Witch Blood by Anya Bast

five o’clock shadow.
    â€œSo no other metals, just copper?”
    Micah nodded. “Apparently. I’ll keep looking for more information, but you have to know that some of it was corrupted. There are pages missing and—”
    â€œTell me what else you’ve found out.”
    His face instantly lit up. “There’s lots of information here about their world. They reign supreme in their reality, having exterminated all other races. They’re cannibalistic, too.”
    â€œLovely.”
    â€œIt looks like there might be different breeds of demon, but the information concerning that is unclear. It seems like there are four genetic groups, each possessing unique personality traits. Their culture appears rooted in some way by how these different breeds operate. Did you know that they actually call themselves daaeman ? That’s the name of their race. They call their world Eudae .” He paused with an expectant air.
    After a moment Thomas ground out, “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
    Micah rolled his eyes. “The Greeks called demons daemon , but with a different spelling. That Latinized spelling of d-a-e-m-o-n is very close to how the daaeman spell the word as d-a-a-e-m-a-n. ” He pronounced the words differently. Daemon , Micah pronounced demon . Daaeman , he pronounced day-man .
    â€œThe Greeks also classified them into benevolent and evil categories, or races.” He frowned. “Maybe even breeds, I’m not sure. The benevolent demons were called eudaemons , like the name for their world.”
    â€œBenevolent demons? The Greeks got that one wrong.”
    Micah shook his head. “No. They didn’t get it wrong. Their race is like ours, some of us do horrific things, but that doesn’t make all humans bad. They’re a complicated species.”
    His lips twisted. “Please excuse my unfair comment.”
    Micah spread his hands. “You’re missing the larger picture, Thomas. Don’t you see? This suggests demons had contact with humans long ago. And, in fact, it says they did right here.” He brandished a sheaf of papers in his fist. “It says once there was a bridge between the worlds that daaeman could traverse. That they came to”—he squinted, reading text—“hunt, frolic, and fall in love.”
    Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Frolic? Demons frolic? They fall in love? Wait a minute, they frolicked and fell in love with humans? ”
    â€œYes, and here’s where it gets really interesting. Apparently, long ago demons mated with humans and it looks like maybe, just maybe…their spawn were witches.”
    Silence.
    â€œNot possible,” answered Thomas in a controlled voice. His whole body had gone tight.
    â€œAccording to these records, it’s very possible. There are legends of a sort of Adam and Eve couple, the first human woman and a demon male who fell in love and risked everything to have children together.”
    Thomas instantly thought of the acidic blood that ran through a demon’s veins. “Demons and humans can mate?”
    â€œNo, actually. It’s not physically possible for a human woman to carry a demon’s child. They cooked up a spell to make it happen, a spell based on the elements.”
    Shock rippled through Thomas as mysteries aligned. For so long they’d known nothing of their origins, even though the Coven philosophers debated different theories endlessly. As much as Thomas was loath to admit it, this had a ring of plausibility.
    â€œThis first couple had quadruplets,” Micah continued. “Each of those children inherited a propensity for one of the elements. They were the first witches—earth, air, water, and fire. Other demon/human unions followed, and additional offspring were born through the use of the elements spell. This is the gene pool we’re descended from.”
    It made an irritating amount of sense. Matings