Page 140 of A Trial By Blood

I shook my head, my soul screaming as I opened my mouth and did the same. I screamed loudly, the deafening sound filling the space again. Nomas paused, then his face twisted with rage and confusion.

The females that came before, who had stood where I was now, betrayed, bleeding, their wings sliced from their backs, terrified of the twisted demon coming for them—I felt them now, I felt their pain and horror, and rage exploded through me, the kind I never knew I was capable of. The dark weight lifted from the room and my magic burst to the surface. It no longer stirred, it was a violent storm inside me, its strength growing with my fury.

An indescribable sound echoed in the distance, growing louder and louder until it was deafening. Then I felt them—bats, thousands of them, exploded into the cavern. I understood their little chirps and clicks and called to them, telling them Kefir was a bad man, that he wanted to hurt me, and half of them swarmed him.

Kefir screamed, flailing, the knife in his hand clattering to the ground as the bats clawed and bit at him. More bats came to me, forming a moving, breathing, flapping wall between him and me, trying to protect me.

I focused on the savage roar of my magic and looked up at my shackles. “Release me!” I screamed, barely recognizing my own voice. The iron around my wrists flashed with heat, burning my skin—then shattered. And as soon as they did, I felt myself shift, the bleeding stumps where my wings had been moving awkwardly in my back.

“Bride,” Nomas roared in that distorted voice and grabbed my wrist.

I threw up my other hand with a cry and my magic shot from me, crashing against the demon.

He roared again, releasing me, his massive body seeming to freeze in place. I felt Ronan’s blood inside me, his power twisting and blending with my magic. I’d felt the same thing in the forest when I’d stopped a demon, blocking him from getting to me.

I couldn’t hold Nomas like this indefinitely. I had to stop him, stop this from ever happening again—I needed to free the females that he’d taken before me. They didn’t belong in hell. They’d suffered long enough.

Swiping up the knife Kefir had dropped, I ran at the demon, leaping from the edge of the pit and onto him, digging my claws and the knife into his thick skin. I scrambled up his arm and grabbed him around the throat, then wrenching back the massive demon’s head, stabbed repeatedly at his throat, hacking and slicing, trying to cut through his thick skin to remove his head.

The loss of blood was making it hard to maintain the hold I had on the powerful demon, and he roared again, but this time it came out a wet gurgling sound. I gritted my teeth and kept stabbing and slicing.

My magic, my hold on him, weakened, and he flailed his powerful arms. I slipped, almost falling, but dug my claws deeper into his skin and hacked one last time with a scream of rage.

The demon’s head fell to the side, tumbling into the flames.

His body lurched to the side, and I dove to the edge of the pit, grabbing on to the lip as the demon toppled and disappeared back into the flames.

I clawed at the stone edge, somehow managing to pull myself up.

Kefir still flailed at the end of the platform, calling for his warriors to help, but none came. They were already fighting.

Then I saw him.

Ronan.

His face was lined with fury, trying to fight his way to me. Daire was with him; others in the colony were now fighting as well.

Kefir exploded through the wall of bats, his face a gruesome mask, clawed and bitten and bloody. He held a flaming torch, using it to drive my little familiars back.

I stumbled to my feet as Kefir grabbed my arm.

“Hurry,” he said, trying to drag me along the walkway.

“It’s too late. Your demon is nothing but ash,” I said.

“He’ll be back, and we’ll be ready and waiting,” Kefir said, fury and desperation in his voice.

He looked down and his grasping hands fell from me, then he roared, but not in rage this time. The sound was one of pure terror. He stared at his own hands, watching as they wrinkled and aged before his eyes, the rest of his body following. Nomas was dead; the bargain had been broken; that was the only explanation for what I was seeing.

In a matter of minutes, Kefir shrunk and grew hunched over, his hair graying and falling out as he aged five hundred years. Bats were long-lived, but Kefir had already defied nature, and he quickly declined until his breath wheezed from him, then stopped completely. He disintegrated in front of me, turning to dust.

I stumbled away, along the platform, and used the wall to hold myself up, trying to get to Ronan, but then Vesa broke from the fight and ran for me.

I was his pawn, and he wasn’t ready to lose me yet. Calling on the last of my strength, I threw up my hands.

I aimed it all at Vesa, throwing up a wall of magic in front of him before wrapping it around him tight. He jarred to a stop, then I lifted him off his feet and sent him flying into the stone wall. Hands still aimed at him, I poured out the power, holding him there as I walked toward him.

He struggled, teeth gritted, and his body half shifted. His fingers clawed, his wings spread wide, and his fangs extended.