DAIMON (Nerys Newblood Series Book 1)

by Lucy Smoke

  “I was asking if you were listening, Nerys.” Booker flashes me a disappointed face and I feel guilty. He doesn’t like this plan, doesn’t trust this alchemist person and is out of his depth.

  “I’m sorry, I’ll pay more attention,” I say. “Go on.” He sighs, but does eventually lean back to incorporate the group.

  “Hans is meeting us after sunset. I’ll have Titus and Coen retrieve him.”

  “Why not just one of us?” Coen asks.

  “I still don’t trust him.” I examine Booker’s serious face, the strength in his jawline, the short cut of his hair along the bottom of his hairline, the longer curls that flop down over his forehead. For someone who is often so stern, I’m surprised it’s not shorter.

  “If that’s the case, I’d like to go too,” Holden says, drawing my gaze. For some reason, I can’t seem to concentrate of the importance of this conversation, the gravity of our situation. All I can do is look at them and wonder if this is even going to work. My head is filled with water, sucking more into its depths as I try to wade through to my own thoughts.

  My whole body is sore from tossing and turning all night. Nightmares have added to the constant pain under my skin, in my bones. I cross my arms and lay my head on my forearms as I continue to watch and listen to the guys talk about our plans.

  “No, I want you here with Nerys.” Coen stiffens until Booker clarifies. “You, Luca, and Nerys will remain behind here in the library and set up. Luca has already talked to Hans about the ceremony. We have a lot of the supplies with us. I want to get this over as soon as possible.”

  “What about you?” I ask, tilting my head in his direction. Gods, I hurt.

  Booker rubs a hand down his face. “I had some news this morning that a few of Matric’s soldiers were seen outside of Cephei. Cephei and the two ruling families have no reason to bar them from the city, so I’m going to check out the legitimacy of the claim.”

  My back stiffens as a bolt of lightning hot pain shoots from the base up my mind up into my skull. I gasp and sag on the hard wood of the table, battling the tears that rise to the surface. Booker, mistaking my reaction for fear, leans over and brushes a hand over the top of my hair. Instead of being soothing, the pressure is like an added weight onto the world that already rests against my shoulders. I struggle to try and lift myself away.

  “It will be fine, Nerys. If they are in the city, we will figure it out.” I can’t speak. I can’t even move. My whole world blurs down to the pain radiating through me. My eyelids slide closed. “Nerys?” Booker’s voice sounds far away and the others begin to speak as well. The noise turns into nothing but a cacophony of rebounding shards of glass that cut into my ears. Am I bleeding? What’s the liquid sliding over my face, blood or tears?

  “Go get the alchemist, now. Our time table has moved up.” I hear Booker’s bark and feel relief. I must be getting better if I can understand him now. Maybe it was just another episode. I try to open my mouth to assure him and the rest of the guys, but I can’t. My lips won’t move.

  “What about the soldiers?” Luca’s voice is similar, almost exactly the same as Booker’s but there’s a softer tone in it, a lesser intensity that lets me know it’s him. Someone lifts me into their arms, the head of skin against me makes the pain inside diminish somewhat.

  “Just pray to the Gods that we can unbind her and the spirit guide before they realize where we are.” The apprehension on the air thickens on my tongue and we’re suddenly moving, my body swaying softly side to side and I sink further inside. Hopefully when I wake, this nightmare will be over.

  ⚜⚜⚜

  “Is this the girl?” My consciousness rises above the thick mass of agonizing pain that holds me under. The voice speaking is scratchy and unfamiliar. Panic rises. Have I been captured? Is King Matric here? Where are the guys? Are they alive? Someone must have answered the unknown voice because he speaks again.

  “You have the Dragon blood, yes?”

  My dragon blood? There’s silence for several moments. I manage to drag open my eyes, but all I can see is a dirty looking man with a gray-green cloak and dark eyes standing over me, holding his hand out expectantly. His eyebrows are thin and give the impression that he is constantly surprised. His mouth is stretched in a thin smile, if it widens any further his lips might completely disappear.

