“Not possible.” My whisper sounds harsh in my ears, my breath frosting as I shiver in the dark. They can’t have just disappeared into nothing.
Another stone clatters down the rock wall on my right, and I fight to turn toward it despite the continuing weight across my shoulders.
They left you. Like you left me.
“No.” I press my hand to my heart. Take deep breaths. Try to calm my panic at my greatest fear: losing my family. My pack. “I won’t lose them. And I won’t lose you, Mom. I will see you again.”
My voice is stronger now. A fight against my own hellish thoughts and deepest fears.
Several stones roll down the opposite wall of the tunnel, and the voice is guttural this time, not like my mother’s voice at all.
You’ve already lost her, it whispers.
There’s a slithering sound to my left and my focus snaps to it.
A mess of shadows swarms across the tunnel wall, dark, creeping shapes sliding along the slimy surface. They suddenly rise from every surface around me, and I recoil from the wall I’m against.
Only to discover that the dark mass of shadows is already pressing on my shoulders—the weight I thought was my own emotions—and now it’s refusing to let me go.
With a scream, I wrench against its hold, pulling at the shadows as they fight to keep me tethered, their stringy substance clinging like glue. I manage to free my arms, but my head, torso, and legs remain trapped.
Fear triggers my demon power.
Icy-cold rage pours through me as I grip the nearest stringy shadow, finding it weirdly substantial despite its appearance.
My power blasts into it, rippling through the mass.
Which only grows, its hold on me weighing me down even more.
Fuck, no.It seems I just fed it instead of fighting it.
More stones clatter from the ceiling directly to the ground and with them comes quiet laughter.Your power will only make me stronger. For I am made of nightmares.
Refusing to give up, I manage to brush the rune on my left wrist to return my armor to my body, hoping it might cut through the shadows gripping me. To my frustration, the armor flows around the spots where the black substance holds me, instead of severing them.
In desperation, I release my claws and hack at the shadows clinging to my shoulders and my head, cutting wildly at it, ripping at my hair in the process. Violet strands fall down my chest, but still, the creature doesn’t let me go.
That’s when a new sound makes me freeze.
My focus darts to a spot on my far right.
A wolf emerges from the darkness, its silhouette becoming clearer with each prowling step it takes.
When it’s no more than five paces away, I can finally make out the details of its body, and I gasp at its appearance.
It has bronzed fur, russet paws, and a patch of darker fur across its right shoulder.
It’s Roman’s wolf.
The one I was forced to kill in the conjured opponent trial. The one I held in my arms as it died while demons watched on. Roman’s wolf was taken from him when he was only a boy, leaving him a pure demon and hellbent on revenge against those responsible for the death of his wolf and his family.
To send it to attack me now is a new kind of torture.
“Fuck you, Scourge!” I scream before I slump against the wall, waiting for the hell that this beast can unleash on me while I’m trapped.
The whispering voice cackles wildly as the wolf darts forward.
It runs straight for me and no amount of struggling or slashing with my claws can free myself.
