Page 11 of Demon Bound

Raiya saw Nirlan’s lip curling. “I doubt you’ll be so flippant after you see it.”

Eunaios opened the rune-covered door to the deeper dungeon, and what could only be described as a wave of physical unease washed over them. Everyone in the group paused, startled.

Nirlan was the only one not fazed. “Come along,” he said smugly. He started down the tunnel, his hands clasped behind him, and Raiya reluctantly followed, despite the heavy atmosphere that seemed to be trying to push them back. The group remained uncomfortably silent.

The feeling of ambient power and rage thickened the air, pulsing in Raiya’s ears and making her sweat. She almost expected to find the demon waiting to kill them as soon as they stepped across the threshold.

When they entered its chamber, there was a collective intake of breath and a few muttered curses. None of Nirlan’s guests were laughing now—a fact which surely pleased him to no end. The room smelled of smoke and heat, though there was no fireburning. It smelled of hatred. It prickled along her skin like clawed fingers.

In the center of the room, encircled with rows of glowing runes on the floor and walls, was the demon. There was no magical barrier around him this time, but his arm was stretched out in front of him, held by a chain going from his wrist to the floor, forcing him to kneel. Another chain ran from a collar on his neck to the ceiling, baring his throat at a painful looking angle.

Reading the runes around him, Raiya saw spells of holding that would keep him in place even if he broke free of the chains. Additional binding runes had been painted in black ink all over his body, across his chest and down his legs, even up his throat and onto the edges of his face. They glowed in dazzling iridescent colors, equal parts frightening and beautiful. They were too small for Raiya to read from a distance, but it must have taken Eunaios weeks of research and planning to find them all, not to mention hours of careful painting.

Something black was dripping down the demon’s neck. Not paint—blood. His blood was jet black. Raiya realized that the collar he was wearing had spikes on the inside prodding at his skin. If he moved too much, the spikes would burrow into him.

It was a show of dominance. Nirlan wanted the others to see that he had fully conquered this creature. He wanted it to look dramatic. Raiya was disgusted.

“Ash and blood,” someone murmured.

“Is this some kind of joke?” someone else asked.

“It’s not real,” said another. “Some kind of illusory magic.”

That made Nirlan angry. “You doubt me?” He took the lightning baton from where it hung on the wall and approached the demon, who watched him unblinkingly. Raiya had to admit that she was impressed by Nirlan’s apparent fearlessness. Whenhe stood next to the demon, he looked small and slight by comparison.

Nirlan raised the baton and dragged it up the demon’s exposed chest until it tapped beneath his chin. The tip of the weapon sparked, but didn’t shoot. The demon’s expression did not change as he glared at Nirlan, but the energetic tension in the air grew.

It was the demon’s anger. They could all feel it. It was difficult for Raiya to resist the instinct to turn and run. Two of the others actually took a few steps back.

The sun elf woman was the first to speak. “What do you plan to do with it?”

“Whatever I wish,” Nirlan said, putting the baton away.

“Do you mean to say it’s bound to you?” someone asked.

Nirlan smiled. “In a few moments, it will be.” At his beckoning, Eunaios took a brush and an ink pot from a table against the wall, then began painting runes on Nirlan’s palms.

As the others whispered nervously to each other, Raiya’s gaze was drawn to the demon. To her surprise, his glowing eyes were already on her.

She stepped closer. There was no barrier between them this time, and it was petrifying being so close to him again. She stopped a few steps short, arm’s reach away from a monster from a fairy tale.

The muscles in his shoulders and chest shifted with each breath, straining from the cruel pull of the chains. As she came closer, she could see his thighs flexing with the effort of holding himself up.

He was magnificent. He was pure destructive power. It was in every line, every curve of him. He had been perfectly designed by the gods to seduce and kill.

She did not often see men—or man-shaped creatures—so exposed, physically or metaphorically. There was a secondhandshame in witnessing another person so degraded. Seeing someone helpless, in pain, kneeling and bleeding, filled her with deep unease in the same way that it filled Nirlan with joy. Nirlan would own him soon, and it would only get worse. The demon would be unable to harm him and unable to disobey his orders. He would be a slave.

To tame a creature like this was to spit in the face of creation. Nirlan already owned her, and it was a fate she wouldn’t wish on anyone else. As if Nirlan needed more power. As if he needed another person to abuse and demean.

She imagined releasing him from those chains, setting him loose before he was trapped with Nirlan forever. It was a crazy thought. The priests of all Four goodly gods agreed that demons were an abomination. There was no more corrupt or obscene being known to mortalkind.

And yet, he hadn’t hurt her when he’d had the chance. He’d spared her.

It was too late to save herself, but maybe it wasn’t too late to save him.

Raiya glanced up at Nirlan. He was preoccupied with the spell Eunaios had begun casting as he painted. None of them were watching her. She was inconsequential. She was just the woman on Nirlan’s arm. Someone whose name and works would be forgotten by everyone within a month of her death, who would be interchangeable with his next wife, and perhaps the one after that.

She looked down at the runes covering the ground, and a dormant part of her mind awoke—the part that had devoted itself to studying this magic long ago. There were runes for control and submission, commanding and obligation, pain and consequence. Spells for binding were ancient, poorly understood, and rarely cast. They were taboo for good reason.

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