Chapter 29
Heart in his throat, Brand stepped out into the chasm and put his lips to Luna’s ear, his voice hardly a whisper. “Spread the shield, as far as you can.”
Fumbling through the teeming murk, deluded into thinking it was hiding them, would be foolish in the extreme. Whatever had made that hideous sound, he wanted to see it for himself and face it head-on.
Luna’s manic laughter had died when the first shadows had poured by them to fill their sanctuary, tainting it. Now, her breaths were shallow as she wove her magic, the darkness recoiling before she’d even sent out her power.
Interesting.
With a shaky exhale, she pushed her arms out. Instead of a gentle sweeping, a luminescent wind battered the shadows away with a vengeance, the surrounding area cleared in an instant.
Her head jerked back as she lifted her hands, staring at her palms like she’d never seen them before, and her skin was glowing.
Brand squeezed her closer, a swell of pride washing over him, and he vowed to himself that—whatever her secrets—he would protect her from their consequences. His mate was as lost as she was powerful, confused even by herself. They’d find answers together.
Provided they made it the fuck out in one piece.
“I—”
Stones clattered in the near distance, their fumbling descent echoing in the heavy air and stealing whatever she’d been about to say.
Brand pressed his back to the cliffside and scanned their surroundings, lit warmly by Luna’s starry, hovering orbs. There was nothing to see, but something was close, hovering just out of sight. He could feel it in the prickle down the back of his neck.
Luna’s nails bit into his shoulder as her head tilted, gaze going distant for a moment before she blinked. Swallowing, she locked eyes with his and pointed over the edge of the step they stood on.
Much as he wanted to get her to safety, he had to know what it was. Not just to assuage his own morbid curiosity, but for the protection of Bordoroth, as was his sworn duty. The Forgotten were bad enough. If there were more…
With a reluctant—silent—sigh, he spun and set her down, caging her against the rock with his massive body.
“I’m going to look,” he said, barely making a sound. “When I turn back around, you’d better be right where I fucking left you, Luna.”
Her eyes flashed silver, a biting retort no doubt perched on her tongue, but he shoved a finger against her lips to silence it. “Please.” There. He’d asked.
She slumped against the wall when he released her—brow raised and displeasure clear—but at least she didn’t move.
Satisfied, Brand turned and slowly made for the ledge. He allowed himself a deep, fortifying breath before he leaned over and…
Weeping fucking Sisters.
A dreadbeast. It had to be.
Clinging to the rock, Luna’s star lights hovered around a creature almost beyond description, illuminating waxy skin and a massive torso that put his own to shame, even in his greater form.
Where a neck and head should be, there was instead a lump of flesh that hung over a bloodied maw large enough to devour a grown adult in a single bite. Multiple rows of needlepoint fangs jutted from the gaping opening as a tongue like tar-coated rope whipped out to taste the air.
Two sets of stacked shoulders terminated in jointed arms, packed with grotesque muscle and tipped with lethal spikes of black bone instead of hands, each as long as his sword.
Four legs of the same were attached to an almost dragon-like body, though it was all wrong.
Bulbous at the joints and shrunken in between, like an insect without its outer shell.
It had no ears or nose that he could discern, no eyes, and yet it was searching. Seeing, somehow.
He understood the clicking noise earlier when it shifted side to side, its body undulating and adjusting as it struck those taloned appendages into new footholds, sending more dust to the chasm floor.
The beast reared back with another lash of its tongue, revealing a glowing hole in its chest, not entirely unlike the eyes of the dead below. It pulsed rhythmically from within, a deep red where the gazes of the Forgotten had been a burning orange.
Fuck. He’d never seen anything like it. Not face-to-face, or within the pages of books. Not even in the worst of his nightmares.
It was death incarnate—and far more than they could handle alone. Looking at it, he knew to his marrow they either escaped or they died, and there was no fucking way he was allowing the latter.
He turned back to Luna, finger pressed to his lips to keep her from making any sound. He still wasn’t sure whether it would be better to sneak away or run for all he was worth but, either way, he needed her in his arms.
Luna leaned sideways to peer around him just as he knelt before her, that foolhardy curiosity of hers right at the fore.
A reckless streak that might’ve saved them both, in the end.
