Touch of the Demon Read online

  Idris glanced to me and swallowed. “Yes, my lord,” he said. He turned and headed out, head bowed.

  I scowled at the lord. “So what new delights have you dreamed up for me?”

  He sank into the chair vacated by Idris, sat back and regarded me. “I have need to determine what will shield you from reflexively drawing upon the grove energy. Then, I will remove the mark. Rhyzkahl has not only sent a demand but now knows the mark has been touched. He will not delay long. We go to a place where he will not easily track you.”

  I remained silent for a moment while I processed this, more than a little surprised that he’d bothered to explain this much to me. I finally took a steadying breath. “I know I won’t be able to talk you out of this,” I said, more calmly than I felt. “But can you please find a way to do it…so it doesn’t hurt so much?”

  “I do not know that such is possible,” he replied evenly. “Not with the specialized nature of that mark.”

  I could feel my mouth tighten. “Well then, why can’t you simply knock me out or something?”

  “Were it possible to do it with you unconscious, I would,” he said in the same calm tone he’d used after I’d broken my leg. “The mark is deeply tied into your consciousness—moreso than a typical mark.”

  I shoved a hand through my hair, frustrated. “Fine. Whatever.” I scowled. “Then let’s get this shit over with.”

  “We wait upon Idris,” he replied, unruffled. “It will not be long.”

  He fell silent, apparently deep in contemplation. My own thoughts drifted, and I leaned back in the chair. Shadow memories and dream fragments flickered at the edge of my mind.

  Lord Mzatal approaches! I hurriedly close my journal to hide my folly, more pages filled with doodles than glyph patterning.

  “Elinor, stand,” he says, holding his hand out. Heart sinking, I give him the journal, tremble as he pages through it.

  He looks up, eyes narrowed in…anger? Disdain? I cannot tell.

  “Why are you here?” he asks.

  My breath catches. “To train, my lord.” I fight to keep my voice steady. “To learn to be a summoner.”

  His mouth tightens as he holds the journal up. “This indicates otherwise. Gather your belongings and prepare to travel.”

  I stare at him, stricken. “No, please, my lord.” I cannot breathe, but if I faint it will only make it worse. “Please…don’t send me away. I’ll study harder, I swear it!”

  Lord Mzatal tucks the journal under his arm, turns and walks away, hands clasped behind his back. “Go do as you are told, child.”

  I frowned as the memory faded. Big surprise. Mzatal was a dick to Elinor as well.

  Lord Rhyzkahl’s arm is around my waist, and I think surely I must be in a dream. “I would have you train with me for a time,” he tells me. “And continue with Szerain as well, of course.”

  “Yes,” I breathe. Train with him? Be with him? How could I possibly say no?

  He strokes the back of his fingers over my cheek and smiles at me. “I will go speak to Szerain of the final arrangements.” Then his lips brush mine, and I think I will surely die of pleasure.

  I blinked, somewhat off balance by the different feel of the two memories. But it was clear that Rhyzkahl definitely had some sort of interest in her.

  “Rhyzkahl and Elinor,” I said. “Did they have a relationship?”

  Mzatal returned his focus to me. “He favored her.”

  I waited. “That’s all?”

  “She held great affection for him,” he said. “And he favored her.” He shifted, crossed his legs. “She trained with me for a short time, then with Szerain, and finally with Rhyzkahl.”

  “And she died when the gate collapsed?”

  “She died during that ritual, yes,” he replied. “In the chamber of your arrival here.”

  Memories flickered annoyingly, telling me that there had to be more to it. “How could it have gone wrong so badly?”

  He shook his head. “I do not know the trigger event, though once it cascaded, it went quickly.” A shimmer of anger or frustration passed over his face. “If Szerain knows it, he has kept it well hidden.”

  I kept my face as composed as possible. “And where is he now?”

  He lowered his head and looked at me. “I cannot answer that question, as you likely already know.”

  I chuckled despite myself. Okay, so now I knew for certain that he knew I knew about Ryan and Szerain. “Oathbound,” I drawled.

  “Oathbound,” he echoed, with the faint hint of a nod. His mouth tightened. “Complicated and anachronistic. Bound in rhetoric and intrigue.”

