Page 35 of Hell Sent

Rapid footsteps hit the muddy ground behind him, and he twisted to avoid the end of an iron-tipped spear. At the same time, he heard the snap of a bowstring releasing.

The spear wielder’s momentum carried him in front of Azreth, and Azreth picked him up by the back of his cuirass. With a flap of his wings to pull him out of the path of the archer’s arrow, he hurled the spear wielder across the street, into the archer. Both of them hit the ground in a metallic heap.

Bystanders screamed and ran. The remaining Paladins retreated with them.

Azreth turned to Raiya, breathless. He scanned her, head to toe, checking for injuries, and saw none. Her face softened as she looked at him, rain mixing with the tear tracks on her face. As everyone else ran from him, she started toward him.

Azreth began to go to her, then stopped. He sensed the human lord before he saw him, somehow—not through any magical means, but some other unconscious animal awareness. He’d only ever seen one person make Raiya this furious and sad before; maybe that was how he knew.

When he turned around, he found Nirlan Han-gal standing a dozen steps behind him.

Azreth stiffened. A strange sense of dread filled him, rooting his feet to the ground. For a moment, he was back in his cage in the castle’s dungeon; trapped, chained, starving, bound.

He shouldn’t have felt fear, but he did. He wanted to flee. It was absurd. Shameful. He was a demon. This was a mortal, a mere man. A man he despised, who had hurt himself and Raiya both. There was no magical barrier between them now. He could destroy him with a single strike.

Hunger for violence still pounded through his body. He suspected it was that hunger, more than courage, that drove him to move toward Nirlan.

The man went pale as he approached. The scent of his fear was heavy, caressing Azreth like bloodied velvet. His death would be delicious.

Nirlan drew a knife and swung it in front of him, but it was mere steel. Azreth didn’t even bother to block the attack. The blade scratched against his skin, denting the metal. As Nirlan waved the knife ineffectually, he slipped in the mud and fell, nearly stabbing himself in the process.

He was a ridiculous, pathetic man. And yet he possessed an enormous castle, a perfect wife, and a bevy of armed servants and mages to do his bidding. It appeared that you didn’t have to be strong or clever or skilled to succeed in the mortal realm. Maybe you only needed to be cutthroat.

“Raiya! Help me!” Nirlan demanded. Without his servants, he had no power, no will to fight, no strength.

Azreth looked over at Raiya, and he was pleased to see her looking at Nirlan with as much disgust as himself.

“For the love of Astra, call him off!” Nirlan cried.Raiya gave him a look that was pure hatred. Azreth could feel it radiating from her. It was a beautiful feeling.

She looked at Azreth and nodded her approval, her eyes grim and furious. Azreth could still faintly see the redness in her eyes from when she’d cried.

He reached toward Nirlan’s throat, and he was trying to decide whether it would be more agonizing to be strangled to death or to bleed out slowly, when his vision suddenly shattered.

A thread of pain between his hand and his neck lit up, blinding, propelling him backward. For a moment, the world was gone, and only agony existed.

When his vision returned, he was kneeling on the ground, rain rippling the puddles around him. It smelled of blood and earth. Raiya was speaking. He could feel her hand on his arm.

Azreth swayed, stunned. The moment he’d touched Nirlan, he’d been repelled. His neck felt like it had been cut, though the skin was unbroken, and his palm burned like it had been struck with iron. When he lifted his hand, he was startled to see the runes glowing and steaming like a fresh brand.

The half-binding had protected Nirlan. It had burned Azreth in the same place he’d tried to grab him, reflecting the injury back before he could do any damage.

Azreth was nauseated. He couldn’t hurt Nirlan. These cursed runes were a shackle on him, and he was trapped in his own enchanted body.

Yet again, Nirlan—this mere mortal—had defeated him.

Raiya’s hand tightened on his cloak. “Azreth.” When he looked up, Nirlan was coming toward them, an iron sword in his hand.

Azreth pulled Raiya against his chest, then flapped his wings and leapt into the air. They shot above the street, above the buildings, into the sky.

Raiya’s arms clamped around his neck. Her face was buried in the crook of his shoulder, her breath hot against him. He clutched her a little tighter. Below, the Paladins were regrouping with Nirlan, and they were chasing him.

Azreth didn’t know where to go next. He was lightheaded, and each flap of his wings was difficult. Summoning the wings in the first place had drained him more than he’d anticipated, and whatever Nirlan’s enchantment had done to him had drained him further.

He flew to a tall building at the edge of the town. A slender tower rose from one side of it, and he landed in its shadow on the tiled roof, swooning a little. He carefully set Raiya on her feet beside him. She held onto him, probably just trying not to slip off the sloping roof, but he could pretend it was because she needed his touch.

Then he smelled blood. He looked down sharply. Her hand was bleeding. She must have been hit with a blade during the fighting.

Without thinking, he lifted her wound to his mouth to clean the blood away, and he didn’t even know why he would do such a thing—an instinct left over from a more primitive era? It was certainly not out of hunger or violent urges toward her—but it felt like the right thing to do, until he saw her face. She looked at him with vague confusion, her mouth slightly ajar. He stopped, wondering if she’d be upset, like when he’d tried to snake his hand beneath her trousers.

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