“Why are you doing this to yourself? Prolonging this is only going to make it worse in the end.”
She clenched her jaw. “If you can’t contribute, you can leave.”
“Be reasonable,” he pleaded.
“Leave,” Michael said.
“Excuse me?”
Michael turned to meet Nathaniel’s eyes. “Leave now or I will throw you in the cell with it and you can see how much damage you can do before it rips off your head and laps up the blood. Is that clear enough for you?”
Nathaniel paled. “I don’t think that was necessary.”
She sighed and ran a hand down her face. “Just go.”
He looked like he was going to protest, but he finally shook his head and went back through the door.
“Pity,” the demon said. “I would have enjoyed playing with him.”
“I think you and your pet played with Nathaniel enough, don’t you?”
The demon thought for a moment. “No, actually. So, Hound, will you do it? At the end of your forty-eight hours, will you destroy this host to be rid of me? I think not.”
She didn’t think so either. Her feelings for Thomas aside, he was a master vampire. In order to kill him, he had to be drained completely of blood. Somehow she didn’t think the demon was going to wait patiently while she did it.
The demon smiled when she didn’t answer. “If you won’t kill me, you might as well let me out. I’ll find a new host and leave this one.”
“Silence,” Michael ordered. He pulled out a small blade and began flipping it over his knuckles. Back and forth, back and forth. She’d seen him do it before, but never ceased to be amazed he didn’t cut himself in the process. Not that it would matter much if he did. He said he found the motion relaxing. It made her nervous.
She sat cross-legged and laid her injured arm in her lap. Blood seeped through the bandage in a couple of places. She looked up when the demon crouched in front of her. “Let me out or regret it forever.”
“What could you possibly do to me from in there?”
“I’m only in here for the moment.” It straightened slowly and frowned down at her. “And when I free myself from this cage, I will cause you pain in ways you cannot possibly imagine.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said. “I’ve got a pretty vivid imagination.”
“It’s true. She does,” Michael added, making her smile.
“Speaking of,” she said and held her injured arm out to him. “Help me with this, would you?”
He furrowed his brow.
“Blood calls blood. It’s time for daddy to lend a helping hand.”
A wicked smile lit his face.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Michael took the blade he was playing with, sliced a neat line through the layers of Juliana’s bandage and peeled it off. He tossed it aside.
“Go kill the camera at the end of the hallway,” she told him.
He jogged to stand underneath it, jumped up and pulled it off the wall. He used his knife to slice through the wires.
She dropped her chin to her chest and took a deep breath before looking back up at him. “When I said ‘kill the camera’ I didn’t mean it literally. There’s a button on the control panel.”
He glanced at it, shrugged and threw the camera over his shoulder. She couldn’t imagine why her headache kept getting worse.
“Just make sure we’re not disturbed,” she told him. He leaned against the door.
She dipped her finger into her wound, wincing at the pain. Using her blood, she sketched an image on the floor of the hallway.
“What are you doing?” the demon asked, turning its head from side to side in an attempt to get a better view.
She ignored it and continued to draw until she had a rough representation of a rowan tree. It was a good thing the power behind the image depended on her intentions rather than her artistic ability. The rowan tree was a symbol of power for the fae. It featured in many of their myths and was even thought to have played a part in the creation of the first fae. It was a sacred symbol and she was using it to call one of the higher gods of the dark fae.
She flung a few droplets of blood across the image. “By blood I call blood. Aeron Rowantree, I summon thee.”
The air over the image began to simmer and then take shape. The man that stood in front of her was slightly taller than she was, but sported her raven hair and green eyes. He was all angles and edges, only his hair broke up the hardness. It was pulled back into a loose ponytail though on occasion he left it to flow in soft waves around his shoulders. He smiled when he saw her. “You have summoned me. What is it you desire?”
She lifted her chin to indicate the cell behind him. He turned and waved a hand through the air, freezing the demon and its host in place. “Why are you in my daughter’s mate?”
A peek at Michael showed his eyes widen briefly and his jaw set at the statement. Juliana rose to her feet when she realized her father had control of the demon. “I thought you couldn’t control demons that didn’t belong to you.”
“Yes, well...” Her father shifted on his feet.
She narrowed her eyes. “I thought you didn’t like demons. That you didn’t keep any because you didn’t have a use for them.” She’d summoned him hoping only that he would be able to identify who it belonged to.
“That might not have been the whole truth.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I didn’t see the point in telling you. You seemed to dislike them so much and it wasn’t like I thought you were ever going to meet one.”
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and struggled to retain her hold on her temper. “Did it tell you why it’s here?” she asked finally, knowing he could communicate with his minions telepathically.
He shook his head. “Not really. It appears to be beyond reason with fear.” His gaze fell on her arm and the symbol on which he still stood. “Did it hurt you?”
“Take care of the door before we get into this, would you?” she gestured to the end of the hall where Michael still stood.
Her dad absently waved a hand in that direction.
Michael jerked upright. “Hey, watch it.”
Aeron arched a brow in response. “I would think one as old as you would know to get out of the way when a god is casting spells.”
She waved her arm in front of them, reminding them of what they’d been discussing. “It didn’t do this, but it would have killed me if I hadn’t killed its host at the time. I guess now I understand why it kept telling me its master would kill it if it hurt me.”
Her father frowned and rubbed his chin with his hand. “You asked me not to tell anyone of our connection, as you feared the information getting into the wrong hands and I have not. I merely instructed my people to leave you and yours alone. I told them you were under my protection.”
“Gods, Dad. Why don’t you just give Pandora a box and tell her not to open it?”
His frown turned into a scowl. “I thought we’d agreed never to discuss that.”
“If you didn’t want it brought up, you shouldn’t have told me.”
“Yes, so you keep reminding me.”
“Can you fix this?” Michael interrupted.
Her father turned his scowl on her friend. “Yes, Michael. I can fix this.”
Michael wisely said nothing. As much as Aeron liked him, he wouldn’t tolerate disrespect from anyone.
“Someone summoned it to kill me,” she said.
His face darkened in fury. “Who?”
“I’m guessing Raoul, but I don’t know for sure.”
He pressed himself against the bars and laid a hand on top of Thomas’s head. She’d seen him do it before to shuffle through someone’s memories. After several long moments, he turned back to her with a sigh. “The spell that summoned him prevents him from revealing who it was. It also prevents him from leaving your realm even if we do manage to get him out of your mate.”