I reach into my cloak and grab an Infusion of the Falcon. I don’t think twice before drinking it down. The familiar need to move overwhelms me almost instantly, but not before I’ve pulled the oilskin from the pocket. I flip the lid open and douse my daggers in it.
I catch Azric raising his eyebrows, but I ignore him. Once the oilskin is back in its pocket, I click the mechanisms on my daggers, and flames coat the blades.Thatshocks Azric, and a sly smile crosses his lips.
The demon rushes me, but the Falcon has become fully active. The rest of the world feels so much slower than normal. Demons are fast and strong, but unlike humans, Fae, and the Godforged, they have significant weaknesses.
It leaps toward me, and I don’t react immediately. I let it get close, and then I jump, my body turning upside down as I do. My daggers scrape against the top of its head, and I land behind it.
The creature screams, and I slice at its back end, each score against it sending up a puff of shadows that smells far too similarly to burning flesh. It tries to whirl around, but I’m too fast, and demons aren’t built to spin. I stay close to it, my daggers continuing to dig into its smoky body.
Then it kicks like a horse, surprising me, and its foot hits me squarely in the stomach, sending me flying. I immediately want to puke, but I get to my feet instead. The demon’s already turned around, putting the most dangerous parts of it between me and its more vulnerable body.
Then it screams again, and the flames on my daggers go out.The oil should have burned longer than that. It hasn’t even been a minute yet.
The half-second of hesitation is too long, and the demon leaps at me. My feet aren’t planted correctly to jump over it the same way I did before, so I try to move to the side in a roll. I’m too slow, and the demon’s teeth catch my foot. It immediately shakes its head like a dog would, trying its best to rip my leg off.
I scream out in pain as I feel my ankle dislocate. I flip the mechanism on my daggers, though, and they roar to life again, the oil still there. I fling my left dagger at the demon, and it catches itin the face. The flames continue to burn it, and the demon falls to the ground, its front paws trying to dig the flaming dagger out of its face.
I do my best to get to my feet and rush the creature. My right foot doesn’t work correctly, and I nearly fall. The Falcon is the only reason I don’t. I slam the dagger into the demon’s face repeatedly, screaming out a war cry with each swing.
Then it disappears, becoming the shadows at my feet again. The dagger that had been embedded in its face falls to the ground with a clatter.
“Clever trick with the flames. Your footwork wasn’t bad. You treated it like it was a human or beast, though. Not a demon. Not a creature of magic.” Azric bends down to pick up the dagger for me, and I do my best not to cry out when I try to stand normally.
He looks over my leg and shakes his head softly. “Do you want me to fix your ankle?” he asks.
The pain is excruciating. Even the slightest bit of weight on my ankle feels like someone’s replaced my bone with a hot poker. That’s not even considering the ache in my foot where the creature’s teeth had pierced my boot.
“Unless you want to wait two days to train again, that’s probably best. I didn’t know Lysara gave you the power to heal.”
He smirks at me and ignores my comment. “Then take off those pants. It has to be flesh to flesh, just like the touch of death.”
My cheeks flush with heat. I could take an Infusion of the Lizard. I have enough of them to get me through a few days of training, but they still take time, and these wounds aren’t exactly small. Thethought of him running his hands over my legs, of being that close to me without my pants on, terrifies me. His kiss has left its mark on me, and that mark is terror.
“I can’t just pull off my boot?” I ask.
He shrugs, but he doesn’t even attempt to hide the smirk on his face. “If that’s what you’d prefer.”
“Yes. I think I’ll keep my pants on unless absolutely necessary.” I sit down on the stone and cringe as I pull my boot off to reveal the free-bleeding tooth marks. My ankle is more concerning, though. It’s already begun turning purple and has swollen to several sizes larger than normal.
Azric sits down in front of me and, with a touch just as tender as when he’d run his nails over my cheek, he slides his fingertips over the holes in my foot. I watch as the holes slowly close up and the pain fades. I let out a sigh of relief when he runs his fingers over my ankle. The pain disappears almost immediately.
I can’t help but watch him as he wraps his hands over my ankle and squeezes. I’d expected pain, but it’s like someone’s drawn every bit away from that part of my body. A coolness flows through me, and it’s followed by heat from his hands.
I go from watching his hands to his face as he stares at my ankle with perfect focus. He moves upward to my calf, and now that there’s no more pain, I can’t help but feel a very different throbbing flowing through my body.
His hands linger on my calf, his nails dragging across skin that very few people have ever touched. Then he looks up at me as Istare at him, and he smiles, but it’s the same smile he’d given Lucine and Serica. The kind that had terrified them.
“I wonder how you’ll react if I need to heal something higher up. Your hip, maybe? Or your chest? Your neck?”
The thought of his hands on any of those places sends a shiver through me.Stop that, Fiona. He’s the Champion of Lust.“I would hope that I’d say thank you, and then I’d put my clothes back on. On that note, thank you, Azric. You had said that I was fighting the demon incorrectly?”
He pulls his hands away from me and stands up, dusting himself off. For a moment, he hesitates, and then raises his hand, another demon coming up from the shadows. This time, it doesn’t move. “Come here,” he says softly, and his voice feels different than before.
I stand up with only one boot on, and I move toward him. He runs his hand over the demon’s face. “You want to stay away from their faces. Your initial attempt to get behind it was correct. Don’t forget that they’re not unthinking creatures. My attempts to mimic the thoughts and actions of demons are based on years of dealing with them, but they’re not perfect. Each demon has a mind of its own, and while they’re basic and not terribly clever, they all know how to fight. More importantly, they know their teeth are their best weapons.”
He moves his hand to the thick forelegs and says, “These only move forward with any real strength. They’re for clawing like a cat and are useless at kicking. Standing beside them is safe.” Then he moves to the hind legs and says, “As you experienced, they can kick like a mule, though it’s rare that they come to that realizationquickly. If you’re going to be behind one, you need to move in and out quickly, not staying in one place too long.”
Then he reaches out and draws one of my daggers from its sheath. He flicks the mechanism on the hilt, and it roars to life with what little oil is left on it. He slams it down right between the creature’s shoulder blades and pulls it out. The shadows don’t flow back to heal the wound as they would normally. Instead, I can see into the creature, and at its very center, there is a softly glowing black crystal.
