Page 85 of Cast in Shadow
The relief that swarmed me was short-lived, however. Shay was on her own, which meant I needed to keep that goddamned demon’s attention on me.
“Hey!” I yelled, waving my arms. “Over here, asshole!”
I lumbered forward, pumping what magic I could into mylimbs to make them move faster, until the creature twisted around with a menacing snarl and hurled one of the metal firepits at me. I dove to the side, gritting my teeth against a fresh wave of pain. The thing missed me by inches, the heat coming off it searing into me as it streaked across the terrace and smashed into the half wall behind me, exploding in a shower of sparks and embers.
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” I taunted, my voice coming through confident and cocky despite the maelstrom of emotions whirling and whipping inside me.
I hauled myself up into a sprinter’s stance and shot forward as fast as my magic would carry me. Megan’s eyes narrowed a half-second before I slammed into her, and as we crashed to the unforgiving tile, I called on every ounce of power I had left and let it rip.
It wasn’t pure light, but it was enough to keep the demon down until I could hook an arm around its neck and start dragging it backward toward the rift.
“Senna!” Nguyen bellowed, pulling himself up out of the pool.
“Get Shay out of here!” I shouted back.
I was nearly to the edge when the demon inside Megan growled. It was the kind of sound that incited a primal fear no amount of logic or reason could temper. It tore through me just as something dark and feral launched an all-out assault on my mental walls. Clawing, digging, pounding, scraping.
The raw violence in the attack yanked me back in time to my first experience with a wild demon trying to break into my mind, and for a second, just one goddamned second, my hold on the monster faltered.
Megan’s body twisted out of my grip lightning quick. Those wiry arms wrapped around me. In the space of a breath, I was on the losing end of our grappling. I tried to call power fromthe ribbon to hit her with another pulse of energy, but it was weak at best.
Keeping the demon from getting inside my head and tearing my mind to shreds was taking too much of my focus.
The creature lifted me off my feet and slammed me into the tile.
More pain. More black spots dotted my vision. The tang of copper filled my mouth, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t drag enough air into my lungs.
Megan’s unnaturally strong hands pinned me down. Hot, fetid breath washed over me as she knelt, digging her knee into my ribcage. Fresh agony spidered out beneath her weight, making it nearly impossible to breathe. Or think.
And the ribbon? It wasn’t feeding me power anymore. It had pulled back, like it had to protect itself from the demon too.
Like it knew I was going to lose.
It was wrong.
My muscles screamed as I fought to break free, but the powerful demon inside Megan was relentless. It forced me down, magic clawing at my mental walls, scraping, digging. A sick parody of what I’d felt from Emerson a hundred times before.
Emerson.His name shot through my mind, not as a plea, but as a snarl.
I wasn’t finished. Not like this. Not when there was still a demon to kill. Still a daughter to protect. Still a man waiting for an answer I should have been brave enough to give him that morning.
For one blessed second, silence cocooned me.
Then, a bellowing, inhuman roar shattered it.
It wasn’t just in my mind. Megan’s head snapped up, her human teeth bared in a feral snarl before she was ripped off me.
I rolled to my side, gasping and gagging, fighting not tovomit. Sounds of a vicious battle surrounded me. Furniture was smashed to kindling. Grunts and growls permeated the night.
My first terrifying thought was that Nguyen had left Shay alone to shift and fight the demon on his own, but when my vision cleared, I saw him. He was locked in a struggle with Shay, holding her back as she fought to run to me. And beyond them, a whole different animal was in the fight now.
Emerson.
He was barefoot and dressed in nothing but a pair of worn blue jeans. Just like he’d been last night. Like he’d been waiting for me. And he’d stepped straight from that moment into one of my worst nightmares.
I blinked a few times in disbelief. Was it really him or was I actually unconscious and having some vivid hallucination?
I dragged myself up, the countless points of pain blossoming with every inch of movement. Yeah, I was definitely awake, but the mental clawing was gone, and Emerson really was there, with a familiar, threatening red glow in his eyes.
