Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex: Demonized #1)(43)

“Anyway,” Amalia said, tossing her phone onto the mattress, “let’s get these forms filled out. Dad made me do his paperwork all the time, so I have the MPD guy’s email memorized.”

We busied ourselves filling out the form while Zylas systemically gutted the television. Amalia scanned the paperwork with her phone, sent it off, then stood and stretched.

“As soon as we get confirmation that he’s inserted your paperwork into the system, you can apply to the Grand Grimoire. You need to move fast or it’ll look suspicious.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Amalia. I would’ve been screwed without your help.”

Her gaze darted to Zylas. “None of this will save you if your demon doesn’t behave as if it’s properly contracted. That part is for you to figure out. I’m going down to see if the front desk guy can recommend any late-night delivery options.”

Giving Zylas a wide berth, she swung the door shut behind her. I sighed, figuring she wanted to get away from the demon more than she wanted to visit the front desk. Unconcerned by her absence, Zylas snapped a chip board out of the TV’s innards and examined it from every angle.

“Having fun?” I asked him dryly, flopping onto the mattress.

He tossed the board into the gutted television and hopped off the dresser. Gliding over to the bed, he looked down at me, his dark pupils constricted to slits in the yellow glow of the bedside lamp. I wondered if he wanted to break me open and examine my insides the way he had with the television.

“You have a plan?” he asked in his strange accent.

“I think so.”

“Join a guild? Blend in?”

“You were listening?”

His hand closed over the front of my sweater and he pulled me upright. My head spun from the sudden movement—and my breath caught when I found myself nose to nose with him.

“You expect me to behave?” He sneered the word. “I must be obedient? What is the difference between surrendering my will and pretending to?”

I cringed back but he didn’t release my shirt. He towered over me, his upper lip curling to reveal his sharp canines. “I have to, Zylas. It’s the only way to—”

“What if I refuse to behave, payilas?”

Alarm shot through me. “You—you have to protect me!”

“I decide how.” His unsheathing claws pierced my shirt with a tearing sound. “I did not give you my will.”

My pulse thundered in my ears. “Zylas … what do you want?”

“Ih?”

“Back in the circle … you asked me what I wanted and I said protection. But what do you want? I know it isn’t cookies.”

“I wanted your soul, payilas, but you would not give it to me.”

I let out a slow breath. “You want to go home.”

Without my soul, he couldn’t escape this world. When my death released him from the contract, he’d be set adrift here. Though he’d escaped the circle alive, he now faced a human lifetime spent babysitting a helpless girl, then however much longer wandering my world until he died or someone killed him.

“I’ll find a way for you to return home.” Only after I’d said the words did I stop to consider them—and the magnitude of the offer I was making.

Zylas went very still. Watching me. Waiting.

“There has to be a way for demons to get in and out of this world,” I plowed on. “If there wasn’t, how would the first human have learned how to summon demons?”

“You think you can discover this?”

“I can’t promise I’ll succeed, but I promise to try.” I stared up at him anxiously. “It’ll take time—a long time, maybe years.”

“Years,” he scoffed. “What do you know about those, payilas of twenty years?”

“What do you know? You can’t even tell me how old you are.”

He leaned down, his warm breath brushing my cheek, and I recoiled. He moved with me until I tipped over and landed on my back. Bracing a hand on the mattress, he tapped the infernus under my sweater.

“Our contract is sealed.” His red eyes drilled into me. “But you will promise to find this—a way I can return home?”

“I promise to try my best.”

He searched my face for a sign of deception. “Then I will try to … behave … so the hh’ainun zh’ūltis will think I am obedient.”

I hadn’t picked up many of the demonic words he peppered through his speech, but that one was easy: stupid humans.

“Deal,” I said. “Now would you get off me?”

“Why? I am not hurting you.” As though to prove his point, he pushed a hand into my hair, his warm palm against my cheek.

I grabbed his wrist to yank his hand away—assuming I could—and the sensation under my palm belatedly registered in my brain. My eyes popped wide and I shoved myself up.

My sudden movement startled him and he released my hair. I caught his arm and ran my palm from his elbow to the strap that crossed his right shoulder, then pressed both hands to his bare stomach below his leather-and-plate chest armor.

“You’re warm!” I exclaimed. “Even warmer than me! Your skin was so cold before. Are you sick? Do you have a fever?”

“I do not know those words.”