Claimed by the Demon Knight: Book One (11 page)

"You're dead," he hissed.

He let go and stood, pushing Elsi back down into the sand, where she stayed, doubled over, wheezing, and fish-mouth gasping for air that refused to come without a struggle. Humiliated. Weak. Dead.

~~~

E
lsi lay on her back between the white sand and the pitch black sky that seemed to have no source of light long after Tenuxhal had left. Even though there was neither a sun or moon to give off light, she could see everything as if it was a sunny day in Colorado. As she stared up at the black sky, she realized two things. First, she was simply no match for Tenuxhal at her current level. And second, the demon hadn't been trying to break her, just... seeing how far she would bend.

She blinked. Tenuxhal was training her. And it wasn't for her benefit, obviously. Rhoad's stomach lurched as her mind made an appalling comparison. She was a lamb being raised for the slaughter.

~~~

"M
ove it."

Elsi roused at the sharp command, her still slumbering brain confused when the bed suddenly dipped beside her as it accommodated another heavy weight.

"Uh? " She sat up quickly and twisted around to see what had caused the bed to move and wake her, grimacing as she did. Her upper chest still ached from where the demon had hit her. "Tenuxhal? Wha-? What are you doing?"

It was obvious what the demon seemed to be doing, but she still couldn't believe it. She grabbed the sheets that had pooled around her waist and clutched them against her breasts, inadvertently covering the bruise which was already beginning to bloom on the center of her collarbone, crawling down between her cleavage. Sharp silver eyes caught sight of the mark before it disappeared, the faintly stained edges outlining the trace impression of a hand. An apt reminder.

The knight stilled and glared at the human, his muscles bunched as he half-kneeled, half crouched on all fours beside the wall, looking like a runner at the gate, or a large cat about to pounce. Elsi could smell the alcohol rolling thickly off of his breath. Jeez, had he been swimming in it?

"Tch. The hell do you think I'm doing? I'm getting some damn sleep."

Elsi stared at Tenuxhal in bewilderment. He couldn't possibly be serious, could he?

"Oh no. Nooo no no no. Not in my bed." She fisted the sheets in her hand and flung a stern finger towards the sofa across the room, where Tenuxhal's black cropped shirt lay in a heap. "Get out!"

The white-haired man fixed her with a level stare, then turned away and casually resumed his efforts to make his space more comfortable, alternately smoothing down, then plucking at the sheets, before prodding the pillow with his fingers. Elsi momentarily forgot her objections and tilted her head in undisguised wonder. What the hell was he doing? Nesting?

"I'm staying right here. The couch ain't that comfortable," he grumbled as he continued to knead the pillow. Then suddenly, Tenuxhal froze, and as if Elsi's ill-considered demand had only just reached his ears, he punched the pillow and whipped around to face Elsi, snarling.

"And this is my fucking bed, Rhoads! You don't like it, go sleep on the fucking floor!"

Elsi scowled at the knight, then turned away. She didn't like it, not one bit. She glanced back at Tenuxhal, who was already laying on his side by the wall and watching her in the dim light with nefarious glowing eyes. How the hell was she supposed to sleep with that maniac beside her?

She looked at the couch. She looked at the floor. To hell with it. She slumped back down and yanked the covers over her shoulder crossly, and huffed, her stiff back turned to the knight.

"Just stay on your side then," she mumbled.

"Che. Kick me and I'll punch a hole through ya."

There was lots of space on the large bed, little chance of either one accidentally coming into contact with the other, but that didn't stop Elsi from scooting as close to the edge of the bed as she could without actually toppling off. She would put up with it for one night if she had to.

W
eeks passed, how many days exactly Elsi couldn't begin to say, considering there was no sun up in Hells endless black sky. No stars either, for that matter. That was a little unnerving. Societies of the living world had clocks, hounding people with their endless tick tick ticking, meant nothing here. In Hell, you were officially off the clock. Elsi slept when she was tired, and argued irrationally with Tenuxhal, fought constantly with Tenuxhal, and bickered pointlessly with Tenuxhal when she was awake, and then slept again when she was inevitably exhausted from the arguing and the fighting and the pointlessness of it all. And she slept, of course, when she was grievously injured.

