The female’s grip on my wrists slackened, talon-tipped hands roaming over her face and neck, searching for the source of the pain.
I didn’t hesitate.
With a sharp buck of my hips, I threw her off me, lunging to the side and clasping the hilt of my witchwood blade.
The demon female rolled onto the stone floor, clawing at her own skin. Fighting some invisible fire that was burning beneath her flesh.
Then her gaze locked on mine, and I felt a slight tremor of fear as understanding lit her eyes. “Witch,” she snarled, lurching off the ground at the precise moment I drew my dagger.
My head smacked against the floor as she threw herself on top of me, but then I felt the give of bone and sinew as the tip of my blade ripped through her sternum.
Victory swelled in my chest as her coal-black eyes went wide. A flicker of shock made her face go slack before she evaporated in a wisp of smoke.
Chapter
Twelve
LYRA
Gasping for air, I threw the demon bitch off me and staggered toward Adriel, who was being pummeled by two of the remaining demons. Gripping my dagger in shaking hands, I plunged it through the first demon’s back, eliciting a bone-chilling scream before he, too, dissipated in a wisp of smoke.
The distraction was all Adriel needed to flip the second demon and stab the creature in his side. It wasn’t a fatal wound, but it gave me the chance to thrust my witchwood blade through the demon’s heart.
Seeing his comrades being reduced to smoke, the final demon released his hold on Sorsha and vanished from the chamber.
Adriel cursed. “He’s going to alert every demon in this place that we’re here.”
But I didn’t care. I was already moving toward Kaden, whose expression was tense, verging on feral.
“We’re going to get you out of here,” I said in a lowvoice, approaching him as I might approach a skittish horse.
Kaden tracked my movement with those eerie black eyes, and I fought back a shudder as I reached for one of the rowan-wood stakes that held him to the wall.
The stakes were narrow and difficult to grip, but I braced my left hand against the stone and withdrew the first with a smooth tug.
An inhuman snarl slipped from Kaden, but he didn’t try to stop me as I moved on to the second.
Sorsha was immediately at my side, starting on Kaden’s other wing as I gripped the top of the next stake. To my relief, that one slid out as cleanly as the first, leaving no fragments behind to fester.
Adriel climbed out of the hole he’d made in the stone to stand guard outside the chamber as the two of us worked to free Kaden.
Sorsha slid the last stake out with a groan, and Kaden pushed himself off the wall and lunged.
I was so unprepared for the sudden movement that I fell back, head smacking the ground so hard I saw stars.
Terror and confusion swamped me as Kaden pinned me to the floor, black eyes glistening with malice. My mind lurched, unable to grasp that the male who’d shared my bed, who’d made love to me with such tenderness, was now glaring down at me.
“It’sme,” I rasped as Kaden’s long fingers closed around my throat. “Lyra.”
But my words were cut off as his grip tightened, squeezing my neck with enough force to bruise.
My vision wavered as desperation engulfed me.
This couldn’t be happening. After all we’d been through —everything we’d done to get here — Kaden was going to kill me.
Grief crowded out every other emotion as I groped for my witchwood blade. But before I could find it, the weight on my chest lifted. Kaden’s fingers were wrenched away as Sorsha flung him off me, sending her brother crashing into the stone wall where he’d just been bound.
“What the fuck?” she snarled, reaching down to pull me to my feet.
