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“We hold and assess,” Theo says. “I’m not having us killed by magic-happy demigods who see us as part of the threat.”
“Or worse,” Nic adds. “Assume we created the threat.”
Oh gods, thatwouldbe bad. Fight or flight both seem too much to handle right now. Maybe I could go with freeze like Monty sometimes does in mongoose form where he plays dead rather than owning up to whatever mischief he’s made.
My little dragon flies close enough that the flap of his wings provides a soothing alternative to the Kepnir cries and the shouts of warriors.
“Hold,” Theo yells.
“What? Where’s the dangernow?” I ask, then feel moronic because obviously we are surrounded by scary, impossible things.
A swarm of squirming, wriggling beasts heads our way, darting around the snakes and through the battle in a mass of shiny spikes. The moonlight reflects off their sharp, dagger-like points. I think of a horror movie about thousands of blood-thirsty locusts who come in a living, undulating cloud of death. At least this atrocity sticks to the ground.
“Here come the hedgehogs,” Nic calls. “Don’t move. Don’t flinch. Don’t breathe unless you must.”
I freeze, unsure whether I’m being punked or if I’m in actual peril from cute little pets like the one Rosemarie fostered in the dorm our first year of college together. A tiny ball of fluff and quills, she would run on her exercise wheel or do hedgie dances, her tiny bottom wiggling and bouncing from side to side. She would curl in Rosemarie’s lap, her quills going soft while she let us rub her belly and boop her snoot as she splayed her little legs.
“Hedgies!” I cry. I can’t help it. I rush forward, eager to sit amidst the cute critters and sweet talk one into a cuddle.
Theo snags me around the waist with his tail. “Don’t let them fool you,” he says. “These aren’t pets. They’re magical attack beasts raised for the sole purpose of defending the sleeping gods. Those pests are trained to swarm their enemies and take out eyes before crushing them to death?—”
Squee. Monty’s sound of delight needs no words. He lands, hopping among the hedgie army. They surround my feet, and I stretch my fingers to run over their softened quills.
“I love them.” I reach to pet as many as possible.
Theo loosens his hold. “Perhaps they’ve become more mellow with time,ow.” They stab at him with hundreds of needle-sharp quills. “I can see you why you’re kindred spirits, Vicious.”
For a few seconds, between the hedgehog purrs and Monty’s happy chirps, I can almost forget the awful situation we landed in.
Except the hedgies on the edge of the crowd shriek and Monty goes into full defensive mode. Theo yanks me back, shoving me behind him.
The hedgehogs morph into giant versions of themselves with sword-like quills where the cute bristles had just been. Monty breathes fire, and a portal ripples to life in front of us with more of the snakes writhing to pour out of it. But first, a demon steps through.
“Couldn’t miss the fun, could you, cousin?” a familiar voice drawls.
Dupree.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Theo
Dupree.
I should’ve known he was the traitor.
Regardless of how he’d acted so shocked when the portal in Shadowvale had opened and cyclops poured out. No matter how he fought to protect my mate. It’d clearly been a ruse, a ploy to get me to trust him, and it had worked. I had brought him into my sanctuary, closest to the people who mattered to me.
He played me for a fool, and I let him.
No more.
A serpent rushes from the portal, bypassing Dupree and heading straight for our group. The stench of rot and decay sweeps in its wake. I attack, but the damn thing is longer than the canyons in the deepest hell dimensions.
“We’ve got this,” Nic calls. “End him.”
“Val,” I say, wanting to encourage her to run back through the portal to hide behind the wards of our suite. Gods, I need to close the doorway before the snake monster gets intoShadowvale. But before I can demand she escape, a light show begins around me, slicing through the beast with wild and reckless hacks. My woman’s magic is raw and untrained, yet she wields more power than most demons. Maybe more than me.
“Get him, Princess,” Ora yells, the dwarf’s voice strong and oddly excited as though battle is what she lives for.
