Savage Fate (Den of Shadows #5)

Chapter 9

Chapter

Nine

Frost skated down my spine as a dozen hideous, Nosferatu-like creatures slinked toward us, saliva dripping down their chins. My nose wrinkled from their fetid stench clogging the crisp night air.

“Skalae demons.” Fane’s brow furrowed at the approaching group of sub-demons. “I’ve rarely seen these cave dwellers far from their dens.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a mystical hilt as adrenaline pumped through my veins. “So why would they be in Mohan Wilds?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Skalaes hated sunlight, hence their sickly pale pallor. The moonlight shone on their bald heads, pointed ears, and jagged teeth.

They also enjoyed flesh.

Fane glanced back at me as his pupils thinned to diamonds. “Ready for a fight?”

I ran my thumb over the rune on the hilt, bringing out the sword. “Always.”

A smile twitched at his lips. “Such a violent little thing. You’re adorable.”

“Keep it up, Maverick, and I’ll show you how adorable I really am.”

His laughter poured out like rich honey. “I’ll hold you to that.”

One of the skalaes released a vicious snarl and bared those jagged teeth.

The humor evaporated from Fane’s expression. “Be careful.” He turned and darted forward, jumping directly into the group of sub-demons.

They scattered, but the demon shifter used his talons to decapitate one, ripping his head clean off.

He could be such a show-off.

When a sub-demon lunged for me, I pivoted and then swung my sword, lopping off his head. Black blood sprayed the air and the fallen brown leaves.

Another one attempted to tackle me while snapping his jaws, but I ducked out of his reach, my heart pounding.

“I’m not that easy to take down, flesh eater.”

He ran forward to attack but impaled himself on my sword.

Skalaes weren’t the brightest bunch. Like most sub-demons, they were barely more than animals with a one-track mind. Food. And they saw me as their next meal.

The skalae screeched and struggled to free himself from my blade. Black blood oozed out of his chest. His ribs protruded as his long fingers gripped the sword, the blade cutting into him even more.

“This is just sad,” I muttered and yanked the blade out to free him. Before he had the chance to attack again, I chopped his head off, the bulbous thing bouncing on the ground and spraying ebony liquid.

Bodies littered the area around Fane as he easily dispatched the sub-demons without fully transforming into his demon wolf. His sharp teeth, lethal onyx talons, and sheer strength were enough.

Goose bumps rose on my nape, and as I slowly spun around, a woman with long blond hair ran through the trees, her mouth open in a silent scream.

In fact, her hurried footsteps didn’t make a sound either.

Confusion fogged my brain as a figure in a black cloak chased her, a white mask flashing from beneath the hood.

They both suddenly faded like ghostly apparitions.

What the ever-loving hell?

“Tate, watch out!”

Fane’s panicked voice shattered the thick haze in my mind, and I pivoted in his direction just as a skalae slammed into me. We hit the ground and rolled into a pile of leaves, his rotten smell gagging me.

Son of a bitch.

“I got this!” I yelled before Fane could add to my humiliation by digging me out of the leaves.

His low growl rolled through my mind. “Didn’t I tell you to be careful? Are you trying to piss me off?”

“Always.”

I kicked the sub-demon off, but he’d knocked my sword several feet away and was already coming for me.

It was a good thing I had teeth and claws.

Talons tore through my fingertips as the skalae jumped on me. He squealed in shock when I dragged my sharp claws across his neck, black blood splashing me.

His roar shook my eardrums, and fury permeated his ruby irises.

“Guess you didn’t expect me to have bigger claws than you.” I bucked him off, tossing him into a rotten log that shattered on impact.

As I scrambled up, the skalae shook the hit off and dug himself out of the pile of splintered wood. His thin lips contorted in a snarl while his gaze zeroed in on my neck.

He definitely wanted to bite a chunk out of me.

After another hair-raising shriek, he charged me. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, and I leaned on my shifter senses instead of my years of raven training. My talons swiped through the air, catching the skalae’s chest. Warm blood dripped down my fingers.

If I’d had the Infernal Sol, I would have toyed with him, drawn out his death, and laughed at his pain.

Wouldn’t that be fun? Don’t you want to feel that joy again?

Ugh, I really didn’t need that damn voice taunting me right now, especially when another sub-demon was creeping up on my right.

While the one in front continued to debate over what part of me he wanted to eat first, I swung around and slammed my fist into the other skalae’s cheek. He staggered back with a hiss.

“Didn’t think I saw you, did you?” I smirked at his shocked expression. “You picked the wrong shifter to?—”

Sharp pain blazoned on my shoulder, and I sucked in a sharp breath.

Another sub-demon had snuck up behind me, and now my blood dripped from his claws. He stuck his long, skeletal fingers in his mouth, his eyelids fluttering as he tasted my blood.

My stomach heaved at the euphoric moan.

“You better enjoy it while you can because you won’t get another drop.”

While he was still distracted, I jabbed my talons into his neck and sawed through the flesh before finally tearing his head off. His body hit the ground moments before I dropped the grotesque head.

The skalae who’d attacked me first stormed in my direction. My muscles took action, and I dropped, rolled across the ground, and grabbed my sword. Just as he lunged to attack, I lifted the blade and decapitated him.

“And another one bites the dust.”

The other sub-demon stopped his approach when his tiny brain registered what I’d done to his two friends, their bodies and severed heads lying around. He backed away as fear replaced the bloodlust and hunger in his eyes.

I flung blood and guts off my sword as he took off. “We got a runner!”

When the skalae, last one remaining, darted by Fane, he grabbed him and shoved him back toward me. The scent of terror pulsating from the sub-demon almost made me sympathetic to the creature.