  “What does the dragon blood have to do with anything?” Holden’s lyrical voice is strained, angry.

  “Do you have it or not?!” The stranger’s smile turns into a snarl for all of two seconds before with a twitch, the stretching of his lips returns and he jerks his hand up and down in a gesture that tells someone across from me to hurry up. “I’ll need to see it to verify that it will do for this ceremony.”

  Why does he need the dragon blood for the ceremony? I think. Obidian had told me that we would need it. Is this what he intended? My eyes slide up and I realize Coen is the one holding me.

  “How do we know we can trust you?” Booker demands and my eyes flick back to him. I clutch Coen’s shirt as another wave of pain rides through my limbs, smashing against my bones.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Titus snaps. “Give him the damn blood!” If I felt like myself and less like a lump of aching flesh, I might have jumped at Titus’s sharp anger.

  “He could hurt her,” someone protests. I slide my eyes closed again. No one notices that I’m awake and though I want them to, I don’t have the energy to help them.

  “Look at her!” Coen’s ragged pants are close by. I can feel someone’s breath, even if it isn’t his, wash over my cold cheeks. “She’s already hurting.”

  There’s a brief pause before I hear Booker gives in with a defeated grunt. “Fine.” I don’t see the exchange, but I open my eyes again when the alchemist squeaks in surprise. I’m not shocked to find Booker’s hand wrapped around his thin throat, leaning over my prone body. “If she dies, so do you.” The smaller man gives a shaky nod and Booker drops his hands away.

  “Lay her upon the floor.” No matter how hard I try, when Coen gently goes to his knees, I moan in discomfort.

  “I’m sorry, Ner. It’ll be better soon. We promise,” he whispers. At least now they know that I’m awake, though I suppose I could have moaned in my sleep too.

  “She’s gotten paler,” Luca says. “How much longer does she have?”

  “You must remember, changeling, this is not her punishment nor her sickness. This is that of her guide. Her pain is merely a fraction of his and if he’s been holding onto this pain for a long time, well let’s say that time is not on your side.”

  “Then it’s not on yours either,” Booker threatens quietly.

  Their voices fade again when a massive weight slams into my chest. I feel like my ribs are cracking under the immense agony. I hope the alchemist can hurry. I feel as though I can’t hang on any longer.

  “In order to unbind her, we must paint a circle around her body. You’ve made sure the employees won’t bother us?”

  “Sleeping spell,” Booker mutters in response. I can feel the weight of the guys’ stares, the pressure of their worry.

  Someone moves around me. I assume it’s the alchemist. When he comes to a stop at my feet, bowls clink together, the hollow sound echoing tells me they’re wooden, I hear a whisking noise. Warmth near my toes. Fire?

  “What are you doing?” I hear someone ask. The alchemist folds up the bottom of my tights and spreads a thick liquid across the skin there. I hope it’s not the dragon’s blood, but I know it probably is. He repeats the same up on my wrists and across my neck.

  “These are the normal points where one is bound in body. Your little girl’s spirit guide was a dragon in his first lifetime. Therefore dragon blood across these points is needed.”

  The black dragon, I recall. From my dreams. An image of a small pale child with tear streaked cheeks and blood on her hands flickers across my mind making me flinch away from the feel of desperate sadness that I do not recognize as my own em
otion. Obidian is rising to the surface again. The blood on my skin begins to heat to an uncomfortable fever. This doesn’t feel right.

  “Her brows are pinched,” Titus says.

  “Are we sure this is going to work?” Coen asks. The skin under the blood soaks up the heat and the rest of me is numb. In my mind’s eye a figure emerges, cloaked in darkness with a light shining behind. The light circles the figure in an outline of red as it strides towards me, slow with limbs dragging.

  Don’t be afraid, Obidian urges. The sounds and musings of my friends, of the alchemist, disappear as I sink further into the darkness with the figure, with my guide. A pathway forms, a beacon line outlined in gold leading me towards a set of white doors larger than any building. Go towards it.

