Page 15 of A Monstrous Claim, Part 2

“She’s not okay,” Azarius says. “I don’t know if she’ll make it to the border.”

The concerned look in his eyes growing, Elio steps up swiftly and bends to sweep me off my feet, scooping me into our familiar bridal carry.

“Hold on, Princess,” he says, his wings bursting out of his back and shredding his shirt in half. They’re so wide they nearly touch the buildings on either side of the street.

However, despite his warning, he doesn’t give me a second to hold on to anything. He just launches us into the air with a massive beat of his wings and we leave the city of Havec below us.

ChapterSeven

DEVYN

If anything I expect the rush into the air to make my panic attack worse. I expect to be hyperventilating in Elio’s arms before we’ve even left the city, but the opposite happens. I squeeze my eyes closed and I’m able to breathe a little easier. The coolness of the wind is a relief to my scorching cheeks, and Elio’s arms around me are comforting.

After a few minutes, I’ve settled into a tolerable calmness and I do my best to keep my mind from wandering back to the scene we just escaped. If I can keep myself distracted, maybe I can make it back to the mansion without panicking again.

Maybe.

I also expect us to land outside the city to reconvene with Azarius, but we do no such thing. Elio flies straight away from Havec, putting as much distance between us and the monster city as possible.

“What about Az?” I dare to ask after several minutes in the air.

“He knows the way home,” Elio says shortly. I pry open an eye to look up at him and find him staring intently ahead, his mouth hardened into a firm line.

I’ve been so preoccupied with my own feelings that I haven’t stopped to consider how troubling this must be for him. Ignatius has been his friend for years. He’s the one that should be distraught, not me, but here I am letting my emotions make a fool of me.

Some mate I am.

“Elio, I’m so sorry,” I say, not knowing where to start. “For everything. I’m sorry about Ignatius. I’m sorry I freaked out. I just–”

“Don’t.” He cuts me off. “Don’t apologize. None of this is your fault and you can’t control fear, Devyn. If anything, I should be sorry. We should have turned around when we saw the outside of the house. Going in was too much. I shouldn’t have...”

He stops talking and we fly in silence for a long moment.

“You care about him,” I finally say. “I would have done the same thing for any of my friends.”

He nods, but doesn’t say anything, and I wonder if I should drop the issue. Elio is strong and reserved most of the time, but his feelings run deep. I don’t want to upset him or piss him off by prodding when he doesn’t want to be bothered.

“Azarius was right, you know,” I say gently, just loud enough for him to hear over the rush of wind. “Ignatius is a powerful warlock. He’s smart. There’s a good chance he’s fine and just hiding out until things calm down.”

He forces a smile, which I’m sure is for my benefit, and nods again. “Perhaps. These are dangerous times. No one, especially a warlock, can afford to let their guard down right now. Surely he had an escape plan in place.”

“I bet he did,” I say, running a comforting hand over Elio’s fingers on my thigh. “We’ll find him. I have a good feeling about it.”

While that’s not exactly true, a feeling deep in my bones tells me the warlock isn’t dead. I don’t know how I know, or whether it’s just intense hope starting to feel like intuition, but I know he’s out there somewhere. For now.

“I’ll take you word for it–” Elio’s words cut off abruptly, and he flaps his wings aggressively to stop our forward movement, instead beating them slow and steady to keep us hovering in one place. I stare up at him worriedly, watching a mix of emotions shift over his features. Sadness becomes anger which changes to fear as he stares into the distance. “Holy fuck.”

An icy chill creeps up my back as I follow his gaze out toward the horizon, and my jaw drops when I see an enormous swarm of bodies huddled together in the distance. There must be thousands of them clustered together, and they’re slowly moving as a unit. Even from this height, I know exactly what they are.

Malevs.

“I’ve never seen so many together at once,” Elio says, staring in disbelief, his jaw falling slack. “And it looks like they’re moving toward us. They might be headed for Havec, or they might turn and go West.”

My heart leaps painfully as I think of Azarius on the ground. He’s headed straight toward them.

“We have to tell Az,” I say, craning my neck around to stare in the direction we came from. There’s no sign of his pale form dashing across the open stretch of land below, which only makes my stomach sink lower. “He’ll run right into them, Elio. We have to go back.”

“We can't do that. I promise he’ll be fine,” he assures me. “But there’s a good chance they’ve already seen us. We’re going to have to go around.Wayaround.”

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