Page 65 of Jagged Souls

“How’s Dayne?” I ask as I watch him move over to Zita. He kneels down beside her, dips his fingers in her blood, and quickly starts sketching out a summoning circle.

“Alive.” His tone tells me he’s busy concentrating, so I bite back the rest of my questions even though I really want to know about Varius and Rafiki. Varius is here. Dayne will be too. Neither of them would have stayed behind. I can ask them myself soon enough.

I study the circle Maddox is drawing as best as I can from my position. I recognize a few of the runes as ones my sister created. She’s a progeny in summoning demons, and I damn near had a heart attack whenever she asked me to check for monsters under her bed or in her closet when she was little. Nine times out of ten, they were real.

How she managed to survive all this time is the world’s greatest mystery, especially since she’s the clumsiest person in said world.

Maddox steps back once his circle is done. Funneling his magic, he chants for a solid minute, and the hairs on my neck rise as I wonder who the fuck he’s summoning. Most demons only need one or two sentences to call them forth. Given the amount of limitations and power he is pulling on to bring this fucker forth, they must be powerful. An arch demon perhaps?

The urge to yell at Maddox to free me already increases with every second that passes, with every building of power in the circle of runes. I keep telling myself I’ll get out of my binds soon, but it’s getting harder and harder to stay calm. I feel so vulnerable on this table. So helpless and weak. If he can’t control the demon, I’ll be at its mercy just as much as I was at the wolves.

The summoning circle hums with an influx of power. The runes turn black, and a swirl of dark-blue smoke fills the area. Glitters of gold twinkle in and out of the haze, like a galaxy of stars. He’s clearly calling forth a pride demon. They always like to make an entrance. In a blinding flash of gold light, the smoke clears, and in its place is an eknor pride demon.

Their kind can take many shapes and forms, but this one is a towering bipedal male with sleek dark-blue fur all over his body. Like the smoke from before, he is dusted with bits of gold – an entire galaxy of stars from a world far away from here. He has the mane of a lion, and two strands, one on either side of his head, have been braided before ending with a golden feather. A tail with multiple heads flicks lazily behind him, like a cat o’nine tails whip. His thick arms are crossed, showcasing his muscles, and behind his back are folded feathered wings.

A loincloth is the only clothes he has on, but there is a golden cuff around his right bicep and a necklace of teeth hanging between his collar bones. It’s the cuff that draws my focus. Engraved within its metal –something far more valuable than gold– is a depiction of the sun beside a pretty detailed bird, like an archaeopteryx of sorts, its wing-arms spread, its beak to the sky, its talons wicked and sharp.

He isn’t wearing it though.

No.

The cuff’s been melted into his skin.

Which means this pretty boy is one of the seven princes of Sin. He is the Prince of Pride. They have no king.

His power makes my heart flip.

Now I no longer feel helpless.

I feel insignificant.

Like an ant in front of an elephant.

Normally, this is when the summoner brags to the demon about how powerful they are and why they must listen to them before giving the demon very detailed and extremely exact instructions on what they are to do. However, Maddox just draws another picture on the floor.

Not a rune this time.

The callsign of my sister. She has a bit of a reputation in the eknor kingdom…

The demon’s entire demeanor changes. He’s no longer puffing out his chest in a warrior’s pride. Not a peacock strutting his power. Now he stills like the true predator he is. His strength is quieter, more lethal, like a lion stalking through the grass.

Maddox points to me, and the demon’s head follows his finger. His eyes, gold and burning like the sun as it dips below the horizon, land on me.

I shiver even as I lift my chin.

“She wants you to kill any werewolf you find inside this building for the next thirty minutes,” Maddox says.

“But no kids,” I add. I’m pretty certain the ‘she’ Maddox mentioned is Lou, not me. He won’t use her name though, doesn’t want to give the demon that power over her. But the eknor is still staring at me, so hopefully that means he will listen.

The demon prince inclines his head, his mane shifting like moonlight through an ancient forest. “Sister,” he says, his accent heavy and thick, his dialect nowhere from earth.

As I stare at him in utter bafflement, he steps across the line of runes, his arms dropping to his sides. “You are not as good as her,” he says to Maddox, letting him know the circle did shit all to contain him.

My nerves spike as my eyes dart between them. If he wants to kill Maddox, there is nothing I’ll be able to do.

“Yeah… She said I might get myself killed…” he says, not a single waver to his voice. In fact, he looks fucking pleased with himself. Proud.

The demon grunts, then heads for the door. Sleek like a panther, his muscles rippling beneath his fur.