Book 1 of The Courts of Daemonium.
Alexander 'Xander' Duran, the world's first Lamia, has been in charge of the Courts of Daemonium for decades. After being turned into a shadow-wielding, blood-thirsty Daemon in 1649 by Lilith, his only purpose in h...
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Adriana's breath fogged the cold glass pane of her window as she pressed her forehead against it, tears streaming down her face. She watched as the staff fled Amara House, watched them run into the night as fast as they could, and watched Xander pick them off one by one.
She had been woken like the rest of the house by a bright white light illuminating every single room. She knew it was Striga, and she knew something terrible must have happened for her great grandmother to unleash such power. She'd shouted for her father to let her out after finding her door locked from the outside, but after hearing the desperation in his voice to hide in her room she could not find it in her to argue. He made her promise to stay inside, to use whatever power she had to defend herself.
It wasn't long after that the screaming started.
She heard the shouts and cries from the staff outside, pleading for their lives to be spared, their shrieks of pain. That was when she saw him. It wasn't her Xander, it was a creature of nightmares, a powerful god of death, the ruthless first ever Lamia.
He killed every single person that ran from the house with seemingly minimal effort. Some he reached out and grabbed if they got too close to him, slashing his talons across their bodies, their necks, their faces, until their corpse hardly even resembled a human body anymore. Others he used his Manipuli power, forcing them to kill themselves in front of him by slitting their throats or biting through their own wrists to bleed out slowly, painfully.
He didn't feed from any of them, this was not a bloodlust frenzy, this was killing for fun. And the best part for him was that he was able to smile up at Adriana the entire time as he made his way to the front of her home.
As two of the maids ran toward the direction of the stables, he used his Lure to convince them to walk right over to him, to caress his body and kiss him. His smile widened as he kept his eyes on Adriana, before he grabbed them both by their throats, one in each hand, and crushed their necks.
Xander dropped both of their bodies and raised a bloody hand toward Adriana, the white teeth of his smile standing out against the red blood splattered across his face visible in the moonlight. He waved slowly as she sobbed, unable to believe what he had turned into.
The cook ushered the remaining staff members back inside and slammed the front door. Xander laughed at their stupidity for thinking it would help them, that anything would help them now.
With one swift, powerful kick, the door blew inwards and he strolled through the hallway, swiftly dodging the cook's swing of his meat cleaver. He grabbed the man's arm and snapped it at the elbow, twisting it to aim the cleaver and making him hack into his own stomach three times.
A maid began to run up the stairs, but Xander tore the cleaver from the cook's stomach and threw it at her, the blade lodging itself in the top of her back and causing her to fall.
He stepped over her twitching body as he made his way up the stairs, throwing another servant over the bannister as they stupidly tried to fight him. He heard them fall with a satisfying crack to their skull.
