Page 32 of The Demon’s Collar (The Bard’s Demon #1)

B?k: The Demon’s Dilemma

T he flames felt like home.

It wasn’t just the heat, either. The souls around me hungered—some for vengeance, some for peace, and some for a last chance to resolve unfinished business. As soon as they sensed me, they latched on, trailing along in a ghoulish parade. Their desires pressed in as thick as smoke.

Most people heard enough cautionary tales in their youths to understand that making a deal with a devil or a demon was bad business. But just let them see their own charred bones and feel genuine desperation for a last wish—and oh, how quickly they threw their immortal souls to the wind.

The shit of it was, it was a veritable buffet for me, and I wasn’t even hungry.

The easy ones I handled for free. With a mere flick of my will, I released tortured souls from broken bodies.

My mercy allowed them to pass over without delay.

No one was coming to mourn them, anyway.

Not here. And while none of them were what I would call friends, they were factionmates.

It cost me little to end their suffering.

I ignored the others. The ones who sought vengeance might enjoy the show if I found the siphon, so they could just keep following. The others would have to choose the spirit path if they wanted to resolve their business.

When I reached the center of the inferno, I paused, feeling around me for living energy.

It was scarce. Death crackled along waves of heat intense enough to melt flesh.

It only tickled mine. I stood still, demanding quiet that the chattering souls refused to give.

After some time, two threads of life force emerged from the babble.

One was strong but cloaked—the siphon. The other was so weak I nearly missed it.

Water that’d almost gone to steam, a life force I knew too well because it had nagged and chafed at mine since the moment we’d had the misfortune of meeting. Aelith .

I turned toward the siphon.

And then I paused. Ero’s piercing green eyes, heavy with fear and desperation, pleading for something she knew better than to expect but had the temerity to ask for anyway—tugged at me strangely.

As if sensing my doubt, Brü’s face slipped in next to hers, pinched with the pained certainty that it was already a lost cause.

I didn’t enjoy the queasy sensation those accusing looks stirred. Could they really blame me if Aelith got herself killed?

I took one more step in the siphon’s direction. He’d killed half of our party. He was a clear and present threat to the others. Prioritizing that made good sense.

On the other hand, he wasn’t moving in their direction.

On a third hand, problems like that liked to fester if left unresolved.

One more step .

Aelith’s pathetic light flickered. The answering stab of joy in my mind was sullied by those damned bees buzzing inside me.

A new and unfortunate sickness. Wasn’t it supposed to be butterflies?

That’s the sort of nonsense soft little bards were always on about.

But no, not for me. For me, the angry buzzing became pricks of stinging torment all over my body.

Ah, fuck it.

I pivoted, cutting toward Aelith with smooth efficiency. She was probably too far gone anyway, I reasoned. What a stupid thing to do, entering an inferno like this as a water elemental. I could do the bare minimum. Show up. Maybe even gloat a little. At least then I could say I tried.

I found her at the base of a massive oak, chewing desperately on an exposed root to steal its water.

Her blond tresses fell limp around her shoulders.

That the hair hadn’t burned away told me she was employing the last dregs of her energy to maintain a shield against the fire.

It wouldn’t last. The oak above her flamed, and her lips blistered from the boiling water.

Aelith sensed me, but she didn’t look up. I only knew because her desire to tell me to fuck off flared to life. I took some satisfaction in the fact that she didn’t have energy to spare for it.

“I couldn’t pass up seeing this before I handled the siphon,” I said, leaning casually against her tree.

Aelith’s response took so long I thought she’d actually decided to ignore me. But then she sagged against the root and turned her soot-stained face up to meet my eyes. She glared.

“You. Won’t.” The words were barely a whisper. Each took a hard-fought breath, huffed out on its own. “Handle. Him.”

Aelith closed her eyes then, anguished. The words sounded taunting—telling me that I couldn’t best an enemy?—but there wasn’t any pleasure behind the accusation, and despite myself, a stab of doubt coursed through me.

She struggled to form more words. And, fuck me, I couldn’t help but lean closer. If she had information about the siphon that I didn’t, I wanted it. Needed it, even.

“God’s energy,” she croaked. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, though no wet remained.

I frowned. Was Aelith saying the siphon had sourced from a god?

If he had, it couldn’t have been much. I’d been close enough to feel his power before, and nothing about it had set off alarm bells.

Hell, perhaps he’d siphoned from the Huntress.

All the warlords had some god’s blood. That was what set them apart from lesser mortals to begin with.

Either way, siphoning from a god or one of their descendants didn’t make one a god. The creature was still mortal. Still beatable. Still going to be beaten.

“I’ll handle it,” I dismissed.

Aelith winced, nodding her head. “Coming. Back.”

For a moment, I thought she meant she was coming back.

With me.To the party. My first instinct was to taunt her.

Coming back how? I might have asked. Is this the part where you beg for mercy from the very demon you’ve taken so much pleasure in irritating?

Are you ready to see how effective that will be?

But that wasn’t what she meant. She meant the siphon was coming back. And she was right again. His energy signature was moving our way.

Perfect.

Plausible deniability.

I’d found Aelith, but the siphon found us. There was nothing to be done. The story told itself. I could dry Ero’s tears and pat Brü’s shoulder, and we could all move on one annoying elemental lighter .

