“You—you can hear my thoughts?”

“In the infernus, there is nothing.” He wrinkled his nose. “Quiet and dark. Boring. But I can hear you.”

I didn’t know how to react. Crawling into a sewer and dying of humiliation was appealing. “Don’t eavesdrop on my thoughts! That’s—that’s private!”

He studied a streetlamp as though wondering if he could climb it, then wandered into the alley.

Ignoring me. Completely.

I stalked after him. “Zylas—”

He spun around. Seizing my wrist, he forced my hand up, a bloody tissue pinched against my cut thumb.

“Do you mind?” I asked as I tugged on my arm.

He ripped the tissue out of my grasp and tossed it aside. “You are still bleeding? How much are you hurt?”

I reluctantly opened my hand. Fresh blood welled in the deep cut and a drop spilled over, running down my palm.

Watching the bright red line snake over my wrist, Zylas pulled my arm closer to his face—then licked the blood, his hot tongue running up my wrist to the cut.

“Aaagh!” I squealed, wrenching my arm free. “What are you doing?”

Gaze unfocused, he worked his mouth as though experiencing a new flavor.

“That’s disgusting,” I whined, vigorously wiping my wrist on my jeans. “I can’t believe you—”

He spat on the ground. My jaw dropped, my complaint forgotten as his face contorted with complete and utter revulsion.

“Guh! Does all human blood taste like that?” he demanded.

“Of course it does.”

He stuck his tongue out like he wanted to wipe it clean. “Tastes like metal.”

I glared at him, unreasonably offended that he thought my blood was gross. “Serves you right for licking me.”

“Hh’ainun blood is supposed to be the finest flavor.” He shot me a look like I’d severely disappointed him. “A stupid rumor.”

He grasped my wrist again. Turning my palm up, he pressed two fingers into the cut. I flinched, but before I could draw away, red magic glowed across his hand. A miniature swirl of lines and runes flashed out, and he whispered a few words.

I gasped as searing pain burrowed into my palm. The magic brightened, then drained into the cut. As the light faded, he wiped away the blood, and we peered at the new pink scar at the base of my thumb.

“That happened last time,” he muttered, prodding the slight ridge with one finger. “Your skin does not grow right.”

“You healed it,” I whispered, lifting my gaze to his. “Why?”

“Your blood smells as bad as it tastes.”

The soft, confusing feeling of gratitude in my chest snuffed out. “Ugh.” I yanked my hand away. “You’re awful.”

“But I do not taste bad.”

“I never want to know what you taste like.” I pulled myself together. “We’re out here because we need to stop the escaped demon. Do you know how to find it?”

He glanced skyward, his pupils constricting to near-invisible slits against the muted light.

“Zylas?” I prompted impatiently. “How do we find the demon?”

“Mailēshta.”

“What?”

“Annoying,” he translated.

“What’s annoying?”

“You.”

I gritted my teeth. “Very mature, Zylas.”

He focused on the lower portion of a rusty fire escape two feet above his head.

“Don’t even think about climbing that.” I folded my arms. “The demon is on the loose because of you, so the least you can do is help stop it.”

“No.”

“Why not? Are you afraid you’d lose in a fight?”

His attention snapped to me. He bared his teeth, but I couldn’t tell if it was a snarl or a smile. “Vh’renith vē thāit.”

I waited a moment. “What does that mean?”

“It means I never lose.”

My eyebrows rose at his arrogance, but who was I to question him on it? From everything I’d seen, he was utterly lethal. Uncle Jack and Claude had said this mysterious demon could be the strongest ever summoned.

His gaze shifted away again as he scanned the alley.

“In that case,” I continued firmly, attempting to draw his attention back, “you shouldn’t have any problem helping—”

“Quiet, payilas.”

“Would you stop—”

He clamped his hand over my mouth and swept me against his chest with his other arm. “Quiet. I am listening.”

