Page 203 of Scourged

Mariah lowered her wings to the ground, the talons at the apex digging into the grass. She snaked her head down, facing a raised dais with six large chairs.

Her Armature knelt before the dais, their faces wearing mixed expressions of awe, desperation, and terror.

Not terror of her. As she sent back the best assurances she could and closed their bonds, she sensed they were not fearful of her.

They were fearfulforher. Of what was done to her, to someone she valued more than she could ever value herself.

Scared of what she might do to the world because of it.

Only one bond remained in her mind—the one she couldn’t close, even if she wanted to—as she lifted her head, bringing all her new, deadly focus and instinct to the sad, angry little man with watery blue eyes and wheat blond hair.

His fear was the sweetest. So pungent, so vile, so intoxicating.

Shawth scrambled up the dais steps, stopping before his false throne. The other lords cowered there with him, their fear a thick blanket around them. Even Lord Laurent, his normally fixed expression now slack-jawed, his golden eyes filled with alarm.

Mariah lifted her head and parted her maw. Something hot and ancient and deadly stirred in her chest, churning as it crept up her throat. She tasted ash and moonlight on her tongue as she drew in a breath, flames building and unfurling around her fanged teeth.

If she could smile in this form, the desperate cries for mercy from those lords would have brought one to her lips.

Something hot and vile and wrong sliced down her side, pain shooting deep beneath her skin.

“Mariah!” That familiar, beloved voice roared her name.

Flames died on her tongue, were pulled back down her throat. She whirled, instincts older than the world itself taking over.

A demon was latched to her side, serrated claws digging into her scaled skin. But her hide was stronger now, far more durable than soft human flesh, and with a bucking leap, she dislodgedthe demon. Leathery gray wings unfurled from the demon’s side, lips curling back from its distorted face as it hissed, low and vicious. It launched into the air, hovering just above her. She twisted to meet it, growling low in her chest.

“Welcome,dragaina,” the demon whispered, its words falling not from its mouth but into her mind. She blinked with momentary shock, double lids sliding across her eyes before her bloodlust resumed its grasp.

She spoke back on instinct, her mind reaching for the foul, twisted mess of the demon’s soul. “Go back to the miserable pit you crawled out of, and I’ll let you live.”

The demon chuckled. “Do you really think me that lacking in intelligence?” It lifted a serrated claw to its mouth, a long, forked tongue flicking out from between its teeth, licking the blood still there.

Mariah’s blood, and another’s, layered in. She shuddered, and her eyes focused, a predator narrowing on its prey.

“Your mother tastes so sweet,dragaina,” it hissed, wings flapping as it held itself suspended above her. “And her blood mixed with yours?” The demon inhaled again, closing its slitted yellow eyes. “Divine.”

Mariah was done with this foul creature, mocking her with the taste of her mother’s blood.

Her muscles bunched beneath her scaled skin, and with a great push, she leaped from the earth, launching at the demon. The demon hissed a laugh as it shot to the right, its body narrowly avoiding the devastating snap of her jaws that crunched through the air, right where it just was.

Its body evaded her … but not its wing.

Foul blood burst across Mariah’s tongue, her razor-sharp fangs shredding the delicate flesh. The demon’s screams piercing the air around them were sweeter than any song. Asher hind legs hit the ground, the demon was plummeting to the floor, cracking against the risers with a sickening crunch.

As its body slumped to the gardens below, the earth shook.

The demons holding her father and brother on the central platform backed away, retreating to the edges of the garden. The crowd was still screaming, sharing glances of abject horror as the world rumbled beneath their feet. The bitter tang of their fear pulled Mariah’s lip back from her teeth, the demon’s black blood dripping to the grass and soaking into the soil below.

Something—a hand—touched her side. She glanced down wildly, meeting a stare of crushing tanzanite blue.

“Mariah.Nio.Come back. Come back to us.”

The woman inside her stirred.

The words—in that same, familiar voice—were not spoken, at least, not out loud. But Mariah heard them all the same as if they were threaded into her soul, the silver-gold bond flaring brighter than ever before.

The beast rumbled, and the woman took a hesitant step forward. Retook some control.

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