“Ava, what’s the matter?” Elisa asked, sensing my tension. “If this is about Charlie, Madelyn is right. She doesn’t hold the opinion of everyone here.”
“That’s not it,” I said shaking my head. I could almost feel the rusted metal of the demon’s knife against my skin, smell the demon’s breath upon my face. “How do we know the compound is safe? How do we protect all of these people?”
“We told you. This land is protected by a veil. No one can enter unless invited.”
“That’s sounds pretty simple if you ask me, and not very safe.”
“I understand your fear, Ava—” Laith began, but I cut him off.
“Do you?” I really doubted it. The knife under my bed was proof of my unwitting treachery. “What would stop someone from inviting just anyone in? From inviting a demon in?”
“Death,” Laith said, his voice as sharp as steel. “This sanctuary is locked to all except for those that hold the key, and the only ones that hold this key are The Three.”
The muscles on my forehead pulled together. “I don’t remember being given a key.”
“You are the key.” Elisa climbed into a spot on my bed and folded her legs underneath her. “You are the Defender. Your immortal being is marked with a dedication upon you that enables you to enter this sacred place.”
“Am I immortal?” I asked, still feeling the tenseness in my calves from the previous day’s journey.
“Yes. Darius would not have been able to bring you in without his blessing if not. That is how the others of this compound arrived: a direct blessing, an explicit invitation, from one of The Three.”
But I had given no invitation, no prayer, no blessing. So how did the old demon get in? “And the others in the compound?”
“You will not find a single soul here willing to invite anything in,” Laith answered, his voice grave. “Everyone in this sanctuary has been a victim of the demonic legions. Being powerful mortals, they are all targets, hunted. Because of that reason, they were directed here, seeking refuge from death or worse, intrusion. Besides that, it takes using a specific spell to allow someone to open a portal that would enable entrance, and that person would have to trade places with whatever desired access. It would surely be a death sentence, for there would be a host of evil waiting for them on the outside.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t invited in the demon, yet the demon’s knife lying under my bed suggested that someone had.
“That man in the orchards. Darius said a gun wouldn’t have helped him.”
“No. All humans have a certain power against the enemy. A demon is not allowed to touch a mortal unless that mortal acknowledges it for what it is, engages it. It is a natural defense against the evil, but the mortal can be weakened, the natural power lessened by fear, depravity, or ignorance. As the Defender, you have an even greater power given you, by God, to defeat the demons that plague mankind.”
“But how do I know I have this power?”
“Oh, you have it. I’ve felt it—you’ve used it against me.”
When I went to argue, a memory fell into place. My friends, and Darius, had tried to stop me from attacking the Destroyer after he killed my father, but I had pushed them away—and not with my hands. My stomach twisted as I remembered how they had flown backward.
Laith nodded with a grin, watching my expression. “That is a gift given you to fight the demons that hunt humanity. You need to learn to control it—and not to use it on us.”
Coming to my senses, I asked, “How do I fight them?”
“Your father has already taught you.”
“What are you talking about?” I shook my head. My father had taught me nothing about fighting demons.
“A human cannot kill a demon, but you can. You need a weapon that is an extension of you—of your power. A gun is only effective if you hit the opposition with the butt of it, doing only minimal damage. Otherwise it’s useless. But the way to truly kill a demon is to transfer your energy and power directed through an object attached to you. Centuries ago, a sword, scimitar, or other weapons could be used. As you can imagine, it’s no longer easy to carry one of those around without drawing suspicion. Bows are useless, although it’s not unheard of for one of The Three to keep their power connected to the weapon once it leaves their hand. It is very difficult, however, and normally needs a lot of concentration to do so, which is near impossible during a battle.”
“A knife,” I muttered.
Laith nodded, pulling something from his pocket. With the flick of his wrist, a wicked blade flew from his fingers, hitting the door in the center.
“Dang it, Laith.” Elisa moaned, jumping from my bed. “I told you to stop doing that. Now I’ll need to replace it.”