Her eyes widened a split-second before he felt the looming presence behind, the world slowing around him. Apparently—for all it’s shrieking and clacking movements—the beast did, in fact, possess the ability to move silently.
Fuck.
In one, impossibly smooth motion, he scooped Luna up and spun, his greatsword cutting horizontally through the air. He didn’t wait to see what damage he’d done, if any, as it flinched away.
On a boost born of sheer terror—not for himself, but his mate—Brand leapt, clearing dozens of the steps he’d made before landing again and breaking into a dead sprint. A piercing roar rent the air in his wake, clattering footfalls reverberating through the depths.
Hopefully, the distance would buy them enough time to—
“No!”
Luna’s shout was the only warning before the flesh of his calf was being ripped to shreds. His own bellows joined hers and those of the dreadbeast as flames spread to overtake every nerve ending in his body.
Agony. Burning. Eating him alive.
Fighting the urge to vomit, Brand craned his neck to find himself pinned straight through his leg to the chasm wall by one of its talons—within the confines of a shield that was supposed to be impenetrable.
The rest of the monster rose slowly behind them, as if it were savoring its catch. Talon by talon, like a monolithic spider, it cleared the landing edge.
Its poison must have addled his mind because—as it swooped closer and brought its “face” to his—he would have sworn it looked… perplexed, almost, as if confused they would be running.
Luna’s choked gasp brought him back from the edge of his toxic insanity. Without another thought, Brand swept his sword down with all of his might, severing the spike holding him.
Whether he or the dreadbeast screamed louder was unclear.
It flailed back, spittle and ooze flying from its gaping maw, the severed end of its arm pumping black blood into the air.
He swayed, the weight of his greatsword dragging him to the side.
Blinking, Brand tossed it into the ether and commanded the stone to release the talon’s tip, freeing him.
The thing was still lodged in his calf, ravaging muscle and sinew as he ran up, up, up, digging his fingers into the cliffside to keep himself upright when his leg threatened to buckle beneath him.
“Hold me upside down,” Luna demanded, breathless. Urgent.
At least, he thought so. It was hard to tell.
“Brand! Now!”
He vaguely registered Luna pummeling a fist into his chest, but the rest of her words turned to nonsense. The sheer panic across her face, though…
A boost of power jolted through him. He had to get her to the surface. Couldn’t lose himself and leave her vulnerable.
Hugging her ankles to his chest, Brand let her upper body fall and forced himself forward again, the long lengths of her hair spilling down to tangle around his knees.
She wrenched the talon from his flesh with a violent yank and he nearly blacked out, his shoulder slamming into the chasm wall as he stumbled. Something cracked within, the new onslaught of pain too much when added to the rest.
Sisters save them, his worst fears were coming to life. They were going to die here. His mate was going to—
There was nothing gentle about her power as it slammed into him with all the force of a lightning strike. Strength lit his bones, the fog clouding his mind lifting.
Just in time for Luna to scream, “Jump!”
He immediately obeyed, flipping her upright before he landed. She didn’t miss his grimace of pain or the strange way his other arm was hanging, and stretched across his torso to tend his shoulder as they ascended.
She gifted him with more of her raw, battering might, feeding so much fucking life into his body that he was almost crazed with it.
Wrapped in Luna’s glowing power, the world turned red, wrath replacing his physical anguish. Every scraping breath was hot with vengeance, his body bulking up even more as light swirled over his skin.
A Demon’s change being fueled by their Sisters-given power was one thing. When it was bolstered with true, visceral rage?
The second she was safe, he was going to chop that fucking creature into so many pieces they’d never be able to find all of them.
A haze of black hung above, the portion of the chasm she’d cleared coming to an end. She finished healing him and launched straight into weaving another spell, her owl appearing with a screech. Luna murmured in his ear and he took flight, shooting straight up into the encroaching darkness.
The shadows shrank away from Axanderus just as they did from her, a beacon when they found themselves plunging once more into the gloom.
“A warning,” she gasped out, slumping against his chest and breathing heavily. “For Magnus and Thad.”
Shite, he hadn’t even thought of that.
—Something is wrong—
Magnus huffed. No shite.
He could feel it in the way Pet writhed within, howling to break free and stating the obvious in his gravelly, earthy voice. In the tiny hairs on his body as they stood on end. When he peered into the darkness of the chasm and felt something rising to the surface.