Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex Demonized #1) - Annette Marie Page 0,39

breathing fast. Demon magic. He had healed me with his demonic magic.

My eyes fluttered closed. “Protect me,” I had said.

“What will you give me?” he had asked.

An exchange. A trade. That’s how demons worked. I’d asked him to protect me, and in return … I’d set him free. I hadn’t realized that’s what I was agreeing to, and a violent shudder shook me from head to toe. I’d set a demon loose in the city. He was so fast, so deadly. Where was he now? How many people had he killed already?

Gulping down my nausea, I finished cleaning the blood off my torso, then unbuttoned my jeans and shoved them off my hips. As they slid down my legs, something fell out of the back pocket and hit the floor with a clang. A flat, circular pendant on a silver chain lay across the tiles, its surface smeared with blood like everything else. Warily, I picked it up.

Zylas crushed the pendant between our hands. “Now seal it.”

I rubbed my thumb across its rune-etched surface. It was an infernus—the key to a demon contract, Amalia had said. The demon’s will and spirit were bound to the infernus, and through it, the contractor could control the demon.

That was a real contract, though. Whatever weird bargain Zylas and I had made didn’t come close … did it? He’d already fulfilled his end, even going a step further to heal my injuries—not merely repairing my arm, but a full healing. Though I should’ve been lightheaded and woozy from blood loss, I was simply tired—and parched with thirst. I turned on the faucet and drank from the flow, gulping down water until my stomach threatened to rebel again.

Finished with cleaning, I carried the infernus back into my room and tossed it on the bed. I needed to hide the pendant before anyone noticed I had it. That’d be hard to explain.

I pulled on clean clothes—a soft green sweater and stretchy yoga pants—then sat on my bed. Exhausted and sick with guilt and anxiety, I picked up the infernus again. My thumb traced the centermost rune—a spiky, circular sigil. I hadn’t looked closely at the one Amalia had shown me, but I would’ve remembered such a strange marking.

Flopping back onto my pillow, I swung the infernus like a pendulum. Golden beams from the setting sun streaked through the window, illuminating floating dust motes and sparkling across the silver disc. How long had it been since Travis led me into the basement, since those men had nearly killed me? Where was Zylas now?

Red light sparked in the infernus’s center.

The scarlet glow burst out of it in bounding streaks. They pooled and condensed, solidifying into a humanoid shape. Weight settled on my waist, and the light dispersed with a final shimmer.

Zylas grinned down at me, crimson eyes glowing and his pointed canines on full display.

For an eternity, I could neither move nor breathe. Gasping in blind panic, I shoved away from him—but he was straddling my hips, his weight pressing me into the bed. All I managed to do was writhe pathetically.

“Payilas,” he crooned.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded breathlessly, fighting my panic. “I thought you’d left!”

“Left?” He canted his head, then flicked the infernus I still held in the air, sending it swinging. “I am bound to this, payilas. So are you.”

“What?” I dropped the infernus like it was contaminated with a deadly disease. “No.”

Bracing his hands on either side of my head, he leaned down. I pushed back into my pillow. “Are you not pleased? I have obeyed our terms.”

I gulped, my mind spinning frantically. Bound to the infernus. Obeying the terms. A terrifying new understanding dawned, followed by the urge to howl in denial.

“You mean by protecting me?” I stammered.

“Protect.” He seemed to taste the word, his eyes gleaming dangerously. “What does this word mean, na?”

He lowered his face until all I could see were his glowing eyes. Fresh adrenaline surged through my veins. A demon was pinning me down. He could kill me before I could draw breath to scream.

“What does it mean, payilas?” he whispered, his breath warm on my lips.

“It—it means you can’t hurt me.”

“Is that all?”

“And … and you won’t let anyone else hurt me.” I wanted to close my eyes but I was afraid to look away from him. “Would you move?”

“That is your meaning?” His wolfish grin returned. “You did not tell me this when we made our contract.”

“Contract?” I mouthed silently, terrified by the word—by the confirmation