Demon Bound: The Camelot Archive - Book One R Nicole (open ebook .txt) 📖

open and fluttered as they filled with bright, white light.

“We can’t, Ramona,” someone said. “It could kill her.”

“There’s no other way.”

I jerked my arms but was met with resistance.

“She’s waking up.” Scarlett?

“We’re out of time,” Ramona exclaimed. “We have to do it now.”

“No!” The sounds of a scuffle reverberated around me and I fought against the restraints. “I won’t let you take her!”

My limbs felt heavy like they had sedated me. I was having trouble opening my eyes and confusion filled my mind.

“Wait! Stop, I can explain…” I shouted, but my lips weren’t moving. “Scarlett! Help me!”

Ramona’s face came into view above me. “Don’t worry, Madeleine. I’ll cut the demon out of you.”

Stop… No… Don’t do this… Scarlett…

Elijah, please…Elijah!

“Madeline.”

My eyes flew open and I reached for my cold iron dagger. Trent’s hand wrapped around my wrist and I gasped for air. “What…?”

“You were screaming in your sleep,” he said as the barracks came into focus behind him.

It seemed I’d woken everyone because they were standing around their beds, starting at me—annoyance, concern, anger…it was all there.

Trent noticed the direction of my gaze and waved at them. “It’s okay, everyone,” he said, “it’s just the after-effects of her capture.”

I shot him a withering glare and began to get dressed, wiping at the sweat across my brow. Shoving my feet into my trousers, I stood and pulled them up. I felt dizzy but nothing I couldn’t dampen with Light.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “It’s two in the morning.”

“I can’t stand it in here,” I hissed as I grabbed my jacket. “Did you see their faces when you said the word capture? It sounded more like collusion to them.”

He wrapped his hand around my arm. “Madeleine…”

I lowered my gaze, unsettled by my dream. “I just need to be alone for a while.”

“You can’t go outside the boundary.”

I rolled my eyes and snatched my arondight blade. “I’ll be fine.” I had a guardian demon after all.

Outside, the camp was still. The low hum of the generators echoed off the stone walls, but nothing else stirred—apart from the bleeding effect of my hallucination.

It’d been so real. Ramona had warned me, but I’d brushed it off. I could handle anything my mind threw at me—except maybe undergoing a live autopsy.

I moved through the camp, the cool air soothing my flushed brow. The ground had turned into hard packed dirt from the hundreds of pairs of boots that had walked over it and I loathed to think what this place looked like after rain.

Finally, I slipped past the watch on the walls, keeping to the shadows. It was easier than I had expected, but they were looking for things trying to get in, not out.

I could breathe easier once I was outside the limits of Camelot. Climbing the hill, I kept an eye out for the patrols, but I’d seemed to have timed my wake-up call perfectly. I was alone…with about a trillion stars watching over me.

I found a sheltered alcove in a rocky outcrop near the top of the rise and turned towards the valley. Celestial beings, demons from a parallel universe, humans turned supernatural, hidden worlds and ancient wars . . .. Our world was a strange one, that was for sure.

Despite the bright moonlight, Camelot was a dark smudge on the landscape. I never cared what lay within the depths of the castle, but I wondered what it was like when it was intact and full of life. This was the pinnacle of our civilisation—if you could call it that—until everything had gone wrong. The fickle human heart had almost destroyed the entire world. Speaking of fickle…

What was I going to do about Elijah? There was no cure for his mutation. Not one that I could see at least. Ramona had only stopped mine because it hadn’t completely taken over. Elijah’s had deep roots that’d likely fused with his humanity over the years.

How could anyone be cured of something so parasitic and not die? I didn’t think it was possible. It’d only been one day, but Ramona had already given me the answer to his predicament. There was nothing I could do for him unless he wanted to come back to Camelot, but I knew he’d refuse.

Looked like it was bad news for me. Would Elijah let me live now that I knew about him?

“Back so soon?”

I spun on my heel, my heart leaping into my throat as Elijah melted out of the darkness.

“Don’t do that!” I hissed, keeping my voice low. Sound carried out here and the last thing I needed was to bump into a patrol.

“You’re the one who called me.”

“No, I didn’t…” I frowned, trying to recall the moment when I had summoned him, but came up empty.

“You did. But it seems like you didn’t mean to.” He turned to walk away, but something made me grab his arm.

“Elijah.”

He glanced at my hand, then back over his shoulder at me. Heat swam into my cheeks and I let him go, turning back towards Camelot.

I sat on the ledge and propped my feet up onto a rock. “It’s harder than I thought.”

A ripple passed through my body as Elijah arranged himself next to me, our boots pressing against each other. I noted he was careful not to touch me anywhere that risked skin on skin contact, but at least he was sticking around.

“Whatever those demons did to me, it woke up my residual mutation,” I said. “I’m aware of it now.”

“So, in simple terms, it means you’re more of a raging bitch than usual?”

I snorted and wrapped my arms around my knees. “If I didn’t have this stupid thing inside me, I would be well-adjusted. Wouldn’t that be a novelty?”

Maybe I was asking myself the wrong questions. It should be more like how to get rid of it, rather than why it was there.

We fell into a strange silence, the whispers carried on the wind our only company.

After a moment, Elijah stirred. “Why are you here?”

“I couldn’t sleep. The…” I