Page 24 of Grabbed By the Guard

He doesn’t need the sleep, he assures me. We don’t need to hunker down because both of us must rest. He’ll sleep when we reach the mage’s village. Until then, he will do what he promised and get me there.

We’re not as alone out here in the shadows as I first thought. The way I see it, the sooner we’re in a village the better, and if he wants to keep on trucking… well, I’m not going to stop him.

Not even when it becomes obvious that we’re being followed…

“What was that?”

I know what I just saw. I’ve been noticing creatures like that skittering by us before, with the same white eyes, only they’re a lot smaller. He told me about the prey beasts that lurk closer to the edge of the shadows where we are because, if they venture too much deeper into the blackness that surrounds us, there are even more dangerous monsters to deal with.

The arkoda is one. The hitchul is another. The ungez are the smaller ones that scamper like squirrels, and when I heard a long, drawn out squawk that broke up the heavy silence at one point, he simply said, “Firebird.”

That’s not a bird tracking us. The shadowy figure has horns and two long arms. It’s a similar size and shape as Glaine, and it reminds me of the shadow form that Sombra demons at the palace wore.

Its shoulders are hunched a little, almost as though it’s preparing itself to fall forward on all fours and run if it has to, but based on the few times I’ve caught its silhouette and those eyes staring at us… it—he can match our pace easily.

And he’s following us.

The second I spoke, the creature pauses. Then he growls. Stepping out of the shadows in the distance, the glow from the reddish moon above us illuminates him.

It’s a demon alright. And though most of his features melt together in his shadows, I can make out details. His hands are flexed, shadowy claws on display. His nose is shorer than Glaine’s, his hair longer, and because he is in his shadows, he’s not covering anything up.

How do I know? Because unless he’s got a baseball bat or something swinging between his legs, that’s his cock.

I yip, and as I watch, that part of his shadowy anatomy jolts and starts to lift.

Fuck. He sees me and that’s how his body reacts? What is it with these demons? Do they all have a human fetish, or is it just because I’m the only female I’ve seen in Sombra so far?

I don’t know, but I start to retreat.

Glaine holds out his hand. “Billie. Don’t move.”

Okay. There are times when I’ll cross my arms over my chest and refuse to be ordered around. There are times when I’ll pretend not to hear a command so that I’m not necessarily disobeying. And there are times when I know when to keep my mouth shut and do what I’m told.

In the shadows of Sombra, with the creepy white-eyed demon moving like he’s some kind of beast as he stalks us as his prey… this is one of those times.

Don’t move? I’ll try. I mean, the length of chain separating me and Glaine is about as much distance as I can keep from him. If he moves, I’ll have to follow?—

The white-eyed demon takes a deep breath in. His exhale is a sudden roar that has my knees turning to jelly. I wobble, about to drop because my other instinct is to turn and run as far as I can in the opposite direction, and that’s when Glaine—grumpy, scowling, terse and uptight Glaine when he’s not attempting to ‘flirt’—throws his head back, shakes it roughly, and howls with more emotion than I’ve seen him give off since I first rejected him.

Something happens. The big, red-skinned demon seems to grow impossibly bigger before he explodes; at least, that’s what it seems like from my vantage point behind his big, bulky back. The golden chains gleam, the glow so bright I squint against it, and when I recover my sight, Glaine is gone.

No. Not gone. He’s reverted to that mass of shadows, the silhouette of the horned demon who walked out of my kitchen before he abducted me.

I don’t know what shocks me more: that after almost three days stuck together, he’s broken out of the chains—or that, once he’s free, the first thing he does is charge toward the demon who’s been stalking us.

They’re shadows. It doesn’t matter that he was able to grab my arm when he pulled me into the portal that brought me here. When Glaine is red-skinned with the ridges over his nose and on his brow, I can think of him as at least humanish. As a mass of black shadows with a pair of glowing green stop lights for eyes? My mind just can’t comprehend that he’s anything but a grumpy storm cloud.

I expect them to meet and become one big shadow. Not even close. They collide, the ground shaking with the force of their hit. Their shoulders hit first, using brute force to knock into their opponent. When that doesn’t work, they lower their heads and ram their horns into each other repeatedly while snarling at each other in Sombran—and what might not be Sombran but pure animalistic sounds.

It goes on like that for a few fierce moments before Glaine scores a hit. Something cracks, a piece of horn going flying, and the howl of rage from the white-eyed demon is deafening.

Glaine retreats for a moment, then glances around. His eyes land on me, and he bobs his in-tact horns. He’s making sure I’m safe, but just as I want to shout at him not to be distracted, he waves his hand. It darkens with even more shadows, and when they clear, he’s holding a gleaming silver sword about two-feet long.

What the— where did that come from?

I don’t know, but I’m glad to see it. They two demons seemed evenly matched when they were ramming horns with each other, but now my demon soldier has the edge?—

Seeing the sword, the other demon gnashes his fangs and, slashing out with his claws, goes for Glaine’s wrist.

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