Swallowing hard, pain intensifying at just how little time there was, she took a step closer. Nate snarled, spurts of fire shooting out of his flattening, almost snout-shaped nose. Heat encased her, and then he lumbered forward in attack mode.
Her heart fragmenting, Ely mentally called on the shadows once more.Trap him.They swept over the cracked, heat-baked ground in a wave as Nate neared her, and netted him like gray fog.
He snarled, the agonized raucous sounds of an animal in torment, splitting her in two. The shadows locked him down, cutting off the flames. His snarls grew into deafening roars as he fought her restraints. He tripped, toppling down like a felled redwood, the huge, single wing twisting under him.
Anguish cramped her chest.Dear goddess, please, give me the strength to do this.
She dashed over and crouched at his side. His snarls continued as he fought harder against the invisible restraints, spurts of fire hitting the invisible barrier around him, singeing his skin and hair. She heaved and grunted, trying to turn him over. Aba came around and pushed Nate’s massive form onto his side.
There, amidst the bony protrusions poking out on the middle of his spine, Ely found the pulsing red, soul-destroyer symbiont fused in the spine node. She summoned her dagger. Hands shaking, mouth pressed in a trembling line, she pushed the tip of the obsidian blade into his spine. A guttural shriek erupted from him.
Tears flooded her eyes.“I’m so sorry, my love. I’m so sorry!” She pushed deeper, twisted it under, and lifted out the gleaming, reddish-black, pulsing symbiont. Blood flowed. Long ligaments protruded and swayed from the oval-shaped symbiont, then it softened to a bloodied, wormy thing. It curled around her hand, trying to get into her skin now, its malevolence abrading her psyche like rusty, serrated blades. But couldn’t. Her Guardian oath bound her to the ancient goddess, a bond more powerful than this wretched parasite could ever manage.
Nate groaned, his half-changed body stiffening, then he slumped face down and lay deadly still.
“Nate!”She didn’t dare go closer in case the symbiont leaped from her palm back into him.
“I’ll take that.”
At the strange voice, Ely jerked upright, putting distance between the newcomer and herself, keeping the malevolent symbiont away from him.
“Pangur?” Aba shot to his feet, seeming to know the burly, black-haired demon. “You cannot! It’s not safe.”
“Not safe? I’m no weakling.” He laughed, cutting Nate’s body a dark look. “Give me the symbiont, female,” he ordered, pale eyes pinned on her.
Maybe she should hand it over and let the darn thing kill him instead.
A gust of hot wind swept past, and Aba grabbed the writhing worm from her. A flame shot out of his palm, incinerating it.
“No!” the demon roared, throwing himself at Aba as the symbiont turned to ash, but Aba side-stepped him. Roaring, Pangur pivoted and flashed across. Before Ely could register what he would do, he grabbed Nate’s remaining wing, and yanked—the sound of bones breaking and flesh-tearing echoed as he ripped off the appendage. “He had more. Where are they?”
“Get away from him, you bastard!” Rage exploding like a living entity, Ely summoned the shadows and flung out her hands, the smoky projectiles ramming into Pangur like a hail of arrows, sending him flying back.
With a skreich, Aba dove for the demon. “Youfragmen stercore!”
“Nate!” She rushed over, falling to her knees. Her eyes fixed on the new, gaping lesion on his back. He remained motionless. How would he ever survive these injuries and blood loss?
The sounds of flesh hitting flesh, grunts and snarls surrounded her as she pressed her palms to the long, open tear. Using her depleting healing powers, she tried to seal the wound. The gush slowed but didn’t stop, her own abilities weakening, exhausted from use.Goddess, please!
“Why?” Aba’s snarl reached her.
“Becausehewas always the fucking favored one, by you, Azgor, now her—everyone! I tried to flush him out by sending a horde afteryou, but they failed. The symbiont would have mademe—an actual demon—someone to be feared! Instead of that pathetic human upstart you found and saved, and now a grotesque beast who can’t even shift!”
If Nate weren’t in such a precarious state, she’d carve this Pangur twit from groin to throat and strangle him with his innards!
Ely hastily tore off a wide strip from the bottom of her tank top, then stretched and wrapped it around his new wounds. His breathing slowed, became labored, his life force fading. Shit, they didn’t have an hour.
“Nate, hold on for me, please, my love,” she begged, knotting the fabric.
“Cnati!”Aba fell to his knees, brushing back Nate’s singed hair with blood-soaked hands. “Hold on, you hear? I won’t lose you after everything—”
“Not so fast,” a cold voice said. “He belongs to me.”
“No!”Ely leaped up, keeping Nate behind her. “He doesn’t!” she yelled, so fucking tired of this lot.
Then she saw who it was.
Azgor, with his two-headed hellhound. And a dozen guards behind him.
