Page 89 of Of Nine So Bold

Which left straight ahead, through those bastards.

“Roan!” I shouted.

Flattened to the ground, my friend’s gaze snapped to me.

“We need the demon.”

For a heartbeat, his face was grim. I knew that somber expression of his so well.

And then he muttered a curse and nodded.

His eyes went black. His lips pulled back in a vicious snarl. Skin and muscles rippling, his body shifted, wings sprouting from his back and his hands growing savage claws.

Crying out in shock, the guards stumbled back and scrambled to aim their crossbows at him.

Ruhl slammed into the nearest guard, while Casimir turned to smoke and slashed past another.

In my grasp, the princess shifted into her vampire form.

“Dammit!” I snapped. “Don’t?—”

She was already attacking the guards.

Gods, that woman. If we survived this, the things I’d do as repayment…

I exhaled sharply. Now wasnotthe time for sexual fantasies.

Ordering myself to focus, I scanned the battle, but it was obvious there was little need to worry about anyone’s strategy.Gwyneira, Casimir, and the shadow wolf knocked the Aneirans down in rapid succession, the three of them moving like they’d been fighting together forever. They raced away again as the demon strode forward like he already knew exactly how he wanted to destroy the guards.

Gwyneira shifted back beside me. I took her arm, pulling her to my side and giving her a stern glare that she met with an unrepentant look.

She’d be the death of me, my stubborn little treluria.

Folding his hands behind his back like a school master with an errant pupil, the demon bent over the leader of the Aneirans. His tail sliced back and forth like a cat about to pounce. “Pathetic.” He grinned. “And squishy.”

His claws moved like lightning, driving into the man’s chest.

I winced. I’d seen a lot of bloodshed, yes. I wasn’t squeamish.

It was still strange to watch the creature my friend had become unleash such violence. Roan had always been anxious about anyone getting hurt. He’d worried constantly about everything from knives being left in the kitchen to a fire burning unattended—though given how I now knew his family had burned to death, I supposed that last bit made sense. But in his own way, he’d been something of a pacifist.

Perhaps that’d only been because he was afraid of the hell he—or the monster inside him—could wreak.

Because the demon clearly enjoyed the violence.

“Now,” the demon continued to the other guards, still grinning. “How fast can you run?”

The humans began scrambling to their feet, clearly taking him up on the offer to run for their lives.

He growled with satisfaction. The air began to heat up around him.

Oh hell.

“Get back!” I barked at the Erenlians. “Stay away from?—”

The ground began rumbling again. Even the demon paused, glancing around. “Beast,” he said to Ozias. “Is this your doing?”

A groan went through the earth. Cracks spread through the ceiling even faster than they had in the other tunnel.

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