Touch of the Demon (Kara Gillian 5)

A shiver raced over me. “Bad Monkey.”

“Bad Monkey. Yes,” Helori agreed. “Very Bad Monkey.”

I gave a small smile. He understood perfectly.

He shifted around me, naming more, then touched the one on the lowest part of my back, a sigil that dove to my tailbone. “Amkir.”

I snorted. “He’s an asshole,” I said. “Appropriate that he should be close to mine.”

Helori chuckled softly. “Yes, he is. Definitively.”

I exhaled as Helori placed his hand on the only one he had yet to name—the sigil that began at the nape of my neck, flowed over much of my upper back, and coalesced in a focal spiral between my shoulder blades. I’d never seen it, but I remembered fully every slice of Rhyzkahl’s blade across my skin. “Szerain,” I murmured. One of the few I don’t despise, I thought, but then frowned. I only knew Ryan. I didn’t know Szerain. There was every chance I could despise him as well.

“The last, here,” he said, touching my lower back. “The sigil was completed, but not ignited. Idris and Mzatal disrupted the ritual to assure it was not.”

I turned to look at him. “Could it still be?” I asked, speaking my fear.

He shook his head. “The unifying sigil carries its own potency, as does each of the others. But they are not united and cannot be simply through ignition of this last one, now.”>I heard what he was saying. I would put everyone in danger if I returned home. Not just myself. Heartsick, I let the hope of going home anytime soon crumble to ash.

Helori shifted his hand from my arm to the base of my throat, touching the sigil carved there.

I drew back. “Don’t. Don’t touch them.”

He kept his hand extended toward the sigil. “You must look,” he urged. “You must know.”

I stiffened. “I’ve seen them.”

“You will not even glance at them now.” His eyes darkened with concern. “They are a part of you. You need to know them.”

“I know them, I promise,” I said, voice cracking. “I remember every agonizing instant that went into the making of them. Every day, for the rest of my life, I get to have the reminder of how stupid and gullible I was.”

He shifted to crouch beside me, looking every inch the syraza even though he was in human form. “You can use them to remind you of that, or you can use them to remind you, every moment of every day, of how strong you are to have thrived despite the motherfucker’s best efforts to destroy you.” He cocked his head, dropped his eyes to the scars that showed above the neckline of my shirt. “I look at them and see tenacity and strength. You need to know what Rhyzkahl put on you, not just that he put them on.”

I scrubbed at my face. “I look back at my time with him and see all the hints and clues that I should’ve picked up on.”

“When you first realized his intentions, what did you feel?” Helori asked quietly.

My lower lip quivered despite all efforts to maintain control. “I was…I don’t know. I was disappointed.” I scowled. “That was my main feeling. So fucking disappointed that he turned out to be such a…” Shaking, I took a deep breath and screamed it: “FUCKING DICK!”

Searing anger rose, near startling me with how foreign the sensation seemed after being so long immersed in panic and fear. I’d been ready to direct the anger at myself, yet now I knew that wouldn’t do me any good. I was the goddamn victim.

“Were he standing here right now,” Helori said, “what would you do?”

I swiped at my eyes, not surprised to find that I was crying. “I sure as hell wouldn’t scream anything. Not even a choice name.” I took a deep breath. “I won’t scream for him anymore. I’ve screamed too much for him already.” My gaze drifted to a flock of iridescent green sea birds swooping and diving into the water. Last time I’d seen a flock wheeling, I’d been in the gazebo at Rhyzkahl’s. “I hate him. He’s less than scum.” Then I smiled very slightly as I returned my attention to Helori. “But if he was standing right here, I might very well kick him really hard in the goddamn balls.”

A whisper of a smile touched his face.

I drew a deep breath and then blew it out. “Mzatal healed my body,” I continued. “Nothing hurts anymore.” I toyed with a patch of sand that had made its way onto the blanket, drew random patterns in it while I spoke. “The problem with healing my body of the injuries is that my mind feels like it should be healed as well.” I paused. “It’s not. It’s just as stretched and twisted and shattered as my shoulders were. I can be a real tenacious bitch.” I shook my head, gulped. “But this…. It’s like I’m barely holding onto myself.”

“Yes. I know,” Helori said. “It is why I proposed this time away for you. It is why we are here—to help you regain that hold.”

“You proposed it?” I gave him a puzzled look.

“Mzatal was exhausted and truly confounded about how to expediently work with the loss of yourself.” He gave me a gentle smile. “I offered this as a possible means.”

“Thanks,” I said softly. “I didn’t even know you before this.”

“As I said, once you summoned Rhyzkahl single-handedly, you became known among the syraza,” he said, then chuckled low. “And now you are getting to know something of me, though that can be a blessing and a curse.”