Page 96 of Fated to Monsters

“You good?” I ask Wes.

He grips the collar on his neck. "Could do without this, if I'm being honest."

From the blood coating his handsome face, he has claimed many victims, and without that fucking device, there’s no telling how much more damage he could be inflicting. Parla was smart in launching that counterattack because if she hadn’t, we might actually have the upper hand for a change.

Wes skims his gaze over my feeble frame. “You need to go back, Wren. Before it’s too late.”

“You know damn well I’m not leaving, not without finishing what I came here to do.” If I go now, Parla will have won for good, and won’t stop until she eliminates the last of the demons on this battlefield. They will not die while I run back to safety in Arthlia with my tail between my legs.

“I can’t heal you.” Wes tugs at the magical device again. “Not while I still have this on.”

“I wouldn’t let you even if you could. You need to preserve your energy for battle.” I turn my back to him and wait for the next wave of hunters to attack.

“My energy”—he yells over the chaos erupting around us—“is pointless without you.”

The wendigo that was once our enemy runs full speed ahead toward us, carrying two smaller swords in his grasp, slicing through the bellies of hunters on his journey toward us.

“Not this guy,” Bo huffs.

“He’s on our side, remember?" I give the wendigo space to join us in our growing little kill circle.

“The numbers keep rising,” he shouts. “No matter how many we kill, they keep coming.”

I breathe in deeply and scan the vicinity. “We have to take out Parla or this will never stop. She must be cloning them or something. I don’t fucking know. But unless we get to her, we’re fighting a losing battle.”

Even if I were able to use my powers to break the compulsion, I don’t have enough strength to do it with an endless supply of grunts at her disposal.

“Or”—Bo chimes in—“we kill the witch that’s helping her.”

I think back to the old man that she was using to torture me at Rockbridge. He didn’t want to be used as a pawn, but he had no choice. I’m sure this new witch is in the same situation, too. If we kill them, who’s to say she doesn’t have another in her pocket to pull out as a replacement? How many witches must die before her arsenal runs dry?

Even if I wanted to retreat and save what’s left of Prania’s demonic population, I’m not capable of doing the spell to send them to Arthlia. The only reason I’m here is because of an astral projection spell that is performed by another, more powerful witch. The single path forward is the one where Parla’s head is on the end of my sword.

One of us has to die—that’s the only way this ends.

And as more hunters fill the gaps where their fallen have perished and surround the few of us that remain, I realize, this battle might finally be coming to an end once and for all.

21

Wes

There is no greater desire coursing through me than to heal Wren.

But I can’t.

Not with the device around my neck suppressing my powers.

She’s stubborn. Too stubborn. And refuses to return to the safety of Arthlia.

How can I blame her when her determination and her dedication to follow through is one of the things I love most about her?

Wren is fierce.

I knew it from the first moment I saw her.

My hound locked its sights on her, and from that day forward, my life has forever been changed.

If only my hound would show the fuck up and unleash itself on every single person that stands in the way of what my beloved wants most—to free Prania of its cruel leader.

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