Page 80 of Higher Demon

Fear and rage give me the strength to swing my free arm at her, but she bats it away with a toss of her head, planting her other foreleg on my chest to hold me down. “You’re pathetic,” she spits. “All this, for what? It’s your fault your friend is dead. Your fault the humans think they’re safe. Your fault you’re going to die in this pitiful body.”

I can’t give up. Ican’t.

As though she knows what I’m thinking, she grinds her hoof down, claws shredding through my organs and—judging from the sudden numbness of my legs—severing my spine. “It’s all over for you now.”

I sense her drawing in her power, gathering it for an etheric strike that will kill my body and scatter my essence, ending my existence.

Like a breath of clean air in a stuffy room, Ian is suddenly there. I sense him so strongly, at first I look for him, my head snapping to the side, before I realize he’s nothere… just in my head.

Connected to me.

Part of me.

The bond.

Ian loves me enough for the bond to have formed. Wants me.Needsme.

Is worried about me. Can feel my pain and defeat.

And I’m about to die, taking him with me.

Renewed energy surges through me. No. Ian willnotdie because of me. He willnotdie now that he’s chosen me.

He. Will. Not. Die.

I embrace my instincts, wrenching control of my power from the frail remnants of this human shell and letting my true form rip free. The force of the change sends Vestia tumbling back, and in the next second I’m on her.

The glimpse of her fear as she realizes what kind of demon I am—sloppy, not to have known already—is a panacea, but I don’t waste time basking in it.

I close my hand around her throat, claws slicing through the flesh as she struggles beneath me, black blood spurting. My power, unbound now that I’ve shed my human body, floods through me. One etheric strike, and it’s done. She’s not half the demon Cato was, and even if she was, this time, I’m far more motivated.

As the energy that used to be her scatters to black ash, absorbing back into the matter that makes up Crmærdinesgh, I slump on the floor and console myself with the soothing balm of Ian’s presence in my mind. He’s too new to this kind of power to know how to speak to me, and I’m not ready to explain anything yet—not until I have myself back under control. But just having him with me is enough.

A faint sound from the antechamber has my head snapping up. Dyp is standing out there, framed in the hole through the wall. There are five other spirits with them, and a handful of lesser demons of varying species—the more intelligent ones.

“What?” I ask. The raw, groaning sound of my voice in this form makes several of them shiver, and one takes a step back.

“Is she dealt with?” Dyp asks.

“She is.”

Chapter30

Ian

I gaspand drop to my knees, clutching my stomach and hunching forward. The pain is horrific; if this is what Marc’s feeling right now, things aren’t going our way. Barely noticing when a pair of arms close around me—is that Connor talking to me?—I try to remember what Marc said about the bond.

Because that’s what this is. It has to be. I feel as though he’s standing beside me, onlymore. That’s notmypain. That’s notmyfury and frustration and… defeat?

Oh, fuck no. He isnotgiving up. I willnotlose him now—and definitely not because of some fucked-up kind of demon politics. He said we could talk to each other through the bond, right?Don’t you dare fucking die,I think as hard as I can. I’m not sure if it worked—probably not. There’s got to be more to it than just thinking, right?

“How,” I gasp, then grit my teeth and try to rise above the pain.Not my pain. Not my pain. “How does telepathy work?” I blink away the blurriness of my vision, realizing with surprise that it was tears.

“Fuck,” Connor mutters above me. I’m sprawled halfway across his lap on the floor, the others crowded around with worried faces. “Maybe we should call an ambulance.”

“I don’t need—” Marc… changes. I don’t know what or how, but the pain is gone as though it never existed, and his anger is overtaken by cold, calm determination.

He’s okay.

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