Tell you what. It was fucking depressing.

Elsi was in hell, figuratively and literally, subject to Tenuxhal's whims and moods. And if Tenuxhal was a woman she'd be in flat out PMS from hell twenty-four seven, and with all the power to back it up. It was difficult for Elsi (or any licensed psychologist) to predict the demon's mood swings at the best of times. This fact alone kept the human on her toes.

Elsi's progress had been slow, and she frequently wondered how long the demon would maintain his unhealthy interest in torturing her. And after many weeks of the same shit, she was beginning to realize with no small amount of dread, that the unstable bastard might never run out of steam.

Tenuxhal and Elsi, they were just as much enemies as ever, like two volatile chemicals, outwardly inert when separated, but when mixed together, instantly reactive, one small miscalculation or an imprecise measurement easily setting off an explosive chain reaction.

It was a twisted game they were playing, one that needed Elsi to stay on her feet as badly as it needed Tenuxhal to dominate. It felt like an impossible situation to the woman, being caught walking that sensitive line between keeping the demon's lust for battle satisfied, and keeping herself alive in hopes of securing an eventual way out.

So in the interest of escaping this prison, Elsi was just going to have to keep getting stronger, just like before until she could finally beat Tenuxhal again, assuming he didn't actually succeed in killing her first, and force the knight to let her go.

Being at or approaching the same level as Tenuxhal came with the genuine risk of the psychotic male finally deciding it was time to carry out his promise to obliterate the witch. But still, to Elsi it was the obvious answer. She would have to hold back until she was ready.

~~~

T
enuxhal didn't feel like fighting today. He was too goddamn annoyed.

He'd been regularly sparring  with Elsi for five weeks, attacking her, pushing her. And maybe two weeks ago, the human had just suddenly stopped improving. He couldn't make heads or tails of it. If he had to hold himself back much longer, he was going to lose it. How was he supposed to prove his worth against a worthless opponent? Maybe Rhoads had reached her limit. It didn't make sense to Tenuxhal, but if that was the case then, there was no more point to this contest. No meaning in his victory. He might as well just kill her.

He stared out in disgust at the strangely bright desert without actually seeing it as he perched on the edge of the balcony and shifted, clear liquid sloshing back and forth inside the half empty bottle of vodka that rested between his knees.

Tenuxhal had been king amongst his group of demons, and he never could quite adjust to living under Beelzebubs's rule. That was the fundamental problem with stepping up to play in the big leagues of the knights. He had been made infinitely stronger, only to be, in a sense, demoted. He had been the biggest fish in his small pond until he was dropped into a much larger body of water. In his mind though, he was still rightfully a king.

Tenuxhal never had any particular sense of loyalty to Beelzebub or his group of knights or anyone. And it took a firm hand to keep him in line. That was part of his nature, his vicious persona that he'd worn for so long as a newborn monster. He had stayed with Beelzebub because that was part of the deal he had made. If he joined Beelzebub he would get the best of both worlds, all of the strengths and none of the weaknesses. And if he ever tried to leave, there would be dire consequences.

So, he had become a knight, a hurricane, a godly force of nature. Anyone caught in his path would be crushed.

He had been drunk on his new power and couldn’t seem to get enough of it.

He always thirsted for more.

He threw the bottle back until it was empty, gulping the fiery liquid down without taking a breath. The dreary landscape soon faded and shifted out of sight, and worn out reels of old battles and wounded pride began to play across the backs of closed lids.

~~~

T
enuxha's silver eyes were glazed as he opened them and stared blankly ahead from his place on the ledge. He clung to it, the past, the memories, painful or not, because his old way of life was all that he knew, because without it what was he? And what was his legacy? He wouldn't even be remembered as the knight who beat Elsi Rhoads, the famed witch known for locking up Beelzebub, the original King of Hell and ruler of the demons.

He was nothing. Remembered by no one.

The human woman had always taken the brunt of his rage. He snorted. So what? He didn't give two shits about anything. He was the great Tenuxhal, a feared demon knight.

No. He wasn't really a knight anymore. Fuck. Those 'glory' days were over, a memory and nothing more. He missed that feeling, a sense of belonging to something, of fighting for a cause bigger than himself. Whether he really believed in it or not was irrelevant, and not that he particularly fought for anyone but himself in the first place, but he'd had purpose. That time was over.

