Page 15 of The Demon’s Collar (The Bard’s Demon #1)

Ero: How to Kill a Demon and Other Problems

“If you anger a man past logic, you can expect that he will eventually return to his senses. If you embarrass a man, it’s best to assume he will not.” - a fragment of correspondence from a Temple Mother, preserved in the journal of Eroithiel von Dua

A elith turned out to know a lot about killing demons.

Or neutralizing them, anyway. She was happy to recite lore and imagine aloud with glee how satisfying it would be to see B?k’s soul trapped inside a relic or sutured to a boar’s ass or sold back to Hell. The firelight crackled merrily as she wove a dozen beautiful plots.

And then with a sunny sigh, she said words I desperately didn’t want to hear. “But we can’t. He’s off limits.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“We’re all pledged to Lord Austvix.” She shrugged.

“No one in the faction can act against B?k in any serious way. Trust me, I’ve tried to find a loophole.

B?k’s contract is self-enforcing, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, so in Lord Austvix’s eyes, an act against the lord’s demon is an act against the lord himself—and there are consequences for that.

Anything from caning to hanging. Nothing fun. ”

“Fuuuuck.” I groaned, resting my chin on my knees.

Aelith smiled sympathetically. She nudged my shoulder with hers. “It may be scant consolation, but he’ll avoid you if you’re with me. I can make him quite uncomfortable.”

She flicked her fingers demonstratively, sending a volley of ice shards into the air with a seductive smirk.

I managed a weak smile. I already adored Aelith—but I wasn’t in the market to annoy or avoid B?k. He was the kind of problem that required a more permanent solution.

Pondering my collection of poor options, I caught some of Aelith’s ice on my fingers and watched the shards melt. “How does the whole water elemental thing work, anyway? I’ve never seen an elemental in human form.”

“Austvix,” she said with a one-shoulder shrug, as if his name alone explained everything. While she spoke, she filled a small vial with the moisture welling at her fingertips. “He’s sort of a collector…or a curator, I suppose? He can transfigure willing souls.”

She handed the vial to me with a wink. “In case you ever need a quick fix.”

I examined it. The vial had a slight glow. Holy water. Interesting.

But I didn’t spend long considering the potential weapon.

My attention snagged on what she’d said.

Had Lord Austvix transformed B?k too? If so, what had B?k looked like before?

Based on the battle in the woods, he must have been a huge, shadowy beast. Ten feet tall with leathery skin and a forked? —

Aelith leaned over me to snatch two mugs of mulled wine from a passing cart. She handed one to me.

I blinked. Right. Not thinking about B?k right now.

“So…you were willing?” I prompted, taking a long drink. The potent aroma of cinnamon and clove mingling with the wine took me to whole new planes.

“I was,” Aelith confirmed, smiling distantly at some private thought. “I actually met Brü in my original form. He was in a swamp battle. Almost died inside me, in fact.”

I choked through a swallow. “How romantic?”

Aelith snorted. The shine in her eyes promised a hundred song-worthy stories. I yearned to shake at least one out of her—but Brü caught her attention then, and the way he looked at her made my cheeks heat.

”We should get our rest,” I whispered conspiratorially. (You’re welcome, Brü.)

Aelith squeezed my hand and arched a knowing brow. “We should . We’ll work on your demon problem in the morning?”

I forced myself to stand and issue bland words of agreement. I didn’t mean them, of course. Now that I knew B?k was “off limits,” I couldn’t drag Aelith or anyone else into my trouble. I would have to work on my “demon problem” alone.

Nevertheless, I looked forward to spending more time with Aelith. In the space of a day, she’d become the one bright spot in my dark, thorny mess of a situation.

I floated to my tent on a cloud of warm feelings—perhaps partially due to the wine. My night had ended almost as well as it’d begun, I noted—B?k’s antics aside.

The downpour the clouds had threatened all day hit moments after I crawled into my bedroll. It didn’t take long for the whoosh of the storm to lull me.

Regarding B?k, I thought blearily as I drifted toward sleep, my best bet was probably to incapacitate him long enough to run.

Even though the thought of leaving for good was suddenly much less appealing than it’d been pre-Aelith, I couldn’t justify staying.

And even though the thought of what B?k would do to me if I failed sent an electric spark of conflicting desire and fear straight through my core, there was no winning alternative.

