Page 199 of The Demon's Pet

The other illusions disappeared, and Gabe reached into his tunic and pulled out a small bottle of water. He opened it, muttered something, and dumped it over himself.

Instantly, my fires burning on him went out. He glared at me—his outfit muddy from burns and my own blood, his head sporting a nasty bruise and some missing hair—and just smiled.

A nasty smile that creeped me out down to my toenails.

“You won’t kill me, will you?” He smirked, extending a hand as his illusions spread out again, blurring which one was him. “You don’t even have your sword.”

“What are you talking about?”

He cracked his head to the side, and I noticed his hair regrowing, the bruise already beginning to disappear. “I’m a god, Cleo. You aren’t going to kill me with fire or by kicking me.”

“Then how?”

“Like I would tell you that!” Then his illusions closed in on me, and while I couldn’t make out who was who, I felt something punch me hard, in the back of the head. Everything went black for a moment, and I pitched forward onto my hands and knees.

My entire head was ringing with pain, but I felt Gabe behind me, ready to thrust his sword, and forced myself to move out of the way.

As I rolled, his sword stabbed into the pavement, cutting into actual stone.

Holy shit.

I stumbled to my feet, feeling the flames on my skin rise as the healing inside me took effect once again, this time healing my brain.

Gabe moved back into his illusions, and they circled and moved around and through each other, utterly confusing me.

Come on, Cleo. There has to be a way to do this.

Then I realized. I didn’t just have my inner demon. I had something else, something I’d been born with.

My wolf.

Backing up from Gabe, keeping my eyes on his illusions, I took in a slow breath, trying not to make it obvious that I was scenting the air.

I assumed the illusions were only visual, not olfactory, so I closed my eyes just for a second to focus on Gabe’s smell. Smoky. Bloody. But also… spice. Pine.

My eyes opened, and I focused on the clone on the far right, aiming a fireball at it so fast it didn’t have time to move.

It erupted in flames, and the other clones disappeared. The holy water quickly doused the fires, but it had proven my point, and I launched toward Gabe, throwing my fist out in the hardest punch of my life, aimed straight at his nose.

His face caved in with a crunching sound, and he flew backward, rolling over the ground, covering his already tattered clothing with dust.

Still, he pushed himself up, his face quickly rearranging itself back into place, nose pushing back out to where it was, albeit somewhat crookedly.

He reached up and shoved it into place, his brown eyes flashing at me. “We finish this now, demon.”

He raised his sword and ran at me, no longer using clones, and, with his speed, reached me in a millisecond.

I dodged to the right, missing his sword, and managed to use my speed as he continued to swipe at me, but without my fire doing anything to him and without a sword and knowing he could heal any injury I gave… what could I even do?

I continued to dodge until I felt tired. On one long swing, I spun around, missing his sword, and managed to whirl and hit his face with a spinning hook from my back leg.

It made him stumble, but he was back immediately, slashing at me with his sword.

I sent more fire at him, but it was quickly extinguished by his still-soaked tunic and didn’t even slow him as he attacked.

I sent fireball after fireball as I dodged. Finally, I found an opening and kicked in his knee as hard as I could from a vulnerable angle. He went down, and I grabbed his sword from him, swinging it over my head to bring it down on him.

He was on one knee, glaring up at me, one hand above his head, and I swung the blade down at him.

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