I hurried after him as he headed toward the steps leading off the side of the stage. I had a feeling that he would drag me if I couldn’t keep up.
“Can I ask one thing?”
He glanced at me. “Yes.”
“Where in the hell am I?”
“The city of Varda.”
“On Earth?” I asked.
“That’s more than one question,” he pointed out.
“Humor me.”
“Will you be silent if I answer you?”
“For now.”
“You are no longer in the human realm. Varda is in the daemon realm.”
“Day-mon realm?”
“Daemon,” he repeated.
“So, I’m in Hell?”
He shook his head. “The name of our realm is Penumbra. No more questions.”
I wanted to argue, to ask all the questions crowding my mind, but his stride lengthened, and I ended up having to jog to keep up with him.
If he wasn’t going to answer my questions, I was going to keep my eyes and ears open and figure out everything I could about this place.
At some point, I would have an opportunity to escape.
Chapter
Two
Bokkan
The yells of my men distracted me from my ledger. Honestly, I was hoping for a distraction because there was nothing I hated more than dealing with my accounting.
I got to my feet and went to the window, opening the interior shutter, giving me a clear view of the training yard from my study.
There, in the center of the dirt fighting ring, was one of my soldiers, Talus. He was my best fighter, and it was clear they were practicing hand-to-hand combat based on the way my other men were leaning on the fence surrounding the space. They were jeering and catcalling, typical behavior when one of the others faced off with him.
There were more soldiers there than usual. It appeared even my off-duty guards were watching.Strange.They usually preferred to take care of personal business or find a female during their leisure time.
His back was to me, and his body blocked my view of his opponent. Talus jerked from an obvious strike, then he lunged.When he bent forward, his head flew back from the impact of another strike. He tripped over his own feet and landed on his backside. With him on the ground, I could now see his opponent.
It wasn’t one of my soldiers. It was a human woman. One half the size of my smallest man.
She surged toward Talus, her hand flashing at his calf. As she withdrew it, I could see the glitter of a blade as it caught the light. She had stolen the knife he kept in his boot. When he shoved her back with a kick of his foot, my hands unlocked the window in front of me and threw it open without a thought.
What the fuck were my men thinking? Why was there a human female on my property, much less fighting one of my daemons? She was so much smaller than they were. If they hit her at full strength, they would kill her.
I was on my feet outside before I even realized I intended to vault through the window, my steps carrying me toward the fighting ring. I arrived behind Talus just as he started back toward the human woman. Before I could intervene, she sidestepped his rush, moving faster than I had ever seen one of my soldiers move, and stomped on his knee, causing his leg to collapse beneath him.
