Page 7 of Demon Bound

She thought he was going to hit her again, but then the door opened. It was Eunaios.

“What?” Nirlan snapped.

Eunaios raised his sparse eyebrows, folding his hands primly into the sleeves of his robe. “The demon.”

Nirlan cursed under his breath.

“If you fail to keep it healthy, you’ll lose it.”

“Yes, I know.” He glanced up at Raiya, studied her for a moment, then grabbed her arm to drag her along with them. “I expect you to make this up to me,” he said to her. She thought it best not to reply.

Chapter 3

Eunaios didn’t look at Raiya as he held open the rune-covered door for them to pass through—not because he was avoiding her gaze, but because she was of no interest to him. He’d more or less ignored her from the moment they’d met. She had no illusions that he might try to protect her from Nirlan.

He probably would have ignored Nirlan too, if Nirlan hadn’t been paying for his services. Raiya wondered what he did with his time when he wasn’t working with Nirlan. Pray to his strange goddess, maybe? Devise evil plots? Dye his clothes black?

The trek down the dungeon’s tunnels was as eerie as Raiya remembered. A palpable malaise had suffused the entire space like a bad odor. She tried holding her breath, which did nothing to keep the uncomfortable feeling off her. Even Eunaios looked like he was feeling ill by the time they reached the demon’s cage.

Raiya’s eyes went to the box in the center of the room. The creature inside was a lump on the floor. She wondered if it was already dead.

Nirlan went to examine the demon. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s starving,” Eunaios replied.

“I thought you said it would only need to be fed once a week.”

“Perhaps it was already hungry when we summoned it.”

“Wonderful. First the issue with its arm, and now we discover it’s a weakling, too.”

“The arm will not be a problem. And the issue of feeding it is easily resolved.”

“Is it?” Nirlan said, frowning.

“It needs fear, anger, or copulation.”

“My dear Eunaios, I hope you’re not suggesting I copulate with the thing.”

“You don’t have to, my lord,” Eunaios said dryly. “Having someone engage in sexual activity nearby would suffice. Giving it something to frighten would do, as well. It merely needs a source of emotional energy. It doesn’t matter where it comes from. I’m sure there is no shortage of village girls nearby who would not be missed, if you would prefer to just give it something to play with.”

A shiver ran up Raiya’s spine.

Nirlan seemed to think for a moment, and then he looked up at Raiya. He was still murderously angry, and his ego was bruised. Whenever she saw that look in his eye, she feared for her safety.

She must have visibly paled. It was a mistake to let her fear show on her face, because he enjoyed it. It egged him on. And as she took a step back, he grabbed her arm.

She tore at his fingers, digging her feet into the ground as she struggled against him. “Nirlan, no! Let me go!”

It was with impulsive, joyful cruelty that he flung her through the magical barrier and into the demon’s cage. She slipped through the wall of magic as if it were merely fog, then sprawled on the cold floor beside the demon.

It became oddly quiet once she passed through the barrier. She hadn’t realized that the dungeon was full of tiny sounds—water dripping, footsteps echoing, wind whispering—until allthe noise in the room was muffled. Suddenly, the loudest thing she could hear was the soft breathing of the thing beside her.She froze, afraid of waking it.

It was enormous. Its eyes were closed, as if it was sleeping, but it radiated strength and power. It had pointed ears like an elf’s, and an athletic, scarred body with skin stretched taut over ridges of hard muscle, which was fully on display because it wore no clothing from the waist up. From the waist down, it wore only boots and a drape made of folded cloth and metal, not unlike the sarong skirts some men wore in the southern nations of Heilune. Its skin was an unnatural, vibrant blue—an oddly cheerful color for such a terrible creature—and the long, raggedly-cut hair beneath its horns was pure black. There was nothing about it that was not frightening.

She realized, too, that its right arm was entirely missing, cut off at the shoulder and long ago healed over. She’d been so overwhelmed by everything else about the creature that she hadn’t noticed it until now.

After a moment, it stirred, as if sensing her presence.

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