had been scorned by a Floradëur blood slave who had resisted him for the entire twenty-six years of his captured existence. And then, in less than one day’s span of time, that blood slave had chosen me to bond with instead.
I had only a mere moment to be grateful that Talon, Nico, and the others were safe. Another brief moment of worry for Hari and I, and then it was too late. We suddenly arrived in Hell. Not the Hell I knew, but a region of it I knew only by reputation. But even with my demon senses blunted by the oil, I recognized where we were: in Bandit Land. Far away from the civilized, central state lands of Hell.
Hell’s heat was even more stifling here. A low fog added to the sense of ominous oppression, rolling over the land, blanketing the peaks, and dipping down into the valleys between the humping mountains that rose abruptly up and down like sharp, spiking waves. Some of the most lethal and poisonous creatures in Hell abided here in the thick junglelike foliage. Animal-beasts that could lay slow and decaying waste to a demon’s flesh with their venom, or snap him up and devour him in two quick movements of the jaw. None of them, however, were as perilous as the outcast demons who sought refuge here in this toxic southern outpost where not only the animals were a danger but the exotic, flesh-eating, giant vegetation that thrived here also.
We were in the heart of these humping mountains, in a narrow field between two of the ridged peaks. Even in my oil-blunted state, I could feel the remnant tingle of dark power here. Could almost taste the blood that had been spilled heavily and recently on the dark, tufted soil on which we stood.
Death magick. Forbidden, arcane knowledge that my father had banished a millennia ago at the onset of his reign; knowledge that was old and long unused but not completely lost, apparently. The means by which Derek had been able to snatch Hari and me and transport us without use of a portal—by using dark magick to become one himself, a portal of flesh between the living and dead realm.
I had not known Derek was this powerful, I thought, as demons crept out slowly from behind twisting trees and bushes to circle around us. Five . . . no seven of them.
I shivered as they came into sight, one by one. They were all maimed or injured in some way: a face partially dissolved, one demon missing an eye, another an ear. Another whose face was so heavily scarred that his mouth pulled up into a gruesome, perpetual half-smile. Yet another whose arm ended in a severed stump just below the elbow. The mildest disfigurement was a demon who sported two missing fingers; not cut off clean and neat, but rather gnawed down to raw, uneven stumps.
If I hadn’t known where we were, seeing these demons would have unveiled that knowledge to me.
No one knew why the outcast demons in Bandit Land did not heal. Some thought it was the unnatural mist, others the distant location. Still others thought the land itself cursed. For whatever the reason, it remained a hard, unchanging truth that the demon bandits that resided here did not heal.
Only those with no other choice, with nowhere else to go, existed here: desperate criminals, outcast rogues. But with the land’s abundant curses came a small blessing. It was one of the few spots in this realm that other demons avoided. Some, because of the whispers that a secret passage to NetherHell existed here, causing the strange mist and unnatural, non-healing state. Others, because it was fearfully alleged that the non-healing condition could be permanent, even after you left the cursed mountain land.
If Hell had a purgatory, this place was it. Demons existed here in precarious limbo, both cursed and guarded by that curse. Even my father’s fiercest guards would hesitate to venture into this treacherous outpost. All but Hari, I thought, looking down at the stupid, injured fool. Derek had grabbed me by the arm and Hari had grabbed me by the ankle. I had tried to free myself of them both, a useless fight against Derek with my subdued strength; useless even against Hari, who had also been splashed with the oil. He had been as weak as I, but strong enough—determined enough—to hold on to me, allowing himself to be unnecessarily captured.
Looking at him, bleeding and injured, here in this treacherous place where you did not heal, I felt like shaking him and asking him why. Why had he stubbornly clung to me? For someone who was supposed to be a clever and selfish, self-serving bastard, he had acted with foolhardy disregard for his own self.
Instead of shaking him, I quietly helped him to his feet. Even injured, a hand clamped to his bleeding side, his full demon strength muffled, he still managed to project deadly menace as he eyed the motley demon bandits closing in around us. The greatest threat, however, was the demon who had captured us.
“Two for the price of one,” Derek said with a cold, pleased smile. “How accommodating of you. Hari, I believe it is. Your delightful, unexpected presence might even change my plans. It will be quite entertaining to see how long you will be able to last here. Yes, indeed. Hold him,” Derek commanded the others.
In that demon quickness that eluded us now, he struck Hari, sending him stumbling back, falling to the ground. The two-missing-fingered bandit flipped Hari facedown and yanked his arms behind him, careful not to touch the glistening spots of oil that wet the front of him. The demon with the macabre half-smile snapped dark shackles around Hari’s wrists.