She yanked the knife from the door and pressed the splintered wood with her finger. She growled, pointing toward her mate. “No more throwing knives inside my compound, do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Laith said, taking his weapon from her and sliding it back into his pocket. “Shall we go meet with Charlie and Hector, Ava?”
“Yes.” I began to follow them but paused just outside the door. I ran back in my room. Opening the top drawer of my nightstand, I grabbed my father’s knife and tucked it into my pocket. I would never be caught without a weapon again, and that night—and every night thereafter—I would sleep with my blade under my pillow.
4
Infiltration
After hours of fitful slumber, of seeing demons and shadows not really there, and ensuring time and time again that my father’s knife was still under my pillow, I gave up trying to sleep. Frustrated, I threw back the covers and slipped out of bed. A heaviness weighed on my heart: I was claustrophobic and homesick, but what for, I didn’t know.
Easing my door open, I tiptoed barefoot down the dark hallway in my mid-thigh nightshirt, and crept out into the moonlit night. The courtyard pavers felt rough and cold against my feet but I embraced the cool breeze on my warm skin.
Padding down the steps, I walked over the landscaped sand, the fine silt pushing through the cracks of my toes, to the center of the arena. My white nightshirt glowed iridescent in the moonlight, my skin flawless as I reached my arms to the sky, dropping my head back to acknowledge the stars.
“You look heavenly tonight, Ava,” a familiar voice said, and I spun. Jonathan emerged from one of the brick pillars. My demon’s black eyes examined me as I backed inside the pit, allowing him space to enter, ever on the alert as he neared. His tousled mane blended with the shadows of the evening. His dark dress shirt, unbuttoned to reveal a sculpted chest and stomach, absorbed the moon’s light.
Ever the seducer, he prowled forward. “I have missed you.”
“I didn’t realize I had fallen asleep,” I said, my voice less than a whisper. His deadly appeal hit me strange and intense, grown in potency from being away from him too long. Jonathan’s half smile was maddening as he gazed down at me.
“I was beginning to worry you had forgotten about me.” He studied the length of my legs. I ignored the desire to cover them with my hands.
“I waited for you last night, but you didn’t come,” I said, trying to appear unaffected by his presence.
Jonathan smiled, tilting his head to the side, and my insides lurched. He reached his hand out, his fingers tracing my hair as it flowed to my stomach, as if he desired to touch the soft locks. “You were not open to me, my Ava. I would have felt you.”
“I waited, but someone else came.”
His head jerked, his expression guarded. “Someone else? Who did you call?”
The old woman’s face flashed into my mind. Putrid breath still singed the hairs of my nose. “I didn’t call her. I wouldn’t know how, but when I fell asleep, she came to me. She told me I looked like my mother, and that the door was open.”
“The door?” He peered at me, his gaze narrowed, trying to puzzle out the riddle.
I huffed. “So you don’t know what that means?”
> An eyebrow lifted at my annoyed voice. “Ava, please. While I’m flattered you think I know everything, I don’t, but—” Jonathan’s breath caught; his eyes grew wide. An unnatural emotion blazed within. Fear.
“Jon—”
He growled, a wild snarl that tore from his throat. “Wake up, Ava!” he barked. I retreated several steps, but before I could escape, he closed the gap between us, and although fire blazed, his grip was tight around my arms. “Wake up, Ava! Defend yourself!”
Pain seared as he shook me awake. Gloom enveloped, but I woke to real darkness. I jerked my hands up, meeting hard with an opposing force, deflecting a deadly blow aimed for my chest. A blade stabbed into my shoulder, just below my collarbone, and I let out a cry that was immediately silenced by a hand so large that it covered my mouth and nose. The alien demon’s touch burned my face, and even though I knew it wasn’t real, the pain nearly incapacitated me.
Fight or die. My father’s voice reminded me of my options, but I kicked out against a mass too powerful to move.