“Get them out,” she hissed. Strong words, a last rallying cry. A demand, not an ask.

I looked down at her. Her golden eyes swam with fierce determination.

Shit.

She wasn’t begging. She wasn’t even asking for her own life. No, she was invoking the one mutual desire we had. Them . Irritating to the last, wasn’t she? Refusing to give me the pleasure of clean and simple hatred, even at the end.

As the siphon drew closer, a prickle of danger in my peripheral senses told me that Aelith might understand more than I gave her credit for.

Cockiness aside, the power I sensed emanating from the creature now was not of the “I’ll handle it myself and be on my merry way” variety.

Perhaps he’d cloaked some of his power before to keep me from interfering?

That would explain why Ero’s magic had failed to destroy him.

Either way, I could tell now that our clash would be an actual fight.

I could even die again. That would be the ultimate irritation—particularly because it would give him time to reach the others.

I frowned more deeply, fully grasping Aelith’s ask as her unspoken desires crackled in the air.

She didn’t mean for me to win the fight so I could get them out.

She meant for me to run—to leave her here to distract the siphon, whose desires were currently focused on collecting the elemental who’d refused him now that she was near enough to death to reconsider. She wouldn’t. But he didn’t know that.

I itched for the fight. It would be so cathartic to melt the man’s smug face. To teach him myriad lessons as I tore his body apart and ejected him from this mortal plane.

But between the bees and Ero’s watery eyes and Aelith’s bone-dry ones and Brü’s resigned ones—something inside me folded.

“Drop your shields,” I growled.

Aelith’s eyes popped open. Suspicion and fear warred inside them.

Did she think I would waste time or energy killing her myself when the fire was about to do it for me and my doing it would trigger a contract response that would serve me up to the siphon in a maddened state?

No. She was too smart to think that I was that petty.

But she also didn’t trust me. Which was absolutely fair. I wouldn’t trust me either.

Still, I didn’t have time for this. “If you want me to save them, I need to go now. Drop your shields.”

Keeping up with my impression that Aelith was smarter than she looked, I felt her flicker of hope. Sure, it was tinged with terror. With the fear of her last act in this life being a bad gamble. But to my surprise, she listened anyway.

The flames dove for her like sentient jackals lunging for their long awaited kill the moment her shields fell—but mine were there to replace them, repelling the hellfire effortlessly. Inside my shields, Aelith was perfectly safe.

I broke eye contact, certain that if we maintained it, my plan would fall apart, and I would revert to my baser instincts.

I bent and scooped Aelith off the ground.

Her trembling limbs wound around me—so weak, I knew she wouldn’t be able to hold on if I ran.

And I needed to run, because bringing her along meant there would be no one left behind to keep the siphon busy.

You’re fucking welcome, Ero and Brü. Let’s hope your absurd request doesn’t get you both killed.

My shadows cinched her in place. I let the cloak fall around her, one more layer of cool energy between her and the flames that nearly claimed her life.

And I ran.

It tasted like licking grounds from over-brewed tea. Running from a fight? Haz’s tits. I would never live this down. And to save her . No! To save them. Fuck her. She was a gift to them—and not a single thing more.

We easily outstripped the siphon, who—despite whatever powers he was high on—still needed to shield hard to move through the flames.

He’d drained Aelith. I felt that now. Her power coiled around his own far off in the forest while she sagged empty against me.

I also sensed the flickering golden light that must have been the god’s energy.

He had little of it. He would need more if he really meant to fight me .

Good. That might buy us the time we needed.

The distance between us and the siphon grew as we ran, though his pursuit didn’t actually stop until we neared the edge of the flames. I was more relieved than I cared to admit when I sensed him turn.

I crashed out of the fire into the relatively cold air just outside.

Ero and Brü were right where I left them, on their feet.

Their faces curdled in a way that told me exactly how much they cared about the fate of the water elemental clinging to my chest. I pulled the cloak away and dumped her in an unceremonious heap at their feet.

The emotions changed in a sudden, nauseous wave. Brü fell to his knees to gather Aelith in his arms. Ero simply froze, staring down at them as if this was almost worse than what she’d feared seconds before. Such a strange kitten.

As if hearing that thought and needing to underscore it, she threw her arms around me and buried her face in my chest.

I stood perfectly still.

My kitten’s sob—like a shaky dam breaking—had a strange calming effect on my inner bees. I lifted my thumb to feel the trail of hot tears on her cheek .

Gods-damned nectar . My cock twitched. I fought the urge to have a taste.

Of course, an answering wave of irritation beat the cockswell back. Ero’s flurry of feelings was about Aelith, not me . And anyhow, I would have gotten the tears either way. I didn’t have to make a habit of protecting the damned elemental. It was a one-time thing.

I nearly said something to this effect, but Colonel Astrada did me the favor of sounding a rally horn. Word of our return must have already reached her, and she wasn’t planning to waste time. Good.

I stepped back from Ero before she could say words she would regret—like thank you . And when I sensed the same urge rising in Brü, I frowned pointedly at them both, silently communicating something to the tune of “get your shit together, soldiers.”

“Better mount up,” I growled, hoping my tone would shut down any lingering feelings. “And use whatever potions you’ve got left. If the siphon catches up, it’s going to be a bloodbath.”