Free Demon's Vow: Part 2 of the Final Asylum Tales (The Asylum Tales series) by Jocelynn Drake Page B

between myself and the darkness. But there was no getting away. The force was everywhere in the room, crowding close but still not harming me. Was it toying with me? Playing with its food out of boredom? That couldn’t be because that would mean this wasn’t just a spell. This dark energy was a thinking, feeling creature.
    “Why haven’t you attacked yet?” I asked, trying to make sense out of what I was faced with.
    She’s asked me not to kill you.
    “She? She who?” I barked.
    The thing laughed without making a sound. I could feel its amusement, leaving behind the feeling of oily sludge sliding down the back of my throat. The darkness rippled and the little light I had created winked out. I couldn’t see anything, not even a strip of light leaking into the room from under the door. I wasn’t even sure I was still in Simon’s rooms but was now floating in nothingness.
    The one you’ve been promised to.
    “Lilith?” I breathed as my hearted threatened to explode in my chest.
    It didn’t answer. It didn’t have to. Besides the fact that Simon had handed over a chunk of my soul to the Queen of the Underworld, I had killed two people using magic. I owed magic two years of my life and when it came time for me to pay up, Lilith was the one I went to serve.
    The creature laughed again and I fought the growing wave of nausea threatening to send what little I had eaten that day up my throat. Clenching my teeth, I drew in air through my nose and slowly released it, pushing back against my twisting stomach. Puking now would break my concentration and I’d lose all the protective spells I was clinging to. I certainly didn’t trust this thing not to attack me just because Lilith had asked nicely.
    “You’re one of her monsters then,” I said when some of the queasiness had passed.
    What twisted amusement I had felt from this thing disintegrated in a heartbeat and it was instantly on me, knocking me to the ground. Even without a body, it felt as if the creature was crouched over me, pinning me to the cold hard stones.
    Not hers! Demon, not monster, it snarled.
    I flinched, feeling as if the thing was grinding my brain cells between its molars. “Fine! Sorry! Demon. Not monster,” I shouted, ready to concede anything so it would give me a little more breathing room.
    The demon’s anger receded with my words and it retreated. I was slow to get to my feet. My knees were jelly and couldn’t hold me. Sadly, I think the demon had also fried my common sense, because I still couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Fine, Demon Not Monster. You’re following Lilith’s suggestion, but she doesn’t control you. Why bother listening to her request?”
    If it was going to give me a free pass at breathing, I wanted to know why. The hope was that if I knew the real reason, then I was likely to find the boundaries of its good will. A stupid hope, I was sure, but I was afraid of running into the situation where if it thought too much about its decision to let me live, it might discover that its reasons weren’t all that good after all.
    Why would I kill the one who lets me out to play?
    A chill ran down my spine, raising the hairs on my arms. I opened my mouth to argue that I had no dealings with demons but something shifted slightly in the creature as it drew away from me and it suddenly felt . . . familiar. The same feeling that had hit me when I first stepped into the room.
    “Shit,” I hissed, stumbling backward. The demon moved, closing the distance between us to push against my back to keep me from falling on my ass. I jerked away from it, but didn’t take any additional steps. My head was spinning. The protection spell in the basement of Asylum, the energy I set loose to attack anyone that entered my private domain, was a demon.
    I cursed myself and my stupidity for ever trusting a powerful protection spell I copied off of Simon. It should have been no surprise that the warlock has been messing with things no sane person