Mashed against him, I halted in the midst of digging my fingernails into his abdomen. Sucking in air through my nose, I stilled, ignoring the discomfort of being pressed against him. Warmth radiated from his body, his hand hot on my mouth, his other arm across my back, holding me in place.

He smelled like leather and sweet hickory smoke. The thought crowded into my head, heightening my discomfort.

Nostrils flaring as he scented the damp breeze, he looked one way then the other. After a long moment, he stepped backward into the shadows beneath the fire escape, pulling me with him. A faint buzz of power passed over his body, then the surrounding air cooled—and the shadows thickened like black fog.

We stood in chilly darkness, Zylas holding me tight against him as though I might bolt straight into danger. “Danger” was the only conclusion I could draw from his sudden desire to hide.

A soft footstep crunched on broken glass, the sound traveling down the alley.

“Where are they?” a male voice asked, the rain muffling his quiet words.

“I’m not sure,” another voice answered. “I lost them.”

“Let’s keep moving.”

The glass crunched again. I strained my ears but only heard the increasing downpour. What the heck had that been about? Were those men part of another search team?

Zylas held his position, only his head moving as he tracked sounds I couldn’t hear. I waited. One minute stretched into two, then three, and my discomfort grew. When no other sounds came from the alley, I tugged on his wrist. He didn’t release my mouth. I tugged harder. He ignored me.

Growling against his palm, I dug my fingernails into the back of his hand as hard as I could.

He looked down, surprise widening his crimson eyes. “What are you doing, payilas?”

Let me go! I thought at him, since I couldn’t speak out loud.

He tilted his head curiously—then a husky laugh rumbled from his throat. “Na, you are trying to hurt me? So I let you go? Too soft, payilas.”

Outwardly, I glowered with extra force. Inwardly, I shriveled. My attempt to hurt him was so ineffective he hadn’t understood my intent? Why was his skin so impenetrable?

“Robin? Where are you?”

Amalia’s voice rang out over the drumming rain. Zylas graced me with his taunting smirk, then red light glowed over him. His hand disappeared from my face as his body dissolved into sweeping red light that swirled into the infernus. It vibrated, hot and electric, then returned to an inanimate metal disc.

I clenched my jaw. Stupid jerk of a demon. A bully. That’s what he was.

Grimly pleased that he could probably hear me insulting him, I hastened to join Amalia and resume our hunt for the escaped demon.

Chapter Twenty

This was stupid.

The thought repeated more and more as the afternoon dragged on. Tae-min had no idea how to manage our search. We wandered around at a quick walk, gazing pointlessly into alleys. Anytime we split from the two men, Amalia chose the driest spot and waited, letting me search on my own. Like we’d ever find the demon this way.

I marched alone up another street, fuming at them. Tae-min for his incompetence. George the Contractor for failing to recognize how futile this was. Amalia for refusing to help. And Zylas for … for everything.

The rain had softened to intermittent spitting—the only bright spot in this crappy day. As I glared across an intersection, the traffic light blinked from red to green, but there were no vehicles. The neighborhood was eerily deserted and the quiet was so intense I could hear myself breathe.

As I turned to go back the way I’d come, a glimpse of movement brought me up short. Had I just seen a human-sized shadow duck out of sight, or were my eyes playing tricks on me? Maybe it was another search team.

“Hello?” I called. “Anyone there?”

I waited a minute, but no one answered. I must’ve imagined it …

The phantom memory of Zylas’s hand on my face shivered through me. Those men in the alley had said, “I lost them.” Them. Not “it” or “the demon.” Who had those men been looking for?

“Hello?” I shouted again.

Half a block away, a shadow moved. A man in dark clothes, his shape blurred by the misty rain, stepped out of a shop doorway and raised his arm.

Green light flashed over his hand—and shot toward me.

I lurched backward and my heel caught on the pavement. As I tumbled to the ground, the green light whizzed over my head. A sorcery spell? Was he attacking me?

Shoving to my feet, I yanked out my infernus. Pivoting, the man whipped around a corner and vanished from sight.

“Heyo!”

The call came from behind me. I spun around.