He had unwittingly flown right into a trap.
Nathan calmly regarded his struggles. “Hello, Phoenix.”
“What—what did you do to me, you little bastard!” Phoenix twisted and pushed at the invisible restraints.
“Such language.”
Phoenix spat a baker’s dozen of foul curse words. It didn’t help, but it certainly felt better than bowing to Nathan’s reproof.
“Such an unpleasant personality, too. And yet Raya keeps you around.”
“You keep her name out of your mealy mouth, witch.”
Nathan ignored him. “That’s the question, isn’t it. Why does she keep you around?” He circled Phoenix, examining him from every angle. “You must be valuable.”
Phoenix tried to turn his head to follow Nathan’s movement but found himself nearly paralyzed.
The walls had closed in.
He rolled his eyes in a show of bravado. At the moment, they were the only thing he could move, other than his mouth. “She doesn’t keep me around. I’m not bound to her.”
“And yet you sought her out.” He leaned into Phoenix’s face. “To tell her you were lonely.” His voice rang with contempt. “Maybe you were bound—in a manner of speaking.”
“Go to hell.”
Nathan’s lips twisted into a smile like he knew he’d scored a direct hit. “If you were bound with a spell, she might have noticed if someone stole her pet demon. But now, she’ll never know.”
“You can’t do anything to me in a dream.”
Phoenix really hoped Nathan couldn’t do anything to him in a dream.
Nathan crossed his arms. “No?”
If Phoenix could have sweat, he would have done so in buckets at the amused look on Nathan’s face. He argued the point anyway. “You’re asleep. You’ll wake up and I’ll be gone. Free as a bird.”
Nathan’s lips quirked. “Really. You don’t seem very sure of that.”
Phoenix was not at all sure.
“You’re only partially correct.” Nathan stared at Phoenix like he was deciding which part of a Thanksgiving turkey to carve first. “It’s true that I can’t bind you to my service in a dream. But I can put you away until I’m ready to make use of you.”
“Put me away? You mean banish me?” Banishing wasn’t harmful to a demon, but it resulted in disappearing from the mortal world for an unpredictable amount of time. The thought frightened him. No one would know where he had gone.
No one would even know he needed rescuing.
Nathan shook his head and pulled a wand from his pocket. “No, I’m not going to banish you. Too hard to call you back. I’m going to hide you until I’m ready to summon and bind you in the real world.”
Phoenix scoffed. “You can’t hide a demon.”
Nathan leveled the wand at Phoenix.
“Wait! I have powerful friends—if you do this, a legion of demons will come after you and tear your soul to shreds!”
Nathan smirked. “Would these be the demons who have a secret hideout in Paris?”
How the hell did Nathan know about that? “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he bluffed.
Nathan’s eyes glinted. “They’re next.” With that, he released a wave of power from the dream-wand.
