CHAPTER 19
REX
Ademon. I’d never had to fight one before, and this monster was powerful and shady AF. Shadows clung to him, reeking of dark power, and he smelled rancid.
If this monster thought he could touch Piper, I’d tear off his hands, finger by finger. I’d protect my mate at all costs—even if she didn’t want me.
“Ah, little wolf,” he hissed, taunting me with a seething expression. “Rejection hurts, doesn’t it?”
Get out of my head, fucker.
I growled at the living nightmare and launched forward on all fours with my teeth bared. The demon spun away before I reached him, smoky shadows drifting behind him as I sailed past.
I quickly glanced at Piper to ensure she was safe. She stood with Sloane and Marcel, talking in hushed tones that I couldn’t pause to focus on.
“On three!” Piper said at a higher volume, her tone urgent.
What happened on three?
I couldn’t stop to ask, not when the demon had turned around and fixed his red-eyed glare back on me.
“One,” the three of them said in unison.
“Two.”
The demon shifted his gaze away from me to Piper. His face twisted in fury as he reached for her with a clawed hand extended.
Hell. No. I growled as I bolted for him, adrenaline firing through my veins.
I tackled the demon just before they said, “three,” and he reached Piper. Pulling myself upright, I pounced forward to pierce his neck with my fangs, but a brilliant flash of light illuminated the room. The demon roared in fury as we were dragged across the floor.
What the—? Where were we going?
I glanced up and my eyes bulged. The fiery colors of the painting were no longer confined to the canvas, but stretched out to us as if they were alive. A swirling, pulsing, gaping mouth.
And we were heading right into it.
“Rex!” Piper's shout snapped me out of my terror. “Get away from the painting. It’s a portal!”
I leaped off the demon like he was made of lava, but he grabbed my front legs and clung to me as he cried out and dragged me with him toward that hellish vortex.
CHAPTER 20
PIPER
“No!” I shouted, horror surging through my veins as the thought of losing Rex forever haunted me. I reached for him, but something yanked me back.
“Piper, no. It will take you too.”
It was Sloane’s voice. When I glanced quickly over my shoulder, both Marcel and Sloane held on to me.
I struggled against them. “I have to help him!” I couldn’t let him go. Couldn’t lose Rex. He was only here to save me. I couldn’t let him sacrifice himself for me.
Wherever he was being taken, I’d go with him.
How funny it was how it all settled in my head without any uncertainty. How right it felt to finally accept that I belonged with Rex just as he belonged with me. We’d come together for a reason.
“Let me go!” I struggled against their hold, summoning my magic to use on them if they didn’t release me, as I watched Rex in wolf form being dragged by a screaming demon toward the portal.
