Page 17 of Dark & Dreadful Brutes

He had to be a demon.

There were a few kinds of demons, and dragons were known as demons even though they technically didn’t meet the qualifications, but—

He slammed the butt of his sword into the wall of my ice shelter.

Cracks ran through the ice from the first hit—and when his sword hit it again, it shattered.

I screamed as ice shards rained around me. My fire ignited, melting them before they could crash into me.

The demon pulled away from my flames, snarling something to another one of the raiders.

Another man jogged toward me, and I rose on shaky legs.

I needed to run.

The demon stepped in front of me as I threw a foot over the edge of the shelter.

“You come with us,” he said, eyes gleaming viciously.

I knew I should’ve run toward him—he was afraid of my fire, because not all demons were fireproof—but I couldn’t.

I just couldn’t.

I shrunk backward as the other man reached me.

The pain in my arm increased exponentially, and my knees knocked together. I screamed and crashed to the ground, landing back inside the remains of the shelter, still burning.

“She’ll be useful in the forges,” a gravelly male voice said, as the skin of the man in front of me transformed to thick, gray stone.

Gargoyle.

He was a gargoyle.

Veil, all they needed was a sea dragon and an angel, and they’d have a whole damn party.

The man with the stone skin plucked me off the ground and threw me over his shoulder. It reminded me of the way Ravv had carried me out of the city, but it hurt much more.

Ravv must’ve been gentler than I realized.

The gargoyle hauled me away from the ice shelter, and I saw a snarling, fighting Gleam.

Though a dozen corpses surrounded her, some kind of magical bindings were around her neck and legs—and there were so many men and women holding those bindings that I didn’t think she stood a chance at escaping.

My screams died down as I was carried toward a massive cage on top of a cart.

Veil, were they going to cage me?

Some traumatized, terrified part of me shrunk further at the reminder of how helpless I’d been for so much of my life.

And now, I was right back to where I’d started.

I tried again to find my connection to Ravv—but the pain in my arm grew too intense, and I cried out for a moment before I lost consciousness, unable to fight the fear and pain any longer.

Chapter 5

Ravv

I gritted my teeth against the stabbing in my palm as I tucked the food, clothing, and other supplies for my female into my bag.

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