“Perhaps.”
After that cryptic answer, he turned the key. When the door opened, I stared at the array of weapons with wide eyes. There were swords of all different styles, none quite the same as those I was familiar with, but close enough that I had an idea of theirweight and purpose. Racks to hold them were along one wall. On another were shelves that held daggers, again of all shapes and sizes. The third wall held an assortment of crossbows and longbows. Quivers full of arrows were neatly arranged on the floor along the wall.
As we stepped further into the room, I saw shelves to our right. There were assortments of bottles, lined up in perfect rows. Each row was filled with the same color liquid. The hues ranged from black to purple to yellow.
“What are these?” I asked Bokkan.
“Potions.”
“Potions?”
“You don’t use potions in the human realm? Surely you have witches?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t, and no one I know does. And I don’t know any witches.” I walked closer to the shelves. “What do they do?”
Bokkan moved next to me. The urge to tense up every time he was close to me was slowly fading. Maybe I shouldn’t trust him, but he was beginning to win me over. He seemed to be everything he presented himself to be—honorable, kind, and compassionate.
It was unexpected because his appearance was monstrous. Yet he seemed to be the sweetest man… male…I’d ever met. The juxtaposition was difficult to reconcile.
“The black is a concealment spell meant to be used at night. If you pour it over yourself, you will blend in with the shadows. The yellow is a light bomb. You throw the bottle, and a burst of blinding light will appear.”
“What about the purple and the green?”
“The purple incapacitates your opponents. It won’t work well on more than one daemon at a time. The green is an acid. While it can sometimes be used against opponents, it’s more often usedto dissolve things such as lock mechanisms, weapons, or written information if it needs to be concealed.”
“That’s pretty cool,” I said. “How do you keep them from breaking and killing you when you carry them?”
Bokkan reached out and picked up a small leather sack. “These are spelled to keep the bottles from breaking. They also retain their small size and shape even when full.”
“But, if they’re spelled, how does the yellow break when you throw it?”
“With any of these, if you need to throw them and have them work, you remove the cork. That breaks the spell.”
“Doesn’t the cork come out by accident sometimes?”
He shook his head. “No, the spell keeps them in place.”
I took in his explanation, my mind reeling from all the information he’d just shared.
“You have some very interesting weapons,” I commented.
“I’ll show you how they all work once I’m sure you won’t try to use one on me,” he replied.
I couldn’t suppress my shocked laugh. He wasn’t wrong. I would be very tempted to keep one of those bottles with me in the event I needed it. Also, that was my first thought when he began to explain what each of the potions did.
“I’m not sure I like how well you already seem to understand me,” I commented.
“Actually, that is the strategy I would use,” he replied.
Our eyes met, and my stomach dipped. The wall I kept trying to erect between us took another hit. I felt more of a connection with this monster, this daemon, than I had with any human man I’d met in the past few years.
If he was all he seemed to be, he was perfect partner material for me. It was crazy to think about that. To feel the attraction and the beginnings of trust I shouldn’t be feeling.
Bokkan might not be my enemy, but I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to call him a friend, much less more than that.
“Want to see the training rooms?” he asked.
I nodded. I couldn’t allow myself soften toward this daemon. It was too dangerous.
