Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex Demonized #1) - Annette Marie Page 0,27
half-heartedly. This didn’t feel real. He’d seemed so invincible—a powerful, untouchable demon full of fierce arrogance despite his imprisonment. Now he was on the floor, unmoving, weak. Dying. He’d faded so much since I’d last seen him.
“Tell me how to help you.”
A deep crease formed between his eyebrows, and his lips turned down as he fought an internal battle.
“Food,” he finally muttered. “Heat. Light. Not fake light.”
“Heat and light?” I looked around the cold, windowless basement. “And food? Those will help you?”
His head moved in the slightest nod.
“I’ll be right back,” I told him, shoving to my feet. “Hold on.”
I rushed for the stairs. I couldn’t get natural light to him—even if the sun had been up, the library had no windows. I hadn’t seen a space heater anywhere in the house, and I couldn’t light a fire indoors.
But I could bring him food. If food would help, then I would feed him.
As I raced into the kitchen, sudden understanding brought me up short. Uncle Jack and Claude didn’t understand why Zylas hadn’t hit his breaking point yet … but I had been feeding him. If food kept the demon alive, then I’d been prolonging his life with those insubstantial treats. Now I understood why he had played along with my questions … and why his strength had faded so quickly once I’d stopped visiting him.
I flung open the pantry doors and searched for something to feed a starving demon. My gaze whipped across boxed snacks and crackers, cereal and hard pasta, then landed on a pair of soup cans.
Hot soup. Food and heat.
I dumped both cans of vegetable soup into a large bowl and shoved it in the microwave. As the appliance whirred, I listened nervously to the sound of the TV from the family room and hit stop before the microwave could chime. The soup was still bubbling when I lifted it out, my sleeves pulled over my hands to protect them from the hot glass. Steam dampened my face as I carried the bowl downstairs.
My worry kicked up a notch when I saw Zylas hadn’t darkened the circle. As I hurried across the library and knelt, broth splashed onto my arm, burning my skin.
Zylas’s eyes slitted open, then widened at the sight of the steaming bowl.
“This is soup,” I said. “It’s hot and you can eat it, but you have to promise to give the bowl back and not break it or try to hurt me with it.”
Motions slow and stiff, he uncoiled from his ball and pushed himself up. “I agree.”
I pushed the bowl halfway across the line, and he reached for it.
“It’s scalding hot,” I warned as he wrapped his hands around the glass and drew it into the circle. “Be careful not to burn your—”
He lifted the bowl to his mouth and poured the soup down his throat. Steam swirled around his head as he drained the contents in seconds. If it burned him, he didn’t show it.
His tongue swiped across his lips, catching a few escaped droplets, and I watched in amazement as his eyes lightened from midnight black to deep scarlet. He stared at the bowl, then set it down and sank back onto the floor. Curling up on his side, he watched me, his gaze intense and probing.
Feeling oddly nervous, like his attention was a blinding spotlight, I reached for the bowl. When my fingertips brushed the glass, I froze in sudden realization.
Zylas’s eyes flicked down to my hands. To my pale skin a foot from his reddish-toffee skin. My hands were on the bowl—and the bowl was inside the circle.
My lungs were paralyzed but my heart careened in wild terror. I’d put my hands across the invisible barrier. I hadn’t felt a thing, hadn’t noticed a ripple of transparent magic. Could I pull my arms out before he grabbed me?
I stared at him, unable to exhale. He studied my hands, so close, within his reach. The end of his tail flicked, like a cat that had spotted a mouse in the grass.
Slowly, I wrapped my fingers around the cold glass. His expression didn’t change, but a muscle jumped in his cheek. Despite his blank face, his jaw was tight.
Keeping my movements smooth and painstakingly sluggish, I drew the bowl across the silver line. My flesh cleared the invisible barrier and I let out an explosive breath, shakily pressing a hand to my chest to calm my petrified heart.