I tucked Aelith’s vial of holy water into my meager rucksack and hid it under my blanket for safekeeping. The last thing I needed was for B?k to find it.

By the time sleep came, I still had no real plan—but I had spent quite a lot of time imagining in stark detail epic successes that ranged from seeing B?k on his knees begging for mercy to seeing Fl?r framed for my crimes and caned before the faction.

I fell asleep smiling.

I did not wake up smiling.

It wasn’t morning. The rain had stopped, but it was pitch black in my tent. It was the poing! of my lute string that alerted me to imminent danger. I shot up, registering that someone was in my tent. My first thought was B?k.

“Shit, she’s awake,” a deep voice warned.

It was not B?k.

The voice sounded wrong—unnaturally deep and distorted, likely through spellwork.

I reached automatically for the dagger in my boot. I wasn’t any sort of expert with it, but I trusted my survival instincts to guide my hand.

The man’s gloved fingers closed around my wrist before I could swipe at him. His other hand clapped over my mouth just as I opened it to scream.

“Still and quiet, love, or I’ll?—”

I didn’t wait for the end of that threat. His masked face was only inches from mine. I whipped my head forward so that my forehead connected with his nose. A satisfying crunch sounded before his curses filled the air.

“Shut the fuck up!” a second voice hissed from outside. “Haz’s sack, grab her.”

In the grapplefest that followed, I fought like my life depended on it.

I’m glad it didn’t…because I lost. My blade might have found skin before I went down, though.

I earned a fresh wave of curses and felt something warm and wet drip onto my leg before a vice-tight arm around my neck forced me to release the weapon, and a fist gripped my hair.

That fist led to yet another round of cursing as the enchantments in my braid lashed out protectively. Although the man released my hair, the grip on my throat remained firm.

Through the scuffle, my second assailant’s words reached me. “Calm down, initiate, or this will go much worse for you.”

Initiate?

Shit.

It wasn’t an attack. It was…initiation?

The hands—there were four now—turned me over, bound my wrists tightly behind my back with a spelled rope, and tugged a bag over my head.

My magic wasn’t cut off the way it’d been with B?k’s manacles, but it felt drunk and unstable.

I didn’t dare try to reach for it. I cried out, but the sound echoed as if I were inside a sealed metal box.

No outside sounds entered. All I could hear was my own ragged panting.

And then something small and sharp pierced my neck, and the world blurred.

I granted myself one kind lie as I drifted away from consciousness .

This is going to be fine.

Hours later, I woke to Brü’s gruff “road in five” on the other side of my tent flap. The mid-morning sunlight drove hot pokers into my eyes.

A whirlwind of the previous night’s activities fought to reassemble as my head pulsed.

Coming to with my face in a pool of water.

Being held under for an agonizingly long time, only to come up for too-short reprieves before going back under.

Being shoved to my knees on a bed of sharp pebbles. Attempting to stand. Earning lashes for the effort.

Counting aloud to one hundred before I was allowed to rise.

Running, racing the other initiates who wore barely translucent scarves over their eyes—like the one they’d put on me while I was out—knowing that whoever crossed the finish line last would earn a bonus humiliation.

Listening to the initiate who lost choke back sobs as our tormenters passed a wooden paddle and competed to see who could score the loudest yelp.

Dawn had already teased its arrival by the time they split us apart to return to our tents. I was tired and achy, though as far as hazing went, it could have been worse.

But when we entered my tent, the man who guided me knelt beside me and placed something around my toe.

My wrists were still tied, and I was far too tired to fight him.

He untied me when he finished, but the euphoric rush of my magic returning never came.

Instead, my tendrils remained pinned in a tortured, drunken state by the crude magic of the toe ring .

”That’s for breaking my nose, cunt,” he whispered. “Tell the others, and I’ll make sure you regret it.”

Then, he was gone.

I sat up, examining the toe. The makeshift dampener was a thin gold chain, too tight to slip off, but not tight enough to cut circulation.

I trembled, touching it. It seared my finger.

I cried out, then quickly bit my sleeve to stay quiet.

The absolute last thing I needed was to draw attention to myself.

I still didn’t even know who my assailants were.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t heal with the ring fighting me. The cuts and bruises from last night would stay. It was no raw, welted ass, but it would make the day’s ride rough.