  I do. I start by walking then faster before I’m sprinting down the path that has been drawn for me. Something tells me that I need to reach those doors. That Obidian is beyond them. I come to a panting stop outside the ivory archway and stare up. There are huge ornate handles several feet above my head, calling to me. There’s no way I will be able to reach them.

  You need not reach for them, merely push against the entry, Obidian says. I lower my gaze to the piece of the doors in front of me and, taking his advice, I raise both hands, palm forward and press them against the barrier, pushing lightly at first. When the doors move a little, I push harder until they swing inward, revealing a dark room. For such a beautiful and light entryway, the inside is nothing but darkness save for a circle drawn on the floor. The line there is thinning, fading, and my guide is there, kneeling in his chains, pain etched on his handsome face. I approach slowly as though nearing a wounded beast.

  “What do I have to do?” I ask. My voice sounds strange in here, warped and echoey.

  “Loosen the rods, please.” I jump at the real sound of his voice as it reaches my ears rather than hearing him respond in my head.

  Hands reaching forward, the chains are cool, chilly against my fingertips as I find where they lead up to a collar on his neck, bolted down into the metal. I squeeze the bolts and twist, turning until one falls and then the other and he’s able to lift his bald head up. Even squatting down as he is, his head still reaches my chest. He must be gigantic when fully standing.

  The wrists are harder to do, rust wedged in the crevices of the bolts, but eventually, they too come loose and the metal bits that have held him down all this time fall apart in my hands, smearing my skin with red flecks of aged metal.

  “Is that it?” I ask. “The unbinding?” Did I just need to sink under this whole time and unchain him? It feels too simple.

  “No,” he says, answering my doubts. “The chains were merely decoration, Nerys. This room is the true binding.”

  “Then let’s get the hell out of here.” I hold out my hand and he grasps it, his night-kissed skin a contrast against my paleness and his wide palm overextending mine. When he stands, he towers over me, even more than Booker and Luca. I try not to look down because he is completely naked and showing far too much skin for my comfort.

  We start for the doors, but as we take the first step, they begin to close. Obidian is moving slowly, obviously finding walking an action that he must get reused to. I release his hand and sprint forward, intending to get to the doors and hold them open if I must. They shouldn’t be closing so soon. I’ve barely been in here.

  “Hurry,” Obidina urges me, pushing me forward, strong hands on my shoulders. “I do believe you’ve been betrayed. You need to get beyond those doors. The rest of you is there.”

  I nod, dashing across the remaining distance to the doors. They make no sound as they slide closed. Perhaps if my mind hadn’t been so easily manipulated, the doors might have slowed as I approached but the moment I reach them is the moment the sliver of the pathway on the other side disappears. I push against the surface of the doors, but they don’t budge.

  “No!” I scream at the doors, fists pounding until I feel an ache in my palms and wrists. When I turn, Obidian is there. His face, strong nose, dark eyes, and straight jaw glaringly beautiful in my vision as he reaches for me and slides his arms around me.

  “I’m sorry, Nerys.” It’s not the hug. It’s not the fact that I’m finally able to see him, hold him, talk to him, but a release valve inside my chest breaks and tears cloud my vision and slide down my cheeks and I settle against his massive chest. Great gulping sobs escape my lips as we slide against the door and Obidian holds me through it all, smoothing his wide hand down my hair, pulling me into his lap like a father might. It is the safest I’ve ever felt outside of being with my guys.

  After several minutes of my tears, I cry myself out and sit against Obidian sucking in air. “What do I do now?” I ask. “Was that it? Our only chance? Am I trapped here too? Bound?”

  “Your body is bound, yes,” Obidian’s tone is grave. “The alchemist knew what he was doing.”

  “There has to be some way to reach the guys,” I argue. “Tell me I can do something.” When he sighs and thumps back against the door I grab his shoulders, gripping his skin. “Please.” I push all of the anger and frustration I have boiling under the surface out with that single word. “You’ve been alive for how many years? You have to know something!” His hands reach for me and he slides me off of his lap, breaking my grasp.