  “Well, I’m pretty good at figuring shit out,” I replied. “One pesky oath won’t stop me.” Assuming I lived long enough to dig into this particular mystery.

  His face remained an expressionless mask, silver-grey eyes steady upon me.

  “Do you have to leave if I talk about it?” I asked. Wouldn’t that be fun if I’d discovered lord repellent? Of course the alternative to leaving could be squash-the-human, but since he already had a loaded gun pointed at my head, I had nothing to lose.

  He raised an eyebrow. I took that as gushing permission. “Szerain and Elinor had a hand in this big bad cataclysm thing a few hundred years ago,” I began. “But nearly destroying the world wasn’t enough to get him exiled. Oh, yeah. You guys needed him to fix what he’d broken. Restitution.”

  Mzatal remained silent, but I thought perhaps a slight spark of interest lit his eyes.

  Sitting back, I steepled my fingers as if deep in thought. “So it wasn’t until—what? A couple of decades ago or so?—that Szerain did another Bad Thing,” I continued. “He got himself into shit so deep there’s an Oath from Hell around it, and eventually he got kicked out of here.” I tilted my head. “And according to Turek, Szerain chose exile instead of handing over information about whatever it was.” I tapped my fingertips together. “My question is…why did he choose exile? What could possibly be worth it?” Narrowing my eyes, I regarded Mzatal. “Plus I wonder if this Bad Thing had anything to do with the Peter Cerise fiasco.” Peter Cerise, whose summoning several decades ago had accidentally called Rhyzkahl instead of Szerain, and resulted in the slaughter of the other five summoners involved. “Is there a connection? And if so, what?”

  With the mention of Cerise, a muscle in Mzatal’s jaw rippled. I made a note of that sore spot on my mental clue board.

  “All must be revealed in time,” he said as he rose from the chair.

  “But for now you get to torture this mark off of me,” I said with a tight smile. “Won’t that be fun.”

  “No, it will not be,” he said, face back to the inscrutable mask.

  I stood, then gave him a wary look as the hair on my arms lifted. Potency swirled to him like water down a drain in gold and purple flickers on the edge of my othersight. He placed his hands on my shoulders and met my eyes. I found myself wishing I could understand this lord—terrifying and all too ready to kill me one minute, and then almost decent in the next. What the hell was his game?

  His gaze bored into me, and I didn’t really want to move. The myth surfaced about snakes hypnotizing their prey, but before I could process that, his hands shifted to my face. Not even a heartbeat later his mouth was on mine, kissing me hard and deep, though not at all roughly. Potency crackled through me like a zing of static electricity between my cells and in the next instant he broke the kiss and stood back, hands clasped behind his back, while I struggled for some sort of response.

  Un-fucking-readable, he nodded once as if satisfied, then turned toward the door. “Come,” he said, though this time it wasn’t accompanied by a lasso of power.

  I didn’t move, could only stare. What. The. Fuck?

  Mzatal glanced back and saw my awesome statue imitation, took my upper arm and nudged me forward. Blinking, I moved, and he dropped his hand. He led the way out of the room and to his grove, and I followed, keeping a wary eye on him the whole time. My thought
s whirled in uneven loops, but foremost among them was, I need to get the hell away from Mzatal.

  Gestamar and Idris waited near the entrance to the tree tunnel. Gestamar bellowed a greeting while Idris simply looked nervous and unsettled. Mzatal took my arm as we entered the shadowed tunnel, no doubt to better sense if I should suddenly try and use the power again. I didn’t bother to tell him that I had no idea how I’d done it the first time. It didn’t matter. As soon as I stepped beneath the sheltering limbs a deep peace descended on me again, and I barely noticed his grip.

  He stopped in the center of the grove and passed me over to Gestamar, who wrapped a clawed hand around my arm while the lord crouched and channeled power into the knob of wood in the center of the grove. I remained perfectly still, feeling as if the grove spoke to me in a language beyond words. My eyes slid to Mzatal as he completed the offering of potency and stood. He lifted a hand to initiate the transfer, and in that instant I knew—knew—the grove.

  The grove shifted around us. We were in the remote location now, wherever that was. Mzatal took my arm again as he greeted the mehnta, but I stayed where I was. Silently, I touched the grove.

