Page 20 of The Shadow's Soulmate

“Billy, what are you doing?”

Ella looked horrified. She hadn’t known that he was a part of this. An integral part of what would lead to her death. He glared at her.

“You are disgusting. Fucking these monsters? You’re as bad as they are.”

He was pure venom. But he was also a complete idiot. I’d hated him since the moment I set eyes on him. Since I first saw him trying to flirt with my mate and then with her friend, Serena, later on. I wasn’t sad about what was going to happen.

“You understand, Billy, that's your name, right? That you are going to die now?”

“You can’t take on these 3,” he retorted, gesturing to the skinwalkers.

“Actually, I can. But that’s not the issue. They were never going to let you live. Whatever they promised.”

One of the skinwalkers, the most haggard one, turned an evil smile to Billy. His face fell. I pulled Ella towards me and buried her face in my neck so she couldn’t see what was about to happen. The skinwalker reached out long talons and began ripping at Billy. He screamed briefly before she had him in shreds. I felt Ella tense against me, her body twitching as she began to cry. The skinwalker turned back to me.

“Now then, maybe you’ll feed one of my sisters, demon.”

I thought about killing them. No vision came. I was truly free of all of this now. I smiled. Now I could truly be my best and worst self.

“Please try.”

I blipped myself and Ella outside the window and then left her there as I returned to the skinwalkers. Long talons swiped at me from the first one. I grasped at her wrist and turned it to shadow. Her hand dropped to the floor, no longer attached to the rest of her. She screamed a hideous scream and lunged at me. I turned fully to shadow and let her fall through me. On her way through, I turned her heart to shadow, and she fell twitching to the ground.

The second and third came at me together, hoping to overwhelm me, probably. But there was nothing of me, for them to grab at. I reached out, turning handfuls of them to shadow wherever my hand ended up. Shrieks ran around me as blood dripped from them, chunks of flesh missing from their arms, chests and stomachs. They backed up for a moment, assessing me. I snarled. This was fun.

They came at me again. Whether through blind fury or stupidity, I didn’t know. But I reached out for the neck of one and ripped it open so viciously that her head fell to the floor.The third one screamed and bent over the body of her sister. Her grief was palpable. She was too dangerous a creature to leave running around. I wondered when I had started to care about that. I glanced back out the window at my love. Her face was stricken with pain at this suffering creature that would have been happy to kill her.

I turned back to the skinwalker and quickly reached into her head. I turned her brain to shadow, and she fell down over the corpse of her sister. A moment of sadness passed through me at the sight. But I pulled myself away, blipping back to Ella. She sagged against me for a moment and I wrapped my arms around her.

“No one will ever hurt you.”

I felt her nod against my chest.

“Time to go.”

She nodded again, and I took her away.

Chapter 15

Ella

We arrived in an opulent building with marble floors and a large branching staircase in front of us. Heat hit me immediately. I couldn’t focus. There were too many thoughts in my head. The image of Billy, so angry and willing to hurt us.

“What was Billy doing? What was he thinking?”

“He’s been in on this whole thing from the start, sweetheart.”

“What?”

“This whole prison riot. Him and that other bald guard. They planned this. I don’t know why. But they hate monsters and want all of us to look bad.”

“Well, now there are monster criminals running free everywhere. That looks pretty bad.”

“Yes. There will be repercussions for a while. But it was them who started it all. We can make sure that everyone knows that.”

“Yes, we have to. People have to know.”

I looked around again.

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