Chapter 25 #2
I barely had time to react. His fist drove right into my jaw, sending a pounding jolt of heat through my skull.
He gripped my throat, and I clawed at his face, aiming for his eyes.
He slammed me against a tree so hard the bark splintered and cracked from the force.
He was much stronger than I had thought.
He kneed me in the stomach. I bent over, coughing up bile and gasping for air.
Digging my claws into the hand that still gripped my throat as I gasped for breath, I pressed my boots against the trunk and used it as leverage to throw myself against him, pushing him back so he didn’t pin me against the tree. He spun to the side, and I landed roughly, stumbling on my feet.
Before I had my bearings, he drove his elbow into my mask, nearly crushing my nose as he slammed my head back against the tree. My vision turned spotty from the impact.
I countered, throwing my leg up and striking him in the side of his head with my boot. He rolled to the ground before jumping back to his feet, and I charged toward him. My shoulder met his torso, and I heard a pop before a searing pain shot down my arm.
But I finally got him onto the ground.
Eli roared with fury slashing at me with his claws. “You and Draven are a disgrace to the Hunt and the entire demon race! The women are here for us to kill, not save and take as wives. They’re the outcasts, the scum!”
Draven’s wife…
He saved her from the Hunt? Was that why he helped me? Why he had encouraged me to do whatever I needed to in order to get here? But how would he have known my intention was to save her?
Eli had distracted me, making me pause. Even if it was for a split second, it was all he needed to have the upper hand. He took the opportunity and managed to flip me over so I was beneath him. That was when I saw his horns emerge.
Shit…
He slammed the horns into my face, dislodging my mask, and it was all I could do to try and shield myself with my arms. Over and over, he drove his horns into me. My head throbbed, finally going limp. My eyes blurred until they went dark. And my arms fell, bloodied and battered.
It was too much. He was too strong.
“We’re stronger,” my demon hissed.
A pulse tore through my veins, echoing with the voice in my head.
“Call them.”
Instinctually, I reached out to whatever was near until I latched onto the only breathing thing I could find. I had no idea what it was, but it obeyed, racing across the forest floor at an unfathomable speed.
My vision snapped to the creature I had possessed as I saw myself beneath Eli’s body. Its vision was slitted, distorting my view as I watched it slowly approach me.
It made a vicious sound that I couldn’t describe and drew Eli’s attention away from me. That gave me the chance to crack an eye open and see the beast I possessed.
A haunched, four-legged thing that looked as if it was missing its skin; spikes protruded from its spine and its teeth too big for its muzzle.
It was like a creature born from shadows and kissed by death.
Its four slitted eyes burned with malevolence, unblinking due to its absent eyelids.
It leapt, launching toward Eli and clamping its jaws around his arm with a sickening crunch.
The force tore him off me, and though the creature was only the size of a dog, it was large enough to give me the opening I needed to get back up to my feet. I dragged in air when Eli’s grip loosened around my throat, blinking through the blood washing down my face.
Eli howled, continuing to fight against me and kicking at the beast. I pulled against his hand, clawing at his flesh. The harder he resisted me, the harder I made the beast crush his bones.
Eli’s head snapped to me, and his eyes widened. “Possessor!”
I managed to free myself from his overpowering grasp, and he swung at me.
I caught his fist mid-swing and twisted, bending his arm and snapping his wrist until it faced the opposite direction.
Lifting the creature off the ground with his broken arm, pushing through the pain, the claws of his other hand had dug into my chest, going after my heart.
I snarled in pain, yanking away from his grasp as fabric and skin tore across my chest. Then I drove my boot into his ribs, relishing the sound of the cracks. He dropped to the ground and curled in on his side, and after a brief scuffle I flipped him onto his chest.
The beast hadn’t let go the entire time, and now my face was next to it. It reeked like rotting flesh, but I kept my focus on Eli.
Fangs protruded from my mouth. I licked them, feeling the sharpness for the first time and nicking the sensitive flesh of my lip against them.
While I straddled him, my claws tore into his back.
Eli shrieked, rumbling the ground beneath him as I dug through skin and muscle.
Deeper and deeper and deeper, until his spine was exposed, the bone glistening with his blood.
He pierced the air with a high-pitched shrill as I sank my fangs into the base of his spine and wrenched it loose.
Like a puppet with cut strings, he stopped thrashing beneath me.
Blood seeped into the soil from his back, and the forest was silent again.
I spit out the piece of his spine then stood and staggered back, heaving. I remained there, standing over Eli’s body still clutched within the maws of the beast, covered in blood—some his, some mine—while I caught my breath and slowed my heart.
Even my demon seemed winded despite the elated tone to his voice. “Satisfying and successful.”
Successful as it was, I wasn’t satisfied. Not until I got Vhaena out of here.
Concentrating on the beast, I had it release Eli and forced it to run back to where it came from then farther and farther. I wasn’t letting that thing come anywhere near me or Vhaena once I let it go. I’d make it run into the sea on the other end of the island if I had to.
Though, if it weren’t for possessing him, I would have been dead.
Still trying to catch my breath, I didn’t wait another moment before I dashed in the direction Vhaena and Inka had left. They didn’t get very far; not by my standards at least. It only took a couple of minutes before I caught sight of them darting behind a cluster of boulders and—
Son of a bitch.
A group of four demons were chasing Vhaena and Inka into the rocks.