Page 60 of Demon Monster's Little Human

My lips part. And I speak.

The words spill out, alien and familiar all at once. A language that is not mine, but is.

The entity turns toward me, tendrils snapping in recognition. The whisper becomes a scream.

Magic erupts.

The cavern shudders, the walls pulsing with raw power. The entity writhes as the blast of force collides into it.

Dain shouts my name. The entity wails, but the sound is distant, muted, as if coming from somewhere far away.

I cannot stop. The words are not mine to stop.

Pain splits through me, tearing from my skull to my ribs, like claws sinking into my flesh. My eyes burn, and something wet trails down my cheeks.

I blink, but my vision blurs.

I see it—red.

Blood. I am crying blood.

The voice is inside me, screaming now, demanding something I do not understand.

The book rips from my hands, its pages bursting into shadow, swallowed by the very thing it unleashed.

My knees buckle. Everything around me seems to collapse.

The last thing I see before darkness takes me is Dain’s furious, terrified face.

25

DAIN

Liora is dying in my arms.

Her body convulses violently, her breath erratic, blood leaking from her nose, from her ears, from the corners of her lips. Too much blood. Too much for a mortal to lose and survive.

I do not know how to stop it.

Her skin burns beneath my touch, her limbs seizing with every violent tremor. Whatever magic she unleashed—whatever that cursed book forced through her, it is killing her.

No.

I refuse it.

I tighten my hold, wings snapping open as I launch into the sky, driving us higher into the storm-laden winds. The night is thick with the scent of rain, of dirt, of the remnants of magic still clinging to her fragile form.

I fly hard, faster than I should with injuries still fresh in my own body, but there is no choice. She cannot die.

She will not die.

A town appears beneath me, dimly lit, quiet. A place forgotten by war, swallowed in the rolling hills and thick forests. No guards. No watchtowers. Small. Remote.

Perfect.

I land outside the outskirts, keeping to the darkness, my instincts sharp, my every muscle primed for danger. I fold my wings in tight, cradling Liora against my chest as I move through the abandoned streets.

The town is asleep, the houses lifeless, but I do not need shelter, I need seclusion.

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