Page 9

A small army of hunched, distorted silhouettes slunk out of the haze. Crimson eyes glowed with malicious hunger as they spotted me, the lone warrior. Ghouls and minor Demons, desperate for a foothold in the mortal world, lunged forward in a disorganized swarm.

I didn't give them the chance.

I moved with the brutal, practiced precision of a creature that had done nothing but kill monsters for a hundred years. As a horned Demon lunged at my flank, I swerved with terrifying speed. My massive, scaled tail whipped around like a battering ram, catching the creature mid-air and smashing it against a jagged rock formation with a sickening crunch.

Two pestilence ghouls leaped for my neck, their razor-sharp claws scraping uselessly against my bronze scales. I bared my fangs. A blast of white-hot, brilliant fire erupted from my jaws, the intense heat vaporizing the creatures into smoking ash before they could even scream.

Sullevan roared with pure, unadulterated delight, reveling in the freedom of open air and a righteous fight.

“We missed this,” the Dragon King purred. “We were made to protect, to keep the world safe.”

“You missed this,” I corrected grimly, executing a flawless spinning strike that severed the head of the final ghoul who dared to come at me.

"Yes. You've done well, Lad. We are Dragon, and we have returned," Sully replied with a note of distinct satisfaction.

We let out a heavy plume of smoke from our nostrils, the heat shimmering in the frigid night air. Within minutes, the clearing fell completely silent. The remaining low-level beasties scattered back into the deeper shadows of the canyon, realizing a Dragon Guardsman was at the gate once more. Smoke and black, corrupted blood pooled on the gray, calcified crust of the earth.

I needed to find my bearings. I needed to find a road.

Turning to the right, before I could even take a step, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Something was poking at my aura, trying to get my attention, needing to be recognized.

“What is that?”

“Not sure, Lad.”

Slowly, carefully, I pushed my preternatural senses in every direction. Following the strange feeling, I systematically did a metaphysical grid search of the area.

I wasn't sensing the desert's ambient Magic. There certainly wasn't the foul, oppressive stench of Hell anywhere Topside. It was something entirely different. A vibration in the local Ether that felt surprisingly light, clean, and completely uncorrupted.

Slowly turning my head, my piercing eyes locked onto a jagged ridge of rock just a few yards away. At first, there was just a shadow; then it took form, and I was gobsmacked.

Peeking over the stone was a woman.

I froze. Where had she come from? How had I not known she was there before now?

"Time for you to find out, Lad."

“That’s what I’m doin’.”

“Do it quicker.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” I chuckled.

I looked closer and focused my supercharged vision on her. From what I could see, she appeared almost entirely human. She wore a black hoodie, dark jeans, and sturdy, mud-stained boots. There were no visible wings, no glittering horns, and no obvious supernatural markings– the things I would expect from a Supernatural. She was just a woman standing in a place where no mortal should even be able to breathe.

“Are you seeing…?” The words were stolen from my thoughts as Sully went absolutely, utterly still. He crouched in the confines of our shared psyche. His awareness narrowed until it focused solely on the woman behind the rock.

“MATE!” The word exploded in my mind with the force of a thunderclap.

“No!” I rejected it immediately, my jaw tightening. “Absolutely not.”

“Mate!” Sully insisted, growing louder, more desperate, practically clawing at the boundaries of my mind. “Ours.”

“Shut up,” I snapped, a wave of profound disbelief washing over and through me.

I could only stand perfectly still. My mind was blown. This could not be happening. Fate was a cruel, mocking mistress, but She couldn’t be this cruel or this mocking.

I had spent a century in Hell with absolutely nothing. No home, no family, no warmth, and certainly no hope of a future. Now, the very hour I finally escaped the Pit, Fate decided to hand me the woman made for me by the Universe? While I was covered in Demon blood, standing in the middle of a collapsing Magical wasteland?