“That was like hitting a helpless snell-kitten,” I snarled at our captor. “Does that make you feel superior, Derek?”
“Oh yes, you haughty bitch. It does make me feel superior. I enjoy hitting things, especially helpless things.” Moving again, too fast for me to follow, he backhanded me across the cheek with jarring force. Had I been human, the blow would have killed me. As a demon merely subdued by Fibara oil, it just sent me falli
ng back hard onto the ground.
They shackled me as easily as they had Hari, while my erstwhile guard snarled and struggled uselessly, his eyes burning with deadly promise of revenge.
“Oh, my,” Derek crooned, looking down at us. “This is going to be so enjoyable, a real treat for all the rotting souls here. Your capture is going to be the highlight of this cursed outland’s history.”
The look in his eye as he focused on me was so fervently maniacal that it chilled my blood.
“Oh, yes,” he whispered. “You and I are going to make glorious history together, my dragon Queen beauty. Stunning, glorious history. Yes, indeed.”
TWELVE
SARAI FELT HERSELF slipping away. Not in the way of the Floradëur, the physical way, though she had often dreamed of doing so—escaping these bonds, slipping this prison, flitting up the roots of a plant to emerge into freedom miles away. But even though it was the way of her kind, it was a path that had been cut off to her.
She had been a captive for so long. Had endured the burning agony of these cold irons that bound her wrists—that had bound her soul for so many years that it was hard to remember any other way of life. Hard to remember what it had been like to be free—to be happy. Painful to remember those shining moments in her life of before. A life, an existence, that would end soon. Not immediately . . . but soon.
Hope was a cursed thing, like a weed that thrived despite all attempts to kill it. Hope first for escape, which had slowly faded, and finally died after the twentieth year of her captivity came and went. Hope that her people would search for her, fight for her, findher.
That wild hope had been twined with the greater hope that her child still lived, the baby she had borne in captivity and who had been taken from her. A son, a beautiful son, who had the look of her beloved mate—her Jaro, who had been slaughtered during their ambush and capture. He could have easily melded himself with one of the plant life that surrounded them and emerged free, a safe distance away. Sarai had begged Jaro to go, escape, seek help. But he had refused to leave her that way, when she could not follow, burdened by the child that was growing within her. And so her mate had been destroyed by the attacking demons. A male Floradëur had been useless to them, or so they had thought during that initial flush of success. A female would be easier to break to their will, and the child, if it lived.
After her capture, the demons had turned like vicious animals on each other. Two demons killed three others as she went into early labor. After she delivered the babe, one of the surviving demons left with her child. The scarred one, Thorne, the bandit lord, had kept her, beaten her, drank her blood, and defiled her body, over and over again. Brutally, endlessly.
Thorne had ruthlessly, mercilessly taken everything he could from her. Everything but the one thing he wanted most. And the one thing only Sarai alone could chose to give, she withheld.
No matter how broken her body, how battered her spirit . . . her flesh, that one thing he could not make her do no matter how he raged and beat her.
She would never willingly bond with him.
As the second decade rolled sluggishly by, something changed in her. Even the sturdiest weed dies after it has been battered harshly enough by the elements. On that second bitter anniversary decade of her captivity, hope for escape finally withered within her and died along with the selfish hope that her son still lived. Poor boy. Better that he had died than lived as she did, under the brutal claws and raping fangs of a demon. That day, as Thorne tore into her neck and drank down her blood, tore with even greater pain into her dry, unwelcoming body, she lay there without struggling, unresisting, as he slurped and grunted over her. That day . . . that moment, everything slipped away—burning hatred, cringing fear, dying hope. All that she had been was gone. All she wished for now was an end to this futile existence.
“Bond with me and you will be strong enough to break free,” he whispered down into her empty face. When she didn’t respond, hot temper flared in his demon eyes, ugly red.
“I have no use for you then!” he raged, smashing his fist against her, breaking her nose, painfully cracking her cheekbone. “If you refuse to bond with me then I have no use for you!” His claws ripped into her belly, and her blood flowed in a warm gush onto the cold ground. “Merge with me, you useless black bitch!” He shook her, but she was gone already, floated up into the brutal numbing pain of her body.
He tossed himself off her and left. When he reappeared three days later, she had not moved or made any effort to heal herself, as was her gift. Blood still dripped sluggishly from her face, her belly, the torn flesh between her legs.
He took her outside then. For the first time in over twenty years of hidden captivity, she tasted the fog of the outside air. For the first time three of her shackles were removed; only the fourth one around her right wrist remained. And despite her will, her strong desire to seek her end, nature’s abundant energy poured into her and healed her.
