“Be careful with your tone when speaking to your Lord,minion. You took what was mine. Never again.”
“Maita wasmymate,” Aba spat. “She choseme!”
Azgor’s aloof features morphed to granite, but Ely picked up his simmering rage. Shit. This demon hated Aba and was determined to make him pay. Just because he lost a female to another? The sorry-ass loser!
“Natek has lost all his rights with the slaying of my offspring,” Azgor said in the same chilling tone.
Natek?He meant Nate?
A roar broke free in the frenzied excitement around them, fresh blood drenching the air. Ely’s gaze snapped back to the arena. Body parts and ragged fragments of green and black fabric flew about. A cacophony of yells broke free.
“He decimated all the guards!”someone shouted.“And with one wing only.”
“Where is he?”another yelled.
“Gone! He just vanished.”
“Find him!” Azgor roared and flashed from the death crater with his two-headed hound.
The crushing pressure of dread in her chest exploded as relief gushed through her that Nate had escaped, but it was stained with fear, too. Ely combed psychically for his familiar vibration, but with so many demons about, and the place thick with violence and death, it was hard to pinpoint him.
“I can’t locate him,” Aba growled. “We need to find him before he’s completely lost.”
And Ely knew.
Aba didn’t mean losing him to Azgor, but to Nate’s beast side.
CHAPTER29
Reformingat the outskirts of the Ys, Ely tried scanning for Nate again, and nothing.
Where are you?
“I can’t pick up any trail of him,” Aba said from her side. “Even the familiar blood vibration we share is gone.”
“Youfeed him blood?”
“Only when I tried to prevent him from dying as a babe, but that didn’t work.” His expression turned bleak.
“You did what you had to do to save him, Aba.” She rubbed her sweaty brow and neck in frustration, unable to get a read on Nate’s whereabouts. “I would have done the same.”
“He doesn’t require blood most times unless he’s badly hurt,” Aba said then.
“I gave him some of mine, my blood, I mean, last night when he wasn’t healing. Of course, he wasn’t happy about it.” She focused within her, searching for a tug of his familiar vibe… A barely-there awareness coasted through her.
God, she hoped it was him. “Found something.” She dematerialized, following the sensation.
Moments later, she reformed in another barren plain with more mountainous terrain under a reddish purple sky. She walked the gravelly, cracked ground, bypassing jagged rocks, and scattered boulders. Hot winds enfolded her, burning her eyes and stealing her breath as she continued tracking psychically, holding onto his too-faint vibration, her dread growing—
She tripped and went sprawling on her hands and knees alongside a prone, familiar figure lying near the boulder.
“Nate!” She crawled over to him.
He remained in his human form, thank the gods. But he appeared almost skeletal and bigger than usual. He lay slumped on his side, his single, huge, leathery wing twisted at an awkward angle. The side missing the appendage bled profusely. Several chitinous spikes, like serrated ridges, protruded along his spine, separating the four dull, lifeless nodes. But the last ruby symbiont pushed out and pulsed like a detonator.
Tears clogged her throat as she quickly examined his many grievous wounds. He wasn’t self-healing. She held her hands over his injuries, letting her healing ability flow…
The slashes stopped bleeding—
