Page 86 of Last Gift: Supernatural Battle

That was the hard part of this. I didn’t feel indignant about the coven’s reaction or like their treatment of me was unfair. I felt utterly deserving of most of what they were saying. I didn’t feel worthy to be leading them. Because at the end of the day, I wouldn’t be their leader—relics or not—if they knew my darkest secret.

Tied up in that emotional paradigm was the fact I felt bereft at my demon’s absence.

Was I even half demon any longer? If not, I had nothing more to hide. Yet I wanted her back, even if that made my life difficult.

Still standing before the demon gate and feeling lonely for the first time since bonding to Wild, I opened myself to the tether connecting me to my demon. I still had no idea why the tether only appeared a month prior to joining this coven, even though my demon had existed in me since birth, but if I ever got her back, maybe she’d tell me.

I focused on the tether. “That’s odd.”

“What?” Corey walked over.

“The tether to my demon, it’s thicker.”

“Is it?” Rooke said, joining me.

A thicker bond was a stronger bond. A stronger bond meant greater connection. This was the first change in the tether, and the first change since my demon disappeared too. “Maybe the journey did do something to help her.”

“Can you feel anything different through it?” Huxley asked, standing beside Corey. Sven stood on Rooke’s other side.

I took a breath and stepped closer to the demon gate. A low moan left me, and I staggered forward, nearly toppling into the other realm. “Pain.”

I dropped to my knees. “She’s in pain.”

So much hurt. I couldn’t sense or feel the tether through the agony.

What was the demon king doing to her? I fell to all fours as wave after wave of torture battered at me from the demon realm. I didn’t know how to close myself to the anguish and torment.

I screamed, curling on the ground.

“What’s happening to her?” I heard Wild’s roar.

“She opened the bond to her demon,” Sven shouted over my screams.

I writhed on the ground, white heat stabbing behind my eyes and in my temples. Then Wild’s hands were on me, and the pain cut off abruptly as though severed.

Yet it wasn’t. I just couldn’t feel the agony through his protection.

My head lolled to the side, and I stared through the protective barrier after the tether.

I blinked several times when I found myself staring into a face on the other side. There was a person less than two hand widths away through the barrier. The woman’s face was edged with black scales, and then dark clothing she wore camouflaged her from view. Nearly completely. I’d been in the room for hours, and sentries were here prior to that. None of us had noticed the unconscious female.

And this woman… I knew her though we’d never met. I know you. A force took hold of me, and I lifted my arm closest to the demon gate.

I reached through my barrier to touch the woman.

“No,” Wild yelled.

He latched onto me, dragging me away, and I screamed wordlessly, latching onto the woman for sheer life.

I couldn’t lose her. I couldn’t lose her again!

Alarms sang in my ears and through the caves. I’d disturbed the barrier over the gate and set them off for the whole coven to hear.

I didn’t care. I couldn’t care.

I wanted her back.

Such was Wild’s panic that he didn’t immediately notice that he’d dragged another woman out of the demon realm with me. When his grip loosened in shock, I shook him off and scrambled to the demon.

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