He had put the shackles back on her, and taken her back belowground. But while Thorne could force her body’s healing, he could not force her desire to live. When Sarai touched neither food nor drink for a sennight, he shoved a hollow reed tube down her throat and forced down broth. She did not fight, did not move, did not speak. She did nothing, letting the hours, the days slowly pass, lying in filth, in wetness, letting sores soften her flesh and rot her body. Each time Thorne cleaned her up, she waited until he departed, then threw the food and drink he had brought her on the ground and crawled onto it, laying in the stinking wetness. He cursed her but he no longer beat her, no longer forced himself on her. Just continued to drink her blood, and even that was brief and infrequent and relatively gentle now.
It was not enough. There still was no reason for Sarai to live.
She did not waste breath begging him to let her die. She just focused her will unrelentingly on seeking that end passively.
In the fifth week of this silent battle, he carried something into her cell, and tossed it on the ground next to where she lay.
“A new demon dead,” Thorne told her when she didn’t even turn her head to look. “A rare demon child that my men found wandering in our mountains. Quite damaged, unfortunately, before I managed to convince my men to give her up to me, but nothing you are not capable of healing, if you wish. A girl, no older than fourteen or fifteen years of age. Not much younger than what your son would be,” he said slyly, kicking the bundle. It let out a weak, pitiful cry. “She is yours. I’ll be back tomorrow. If you don’t want her, I’ll take her back to my men to enjoy.”
The heavy silence after he left was broken by a whimper, a few low moans as the ragged bundle shifted and tried to drag itself away from her. The sound, the fear and pain emanating from the small creature, pierced Sarai’s apathy, and she finally turned her head and saw what had been brought to her.
A hateful demon, a hard voice whispered within Sarai.
A child, an innocent child, a gentler voice of reason argued back.
In the end, Sarai’s compassion and curiosity defeated her. Lifting up on arms weakened from long weeks of starvation and disuse, Sarai dragged herself over to peer down into the frightened eyes of a young girl. A demon, her senses told her, but a child whose skin was still white, still so tender, not yet darkened by Hell’s harsh heat. Not darkened but not undamaged. Blood was splattered across that white skin, and the smell of open wounds sang strong, overriding even the bloodscent. Cuts sliced across the girl’s arms, the backs of her hands—defensive wounds scored so violently deep that large chunks of her flesh hung like gruesome ribbons from her arms.
That the girl’s own demonkind had done this to her sickened Sarai, along with the fear in the child’s eyes. Fear of her.
“Won’t . . . hurt you.” Sarai had not spoken for so long that the words came out rusty-sounding. Weak.
The young demon, so vulnerable, showing so much pain, didn’t show any relief or belief at Sarai’s hard-ventured words, making Sarai almost smile. “Yes,
wise . . . not . . . trust words. Only actions . . . speak truth.”
Even here in this stygian dark hellhole, life and energy was flourishingly abundant. The roots of trees and vegetation ran deep, some ending only inches away from the wall of her cell. Sarai thought it more a curse than a blessing that the cold iron that prevented her escape did not hinder her ability to draw energy to heal. When Thorne discovered that she was able to heal even shattered bone mere days afterward, the beatings the bandit lord gave her had grown even more savage. But here and now, Sarai could use the ability for good. And she did. She lowered the barrier she had erected and felt her body strengthen as curative energy flowed into her with a renewing surge. With a touch, Sarai shared that healing wonder. The demon girl gasped as the pain seeped out of her and into Sarai, who took it without resisting. So much pain.
A tear seeped out. By the time it reached Sarai’s chin, the jagged wounds on the girl’s arms had closed and disappeared. And with that willful act of healing, Sarai was dragged once more fully back into life. Thorne had been wise indeed in the lure he had cast her. Nothing else would have altered her course otherwise. And so she, a Floradëur, had came to love a demon child—Brielle was the girl’s name—and the child came to love her in turn. A demon child who never grew, even as the years passed; caught forever in the body of a fifteen-year-old girl.
Brielle gradually took on the duty of caring for her, bringing her food and water, mending her clothes. The young demon roamed aboveground in the lighter day hours, and slept on a pallet outside Sarai’s cell in the darker hours of the night. They became hostage one to another. The child’s silence protecting the Floradëur, who Thorne threatened to kill if Brielle whispered one word of her existence to the other bandits. And Sarai willingly healing Thorne whenever he was injured, not fighting him over the taking of her blood, but even that became less and less frequent. The beatings and demands for Sarai to bond with him stopped after Thorne tried once to use the child against Sarai a week after they had become mother and daughter to one another.