A rabid hunger, zooming towards the left side of a victim’s neck.
Sonara’s curse warned her just in time. She turned and swung Lazaris in a death arc. Blood sprayed, so dark in the shadows that for a moment it almost looked black as one of the beast’s pincers sliced clean off. It hissed and roared, tail jabbing the air.
“AZARIAH!”
“I’m sorry!” the princess whimpered, her voice so soft it was almost lost beneath the roar of the Hadru. “Ican’t do it.”
Sonara’s curse beat against its cage.
Release me, release me, let me have at it, let me win.
The pain in her head exploded with each slam of her curse’s shadow fists. She couldn’t fight two things at once. She slammed her eyes shut, willing the damned curse away. Not now,not now.
“Sonara!”
She opened her eyes just as Markam slammed into her, both of them going down. Lazaris flew from her hand as a chunk of the rock exploded. Markam let out a guttural cry as a large piece of the rubble knocked him in the temple.
Blood dripped from his head. His body was suddenly a dead weight upon hers. She fought beneath him, trying to wriggle her way towards Lazaris, but the blasted weapon was out of her reach. Too far,too damned faras she stretched.
A click sounded out over them both.
The hair on the back of Sonara’s neck rose as she looked past Markam’s motionless body. The Hadru loomed in the shadows, rising up on its remaining legs.
Over its head, its tail snaked skyward, aiming like an arrow on a bow.
Sonara shook Markam. But his head lolled to the side. She heaved, trying to shove his body from hers, but he was too damned heavy.
Release me release me release me.
The Hadru was two steps away.
Release me or die,Sonara’s curse hissed.
Out of options, she opened the cage.
Out her curse soared, searching for the Hadru’s aura. It found it at once, its pain, its fury reverberating from the barbed tail as it readied for a death strike.Slick as oil, a desperate hunger that swelled and turned foul, a poison that dripped and oozed, a tail that needed to drive deep and kill.
This wasnothow the Devil of the Deadlands would go out—stuck beneath Markam of Wildeweb, in a stinking, forgotten cave.
Sonara cried out, lifting her hands before her on instinct as the beast struck.
It felt like the world slowed; like everything paused in the space between a single breath.
Sonarapushed,as if she could physically shove her curse forward and direct its path. The Hadru’s rage… so dark, so desperately starving for blood…
Devour its rage,Sonara’s curse whispered.Take it for yourself and shape it.
She screamed as she pushed her curse towards the Hadru, where it wrapped around the hideous beast like a leash of its own, devouring its aura. Then she clenched her fists and yanked backwards, pulling her curse’s tether and the Hadru’s aura with it.
As if she not only sensed it—but removed it from the beast’s very soul.
Sonara’s entire body shook as she hauled the aura into herself. She was suddenlydesperateto escape from Markam’s weight so she could seek a meal to become hers. It wasn’t just hunger, it wasrage,deep and demanding. As if the Hadru’s aura was overtaking her own emotions, overtaking her own need to survive.
Sonara screamed as she fought against that rage, imagining other things; Duran and Jaxon and Soahm, and the future they could all have if she survived. If she fought off the Hadru and the Wanderers and found freedom.
Peace.
Peace like the suns setting over the sea. Peace like the wind dancing through her fingertips as she held out her arms and rode Duran as fast as the wind.
