The entire mound starts to move like a creature waking up.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
I’m not about to wait around for this new danger to reveal itself.
I leap into action, racing across the vines as they collapse beneath me, darting from one to the other, aiming for the nearest tree.
I’m not going to make it!
With a scream of effort, I leap from the final collapsing vine, desperately grabbing the lowest tree branch and swinging myself up onto it, my heart pounding.
The mound of vines rises up below me, a twisted creature that lumbers across the ground, its shape flowing like a swarm of snakes. Its thorns rake across the canopy above us, scratching the branches and dislodging leaves.
Shrieking sounds come from the branches—some new creatures disturbed by the thorny one—and I catch a glimpse of claws and wings before the unsettled creatures disappear back into the foliage.
There are beasts everywhere.
The thorny monster is slow, a writhing mass that spins and twists in on itself, and I take a beat to calculate my next move—to assess the tree I leaped into—only to scream with pain as something cold and sharp bites my ankle, breaking through my protective suit.
A vine twists around my leg, its glassy thorns piercing my calf, and I barely have time to follow its path back to the thorny mass before the creature wrenches me back to the ground.
Dammit!
Another vine whips at me, attempting to wrap around my other ankle and drag me toward itself.
I thought the creature was slow—another deception.
My protective suit opens at my fingertips to allow my claws to descend as I kick out at the vine that’s trying to latch on to me. Slashing at the one already wrapped around my ankle, I manage to hack at it, but it’s not enough to force it to release me before another vine slashes at my chest, trying to wrap around me. All the while, I’m being dragged closer to the mass, which has formed a funnel like a gaping mouth, ready to scoop me up and trap me once and for all.
The energy I sense from the creature is deep and angry. The closer it drags me to its mouth, the brighter the embers within the burned vines glow.
The chilling cold of my demon power rises inside me again, and this time, I don’t fight its force.
Darkness bursts from my hands, rushing along the vines right into the viny mouth, but my stomach sinks when the creature doesn’t react.
I don’t know enough about my nightmare power. I don’t know whether or not it can only affect creatures that have a soul, but for whatever reason, it’s having no impact now.
This bony beast… It may as well be a mass of mechanical limbs. Except maybe for the embers flickering within its burned boughs.
On Earth, I gained energy from other supernaturals’ emotions. No matter what they were feeling, their emotions would feed me, and negative emotions like hatred and anger made me the strongest.
Now, I stop trying to break the vines that are entrapping me and drag my finger desperately against the rune on my wrist instead. “Unclothe my hands and arms!”
My suit peels back to my shoulders as I hope I haven’t made the worst decision of my potentially short life.
Wrapping my bare hands around the vines, trying but failing to avoid all of the thorns, I reach for the anger I sense in this creature. Finding it like a hot cord within the vines, I drag at it the same way I drag at emotions. Savagely, not gently.
It’s like blowing on an ember.
The wind whistling around the creature suddenly shrieks. It makes a vicious yowl as its mouth looms over me, but it halts in place while the embers within its bony extrusions flare brightly.
My hands are bloody, and my arms are scratched, but I hold on, drawing on the creature’s anger so savagely that tears flow down my cheeks.
Above me, the monster shakes violently, the vines shriek apart, a vibration builds, and then—
The monster explodes.
I flip myself onto my side, curled up over my knees, trying to protect my head and chest as thorns fly across the space. I hear them thud into the surrounding trees, feel them rake across my spine, cut across my shoulders. What feels like a thousand points of pain blossom across my body.