Black eyes, glared into mine, furious and deadly. His shorn head was almost twice the size of a normal man. The colossal demon moved to rip the knife from my shoulder, but I knew if I allowed him to, I was to become a very dead immortal. I seized his hand with mine, keeping his blade lodged. My body jerked upright, flesh tearing, but adrenaline surged, blocking all pain. I grasped beneath my pillow with my free hand, catching the hilt of my knife. I cried out, plunging the weapon toward the demon’s heart, but he released my mouth, averting the fatal blow. The blade sank into his ribs.
Steel hit bone. Shocked, I yanked it back, drawing blood that mixed with my own. My necklace exploded with energy, causing the hulking beast to fly across the room and away.
Come, it sang to the demon.
A feral growl issued from his lips in response to the call. Clasping the pulsating pendant, I scuttled back against my headboard as the enraged demon prepared to charge. I clutched my knife, panting through the mounting pain, readying myself to die fighting, when the secret door at the back of my room blew open.
“No!” Darius charged into the room in only a pair of sweat pants, two blades drawn.
“Darius,” I managed to mouth, to warn him, but it went unheard as the beast roared something foul into the air.
The demon blocked a swing of his blade, grabbing him by the arm and twisting his hand hard. Darius grimaced. His weapon clattered to the floor. The demon kicked him in the bare back, sending him sailing into the bedroom wall, but he was quick to recover. The demon stole Darius’s fallen knife from the ground as Darius leaped at him, his expression murderous. As they clashed steel, there came a deafening blow—someone had kicked in my door, but I could not look to see who had entered, could not take my eyes from Darius.
The demon glared at those that rushed him, then at me still holding my knife ready. A dark tattoo covered one side of his neck, disappearing beneath his collar. Letting out a horrid roar, he ran, leaping through my bedroom window. I cried out as glass shattered to the ground, the demon disappearing into the night.
Voices erupted from all around. Laith flew through the window the demon had just demolished.
“Ava.” Elisa called to me from nearby but I didn’t answer. Afraid. I was too afraid to move, to even speak. “I’m going to get the doctor, Ava.”
The doctor. Could the old man really help me now? My gaze traced the line of the demon’s black handled knife, down the smooth blade, to my red nightshirt. My head swirled, vision blurred, as realization dawned.
Dropping my knife, my immediate reaction was to pull the offending object from my body, but strong hands stopped me from doing so, pinning my arms to my side.
“I have to pull it out,” I breathed, nearly hyperventilating.
“No,” the voice said, his grip tightening.
But he didn’t understand. There was too much blood and the knife was too big. I chanced a glimpse at the dagger, but it was a glow that caught my attention instead. A woman entered my bedroom carrying a single candle in her hand.
Setting it on my nightstand, the woman struck a match. It fizzed to life; the smell of sulfur dioxide heated my senses as she lit the wick and snuffed out the match. Keeping her gaze lowered, the woman nodded before quitting the room. Confused, I looked down at the candle, watching the flame flicker, momentarily mesmerized by its beauty. More light arrived as another resident arrived bearing a candle—then another, and another. They slowly trickled in, bringing a spark as they came, placing them in random spots all over my room.
“Am I—am I going to die?” I asked.
“No,” Darius said, coming into focus. His eyes caught mine, forcing me to pay attention, forcing me to see him. “Be still, Ava.” His voice soothed as he stared into me, unblinking, his face only inches from my own. Keeping my gaze fixed on his, I slowed my breathing. “That’s a good girl.” He nodded in encouragement. A gentle smile softened his expression, the hard lines of his face gone.
How different Darius appeared when he wasn’t scowling at me. Eyes overflowing with apprehension, he pleaded with me not to move and I listened, but only because he had asked nicely. Only because he had looked at me with such worried kindness—at me—that I couldn’t do anything but obey.
