Page 54 of A Study of Blood and Ichor

A foreboding chill shot down my spine, and Vain returned his attention to the shelves, leaving me to wonder at his cryptic words.

The desk was a bust, so I moved my search to the farthest shelf away from Vain, pulling out every black book and inspecting the covers and the pages with no luck until we met in the middle.

“What if it’s not here?”

“Then we look elsewhere. I’m not leaving without—”

“I should have known you’d find a way to free yourself sooner than expected.” A low bone-chilling voice slithered out from behind us.

My muscles tensed and I slammed as much of my power as I could into reinforcing my mental shields. Glancing up warily at Vain, his face held no expression as he turned to the demon who had caught us red-handed. I didn’t dare to look. The power radiating from him was the blood-curdling, hair-raising sort, enough to send any mortal into a fit of terror.

Vain slid his arm protectively across my stomach and pulled me closer to him.

“There’s no mortal cage that can contain me for long, Eldin. I thought you were smarter than that.”

The click of the demon’s approaching footsteps sent my heart racing even with my back turned to him. Eldin’s voice gurgled low in his throat as he spoke. “Found yourself a witch whore in the process, I see?”

Vain glanced down at me through cautious eyes. “I did,” he said.

My tongue felt like ash in my mouth as I sensed the new demon's energy stalking closer.

“Well, let me have a look at her. I want to see what all the fuss is about.”

I trembled, but Vain squeezed my waist once, a silent reassuring touch before he turned me around. His hold never faltered as he pulled my back firmly against his chest. Vain’s other hand stroked down my arm as he presented me to the demon who had cornered us, and it took everything I had in me to choke back the scream clawing its way up my throat.

FIFTEEN

Ava

Eldin was a horror to look upon—the kind of demon I had only read about in books. Because if anyone ever crossed a demon like this in the flesh, it would be the last thing they saw before their gruesome ruin.

Long, snake-like tentacles slithered from the crown of the demon’s head and coiled down past his broad muscled shoulders. Thinner tentacles sprouted out from the flesh below two dark nostril slits, shrouding what might have been the demon’s mouth and falling like a curtain of snaking tendrils from chin to chest.

He stared at me as if he were trying to bore himself deep into my soul. Thin, elliptical shaped pupils encased in glowing red-orange irises, the color of embers from a dying fire, blinked back at me. He looked like he had clawed his way out of the deepest trench in the seas of Gehenna, and here he stood before us in a well-fitted dark gray suit. The humanness of it was jarring.

Eldin flicked a lit cigarette between his spindly roped fingers. He held it up and placed it between two of the tentacles shrouding his mouth, then took a long drag as he studied me. He was so close that I had to crane my neck to look into his face.

“She’s not the sort of mortal I would have expected you to enjoy. Though I see the appeal.” Eldin tilted his head to one side, the cherry flaring brightly as the demon took another drag of his cigarette. The smoke curled around his tentacles as he exhaled. “This one almost seems complacent and pathetic enough that you wouldn’t need to compel her to do anything.”

“Barely have to lift a finger,” Vain said, every syllable clipped with animosity. My stomach flipped as I struggled to keep my glazed-over expression steady.

Eldin motioned to a pair of seats toward the center of the room. “Why don’t you have a seat, old friend? Make yourself and your new pet comfortable.”

The chair creaked beneath Eldin as he sat, his large, oppressive form squeezed in between the armrests. Vain took a seat in the chair closest to the door, and I stood attentively to the side of him, careful to keep my gaze down so as not to catch any more of Eldin’s unwanted attention. I nearly jumped when Vain reached up to grab my chin and forced me to look into his obsidian eyes.

“Sit on the floor,” he ordered, the command sharp.

My knees wobbled as I shifted my weight onto the floor beside him, but he halted me.

“No. Where I can see you. Between my legs.”

I swallowed and moved in front of him, lowering myself between his spread knees and folding my legs to one side.

“Good mortal,” Vain purred as he tucked a stray hair behind my ear to keep the V he had cut into my neck exposed to Eldin. Vain was playing a role just as I was, yet his was so convincing that it forced me to remember what he really was—what true monster that lay beneath Rory’s skin.

I kept the empty, dreamy look behind my eyes so there would be no question that I was devoted to Vain in every way, helplessly entranced under his spell.

Eldin gave a small nod of approval and said, “You’ve leashed your little witch well.” The scrape of a mental claw dragged against the walls of my shields, and the urge to scream bubbled up in my chest, but I held perfectly still. “Got her locked up tight too. I can’t read her.”

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