Silence. Of course. Why would Zylas respond? He probably hadn’t been this entertained since being summoned.

“Demon, if you’ll talk to me, I’ll give you … uh … something … at your request.” I waited a moment, the three men’s stares boring into my back. My cheek throbbed in warning. “You don’t have much time left. This is your last chance to get something you want.”

Ignored again.

“The demon isn’t stupid,” I said over my shoulder, desperate for someone to understand. “He knows what you’re doing. He won’t speak while you’re here listening.”

Travis looked questioningly at the three men.

“This is moronic,” the new man said in a rumbling voice. “The demon doesn’t want to talk to the girl. It was trying to get her in the circle. It wants blood, not conversation.”

Karlson rubbed his jaw. “Fair point. Let’s see if we can tempt the beast, then.”

He gestured at Hulk and the man lumbered toward me and Travis. I tried to step back, but Travis stopped me—the circle was right behind us. Hulk bore down on me and his thick hands seized my upper arms. He spun me around to face the circle, his fingers bruising my skin.

“Whoa, hey!” Travis exclaimed. “What are you—”

“I told you to keep quiet,” Karlson interrupted. “Vince, take over.”

The third man strode forward and stopped beside me. I squirmed against Hulk’s hold, breathless with terror. I wanted to scream at them to let me go, but I couldn’t speak. Why was I so timid? So helpless?

“Demon,” Vince said to the circle. “You want this girl. Show yourself and you can bargain for her.”

“What?” Travis blurted. “You can’t—”

“Were you planning to let her walk out of here and tell your father how you went behind his back to steal his demon?” Karlson asked dismissively.

“I—I’ll pay her to keep quiet—”

Karlson snorted like Travis was hopelessly na?ve. “Get out of the way or we’ll remove you—and our deal is over.”

Travis snapped his mouth shut. I stared at him pleadingly, but he moved aside, eyes downcast.

“Well, demon?” Vince prompted. “Do you want to bargain for the girl?”

Silence from the circle. The darkness didn’t shift.

“Maybe it doesn’t think you’re serious,” Karlson suggested.

Grunting, Vince stepped closer and took my wrist. While Hulk held me immobile, Vince stretched my arm out. Silver flashed in his hand, but I didn’t comprehend what I was seeing. A … knife? Where had he gotten a knife? What did he plan to do with—

The eight-inch blade flicked upward. I watched it pass across my inner forearm, just below my elbow. Felt the razor-edged steel part my flesh. Saw bright blood bloom across my skin.

Then the pain hit and I screamed.

Hulk’s hands tightened as I convulsed. Vince pressed the flat of his knife against my arm, coating it in dripping blood, then flicked it at the circle. Red droplets disappeared into the darkness and splattered across the surrounding hardwood.

“Have a taste, demon,” Vince said, holding my arm out so the bloody slice was fully visible. “You can have the rest. Just show yourself.”

Blood ran down my arm. I quivered violently, panting for air.

“Let me go,” I gasped. “Let me go!”

Like Zylas, they ignored me. Travis was looking in every direction but mine, his shoulders hunched and face crumpled with indecision. Or maybe resignation.

“Please,” I wept as my blood dripped steadily onto the floor. “Please let me go.”

“Demon,” Vince called. “Your time is running out. Or rather, hers is. If you want her fresh and kicking, answer me now.”

How could they talk about me like that? How could they throw me to the demon like a piece of meat? They were as evil as the creature in the circle. As heartless. As monstrous.

“Travis, help me,” I begged through my tears. “Don’t let them do this!”

Vince squeezed my wrist. He raised the blood-smeared knife again.

“No!” I screamed, thrashing against the hands holding me. “The demon will never talk to you! He’ll never do it! Let me go. Just let me go!”

Vince sliced the knife across my arm again.

My scream shattered my eardrums. Blood ran. I was going to die. They were going to kill me. I would bleed out while they all watched—the three men, Travis, and Zylas.

I should never have come to this place. Should never have talked to Zylas. My parents had warned me: stay away from magic.

