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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Xander stood hunched over the table, feeling the wary eyes of his colleagues upon him and listening to their worries about his behaviour. He'd been struggling to keep his shadows under control since he woke up and he hadn't slept since. His dark power clung to him and followed him wherever he went, serving as a reminder that he had lost her again.
It had been days and Adriana was still missing, there was no trace of where she was. He knew the moment he woke up that she was gone, he felt her absence more than he could comprehend.
It was almost fitting, waking up soaked in his own blood from where she had fed from him, it gave him the slightest sense of what she had felt when she had awoken all those years ago, alone in her room with healed wounds to serve as a memory of his attack.
He could feel the concern emanating from the Lupi, having never seen him in this state before. His brothers understood, they knew not to push him when he was like this, particularly when it involved Adriana. But it was Cassandra's emotions that made him look up, he could practically smell her fear as she forced herself to have another vision.
Cass was absolutely terrified, partly of Xander but mainly because she had seen Adriana in her visions. Every time she looked she was trapped in a cage, and the only time the vision shifted to show her more would only show Adriana in pain, writhing on the floor whilst the sound of laughter roared around her.
But the vision she was having at the table, the vision that Xander was watching with her, was so much worse. Adriana was screaming, her eyes were squeezed shut as she howled in pain at the flames that licked their way up her body, burning her alive.
Cass snapped out of the vision just as Xander threw his chair across the room, the wood smashing against the wall and splintering to the floor. He ran his hands through his hair, grasping at the roots and pulling in anguish.
"We're running out of time," he said, his deep voice appearing calm and collected despite his frantic appearance. "We need to find her right fucking now."
Deion began to walk toward him but stopped when Xander shot him a glare, his shadows darting around him defensively.
"What did you see?" Nicolai asked Cass. "Was anything different?"
Cass could only shake her head as she silently sobbed, her tears falling down her face and dripping onto the table. Nicolai frowned and offered her a tissue, but she couldn't even move, she was petrified she was going to lose her sister.
Xander came to lean on the table again, addressing the room. "They're going to kill her, whoever has Adriana is going to kill her."
Before anyone could respond, the phone in the centre of the table rang out, Katie's number flashing on the screen. Xander all but launched himself across the table to answer it.
"What is it?" he snapped.
Katie had been incredibly busy dealing with the riots across the country that the Liberators had instigated. There was carnage everywhere, streets were demolished, buildings set on fire, hundreds of people injured or killed for being Daemon sympathisers.
