Page 56 of The Princesses of Ruin
The duskwalker leans around Alastair’s flexed wing and I catch a glimpse of one of his glowing eyes. “Only the weak will perish. Her strong and chosen will go on. Join me and survive her apocalypse.”
Alastair roars as red magic surges through his blood, lighting up his blackened scales and making him glow from within. “You will not have my wife.”
The fire evaporates, throwing us into darkness.
“Then you leave me no choice.”
Chapter twenty-one
Alastair
The beast disappears in the shadows, but my demon senses him moving through the cave. He’s trying to get behind me, to snatch Lily.
Mine.
I whirl around, grabbing Lily with my tail and pushing her with my wings until she’s safe behind me once more. The duskwalker growls a low click and the air moves in front of me. I take a step back but not fast enough. There’s a spark of light as its dagger-like claw drags across my plated chest. My scales split from the impact and pain worms into my ribs.
“Alastair!” Lily’s sweet voice only drives me harder.
I lurch forward, swiping at the invisible creature but finding only air. How does this monster do it? I can sense him there, my demonknowshe’s there, but then he’s gone—disappeared into the darkness.
“Hold onto me,” I say to Lily.
She grabs onto my shoulders and hugs my sides with her knees. I must get us out of this cave. It was designed to be the duskwalker’s death, but without our traps, it will soon become ours.
“You would condemn her to death with you?” the monster hisses in my ear.
I roar, flapping my wings and pushing us away from camp. The rocks scrape my leathery wings and the pain is fleeting but a reminder of the creature’s words. He wants Lily, and in return for her, he’ll give us what we need. Denying him could be my death, and her capture, with no salvation for the world.
Am I willing to risk the world for my jealousy, for craving my wife?
Rage ripples through me and I toss my head. The beast is affecting me somehow. His words drip like honey into my mind and coat the truth in his lies.
There is no world I want to live in where my wife is a captive to a horror like the duskwalker. There is no future where I would surrender her in exchange for the world’s salvation.
They can all fucking burn.
I grit my teeth and push into the storm. Icy wind batters me to the side, but my wings catch the updraft, and we soar over the arctic sea.
There’s a tug at my back and Lily screams. I roll, holding her hands at my neck while swiping with my claws through the open air.
Except it’s not air. The snow parts around the whispered shape of the duskwalker, revealing a black-feathered wingspan twice that of mine. My talons connect with the monster’s face. I shiver at the scrape of my nails on the bones protecting its skull, but I dig in deeper, creating a furrow down its snout. The duskwalker shrieks like a crow and whirls to the side.
“We’re falling!” Lily screams.
I turn my attention to the icy ground rushing up toward us and flex my wings. We pull out of the dive and I right her on my back.
“Unlock my wings!”
Her words spear me with terror. If I let her separate from me, he could take her.
“No!”
I sense the duskwalker’s approach and roll out of the way. He shoots past us like a massive arrow, then unfurls his wings and pulls up, approaching from underneath. I’m turned at an angle and Lily is exposed. The duskwalker reaches out with his long, muscular arms, claws glistening with blood.
I growl, delayed pain smashing through my leg.
Lily hugs my hips with her thighs and pulls her wrists from my hand. Her green magic explodes in a shield around us and the duskwalker crumples against it. The beast backflips off the magic and pushes away from us, disappearing into the torrent of snow.
