Page 92 of Sweet Violence
X grunted, a deep sound of pain, and my breathing broke apart with panic, but I was rooted to the spot, unable to move even my little finger as power flooded up from my core and raced down that thread.
"Ha!" Joseph crowed, slicing viciously through the barrier and tumbling out the other side, swinging his scythe around in an impressive arc for balance.
Dry, gentle palms framed my face, and Arkan moved into my line of sight. There was a furrow of concern between his pale brows, and up close I realised there were so many signs of his fear I hadn't noticed before. Nothing was overt or obvious, but there was a dent in his lip where he'd bitten it when I hadn't been looking, his eyes were pinched at the edges, watery blue irises darker than usual, and the top two buttons of his shirt had torn open but he didn't seemed to have noticed.
"You won't always freeze in place," he said gently. "It's just the first few times."
He kissed a spot on the bridge of my nose and I gasped as my body remembered motor functions. "Alright?"
I nodded, swallowing the unpleasantness in my throat. It had gotten us out of that barrier; I was fine, I could move now. I shook off the residual itchiness of being frozen in place and grabbed Arkan for a fast, bruising kiss.
"You're one hell of a man, you know that?" I asked as we left the bubble of entrapping magic. "Thanks for coming to save us."
He blinked at the compliment. "Anytime, princess."
Clearing the hints of emotion from his face, he lifted his head and looked from Joseph to X. "Grab onto me. I'll take us to the fortress." He paused and glanced at me. "We should prepare ourselves for what sight may meet us there."
Or I could ignore that completely and let denial run wild across my mind.1
Instead of agreeing with Arkan, I curled my fingers around his arm, not sure why I had to be touching him.
"Close your eyes, princess. Open them when I squeeze your shoulder; you could be sick otherwise."
"Why?" I muttered, closing my eyes.
"We move fast through the shadows," he replied, and I jumped when the solid flesh arm turned to bones under my fingers. "Ready?"
"Yeah," I agreed uncertainly, echoed by the others.
We jerked forward before I could ask what moving through the shadows meant. I screwed my eyes firmly shut against the sensation of wind tearing past my shoulders, tugging out loose strands of my hair, ripping at my bloody clothes. There was no solid ground under my feet, but somehow I didn't fall, just kept rushing forward through the emptiness.
We really ought to have bumped into a chair or fallen over a coffee table; that was basic physics. But we passed through the world, as insubstantial as Arkan's shadows themselves.
When the sensation of howling wind ripped away suddenly, my feet slamming into stone, I didn't wait for Arkan's shoulder squeeze; I tore my eyes open and rapidly assessed the scene in front of us.
We were in the throne room at Dev's fortress. As if all Hell had decided on an interior décor theme, blood squelched under my boots and dripped from the walls, like it had back in the great hall, and bodies were discarded at random across the long room. Like they had been when Dev massacred his enemies to heal me, only this time the dead were the devil's guards.
A quick look showed me they speared each other on their swords, daggers, claws, and tusks, and my own warning about Eidolon's compulsion came back to me. Great. No help was coming from the guards, then.
Movement dragged my attention from the sea of corpses to the throne in time to see Dev step down from his throne in his enormous form, covered in black-plate leather, shaking from head to toe.
Eidolon stood before the throne, a fourth of Dev’s height, slimy and scaled and smug. I didn't have to see his face to know that last one; it was written all over his confident body language.
My blood ran colder than ice, my power slamming into its confines like a wave against a breaker, desperate to be unleashed to cause maximum damage.
"Fight me like a demon of honour," Dev growled, upper lip pulled back from his sharp teeth.
I held onto those teeth while I rode his tongue to orgasm. I shook the thought free, panic making me irrational.
I took a panicked step forward, but Arkan grabbed my upper arm and gripped tightly enough to bruise me, giving me a hard, commanding look.
We were still cocooned in his shadows, I realised. That was why Eidolon hadn't noticed us. Dev must have known I was here through our bond, but he didn't react. Or … he didn't sense us, either.
Where was Taj?
"Icouldfight fairly," Eidolon mused, his voice the exact one I was used to. I shuddered, memories battering me from all angles. "But you already have the advantage, so it's hardly fair. Why don't you fight me like a regular demon? I know you have a smaller form."
Where the fuck was my prince of Hell, goddammit?"
