Roman crouches at my side, checking me over for wounds before he helps me back to my feet. Taking up position beside me, he calmly observes the wolves in action, his arms crossed and a proud expression on his face. His affinity for the creatures of the Wilds is one of the facets of his power and personality that I love the most. One of the many facets.
Koda also rises to his feet ahead of us, but he presses back against the cave wall again. His hands are shaking, and his breathing is short and sharp.
“Fuck.” His wide eyes dart from the remains of one centripod to the next, as if he’s ready in case they multiply and revive at any moment. “Are they really dead?”
Fear is my power, and I sense it like a sharp stab of energy in Koda’s voice and demeanor. I take note of the cobalt light gathering around his fingertips—the small tendrils that are ebbing and flowing now, as if he called his power, like I did, when the centripod appeared and now he’s trying to shut it down.
I can practically taste his dread.
I’m sure that he was about to warn me not to cut the creature in half when the second one attacked him.
I approach him quietly. “Is this the creature that nearly killed you last time?”
“Is it dead?” he repeats, punctuating his speech and pinning me with his stare. There’s so much fear lacing his question that I wonder just how narrowly he escaped with his life when he came through here.
“It’s dead, and it won’t be multiplying itself again,” Roman confirms. “The demon wolves have neutralized it. They’re creatures of nightmares themselves, born to hunt and destroy demons. The centripod is one animal of many that is their natural prey.”
When Reaper was reunited with her pups, she told me that demon wolves are born with the pure instinct to hunt demons, that they are the darkness that haunts demons’ nightmares.
“They’ve barely tapped into their lethal natures at this young age,” Roman continues. “In a few centuries, if they remain as a pack, they will be unstoppable.”
“If?” I ask, suddenly rankled.
Roman eyes Ace and Ruby before he gives me a shrug. “Unless they form new packs.”
Ah.I can’t help my smile now. Reaper also told me that there are few demon wolves left now. I hate the idea of Ace leaving me altogether, but I love the possibility that he might bring a new pack into my life.
Koda peels himself off the wall, some of the tension releasing from his expression. “Then I’m grateful,” he says. “Because the centripod’s claws can siphon strength once they impale you, draining your energy. The one I fought last time barely left me alive to crawl through the path to Earth. Luckily, it couldn’t tap into the energy in father’s power stone, which kept me alive.”
He turns away, stepping ahead of us.
My wolves quickly finish the job of devouring the centripods, inhaling their bodies in the same way they inhale the energy of demons on Earth, cleaning up the space until not even a smear of green blood remains.
Ace trots past me, his violet eyes blazing with new energy. Ruby stays close on his heels while Temple, Luca, and Blitz brush up against me and my sisters in turns.
Koda is already striding ahead of us, flexing his fingers as if he’s shaking off the last of his fear, but he pauses when the sapphire runes finally light up the end of the walkway.
“We’re here,” he says.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
He’s pointing at a dead end.
Taniya leans in close to me, eyeing Koda and the solid rock wall twenty paces ahead of us. “What the fuck is he playing at?”
She seems more confused than distrustful, and since it would take a lot for my harpy sister to forgive Koda for his past actions, I take this as a good sign.
“Let’s find out,” I murmur before we set off toward the end of the tunnel.
Roman is at my back with the demon wolves fanned out behind us, and my remaining tension from the fight with the centripod eases. Having Roman at my back is the same sense of support that I gain from knowing my sisters and my demon wolves are with me. The trust that he will never willingly betray me. I know it deep in my heart. The same way I know my sisters and my pack would die for me, as I would for them.
There was a time when I didn’t expect to trust new members in my pack, and now I have many. Roman. Reaper. Koda. And now Ruby. As well as those I left in the Wilds. My pack is growing stronger.
Koda gestures us forward, but his jaw is tight and the skin around his eyes speaks of a new tension as he faces toward the right.
“The fissures have grown,” he says.
It’s not until he steps back and waves me on that I can see the hidden passage extending to the right. It’s narrower at the entrance than the other tunnels within the Scourge—only wide enough for one person at a time. The entrance was concealed by the rock wall as we approached, only becoming visible when I stepped right up to it. It doesn’t extend far beyond the opening, forming a shallow cavern that’s wider at the back.
