Witch Heart - By Anya Bast Page 0,1

her power was perhaps the worst thing about her current condition.

Worse than the cold. Worse than the hunger or the fatigue or the fear.

In every way imaginable, she was hobbled.

Claire had never been so cold. In all the demonic winters she'd spent on Eudae, where the temperatures ranged into the bone-shattering range for an aeamon, she'd never been this miserable. The wound she'd sustained on her foot the first day as she'd run from the Atrika hadn't so much healed up as it had frozen up. Hunger constantly distracted her and made her weak. By now she was so bedraggled, people on the street gave her a wide berth and pitying glances.

Never had she been so humiliated.

Today she'd walked down streets, not knowing where she was headed. She'd only known she had to keep moving since the Atrika might be able to track her magickally.

People had pressed paper and coins, which she recognized as money, into her palm once in a while. However, when she'd inquired where she could find the elemental witches, they'd only given her strange looks and hurried away. Inquiries as to how to protect herself against demons—the human's pronunciation of daaeman—had met with a similar response, so Claire had stopped asking. These random acts of generosity were few and far between, but they'd already helped her buy a little food, a transaction she'd stumbled though badly. And the resulting piece of meat wrapped in soggy bread had been horrid.

She'd managed to evade the Atrika for a while, but then she'd turned a corner and there they'd been. Claire had whirled and tried to go in the other direction before they spotted her, but it had been too late. So she'd run to this alley and endeavored to hide.

Now they were searching for her. She could smell them. Daaeman magick had a peculiar sharp scent and these Atrika weren't masking their true nature at the moment. Likely they were trying to spook her.

It was working.

Claire opened her eyes just for a moment and glanced up into the dark sky with its odd absence of stars. Nothing but concrete here. Concrete and square shapes. Black, cold sky. On Eudae, in the capital city of Ai, the buildings were made of lavender and rose marble, sometimes black or gray. They all shone and glittered under the sun. Structures built in columns, gentle slopes, and arches. The palace, called Yrystrayi, was majestic in its architecture.

Daaeman were brutal regardless of breed. Even the Syari, the scholar class, were more prone to killing before asking questions. The warrior class, the Atrika, were the worst. Unlike the rest of the breeds, they dined on rotting flesh, loved to drink blood, and became aroused by torture and pain.

But all the breeds, even the Atrika, had beautiful architecture.

Her mother told her she'd been born here on Earth, and Claire did have some hazy, early childhood memories of this place, but mostly she felt like she'd slipped down a rabbit hole. Her mother, before she'd died, had told the story of Alice in Wonderland often to Claire. Maybe her mother had felt like Alice when she'd first come to Eudae as much as Claire did now on Earth.

Footsteps crushed refuse underfoot, disconcertingly close. Claire froze, the saliva in her mouth drying up.

The shadowy fingers on the building opposite her lengthened and then halted. Claire caught her breath and didn't blink. Honking and voices from the street barely filtered into her arrested awareness. The fingers reversed and came back in her direction.

Claire balanced, ready to take flight. Run. That's all she could do. She wanted to tap her magick, use her best weapon. Her fingers tingled with the desire to do it.

A daaeman face appeared above her. "Got you."

His huge hands came down on her shoulders and squeezed. Tears burst into her eyes from the pain. She struggled and his grip dropped to her wrists making her yelp.

The second Atrika grabbed the first around the waist and hauled him back away from her. "She's mine!" he growled.

The first daaeman who'd grabbed her—Claire believed he was called Tevan—gathered himself from where he'd been knocked to the pavement. With a low growl trickling from his throat, he launched himself at the second. Both their eyes glowed red and their teeth had extended.

Killing rage.

Claire stood for a split second, watching the daaeman face off. If the magick Rue had imbued her with was elium, it was very valuable to them. Of course they'd fight over it. Within her lay all