This fool-proof plan must work, but the weight of responsibility I’m shouldering because I’m the only one who can hurt the demon with my powers hangs over me, leaving mesusceptible to picking out the smallest of sounds while I wait with bated breath.
I hear the pack members in the market, chatting to each other, occupying themselves with ordinary, everyday tasks just to be out of trouble. But amidst their chatter, I pick up another sound, and the fine hairs on the back of my neck prickle with alarm.
“The market…” I gasp, focusing my ears on the sound of a distant cry for help. Soon, the casual chatter turns to anguished cries and panicked outbursts, and my eyes fly wide as I turn to Rissa and exclaim.
“The people aren’t safe!” I’m instantly on my feet, dread seeping through my spine like a cold shiver.
Rissa springs to her feet and rushes to follow me out through the back door that leads to the market.
“Aurora! Wait!”
“No, Rissa!” I toss behind me, my ears drumming with the torturous cries of pain. “The demon is attacking the market! We have to do something!”
My defenses kick in to spur my feet toward the town square, needing desperately to save the pack’s people if the demon ignores the trap and decides to attack the pack members instead. Though it’s known not to attack crowded spaces, I can’t put anything past the malevolent, unpredictable creature.
It had already set fire to the clinic; now it was attacking the pack head-on. But with every step I run further, my instincts kick in and warn me that there’s something wrong about this.
Slowing down, I rely on those instincts to tell me what is wrong, not wanting to cause a scene or outbreak of panic in the town square. Rissa joins me, frowning at me as I close my eyesand listen in on the sounds of cries, mentally breaking through a wall that magically crumbles, and the yelps disappear.
“It was an illusion…” I gasp when I open my eyes, having successfully dispelled the illusion that was most likely created by the demon. But now I’m outside, my scent exposed for the demon to find me, and I’ve just left my post in the cabin, further from the trap than I should be if Elias calls for me.
“Oh, no…” I wail, grabbing Rissa’s arm. “The demon lured me out here. I think it’s on to us!”
Rissa’s eyes grow wide with despair. “The alphas! They’re in trouble!”
Chapter 25 - Elias
The gnarly figure of the demon dog appears out of nowhere, flashing and whooshing through the air with a speed that none of the werewolves can keep up with. Its sinister, mutt-like form swishes through the air, a tail of onyx smoke following behind it.
My eyes can barely keep up with the malign creature as it zooms across the air, attacking three of the four posts the Alphas had picked to keep watch. While the device that houses Aurora’s powers sizzles with electric current and was meant to lure the demon to this spot, it eventually simmers down and dies out.
“Aurora! Where are you?!”I desperately call through the mind link, but to no avail. It’s almost as if the connection has been severed, and now I’m caught amid the demon’s attack when it just figured out that Aurora’s powers being wielded in the field were a ruse to trap it.
We would have succeeded in trapping it if my call to Aurora had been heard in time. But the delay allowed enough time for the demon dog to gain the upper hand, moving through the air in a cloud of eerily black smoke and lunging for Brooks.
It caught him off guard and sent him tumbling over with a strike to his ribs. Bleeding out, his wolf cowered and left him in human form to watch the demon cripple Thane and Dawson, forcing them both into their human forms to suffer through the disabling pain of their injuries.
I’m the only one left staring at the demon in the dark abysses of its blank, malicious eyes, my chest heaving with uncontrollably panicked breaths when I remember that I stand no chance against it. Not alone. And not without the magical abilities Aurora has. My wolf form in all its might is nothingagainst the vicious creature who’s powered up by the dark forces of the world.
All I can do is rely on my instincts to dodge every incoming attack, my ears perking up to intercept the demon’s next move when it lowers its pointed head and sniffs the air as if it needs my scent to strike.
“Where’s Aurora?!” Thane yells out, distracting me for a split second that lasts long enough for the demon to blitz toward me in a flurry of black tendrils of smoke that curl through the air as it spears its head forward. It snarls and growls, the sounds ringing through my eardrums as if it’s not a tangible sound, but one that comes from the deepest, darkest depths of the underworld, where the demon dog comes from.
The bleating cry of the demon dog slices through my soul just as its chilling talons slice through my side, cutting me open before it uses the entirety of its malignant form to crash into me, throwing me off my wolf's feet. The excruciating pain from being cut open turns to a burning, fiery sensation when I crash into the snow in my human form, my battered body convulsing from the impact.
Through blurred, hazy vision, I see the demon dog stalking forward, licking its purple tongue across its grimy, hairless face, its black eyes trained on me. I’m not the only one down, but the demon doesn’t seem to care about the other alphas writhing in pain across the field.
All it seems to care about is me, as if its only focus is on returning to me to finish what it started, like it wants to kill me. I lift my fingers from my bleeding ribcage and notice the thick, black substance that mixes with my blood, realizing it’s why I feel like I’m on the verge of blacking out. For whatever reason, the demon is going to finish me off, and as I let defeat washover me, my eyelids surrender to the throes of unconsciousness. There’s nothing I can do.
“Elias!” Aurora’s voice cracks through my mind, but I don’t have the strength to open my eyes when I’m on the brink of death, even if her voice is a subconscious manifestation meant to bring hope and ensure that I don’t give up so easily. But when I feel warm fingers on my shoulder, my eyes instantly spring open just to see the golden, warm aura surrounding the angel who’s come to save me.
“Aurora…” I murmur, almost unconscious but grappling with my awareness to keep my hazy vision on her. There’s a flash of lilac rays that slices through the air, and I know she’s wielding her powers to strike the demon.
“I’m right here, Elias!” she yelps from where she’s crouched beside me. When she grabs my bloodied hand, I feel a surge of power run through the physical contact, and I realize this is why the demon wanted to kill me.
Around me, Aurora’s powers become charged, and her magic is at its full capacity.
“It’s going to kill you if I don’t stop it,” she says, her breath so close to my face that I can almost taste her.
