Touch of the Demon

“Kara, I am going to place you on your belly for a time,” he told me as he gently settled me on the bed and moved me into position. “I will begin with your back.”



I held my breath, trembling, as the pain flared. He got me settled and my arms into the most comfortable possible position then adjusted the blanket over my legs and butt. I stared out at the setting sun, the sky alight in orange and purple and pink.



Mzatal splayed both hands over my upper back, then jerked them away as if recoiling from a shock. A heartbeat later I felt his hands on my back again, trembling so slightly I wasn’t sure if I imagined it. Gradually the familiar warmth began to flow from his hands. With every heartbeat the pain faded and my breathing grew easier.



I drifted as he worked, but not like before where I thought I might lose myself. This was more the not-quite-sleep I’d go into on those rare occasions when I could afford a full body massage. Not that this was anything like a full body massage, but the sense of deep relief and easing was the same as he seemed to literally pull the pain from me. I wanted to sleep, but that was still impossible.



He lifted his hands from me, and I roused from my light stupor. Fully night beyond the glass now. “Is it working?” I mumbled. “Are you getting them off?” Already it was far easier to speak and breathe, though I was still a long way away from being pain free. But the sense of yuck and wrongness had definitely lessened.



Mzatal didn’t answer for a moment, and when he did his voice carried none of its usual potency and richness. “Your back is complete,” he said, fatigue and faint quaver in his tone. “I will shift you now so that I may work on your front.”



He rolled me as gently as possible. It still hurt, but it was so much less than before that I only cried out once. I looked up into his face as he tugged the blanket back up to my waist. His eyes lacked their usual bright intensity, and he held his mouth in a tight line as if holding back the urge to spew.



He took a warm wet cloth from a faas and began carefully wiping the blood away, gaze flicking over the sigils, reading the patterns. The arcane cauterization of the blade left the cuts seeping—nothing like the bloody mess that would have resulted from a normal knife.



An odd tug of worry went through me at his appearance. It didn’t make sense that I should be worried about the well-being of my captor, yet even so it was clear that he’d pushed himself to the brink of collapse to get me back. Whatever the hell his motives were, he’d saved me from a deeply horrible fate, and dealing with the sigils clearly sucked ass.



“You okay?” I asked.



Mzatal gave a slight nod as if to say, yes I’m just dandy, but then gave a faint grimace and shook his head. “I require a moment,” he said, voice sounding as normal as anyone else’s, which felt utterly wrong coming from him. “This is difficult.”



“It’s cool.” I paused. “Thanks.”



He knelt beside the bed, one hand resting lightly on my upper arm. He closed his eyes, bowed his head. I wondered if he was still drawing from Idris’s support diagram. I had the strangest desire to cover his hand with mine, though I was sure I still couldn’t move my arm to do so. Probably a lot better that way. I was fucked up in so many ways right now, and I knew my judgment was completely bonked. Hell, that’s how I’d ended up in this mess.



Mzatal remained still and silent for what had to be at least five minutes. Finally he lifted his head and opened his eyes. They held a bit more of their normal vitality, though still far from their usual keen intensity. “Now I will finish,” he said. “And you will be able to sleep.”



“Sleep…here?” I asked, brow creasing.



“Yes, it is safest.” He set one hand on my upper chest and one on my abdomen, took a deep breath as if gathering the resources to begin again. “And under my eye.”



“Right.” I exhaled a shaking sigh. “Under your eye. Guess I won’t be allowed to go on hikes to the grove.”



His gaze shifted from my sternum to my face, silent.



“Why didn’t you just…tell me?” I asked, voice cracking badly. “Why not…just say: Hey, Kara, he’s going to fuck you up?”



The fatigue on his face seemed to deepen. He looked back to the sigils and began to work. “I intended to tell you as soon as I removed the mark, and you were clear of Rhyzkahl’s influence. Even then, you would likely not have believed me. But the information could have served you later, while you were at his palace.” He breathed slowly and somewhat unsteadily, and with each breath the pain from the sigils faded more. “He has never done anything this extreme before.”



I let out a low sigh. He was right. I wouldn’t have believed him, but I sure as hell might have caught on to the undercurrent at Rhyzkahl’s if I’d had the warning.



“I’m never going home again, am I?” I asked after a while.



He looked visibly ill, though I was fairly sure it had nothing to do with my question and everything to do with the fucking sigils. “If you mean to Earth, then I cannot say for certain, though it is in the realm of possibility that you will not.”



It was the answer I’d expected, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. “I’m unmarked now,” I said, watching his face carefully. “If I don’t agree to work for you, then why the hell would you possibly let me continue to live?”



