Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex Demonized #1) - Annette Marie Page 0,80

I promised you my soul.

His crimson eyes narrowed but he didn’t move. My assurance must not be enough. As long as the knife was at my throat, our fates were solely in my hands. Terror flooded me, weakening my legs, but I forced a single whispered word past my numb lips.

“No.”

Karlson rocked back on his heels. “What did you say?”

I swallowed painfully. “No. I won’t give you my contract.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

But I did. I couldn’t surrender him to these men. I couldn’t throw him into his worst nightmare, the fate he most feared.

“Robin,” Travis whispered, moving the knife off my neck but keeping the blade close, “just give up the demon. You didn’t even want this contract. You can go back to your normal life.”

I clenched my jaw and held my silence.

Karlson released a harsh, angry breath. “It won’t take much to break her. Leonard?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Start slow. Keep the blood to a minimum.”

The man strolled over to me, and my heart sped up with each step he took. He grabbed my right hand. I flinched and Travis’s fist tightened in my hair. Leonard stroked my fingers as though reassuring me, then took my pinky finger and started bending it backward. Pain tore through it. My breath whistled through my gritted teeth.

He bent it further. Then further still. My arm spasmed, trying to tear my hand free. He bent it past a right angle and the joint gave way with a pop.

I screamed.

Zylas bared his teeth and his tail lashed once, the motion swiftly stifled.

“Give up the demon,” Karlson ordered.

“No,” I panted.

“This is just a warmup, girl,” Leonard warned. “It’ll only get worse.”

I knew that, but it changed nothing.

He grasped my ring finger. Bent it back. I was already screaming when it dislocated.

“Give up the demon,” Karlson commanded again, “and we’ll let you go.”

“No.”

When Leonard popped my middle finger out of joint, I couldn’t hold back my shaking sobs. Travis shifted the knife further from my throat before I gouged myself.

“Give up the demon.”

“No!” I shrieked, my breath catching on an agonized sob. I wouldn’t. Zylas had been willing to die to escape enslavement. How could I give away his autonomy? I didn’t know what would happen, what they would do to me, but I couldn’t betray him.

Through tear-blurred vision, I found his glowing eyes and anchored myself as the torturer grasped my index finger.

Kill them all, I thought as clearly as I could. The first chance you get.

His tail twitched, his stare boring into mine. The connection between us burned hot, an invisible thread that bound our fates together. Crimson light glowed across his fingers and the semi-transparent talons that tipped them. His tail slid slowly across the pavement. The twenty yards between us yawned even wider.

My torturer wrenched my finger back and another scream tore from my throat.

Zylas launched off the concrete, a dark blur.

“Stop!” Travis bellowed. “Stop or—”

Karlson grabbed Travis’s hand and shoved his knife toward me. Zylas flashed across the final yards, magic blazing up his arms.

He slammed into me and power ruptured the world around us.

As his spell hurled the mythics backward, his hands closed around me. He leaped clear of the humans, landed lightly, and sprinted away, the wind tearing at us. Shouts, outcries. Flashing magic. Racing steps, dizzying momentum, then the light dimmed. A metal door slammed and red power flared.

My back hit a hard floor. Zylas knelt over me, his face filling my vision. His hands were on my throat, squeezing.

“Hold on, payilas,” he whispered.

I couldn’t move. My limbs had gone weak, my head was spinning, and my heart thundered louder than I’d ever heard it.

Scarlet magic reflected off the metal walls. Hot power suffused my skin beneath his hands. It veined his arms in shifting lines, and concentration tightened his jaw. His gaze darted across my throat and his lips moved with words I couldn’t hear.

All I could hear was my racing, booming heart. My stuttering, faltering pulse.

Red light flared. Agony lanced my throat, the torment building into an inferno. I convulsed, limbs flailing violently, and Zylas dropped down, pinning my body to the floor with his, still crushing my throat in his powerful hands. The excruciating burn rushed down my neck and into my chest where it lit a new fire. I screamed as my bones turned to magma inside me, scorching my innards.

Then it was over. I lay panting, hurting everywhere as my nerves gradually reset. The only agony that persisted was my throbbing right hand. I swallowed,