Adrenaline surged through me and I wrenched my entire body in a violent spasm. Hulk’s hands slipped. Tearing free, I flung myself away. My socks slid on the hardwood and I grabbed the podium for balance. As it tipped over, a heavy tome tumbled off and a flat silver pendant skittered over the hardwood.

I surged past the falling objects toward the door—and hands grabbed my sweater. They hauled me backward. Spun me around. Vince’s cold face blurred in my vision, and the knife flicked upward a third time.

Hulk threw me down. I hit the floor, the breath knocked out of my lungs. The flat pendant from the podium caught under my hand, the cold chain tangling in my fingers. My vision wavered with tears and panic and light-headed shock. It didn’t hurt anymore. That was probably a bad sign.

“Last chance, demon. You have about ten minutes until she bleeds out. We’ll wait.”

I lay on the floor, shaking, weak. Weak in so many ways. Useless. Pathetic. Too powerless for this world of magic. What use was knowledge? How would book-learning save me?

Blood pooled under my arm, my racing heart pumping it out of my sliced veins. Zylas had wanted to see my blood. He’d gotten his wish.

Behind me, Karlson and his cronies murmured as they waited, conversing like gentlemen at a party, cocktails in hand. Travis had retreated and hovered halfway to the door.

In front of me, a foot away, the circle’s silver inlay gleamed faintly. I lifted my gaze to the darkness within.

And looked into Zylas’s black eyes.

Chapter Thirteen

I stared into the demon’s obsidian eyes.

Scarcely two feet away, Zylas crouched at the circle’s edge. The darkness inside swirled and eddied, revealing his shape in faint glimpses and flashes of reddish-toffee skin. The barrier rippled as he pressed against it, his dark gaze fixed on my face.

Behind me, Karlson said something and his two associates laughed. They laughed. Too busy chatting, they hadn’t noticed that Zylas’s shadowy form was so close, pushing against the barrier, straining to reach me.

Bloodlust rolled off the demon. I could taste it in the air, as potent as the coppery tang of my blood. Crouched in his prison, he silently, lustfully watched me die from inches away. If he’d spoken, if he’d said something to the men, could he have saved my life? Did he even want to?

A monster before me. Three different monsters behind me. I was dying, and one of them would be my executioner. But which?

Karlson and the others were trading my life for a demon contract. But was my blood enough to break Zylas’s resolve? Would he stay silent and hidden while I died in front of him, or would he give in so he could take my life himself?

My arm trembled as I slid my hand across the hardwood, leaving a smear of blood in its wake. The barrier rippled more violently as Zylas pressed against it. The conversation behind me stuttered.

My fingertips brushed the silver inlay.

“What’s she doing? Stop her!”

Footsteps erupted, vibrating the floor as the men scrambled toward me. Hands grabbed my ankles to tear me away from the circle. Zylas’s black eyes bored into mine.

I wouldn’t give those bastards the chance to win. I would laugh at them as I died.

I thrust my fingers through the barrier, my human flesh passing effortlessly into Zylas’s prison. His hand clamped around my wrist, cold and steely. His gaze held mine without faltering.

He wrenched me into the circle.

His strength tore my legs from the men’s grasping hands. I flew into the hellish night within the dome, my vision darkening, frigid air sweeping over me. Scents filled my nose—earthy leather, the tang of metal, and something smoky and aromatic, almost like hickory.

I tumbled to a stop, my limbs splayed. An object jangled and clanked, the sound of metal hitting the floor. Hazily, my brain identified the orientation of my body—half sitting, half slumped, something supporting my back, solidity against my side.

Zylas’s arm supported my back. Zylas’s chest pressed against my side.

His cool hand closed around my sliced arm and squeezed. Pain flared hot and deep. A sob shuddered out of me.

“Zylas,” I choked out, praying that somewhere in his demonic psyche he could find a shred of mercy. “Please kill me quickly.”

“Is that what you want, payilas?” His husky whisper brushed across my cheek. His face was close, but I couldn’t see anything in the freezing darkness. Outside the circle, male voices buzzed angrily, the words jumbling in my ears.

“I did what I could to help you,” I whimpered. “Please don’t make me suffer.”

“What do you want?”

My arm was on fire, blazing with agony, and I didn’t understand his question. My crumbling composure gave way.