  “It is not so simple, Nerys.”

  “Why then?” I demand. “Why would you choose me if it couldn’t be done? Why choose them?” Shock registers across his face.

  “You think I chose them?”

  I blink. “Well...didn’t you?” He shakes his head before I finish.

  “Of course not,” he says. “You were the closest potential. I needed a host so you could say that you weren’t chosen, you were merely convenient. But,” he flashes me a small smile, white teeth behind black lips. “You were the best convenience I’ve ever chosen. The boys, the other potentials were not chosen by me. You did that.”

  “How could I do something like that?” It’s a ridiculous idea, but perhaps it would explain some things, like the fluttering in my stomach when one of them touches me, kisses me. Did I really choose them? I shake my head. Of course not. “You sent Titus and Holden letters.” Maybe now that we’re here, even if we are trapped, I’ll be able to get a few answers from him. It’s not like he can get away.

  Obidian eyes me with a lift of his neck. “I pushed you to seek out potentials. I wrote the letters, yes,” he admits, leaning his head back once more. “You picked your protectors.”

  “I didn’t even know them,” I say. “Were you looking for someone else? For another host?”

  He shakes his head. “No. But as my host, you need protection. Something you didn’t have at the time. Potentials are already attracted to daimons. It was the quickest way to attract help without much notice.”

  “Without much notice?” I raise an eyebrow.

  “I cannot determine nor make decisions for your king,” he replies.

  “That’s not what I meant,” I say, but I drop the subject and pick up a new one that’s rolling around in the back of my head. “So, when you say ‘attract’ did you mean…I mean, that is, what I’m trying to say is…are the guys…do they like me because of you?”

  He shrugs, big shoulders lifting, dark skin rippling across the muscles there. “I make no decisions for your potentials. Everything after receiving the letters and joining you to leave Euron that they have done, they have done so without influence on my part.”

  “But you chose them, right?”

  “Your home was small. The kingdom was protected and you had such deep anxiety after you heard me the first time, I knew you would need help. You had one friend, but one would not be enough. The city you lived in was not large enough for you to never have run across the two that you chose. Think about it,” he urges. “Where might you have seen them? The market? Walking down the street, perhaps? Wherever it was, I recognized them as a potential and you recognized them as someone you would need to help you escape. The
rest is history.”

  “Booker? Is he a potential?” I ask. “And Luca?”

  “The changeling is not a potential,” Obidian informs me in his calm tone. “His Master, however, I believe so. I’m not quite sure. There is something about him...it makes it difficult to completely read his aura. Druids are supposed to be more open to magical readings, but his barriers are more obstinate rather than flexible as they should be.”

  “What does that mean for him?” Sweat beads on my skin. The heat in the room begins to rise and sitting close to Obidian isn’t helping. I move away, shifting on my butt and hands.

  “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

  I sigh and lean back against the door. The longer we sit here, the hotter the air gets until it scorches my lungs every time I inhale. “I need to get out of here. If I’m the one that pulled them, can I pull them in here?”

  Obidian shifts from staring across at the thin circle where we were chained to staring at my face. “Would you really banish them to your mind and hold them captive here?” he asks.

  “No!” I frown, taking another burning breath. “Of course not. I just thought maybe if they knew what was happening then they could do something about it. Stop the ceremony or something.”

  “The ceremony has already been interrupted,” he replies.

  “How do you know that?” My eyes narrow on him, again keeping my eyes above crotch level.

  “I can hear them. You are bound, but if you focus enough, like myself, you’ll be able to use your sense to pick up what is happening around you.”

  “How do I do that?”

  Obidian turns fully to face me, a finger stroking my cheek, wiping away the remains of my last tears from before. “Close your eyes,” Obidian urges and I do. “Relax.” I release my breath and my shoulders drop. “Do you feel the fire?” I nod. It’s buzzing like electricity under my skin. The same feeling before I crushed the bounty hunter’s throat. “You’re holding it in, let it out.”