Then, as if the vile energy here fed him, his horns shot free of his skull. Even from a distance, she could see his fangs had lengthened, too, slicing into his bottom lip. Blood ran down his chin, joining his many wounds, and his feet had elongated, now scaly and clawed.
A snarl broke free, guttural and terrifying, and he dove for the demon. The sounds of flesh hitting flesh resounded in the dusty arena.
The spectators’ shrieks grew, deafening her, and the chanting amped up,“Sicari! Sicari!”
“Why?” she whispered to Aba, her heart hurting, watching Nate fight to live. “What enjoyment is it to kill another just for fun?”
“The dark world is different than what you know, little one,” Aba murmured. “It’s our way of life. It’s all about power. Demons are born with dark souls, and the males without much emotion. The older they get, the less they feel. Fights like these, the energy it releases, gives them…” He flicked a thumb to the arena stands. “Their fix.”
“Like an…an energy vampire?”
“Aye. Each sect of demons has a different way of getting what they want. Azgor doesn’t have natural emotions like I do. Though, he has his energy sources when needed. My Maita, she released them in me when we mated. And now…” His expression became stony. “He uses my son in retaliation.”
Retaliation? She wanted to draw and quarter this Azgor. Scowling, she cast a quick look to the seating area to her left, where the old demons took up space, and they had to be old, because power rippled from the place like nettles stinging her skin.
One sat there without moving. Enormous horns curled back from his pale brow, and long green-streaked dark hair flowed down his shoulders. A massive, black hellhound with two heads sat at his side, a spiked collar around the animal’s thick throat.
“Which one is he?” she asked, instinctively knowing who it was anyway.
Aba didn’t turn. “The one with the hound.”
A quiet rage emitted from Azgor, like an abrasive cloud sweeping over her. No emotions? “Then why does he reek of anger,” she whispered.
Aba’s mouth thinned. “He must have heard the news.”
Her gaze shot back to Aba. “What news?”
“His offspring was slain sometime during the night.”
Derrodus? “Nate didn’t kill anyone,” she hissed.
“I know.”
Then she forgot about Derrodus’ death, her breath trapped in her throat as the bald demon struck another blow. Nate flew several feet into the air and landed on his back. He crawled to his knees. The demon thundered toward him—
Noooo! Nate!Her cries caught in her throat.
A crackling like bones breaking echoed through the yells. Something dark fluttered out of Nate’s back. Massive leathery wings sprouted from his shoulder blades, with jagged, red-streaked edges, the added weight unbalancing him as he stood.
Terror clamped her lungs in a vise. He was shifting?
“Hades, no!” Aba breathed. “It cannot be.”
“What—whatis it?” she demanded.
His features ashen, Aba shook his head, seeming frozen to the spot. “I didn’t realize when I took the symbiont to save Nate what it truly was. I mean, I knew it was a wyvern, just not this type. Those serrated, red-edged wings…”
“What do you mean?”
His horrified gaze remained fixed on Nate. “Unlike the wyverns you find here on Ys and other places, that creature dwells in the deepest depths of the Infernii Realm. They are the Wraconis—soul destroyers. There is no rhyme or reason to their thought process. Any living being these creatures get a hold of, they take over their mind, feeding on their emotional suffering and terror, before ripping them apart. Demons are sometimes sentenced to the Infernii Realm to die at the whim of the soul destroyers.”
Now it all added up. And her heart ached as she watched Nate stagger about, trying to get back into the fight.
“Fear is how Nate wins his fights,” she whispered. Once his opponent finally experiences fear before death, it gives him the edge. But at what cost? His soul tormented for the rest of his life because of his symbiont’s needs?
“Believe me,” Aba bit out, “most deserve what they get with the perverted lives they lead when tossed in that hellish place.”
But Nate didn’t. He didn’t deserve to be saddled with this kind of symbiont.
