Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex Demonized #1) - Annette Marie Page 0,36

and shield me, as my parents once had.

“Payilas.” His whisper demanded my answer.

“Protect me.”

I didn’t arrive at those words. They simply fell from my mouth, called out by his demand.

His breath cooled the tears on my cheeks. “What will you give me?”

My head was spinning. I didn’t know if I was staring into the featureless darkness or if my eyes were closed. My heart thundered with growing desperation.

He was waiting, and through the overwhelming pain and fear, only one thing came to mind. “Cookies. I made you cookies before.”

“Cookies?” His arm pulled me closer and his mouth pressed against my ear, his whispered command shuddering down to my bones. “Promise me your soul, payilas.”

My soul? The floor rolled and tilted under me. “No … I can’t give you …”

“Would you rather die?”

“I … but I can’t …”

“I need your soul, payilas.”

“But I need my soul,” I insisted thickly, barely coherent but certain of one thing: my soul, whatever it was or whether I even had one, wasn’t something I was giving away to anyone.

A harsh exhalation rushed through his teeth. He seemed to hang on something, his body rigid, his powerful hands bruising me with the tension in his grip. As the seconds slid past, my lungs heaved in shallow pants and my limbs tingled with growing cold.

“Fine,” he snarled furiously. “I accept.”

My pulse drummed in my ears. He accepted what?

He released my arm and hot blood flooded my skin. His slick fingers pressed something flat and round into my weak grasp, then his hand closed over mine, compressing the cold disc between our palms. Pulling me hard against his side, he raised our entwined hands.

“Now seal it.” His husky voice filled my head like the shadows that surrounded us. “Enpedēra vīsh nā.”

I was beyond thought or decision, but my mouth moved, my tongue forming the alien words without my instruction. “Enpedēra vīsh nā.”

As the last sound left my lips, new pain erupted—burning agony in my palm. The hard disc erupted with deep crimson light, shoving the shadows back. Zylas’s fingers, entwined through mine, gripped hard, preventing me from releasing the scorching metal. The fire tore down my arm and into my chest, ripping a scream from my throat.

“What was that?” a voice outside the circle demanded, sounding far away. “Did you see that light?”

“The demon is killing her and recharging its magic,” another voice spat. “Now we’ll have to wait for it to weaken again.”

The light died and the burning heat in my arm vanished. Zylas’s fingers uncurled and I snatched my hand away, tucking it to my chest as I shuddered.

“Now, payilas,” he crooned in my ear. “I need strength. How much heat can you spare?”

“Heat?” I slurred.

“Not much,” he mused as his cool fingers touched the base of my throat.

My skin tingled—then cold hit me like a wave of arctic ocean. The heat sucked out of my body and I convulsed in a desperate attempt to get away. He caught my flailing arms—and his hands were warmer than my chilled skin.

Crimson eyes glowed in the darkness.

Zylas stood up, hauling me with him. Everything spun and I didn’t know where the floor was. His hand brushed my hair, then something thumped against my chest with the jingle of a metal chain. Hunching under the low dome, he pulled my back against his torso, his arms around my middle to support my trembling legs. The metal plate that protected his heart dug into my spine.

“Stand, payilas,” he breathed in my ear. “All you must do is leave the circle. I will do the rest.”

I shook violently, hypothermic, anemic, disoriented. “Leave?”

“Yes.” His hands gripped my waist. “Are you ready?”

No. No, I wasn’t—

With an eddying swirl, the darkness in the dome melted away. Light blasted my eyes, half blinding me.

Held by Zylas, I faced the fallen podium, the floor splattered with my blood. Beyond it, Karlson, Hulk, and Vince had frozen at my sudden reappearance. Travis sat against a bookshelf beside the door, hunched over his drawn-up knees. His mouth hung open.

Zylas threw me out of the circle.

As I flew forward, streaks of red light leaped with me, shooting all around my body and coalescing at my chest. I hurtled across the silver line and slammed into the floor on the other side, sprawling face down.

I wanted to lie there and die, but not with the three monstrous men watching me. Trembling, I braced my hands against the floor. As I pushed myself up, the flat metal disc swung from the