She looked up at the blurry image of Ely kneeling in front of her, her dark eyes wet with tears. “H-he left me behind,” she hiccupped. “We were one, and h-he left me behind. What’s the point in soul joining, when he left me behind with all this grief?”
“I don’t know why he did that. Maybe he didn’t want you leaving your brother alone?”
When her heart was shattering, anguish embedding every inch of her, she wasn’t thinking of the living. She simply shook her head.
“C’mon, let’s go home,” Ely coaxed.
“Nik was my home.”
“It’s dangerous out here, Shadow.”
“I’m not leaving until I find the bastard.” Her fingers tightened on her obsidian dagger, her glowing skin back to its pale coloring. She reached for her cell in her jeans pocket, but it wasn’t there. “Can I borrow your phone,” she asked Ely, then shook her head. If she spoke to her brother now, he would demand to join her. She didn’t want him in the hellscum’s sight. “Tell Liam, I’m…I’m…I’ll see him when I’m done.” Killing the bastard.
After a second, Ely nodded. “All right.”
Shadow rubbed her burning eyes. “You should leave. That demon has a weapon that can kill immortals.”
“No—”
“He won’t kill me.” Her expression hardened. “He wants me for my powers. The puny human he thinks he can control.”
“Shadow, that’s not what I saw. You half-morphed. You have wings.”
Shadow blinked in bewilderment. Then she remembered the weights on her back. “Oh…” She shrugged. “Some demons have them. It must be because of their blood in me.”
Ely’s eyebrows pulled down in puzzlement. “I admit I haven’t seen many kinds of demons, and none with wings, but yours are beautiful. The way they shimmer. And I’m not leaving you alone.”
Shadow inhaled a shuddering breath, cast Ely a dull look, then lowered her gaze back to her bloodied hands and squeezed her eyes shut. Her head hurt. Her heart had fractured into so many pieces, she doubted it would ever heal.
How do I go on without you, Nik?
I’m broken.
Chapter 31
The days passed with no sign of the bastard scum, Mammon. Everything remained in a haze for Shadow. Only vengeance drove her as she and Ely tramped through the underground tunnels, looking for something, anything that signaled a gateway to his lair.
It was all she could focus on. The hunt.
Or else she would disappear in a puddle of tears, drowning in her grief for her dead mate.
The Guardians showed up every day, checking on her, even at night. But no one tried to force her to return to the castle, either. Only Ely stayed with her twenty-four seven.
Shadow rubbed her damp palms down her threadbare jeans hanging low on her hips. She’d found her old clothes and scuffed boots stashed where she’d left them for emergencies—in a plastic bag in the ceiling of the dingy washroom.
She hunched her shoulders, the damp getting to her, and her symbionts were throbbing again.
“You haven’t eaten anything since yesterday,” Ely said from her side. “I’ll go get food. I won’t be long.”
She remained silent. Ely had brought her food she had no interest in, not when revenge was in every breath she took.
With a soft sigh, Ely dematerialized.
Shadow reached for her obsidian blade in her boots, palming the dagger, seeking its solidness and the retribution it would deliver. She continued trudging the putrid smelling tunnels.
Moments later, she slowed, the plinking of dripping water echoing in the stillness. An icy sensation crawled down her spine. Shadow narrowed her eyes. At the utter malevolence and dark power enclosing her—the stench of sulfur so strong—she coughed to clear her throat. She stumbled back, the air in front agitating, and an enormous smoky shape took corporeal form, the demon’s head almost touching the underground ceiling.
The familiar smell of moldy spice and bile-churning sulfur warned her who it was even in his demonic form. Sporting leathery skin darker than night with horns curled back from his bald head and ears excavated into the side of his skull, the terrifying demon trotted closer on cloven hooves.
Was that meant to terrify her into submission?
Shadow didn’t move.
Anemic yellow eyes fixed on her with avarice. In a blink, the demon she hunted resumed his pale skin and red-head humanoid form, the deadly black-edged silver sword in hand. An enormous hellhound prowled at his side.
She cut Pithius a cold look. The creature growled, baring its fangs.
“You’ve met my newest pet?” Mammon stroked the beast’s flank. “I can’t have a creature like him tied to you. Strange, considering these mindless things never form attachments. Come, my beauty, let us leave this infernal place.”
When Shadow said nothing, he drawled, “Don’t worry, you’ll forget him once you’re gone from here.”
“You stabbed him in the back!”
He shrugged. “When I found out the worse threat wasn’t the slippery, half-breed sitecore I hunted for the last five years who stole my symbionts, but a Guardian of this realm who’d actually mated you? Well, I couldn’t have that. He had to die.” He lifted the deadly sword as if to remind her exactly what that weapon was. “Now let’s go.”
Rage buzzing in her skull, Shadow slowly crossed to the murdering bastard. He reached for her. Snarling like a wild animal, she leaped up and plunged her dagger into his chest.
With an ear-splitting roar, Mammon reared back, eyes gone completely black. “You need to be taught a lesson for stabbing me in the first fight, which still hasn’t healed, and now this.” Red flames flared in his eyes as he muttered several strange words in an eerie, chilling tone, like some dark chant.
The hellhound leaped forward.
Shadow stumbled back.
“Pithius, veni!” she yelled, hoping Pithius would come to her, instead of attacking.
Its huge body sailed through the air, slamming into her, knocking the breath out of her, and taking her down. Ribs cracked, punching her in the lungs. The hellhound’s mouthful of razor-sharp fangs clamped down on her shoulder. Impossible agony streaked through her like fire.
Mammon thin lips curled, pallid eyes blazing. “Never fight me, human. You won’t succeed.”
No, dammit! Teeth gritted, her chest screaming with pain, Shadow flung out her other hand, hitting the hellhound on the side of its massive chest, struggling to push the creature off her. Her symbionts latched on.
A jolt of sheer malevolence swept through her like she’d been tasered in the soul. She cried out as the beast’s fangs sank deeper, anguish stealing her voice. Her fingers clenched the hound’s pelt. Her breath rattled in her throat, a coppery taste flooding her mouth. Another snarl ricocheted as oblivion hovered.
“Maybe you’ll think twice before your next move, human,” Mammon snapped. “Bring her.”
Shadow shut her eyes. She might as well die at the hellhound’s jaw instead of becoming a toy for the bastard demon to use. At least death would come fast. But despair took hold that she couldn’t avenge her dead mate.
I’m so sorry, my love. I tried to avenge you…