Page 49 of Bound

Another yelp rang through the trees. Sounds of a scuffle quickly cut off.

Then horrible silence.

Thirteen

Slate knotted his loincloth over his sticky skin as they ran, shadows swishing around his thighs.

“Is he okay?” Ruby called from where she was lagging behind him. “Can you sense him?”

Slate couldn’t. There was a spell blocking him from sensing the spirit. But hecouldsense the demons that took him: shades, their scent thick and acrid in his nostrils.

Ruby panted behind him, holding her shadow skirt as she ran. She was wincing, and it took Slate a moment to realize that he hadn’t given her shoes when he conjured her dress.

He turned and scooped her up. She slammed against his bare chest, her breath whooshing out of her.

Slate loosened his grip. It was so easy to forget how fragile she was, especially when she was racing toward danger with him.

“We’re getting close,” he assured her. “I have their trail. They’re right?—”

He stumbled to an abrupt stop.

A glowing rip in reality waited in front of them. It was not a portal, something carefully opened by a witch or sorcerer. But acrude, ugly tear between realms by some careless nobodies with no regard for inter-realm integrity.

Slate growled and reached out, stabilizing the tear with a wave of his hand.

“Is that a portal?” Ruby asked, nose scrunching at the careless composition. “Where does it lead?”

“The mortal realm,” Slate replied. He ran a bloody finger along the newly repaired edges, stretching it until it was wide enough to step through. “Ready?”

“To go home?” Ruby looked at the glowing portal and let out a strange, thin laugh. “As long as you bring me back after.”

The words made something twist in Slate’s chest. He had to stop himself from crushing her closer and vowing something he had no right to say.

“Be ready,” he warned.

Then he stepped through the portal.

They touched down on dry, cracked cobblestones.

Slate set Ruby on the ground and looked around. They were in the middle of Sweetsguard’s empty town square, the first dawn light peeking out over the squat buildings.

The portal tear sealed behind him. Slate glanced over to see Ruby holding her black dagger, blood beading on her finger from closing the tear.

Slate had the bizarre urge to take her wounded finger and kiss it. He settled for giving her a brisk nod.

She nodded back. But halfway through the motion, her eyes caught on something over his shoulder, and she gasped.

Slate turned.

Paimon’s stone ward sat behind him, lodged in the dirt. It was identical to the one in his own realm, complete with the fading blue rune. Except where the Paimon ward in his domainwas clean, save for a few stray leaves, this ward had been strewn with filth.

Ruby ran to it, wiping at the mud and oil with her hands. She checked the rune worriedly, her shoulders sagging with relief when she confirmed it was active.

“Still working,” she said with a sigh. She picked sadly at a particularly deep crack in the stone and gave Slate a rueful smile. “I suppose we’d know if it stopped. Demons would pour over the town before we could say?—”

A horrified scream cut her off.

Slate turned.

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