Anya Bast - Witch Blood

Thomas pushed her facedown into the thicket with a harsh order to stay there, grasped the sword, and struggled to stand to greet the oncoming rush. Lady damn the man! He was injured!

She cast about for ways to use her magick as a weapon in this situation and came up empty since she couldn’t use her ability directly on the demons. All she could do was watch in horror as Thomas took a wide swing and sliced into one of their attackers.

Rough hands grabbed her and pulled her up. She glimpsed the demon Thomas had wounded — tall, muscular and dark-haired. He’d collapsed to the thicket, holding his side and bellowing in pain as his wound smoked and popped.

Her captor swung her around to face the ravening horde. They looked human…well, except for their massive size. They wore leather, the lot of them. Boots, pants, and jackets. Almost like a uniform of some kind. The largest of them, a hulking demon with long red hair and brown eyes barked something at her in their language. She could only glare in response, her hands fisting.

Thomas had been scuffling with them beside her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw three demons finally bring Thomas to heel, but not before he’d injured two of them. The demons wrestled him down, extracted the sword from him, and tossed it to the ground. Then they heaved him up fast and hard, making him groan in pain, and forced him to kneel next to Isabelle.

His hair fell over his face, concealing his expression, but anger rolled off him in biting, bitter waves. Blood soaked through the makeshift bandage her T-shirt made, dripped down his leg. Terror edged up her throat like a razor blade. He needed medical attention, damn it!

More shouting at them in the strange language.

“We don’t understand you!” bellowed Thomas. He flicked his hair away from his face and Isabelle glimpsed his eyes, snapping hot black with ire.

A demon with short brown hair and a handsome face angrily pushed his way through the throng and shoved the redhead, barking something at him. The redhead barked back. The handsome demon gestured at her and Thomas, growing louder in his protestations.

Chaos ensued.

Demon turned on demon, shouting and shoving. They gesticulated at her and Thomas constantly. One of them tried to rush them, but was held back by his peers. Obviously, this was a serious disagreement.

Obviously, it was over their fate.

Thomas took her hand and squeezed it a moment before the redhead raised his hand and sent a blast of demon magick toward them.

The scent of it burned along her nose and throat, making her choke — triple stronger than on Earth — and blackness enveloped her.

ISABELLE AWOKE WITH A JOLT AND GRIMACED. THEredhead pulled a capsule away from her face and she saw he’d waved something that smelled bitter under her nose. She tried to move her hands, but quickly learned they, like her ankles, were bound.

They’d dressed her, at least. That was good because being clothed in just her bra around a bunch of male demons hadn’t made her feel very warm and fuzzy. She now wore a dark blue tuniclike shirt in a soft weave of fabric that seemed a cross between silk and cotton.

The redhead said something unintelligible to her. She ignored him, too busy glancing around the room to locate Thomas. The room was surprisingly luxurious — soft dark green couches with tasseled pillows, granite tables, and plush throw rugs covering a polished stone floor. Gleaming swords decorated the walls. The décor appeared medieval and posh all at once.

It was a nice room, except for the fact Thomas wasn’t in it.

“Where’s Thomas? Where’s my friend?” she asked, interrupting his fruitless attempts to communicate with her. She knew he couldn’t understand her, but the question was involuntary.

“Pah, aeamon .” The redhead waved a hand at her in a gesture that needed no translation, turned, and walked out of the room.

Isabelle fell back against the cushions in defeat. Damn it, she had to find Thomas. If they hadn’t seen to his wound — and what was the chance of that? — he’d bleed out.

He’d die.

Her wrists were tied in front of her. She raised her hands and worried the rope with her teeth as fast as she could. Hell, she’d gnaw through them if she had to.

She’d managed to get the knots around her wrists undone and was busy laboring on the ones around her ankles when the door opened. Isabelle pressed herself back into the cushions, wishing she’d been able to work a little faster, and watched the new demon enter the room.

He stood close to seven feet tall and looked like a Viking on steroids — long blond hair, icy blue eyes, and a square, chiseled chin. Threat seemed to linger on the brutal curve of his mouth and sit all too comfortably in his eyes.

Viking demon didn’t seem to notice, or care, that her hands were untied. Why should he? There was no way she could best this guy in a fight. She was completely vulnerable to him, locked in this room with him alone. It didn’t matter if she were bound or not.

The demon stopped in the center of the room and studied her. She braced herself for another barrage of the foreign language. “Where’s Thomas?” she repeated. She would ask until her throat was raw or he learned English, whichever came first.

“Safe.” He paused ominously. “For now.”

Relief flooded her, though she didn’t like the for now he added on. She jolted as the second most important bit of information registered. “You speak English?”

He inclined his head a degree. “I speak many of the languages of your people. It is part of my job.” His tone wasn’t particularly hostile — more matter-of-fact — but the expression on his face remained icy. “My name is Rue. I am an ambassador to the aeamon .”

She took a moment to reply, her mind wiped momentarily clean of thought. “Ambassador to the aeamon? ”

His eyes glowed red for a moment and Isabelle lost her breath. “Why did you follow Ashe through the doorway?”

“Ashe? Do you mean the demon who called himself Boyle?”

The demon named Rue stalked toward her, shoulders hunched. Isabelle shrank back against the couch. “You know who I mean,” he bellowed. “The Atrika daaeman we killed in the field.”

Atrika demon? “Whoa! Hold on!” She held up a hand, as if that would ward him off. “We knew him as Erasmus Boyle, and we did not follow him voluntarily through the doorway.”

The demon’s massive hands came down on the couch at either side of her head, pinning her in place. The scent of demon magick came off him in cloying waves.

“You lie!” he snarled.

She startled backward, her head hitting the soft cushion. If she could get any farther back, she’d be inside the couch.

His teeth had started to lengthen and become pointed. “You came through the doorway to organize with the Atrika .”

Terror exploded through her body at the sight of his eyes, which now glowed a steady red. Isabelle knew with a vast amount of experience that glowing red eyes on a demon was never a good sign.

Isabelle sat forward, coming nose to nose with him, every muscle in her body vibrating with fear. “Look, I don’t know what the hell an Atrika is, but if they’re anything like Boyle, I want no part of them. An Atrika killed my sister. We were doing our best to return the favor. During Boyle’s death throes, the doorway he was trying to open appropriated his magick, went wonky, and sucked us through.” She drew a breath. “ We are not here by choice! ” She spat the last sentence and felt her face grow hot with anger.

He stared at her for a long moment, then turned, and stalked away. He crossed the room to a window that looked out over clear blue sky and stared out of it. Apparently, they were on a very high floor. She wondered which of the jagged gray skyscrapers that she’d seen before was the one she now found herself in.