Examining his face in the new light, my sight caught upon muscled shoulders, a hard chest, and powerful arms, each sculpted to the extreme. A huge black tattoo, scrawled over the left side of his chest and down the ribcage. From memory I knew it fell down his back on the same side. His tanned skin glowed warm, and enticing, and my heart accelerated, beating painfully. I would have blushed if I had the blood to.
“Why are you naked?” I asked, my voice pitched, grimacing through the pain. And why did he have to be so beautiful? It made breathing all that much harder.
Shocked, Darius stirred, then almost grinned. “I’m not naked, Ava. Don’t talk right now.”
“But you have no clothes on,” I hissed, attempting to look away.
Darius was about to argue when Elisa breezed into the room. She nodded to him as she passed into the bathroom. I heard the faucet whine and water from the bathtub pour, but hadn’t taken my eyes from the doorway or the ethereal beauty that stood watching from the threshold.
“You may go, Darius,” the woman spoke, her alto voice richly accented.
I shook my head. “I don’t care that I hate you. Don’t leave me with her,” I whispered.
“You hate me?” Pain flickered across his features. He looked down at my hands, now grasping his in a firm grip, my knuckles white. “Ava, this is Fiona. She is your Healer. You have nothing to fear.”
“But I don’t know her,” I mouthed.
My head spun with warnings from my father. I surveilled the newcomer with unconcealed suspicion as she shut the door behind her. A lilac nightgown wrapped her long, slender body as if it was specially tailored for her and all her generous feminine curves. Thick, black hair twisted down her back in untamed waves. Picking up a candle, she glided barefoot to my bed. Her olive skin shimmered in the candlelight, eyes wide and curious. She looked positively wild and powerful—which unsettled me even more.
“Leave, Darius,” she commanded.
He hesitated. “She wants me to stay.”
“Of course she does, but you cannot. Go to your room; crack the door if you’d like. Just leave.”
“Darius,” I begged, but he was already pulling his hands from mine, his warmth abandoning me.
Traitor.
I shivered, alone in my bed, watching as he backed to the secreted entrance, his gaze never leaving mine, and slipped away into the darkened room. The door he left ajar.
If I had the proper energy for it, I would have been furious with him—at everyone—for not telling me that his was the room located right next to mine and with an entryway into my very own. As it was, I couldn’t give the subject the proper response it would require. I would save that one for next time—if there was a next time.
So
ft laughter caught my attention. “Why don’t you want to be alone with me, child?”
I met her steady gaze, refusing to answer her simple question, panting through the rising pain.
Fiona’s lips lifted in the corners as she regarded me, and then—she began humming. A strange, low tune that caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand. One long finger played with the flame as it danced upon the candle she held, her song growing louder as she began to sway. Setting the candle on my nightstand, she closed her eyes, caught up in her own song. Humming transformed to mumbling. Words I had never heard blended together in an accent strong and fluid.
Fiona’s eyes flew open, peering at me queerly. She called me by my name as she glided toward me: “Ava Matthias.”
Before I could answer, she placed her hand on the side of my head. Leaning down, she whispered words into my ears. Verses distinct, yet alien, came sharp and articulated.
Her fingers trailed down my face in comforting strokes, sliding down my lids, gently forcing them closed. Voices entered upon my mind, whispering to my soul, comforting me.
I could trust her—have faith in my Healer.
And I did. She would take care of me. She would help me.
A second later, a harsh jolt sent me reeling as she grabbed the blade by the hilt and ripped the dagger from my shoulder. Pain erupted and I screamed, flashes of light littering my view. She threw the knife clattering to the floor and pressed her fingers into the wound. My hands clasped hers in an effort to pry them from the cavity, but she was strong and kept firm, kept singing, kept praying.
My eyes glazed over from the pain, my head dropping back against the headboard, and I watched as the flames from each lit candle cast shadows on my mother’s wall of vines, making them dance and move with the music, with Fiona, with the beating of my heart.
Personal Guardians: Book 2 in the Personal Demons Series Page 5