Mzatal shifted his hands to the very first sigil that had been carved upon me, and now the last one to be healed. What seemed like an eternity ago, he’d asked me my heart’s desire. My life had depended on my answer then, and he echoed it back to me now. “Because, Kara Gillian, you have yet to reach your full potential.”



I looked away. “You’re a slick motherfucker.”



He exhaled, and in the next heartbeat searing heat flooded through all the sigils. My hands clenched in the sheet as he kept firm contact on me. A shudder went through him, and his breath hissed through his teeth. Finally the heat faded, and his hands slid from me. Gasping in relief, I took several deep breaths. The sense of wrong was gone now. I remained plenty fucked in other ways, but at least I didn’t feel as if I’d been dipped in sewage.



Mzatal sank back to his heels, head bowed, trembling slightly as his hands dropped limply into his lap. Shock ran through me at the pained grimace on his face.



Worry for him rose. “Mzatal?…Mzatal?”



He remained perfectly still as my inexplicable worry increased. At long last he took a deep breath and lifted his head, though I had the sense it took incredible effort to do even that.



His gaze touched mine. “Here,” he replied softly. “Now you sleep.”



And I did.



Chapter 20



“Come, Rowan.” Jesral tugged on my leash, rousing me from my fitful doze. “You have work to do.”



I drew back from him. “No, please.”



The slim lord scowled. He gave the leash another sharp tug, then lifted a quirt and smacked it across my bare hip. I yelped and scrambled to my feet.



“Come,” he repeated as he turned and began to walk. Heart pounding, I hurried after him. I knew he’d drag me if I didn’t.



He pulled me to the center of Rhyzkahl’s summoning chamber, then disappeared into darkness, leaving me alone. Cold air sent gooseflesh rippling over my bare skin. Dim red light streamed from a sigil high above, and as I stood shivering, more sigils flared into life to surround me in a slowly spinning circle. Shying away from them, I cast a frantic gaze around. “Mzatal?”



Rhyzkahl caught my chin and tipped my head up. “He is not here, dear one.” He gave a soft smile. “It is so much better this way. He would only use you. I told you.”



I recoiled. “You. You hurt me!” A lasso of potency wrapped around my wrist, but it didn’t come from Rhyzkahl. I looked back in shock to see Mzatal, face angry and hard as he dragged me toward him.



“I am here,” he snarled. “I will retrieve you, and I will hold you.”



I struggled against the lasso. Kadir’s cold laugh echoed through the darkness.



“Pain is ephemeral,” Rhyzkahl said, before me again as he raised the blood-slick blade. “You are eternal. Mine.”



Jesral stepped out of the darkness. “Ours.”



Mzatal bared his teeth and dragged me closer to him.



Dull pain flared in my shoulders as I jerked awake. I stared at the ceiling, domed and painted to look like the night sky, replete with softly winking stars. Not Rhyzkahl’s summoning chamber. A bedroom. Mzatal’s. I squeezed my eyes shut, choking back a sob of both relief and dismay.



Mzatal moved into my view. “Kara. A dream. It was a dream.”



No. It wasn’t a dream. I let out a shuddering breath and focused on him. He was still wearing the same white dress shirt he’d had on before, now patterned with dried blood that I knew was mine. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, and I had a feeling he’d woken only an instant before I had.



He poured tunjen juice into a glass, then slipped an arm beneath me to help me sit up, releasing me as soon as I was upright. “Drink. You need much fluid.”



I took it with both hands and drank, wincing at residual pain in my shoulders. After I finished and held out the empty glass, he simply refilled it and pressed it into my hand again.



I stared down at the pale pink juice, struggling to find a way to get everything to make sense. I should have seen Rhyzkahl’s betrayal coming. How could I have been so fucking gullible?



“Drink more,” Mzatal prompted. Numbly, I lifted the glass and drank. “There is more work to be done on your shoulders,” he said as soon as I finished, “then that aspect will be complete.” He took the empty glass and set it on the side table, helped me lie back.



I looked away as he began to work, shame continuing to knot my gut. There’d been a million things I could have done differently. Yet I’d stumbled blindly on and right into Rhyzkahl’s trap.



Mzatal leaned over me, laying one hand on each shoulder. Warmth flowed into me, chasing the pain away. He remained silent while he worked, either because of his own obvious fatigue, or perhaps because he knew that a bunch of talk wasn’t what I needed right now. I turned my head to the right and watched clouds drift in the pale grey of the early morning sky. Fresh air from the open glass doors carried the scent of rain and flowers, and the incessant low roar of the waterfall offered a soothing backdrop of sound.