He was just plain old Tenuxhal now. Demon. A monster of Hell. And he felt it right down to the core of his heart.

Tenuxhal leaned forward and put his head in his hands. They were trembling. Pathetic.

He scrubbed viciously at the dampness that had begun to form in his eyes, a humiliating by-product born of intense frustration and sudden self-loathing.

And now he was just a shell of his former self with nothing left to exist for, just a dark, barren land and an endless loop of time, and the damn Witch. He snorted. The hell it with all of it. Nobody ever said the afterlife was fair. He'd been fighting with Rhoads for week after week, holding back, and beating her easily every time, but it didn't cleanse away that pervasive feeling inside of him, that crushing sense of emptiness.

Nothing ever would.

He let the bottle drop from his hands and watched as it smashed into a million pieces on the rocks below.

Time. He had plenty of it now.

Perhaps he would give Rhoads just a little more time.

And maybe she would win the war that Tenuxhal couldn't.

~~~

W
hat fresh hell was this?

When had it become that isolation was worse than seeking out your enemy for companionship? After almost five long weeks, Elsi was actually starting to empathize, not, she reassured herself, sympathize with Tenuxhal’s solitary situation.

If she wasn't fighting or sleeping or arguing, she was bored to shit.

The Black Citadel was a vast place and Tenuxhal tended to wander around the outskirts of it when he wasn't pestering Elsi. Perhaps it was out of instinct to guard his territory. Or maybe he was just killing time. Elsi had the feeling that it was a little more of one than the other. When she finally found him, he was sitting on the ledge of the lower level balcony on the outer wall of the citadel, legs hanging over the edge, eyes staring unfocused across the endless desert sands. There were some petrified tree’s here and there, spread out among the sand and rocks. Hell was not the fire and brimstone that many religious humans believed. It was mostly empty. And lonely.

He was almost motionless, as if lost in some intensely personal thought. Elsi froze and held herself still, as quietly as she could, trying to keep her spiritual energy calm and even. She didn't thinks he should be here, feeling very much like a voyeur intruding on a very complex and private moment. She didn't want to startle Tenuxhal. Just being here at this moment could be enough to start a fight. And Elsi didn't feel like fighting today.

Tenuxhal suddenly slumped forward, face cradled in his hands. Even from this distance Elsi could see that he was visibly shaking.

She winced in discomfort, disturbed by the emotional display that looked so incredibly out of place on the fierce and powerful demon, and surprised at how much it physically bothered her to see it. And so she slowly began to step back around the corner, hoping against hope to go unnoticed by the obviously distressed knight. She eventually made her way back to their room, just one of many that was tucked away in the large, seemingly endless, building.

Elsi decided it would be best to steer clear of the demon until he came to her. She didn’t know just what he would do if she said the wrong thing or looked at him in a manner that would automatically offend him. Not while he was in the state he’s in now. It wasn’t worth losing her head over.

In the meantime, she’d work on her plan of escape. She knows that she can’t keep up this charade forever, and eventually Tenuxhal would grow tired of her current progress and just cut her down. For Elsi, time is of the essences, even in a place where time does not exist.

"S
o leave."

"Uh?" Tenuxhal glanced sideways, his brow furrowed into an irritated question.

"You can leave here whenever you want right?" She hiccupped and covered her mouth with the back of her hand in a delayed attempt to cover the embarrassing sound. "Nobody's making you stay." It was true. Tenuxhal could come and go as he pleased. He was free after all.

"You have a location in mind, Rhoads?" The question was part mocking, as Tenuxhal thought he already saw the only possible answer coming. But he wanted to hear Elsi say it anyway.

"Well.. uh... you could try the human world." Her suggestion was met with silence and a bored expression. "No, really. We could probably come up with a spell that would give you a fake human form like Olivia’s, it’s what she does to stay in the mortal plane. It'll control your power and hide you from Heaven, witches and even other demons." Elsi ramped up as she began to get caught up in the logistics of such a venture. "We'd have to find you a place to live. And I could help you fit in... you know... show you how humans live."