Page 399 of Hunters and Prey

They lit up, their screams cut off too quick, and then they crumbled to ash. But there were more guards using the rocks as a shield against the flames. Vesper expelled more fire, moving round to catch them in the flare, but another burst of electricity hit him, taking him down. He couldn’t take much more of this. We couldn’t win this.

Despair clawed at my chest. Survive at all costs, Dad had said. But there was no way I was running and leaving Vesper to be captured. Jezebel in hand, I charged the remaining guards. I’d fight. I’d keep them at bay to give Vesper time to recover. I wouldn’t fall. But my muscles were tired, my body weak from exertion. A missed blow here, a slice to my flesh there, and they were gaining the upper hand. I tripped and hit the ground, jarring my knee. They closed in on me, weapons at the ready.

To my left, Vesper roared, sending a jet of flames toward the guards. The ground a few meters away lit up in a fury of inferno. He’d missed the guards and succeeded only in creating a wall of fire between him and me. We were cut off from each other by a barrier of his making. His struggle to shake off the effects of the electric charge was painful to watch through the wall of blue flame. Time. He needed time, and it was something we didn’t have.

Hope gasped for breath. I rolled to evade the butt of a gun, and my hip scraped against something hard and round.

The gem dad had left for me. If you find yourself in mortal danger, then break the gem. I slipped it from my pocket and smashed it against the ground. What was I expecting? Explosions? Pretty lights? Something, dammit. The sounds of guns being cocked filled the air.

It was over.

And then the air before me shimmered, and the guards froze and dropped their weapons. They clutched at their heads, their throats, and their abdomens. It was coming, whatever Dad had left for me in that stone was coming, and it was fucking huge—a dark shape that stood seven feet tall. Its back was to me, its massive shoulders knotted with muscle, and it had thick thighs, powerful calves, and ankles fringed in fur that spilled over ... hooves? Were those hooves? He took form and my mind went into spasm, because everything about him, down to the talon-tipped fingers, was ringing alarm bells and shaking the dark recesses of my memory.

The guards convulsed and fell to the ground, nothing but skin stretched over bone. Because he’d taken their essence, their very souls, because it was the only way for him to manifest, the only way for him to have form of his own, and I knew this ... how did I know this? A voice echoed in my head with the memory of words spoken to me a long time ago.

“I’m not your savior. I’m not your guardian. If you want to eat, you need to hunt.”

A name hovered on the tip of my tongue. A long-forgotten name that rushed to the surface and exploded from my lips like a desperate prayer. “Azazel ...” Memories flooded me, rising up from the darkness into the light. Memories of a boy made of shadow, a boy who had borne my pain and taught me how to survive. A boy who I’d abandoned, believing him to be nothing but a dream, but he was here, and he was a boy no longer. “Azazel. Oh, God.”

He turned his horned head and fixed his burning ember eyes on me. “Get up, Anya. We do not fall. We fight, remember?”

His words filled my aching limbs with renewed strength. I pulled myself up, using Jezebel as a crutch, pulse hammering in my throat, heart battering against my ribcage.

He gripped my arm with his huge hand, retracting his talons to avoid cutting me. His calloused fingers were familiar on my skin, and his scent was home. But he was bigger, older, a man now. Something deep inside twisted and clicked like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle. He was here, he was real, and I was no longer alone.

He pulled me toward him, leaning in to speak urgently. “Go with the Dreki. It is no longer safe for you in the Outlands. More will come for you.”

I nodded and bit back the questions, because if Azazel had taught me anything, it was that there was a time for action and a time for questions. He was here. He’d always been here, in the eyes of the dead animals, in the whispers in my dreams, and from the intense look in his brimstone eyes, he wasn’t going anywhere.

The flames behind us began to ebb and die.

Azazel released me and stepped back. “Go. Now.”

The command in his voice snapped me into action. Without questioning, I turned and ran toward the lowering wall of flames. Vesper rose up over the wall, his dragon talons reaching for me. I leapt and grabbed on, and we were airborne, leaving the carnage of the Vorn behind us. But not Azazel. Never again would I leave him behind, because he was the wind at my back, the voice in my head, and the fire in my blood. With him by my side, no Draco would stand between me and my goal.

Orion would get the book, and when he did, my blade would finally taste Royce’s blood.

To be continued...

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