Page 47 of Hell-Bound

She lifted the dagger in front of her, desperately trying to adjust her eyes to the dark. As she did, she saw Jester walking backward as if to lure the creature toward her tree.

It was Ren’s turn to smirk.

Clever.

“Come here, big boy. That’s it, get you some tasty Devil meat.”

The creature lunged, and Jester twirled to vanish—expecting the creature to aim for him. Instead, the creature, who had caught sight of Ren, swung a thrashing arm towards the tree.

Jester, unaware of the change in trajectory, lost his balance as the creature swung back for a second blow and sliced him across the stomach. The Devil wailed in agony—and vanished.

“Jester!” Ren screamed, matching the volume of the frustrated creature snarling angrily, maw dripping with fresh blood.

She brandished the dagger frantically, trying to see where Jester had appeared, but all she could see was a dark puddle of blood on the ground.

Swinging its head toward her light, the grotesque thing bored its knife-like nails into the trunk of Ren’s tree and climbed.

She looked up, desperate to give herself more distance, but there was nowhere else to go—no way the next few branches could take her weight. The creature, with its gargantuan claws, didn’t need to balance on branches as Renata did. It only needed to slam his dagger-like talons into the trunk.

She shimmied herself to the edge of the branch, hoping it would hold and praying that there was another tree close enough to jump to.

Then she heard him. A low moan from below the tree.

“Ren. Please.”

A gurgle and an unmistakable choking sound.

That sound—it was so familiar to her. The music of death and suffering that Ren had heard so often that it was seared into her mind. The echo of words that would eventually turn garbled before…silence.

Ren turned, eyes burning with fury. She didn’t feel fear. Didn’t feel pain. Only the red-hot wrath tokill.

The creature was only a few feet away now, pulling itselfup by its talons, and as it reached Ren’s branch, she charged, leaping with her dagger clutched in one hand, the other used to grab onto the beast’s skull before thrusting the blade fully into its eye.

With a terrible shriek, it thrashed and roared as black pus streamed down its jaws. Ren felt herself slip. She reached up—and tried to grab the low-hanging branches, but her fingers, slick with blood, couldn’t clasp.

She fell.

Ren screamed, closed her eyes, and felt the air on her skin as she plummeted to what would surely be death. Release after the inevitable impact and crunching of bone.

Instead, she felt a jerk on her torso as pain shot through her open wound, and a fresh gush of blood dribbled down her stomach.

Fighting through the pain, she opened her eyes and saw that she was not falling but flying. Held by two arms that ended in nightmarish claws.

His face—his monstrous face. Hair flying, he was no longer stoic and regal. This creature was all Devil.

Azur.

He pulsed with power. Every emotion emanating off his body in a tornado of passionate fury.

And his wings. She had never seen anything so terrifying. Massive and black, ending in harsh points, accentuated with monstrous barbs.

When he landed, the entire forest rumbled.

He set her down gently, but she collapsed, unable to stand. He looked momentarily as if he would reach for her but decided better and pushed off the ground into the air.

The creature was still wailing in the tree, writhing in pain as it slowly slid to the ground.

When Azur reached it, he drove his two razor-sharp claws into its side so deep that they disappeared within its insides. In one quick jerk, he shredded the creature into pieces, and Ren had to cover her head as viscera rained down uponher.

---