  “Kara, come,” Mzatal said. “There is little time.” He began to move but I pulled back against his grip.

  “Wait, please.” My heart pounded while I hoped to hell and back that the collar would shield my thoughts enough to keep him from realizing what I was about to do.

  His grip tightened on my arm, eyes narrowing. “Kara…what—” He stopped as the grove began to activate, then cursed, face going intense as he literally dragged me toward the tree tunnel.

  I dug my heels in. “No!” Now, I silently begged the grove. Take me now! Take me to Rhyzkahl!

  He stopped as the power rose around us and pivoted to face me. “You will regret this,” he said through clenched teeth. “I will come for you.”

  I opened my mouth to say something brilliant like, “Bite me, you lame-ass fuckbrain.”

  But he was gone before I could even form the words.

  Chapter 11

  It took me a couple of seconds to realize that Mzatal hadn’t simply disappeared. “Holy fuckballs,” I breathed, then let out a shaky laugh. I did it. I used the grove. I escaped!

  The distant bellow of a reyza came to me through the tree tunnel. Rhyzkahl’s demons knew I was here, or rather, they knew someone was here. Nighttime, I noted instantly. And damn near frigid. The trees of the grove gave off a soft bluish glow, and sigils that reminded me of stick-in-the-ground solar yard lights marked the path of the tree tunnel. Full of triumph and still pumped with adrenaline, I headed for the tunnel and the freedom of Rhyzkahl’s realm.

  The grove thrummed with a tingle of activation as I reached the arch of trees. I glanced back, and my gut clenched at the sight of Mzatal appearing in the center of the clearing. His face contorted into a snarl of determination as his eyes met mine. My already thudding heart went into hyperdrive. Shit! I’d hoped he wouldn’t be able to follow so quickly. I broke into a run, heading for the night blackness at the far opening of the tree tunnel. Surely Mzatal wouldn’t dare pursue once I was out of the grove and on Rhyzkahl’s turf. Or would he? I had no real idea how the dynamics of the lords worked.

  I cleared the arched trees, and an instant later a lasso of potency snaked around my right ankle. I yelped and went sprawling, clawing at the ground to try to pull away from him as I kicked and struggled against the damn lasso. So close…so close! I could see the lights of a palace ahead, and more reyza bellows filled the air.

  I risked a glance back at Mzatal, heart dropping at the black anger on his face. He advanced quickly, keeping the potency rope taut. I continued to struggle, but I knew it was only a matter of seconds before he had me again. And I’ll never have another chance to escape after this.

  Before Mzatal could reach me, a reyza landed beside me with a whoosh of air. He bellowed at Mzatal, and I breathed in relief when the lord stopped, though I would’ve been even more relieved if the reyza had made some sort of effort to disengage the lasso from my foot. The demon’s gaze dropped to me. A throbbing growl came from his throat.

  I thrust my forearm up at him. “I’m Kara Gillian, sworn summoner of Rhyzkahl,” I gasped. “Help me, please!”

  The demon took less than a second to assess the mark, then his eyes lifted to Mzatal. He bared his teeth and moved to stand over me protectively.

  “Rhyzkahl’s marked one in Rhyzkahl’s domain,” the reyza snarled and pointed at the lasso. “She will not go with you, Mzatal.”

  My pulse slammed as Mzatal continued to hold the lasso taut. The muscles of his jaw twitched, and the menace of his stare made me wonder if he would actually stop even now.

  An eternity later he recalled the lasso with a sharp jerk of his hand. I finally remembered to breathe again

  “I will retrieve you, Kara,” he told me, voice immersing me in threat and promise.

  I scrabbled back, hardly daring to believe I was truly free from him. Mzatal didn’t move except to lift a hand, gaze locked on me. A cramp-like twinge wavered in my chest, then faded before I even had a chance to fully realize it was there.

  Mzatal’s expression grew even darker. He clenched his raised hand so hard his knuckles went white. Taking a step back, he slowly lowered his fist, eyes on mine. “I will retrieve you,” he repeated.

  I scrambled to my feet, mouth tight, then gave in to my inner twelve-year old and flipped him off.

