Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex: Demonized #1)(83)
He dropped onto his heels and faced me. Barely topping five feet, I had no chance of reaching the book without a ladder. Which he knew. Jaw clenched, I turned my back on him and glowered at the nearest shelf. What was that command? Hecheze … hesachaze … hesychaza …
Warm breath brushed across the top of my head, stirring my hair.
I shot a glare over my shoulder at Zylas, who was standing obnoxiously close. “Back up. I can’t concentrate.”
“Concentrate on what? You are not doing anything.”
I gritted my teeth. The only thing worse than a disobedient demon was a grumpy disobedient demon.
“You have not done anything for weeks,” he complained. “Days and days of nothing but sleep and lounge and sleep—”
“I wasn’t sleeping because I’m lazy,” I snapped. “I was sick. I had the flu.”
“You promised to search for a way I can return home.”
“And I am. Right now. Or I would be if you’d stop bothering me.” I grabbed a book at random. “The more you distract me, the longer this will take.”
He finally stepped back, taking the scent of hickory and leather with him, and drifted away in moody silence. I unclenched my jaw, resisting the urge to order him back into the infernus. The harder I pushed, the more he would resist.
I briefly closed my eyes. If I’d learned anything in the five weeks since we’d been bound together in a contract, it was that Zylas was infuriatingly stubborn. And deliberately contrary. Defiant. Ornery. Contentious to the point of—
“Should I describe you, payilas?”
His hiss floated back to me and I flushed. Thanks to that telepathic connection that was supposed to allow me to control him, he could hear my thoughts. Not always—it depended on how forcefully I was thinking them—but often enough that it was completely unfair.
Pretending I hadn’t been insulting him in my head, I opened the book and blinked at the title page. Demon Psychology: Monsters Born or Made?
Hmm. I flipped the page and scanned the introduction.
The debate of nature versus nurture has dominated discussions on psychology for centuries. Are humans inherently good or is morality a learned behavior?
In the coming pages, we will examine how this concept applies to the preternatural creatures known as demons. Though psychology is, in theory and in practice, applicable only to humans, we now apply our well-practiced diagnostic methods to the demon psyche.
The symptoms most often displayed by demonkind (aggression, violence, lack of empathy, lack of remorse, inability to form emotional bonds, narcissism, manipulativeness) would earn most humans a swift diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, more commonly known as psychopathy.
However, the question remains: Is demonic violence a product of the demons’ mysterious home environment, or, as long believed to be the case, are they born monsters?
I peeked over the top of the book. At the end of the aisle, Zylas was crouched low as he peered around the corner. His tail lashed.
Aggressive, violent, manipulative—check, check, and check. Unempathetic, remorseless, selfish—three more checkmarks. My brow wrinkled as I turned the page and skimmed the table of contents to see if there was a nice, neat “Conclusions” chapter I could read. Biting my lip, I glanced up again.
The aisle was empty.
With a horrified gasp, I shoved the book onto the nearest shelf and sprinted to the end of the aisle. It opened into a wider path with tables lined up against the wall. Halfway along, my demon, in all his horned, tailed, leather-and-armor glory, was prowling through the library.
And I had no way to stop him.
Coming November 1, 2019
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