Almost.

I couldn’t let him slither around Mohan Wilds. The adult shifters could take one skalae, but Dylan and the kids couldn’t.

As the sub-demon stumbled toward me, I used my sword to easily decapitate him. His head fell into a pile of leaves first, and then his sickly-pale frame crumpled to the ground with a thud, joining the others scattered around.

“Do you think there are more?” I asked Fane, flicking off more blood from my blade before deactivating it.

Fane wiped his hands on his jeans. “They usually stick together, but another group could be roaming the outskirts of Mohan territory. We need to alert Camus and the other patrols ASAP.”

While he took his phone out and texted Camus, I gazed at the spot the masked and cloaked creature chased the woman before they vanished into thin air.

Obviously, the scene had only been in my head.

“What happened?” Fane asked, pulling my attention back to him as he shoved his phone into his pocket. “You were staring off into space when a skalae approached you. Did you have one of those visions or something?”

“Or something.” I tugged a leaf out of my hair and then elaborated. “It was like a waking vision. They were from somewhere else and some other time.”

Fane’s brow furrowed, concern pulsating from him. “We need to be careful. You can’t get distracted during fights.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll work on it.”

As if the cravings for the Infernal Sol and its taunting voice in my head weren’t enough of a distraction. Now I had to contend with seeing shit.

“I’m serious, Tate.” He reached out and plucked at the fabric of my shirt, revealing three large gashes on my shoulder. “You could suffer a worse injury than this.”

A frustrated sigh spilled from my mouth, and I dropped the tough act because I felt how worried he was. “I’ll be more careful. I promise.”

“Maybe we should have a healer look at these.” Fane closed the distance between us until his form brushed mine. “Scalae demons aren’t poisonous, but they aren’t exactly clean.”

This close, his intoxicating fragrance filled my nostrils, and all thoughts of anything that didn’t involve the sinful demon shifter vanished from my mind. “Or you could just be the doctor and examine me.”

Fane’s tongue flicked his lip piercing, and just that one motion had flames igniting in my core. “Maybe you could use a full-body examination. You did take quite a fall in those leaves.” He gripped my hips and lifted me, my legs automatically wrapping around his waist.

“Exactly.” My arms encircled his neck as he pressed my back into a tree, electrical sparks crackling between us.

His soft lips brushed over mine and stole the air from my lungs. How did I ever survive without knowing the sheer pleasure this man’s touch could bring me? He could be wild and feral, like a beast, but he also knew how to slow everything down until I was a quivering puddle of liquid beneath him.

A flood of heat consumed us as we became lost in each other, ignoring the gore covering the area.

We did have a special gift for getting distracted even in the middle of a battlefield. When we claimed each other, a dozen fallen demons had covered the grounds around us in Kesa’s backyard.

Of course, violence had always been our love language.

Fane’s phantom hand detached from his body and roamed over my inner thigh, and as I felt his touch beneath my jeans, a moan burst out of my mouth.

“Unless you want me to tear your clothes off and take you against this tree, we should probably stop.” Fane’s rough, lust-filled whisper sent shivers down my spine.

But he didn’t stop.

Instead, his ghostly fingers ran over my center, one plunging inside, making me gasp.

“If you’re trying to get me to push you away, you’re doing a terrible job.” I writhed against him, feeling the bulge in his jeans hardened to steel while his fingers toyed with me.

“You’ve got the wrong idea, fiera mika.” Hot breath blew down my neck as he gave a sinister chuckle. “I want to shred your pants off and screw you right here. I was only giving you a choice in the matter.”

“Oh.” Lava poured through my bloodstream, and I ground against his invisible hand as he continued to pleasure me. Soon, I’d tumble off the cliff and there would be no stopping anything.

Who was I kidding? A forest fire wouldn’t stop this now.

The demon shifter sucked my bottom lip into his mouth, and his tongue stroked the soft flesh. “Unfortunately, any choice other than me burying deep inside you is now off the table. I’m about to do terrible, unspeakable things to you against this tree.”

Another moan tumbled out as the images his words invoked had more moisture pooling between my legs. His nostrils flared, inhaling my arousal.

“I guess you better get started.”

He smiled. “No rest for the wicked.”

Fane’s real hand gripped the waistband of my jeans to rip them off just as a strange sensation unfurled in my center.

It felt like I swallowed a pound of Pop Rocks, and they fizzled like crazy. As hot tingles traveled down my spine, I gasped at the unexpected feeling.

“What is that?” I murmured against Fane’s mouth.

He pulled back, studying me as confusion swirled in his mismatched irises. “That’s what I felt when—” His gaze swiveled to the right, and fury swelled around him as he stared at something emerging from the shadows.

I angled my head around to find Saint Grimstone standing in a shaft of moonlight, his eyes wide as he clutched his chest.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He licked his lips and took several deep breaths like he was trying to calm himself. “It can’t be,” he whispered, gazing at me like he was witnessing a miracle.

“No.” A low, threatening growl vibrated Fane as he drew me from the tree, and I slid down him until my feet hit the ground. His body turned to scalding granite against mine. “Don’t even think about it, Grimstone.”

Saint’s hands fell to his sides as he swallowed hard, swaying on unsteady legs among scattered sub-demon corpses. “You know this isn’t something I can control, Maverick.”

“What the hell is going on?” When I tried to pull out of Fane’s embrace, he maneuvered me behind him as if he needed to protect me from the young alpha. “Someone better start talking.”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen, Tate.” Saint dragged a trembling hand down his face. “You’re my fated mate.”