  He held my gaze for another few nervewracking heartbeats. With a final shake of his head, he turned and strode back down the tree tunnel, hands clenched into fists at his sides as potency that wound through my core like a visceral threat poured from him. It seemed odd to see him not walking with his hands clasped behind his back.

  The reyza took hold of my upper arm, breath pluming in the chill air as he bellowed after the departing Mzatal. I waited until I felt the grove activate, taking the lord away, and only then let myself slump in relief. Crap, but that had been close.

  The cold really hit me now that I could think about it. The light shirt and pants I’d put on this morning were great for the climate in Mzatal’s realm, but Rhyzkahl’s palace was either much further north, or in an entirely different hemisphere. Of course it didn’t take much for me to feel like I was freezing to death. I went to long sleeves anytime the temps dipped below sixty-five, and hat and gloves if they went below forty.

  Right now I was seriously ready for hat and gloves. And coat. And boots. And a damn fire.

  “Thank you,” I said to the reyza, willing my teeth not to chatter. “Will you take me to Rhyzkahl now?” I gently tugged at my arm in the hopes of getting him to release me.

  A sigil similar to the message one I’d seen at Mzatal’s shimmered into existence in the air in front of the reyza. He touched it with a clawed finger, snorted, and dispersed it, then turned back to me with a soft hiss. To my shock, instead of releasing me, he pulled my arms behind me and bound them with a simple binding ward.

  “Hey! Wait!” My heart pounded as I pulled futilely against the binding. “What’s going on?” This sure as hell wasn’t the reception I’d expected.

  “I take you to await the will of Rhyzkahl,” the reyza stated, moving me forward and toward the palace with the relentless grip on my upper arm.

  My mind whirled. “I don’t understand. Why am I bound if I’m his sworn summoner?”

  He let out a snort. “Because he has commanded it.”

  I swallowed hard. Had coming here been a colossal mistake? It wouldn’t be the first. I’d sure as hell made some huge ones in my life.

  Forcing down the surge of panic, I did my best to pay attention to details around me. The cloudy night closed in as we left the soft glow of the grove area, and I couldn’t get a good sense of the layout other than that a massive palace rose ahead, marked by light seeping through windows and a pale blue luminescence to the stone itself.

  The reyza moved me through the entrance. I had only the briefe
st look at a sumptuous and opulent entryway before we passed through and to a door immediately inside. My anxiety rose as the demon continued to escort me down a short hallway and finally through a door into darkness.

  With a quick motion, the reyza set a sigil alight above. It bathed the room in a warm golden glow, revealing a small circular chamber devoid of all furnishings. He released my arm in the center, but before I could move, he traced six sigils and spread them to hover a couple of feet from me in each direction. I didn’t recognize the sigils, but I had no doubt I didn’t want to even try touching them.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, seriously freaked out at this point.

  “Shielding,” the reyza replied with implacable calm. He crouched by the wall and went still, watching me.

  The door burst open. I jerked and had to catch myself from taking a step back. Rhyzkahl stood with his left hand on the door, beautiful face hard, radiating intensity like heat from desert stones. His white-blond hair stirred in an unseen wind, and his crystal-blue eyes seemed to bore deep into my essence. He was barefoot, wearing black pants and an unbuttoned black shirt that revealed a well-muscled torso and rock-hard abs.

  A smear of blood from his palm marred the pale wood of the door. He lifted his other hand in an upward spinning motion, and an instant later a cylinder of bluish potency sprang into existence around me within the circle of sigils. He moved fully into the room, gaze never wavering from me. The door closed soundly without him touching it.

  “Rhyzkahl? What’s going on?” I asked, voice shaking. “I escaped Mzatal and came right here—”

  “Silence!” he ordered through clenched teeth. Slowly, he circled around, eyes traveling methodically over me. I’d reached one hundred percent freakout at this point, but I did my best to stay as still as possible, though I couldn’t keep my knees from shaking.

  Rhyzkahl finally completed the circle, keen and inscrutable eyes on my face. He lifted a hand, and the binding on my wrists dissipated. Before I could twitch, he reached through the shield and removed the collar, blue glow coating his arm like a glove. He flicked the collar aside to skitter to the wall, then seized my left wrist and dragged my arm toward him, exposing the mark. He dropped his gaze to it, grip hard.