A valkyrie seized Cal from behind, her golden talons pressing into his throat and spilling blood down his black armour.
Keras stepped with a growl that echoed through the brief flare of darkness around him and summoned his shadows, pulling them from that darkness. He blasted out of the teleport close to the valkyrie, the shadows that had been rising up behind him shooting past him as his boots hit the black basalt.
They tore into the valkyrie, their hunger echoing inside Keras as they swarmed around her, lashing and cutting her, feeding on her panic.
He didn’t have to know what her charm was if his shadows ripped at everything she wore. Eventually they would find it and break it, and then they would break her.
Keras swiftly blocked the fist of one of the two daemon’s as it flew at his face, grabbed it with his other hand and twisted, slamming the male onto his back on the black ground. He dropped hard, landing with his knee on the demonic male’s throat, and punched him. Once. Twice. A third time. Glyphs shimmered over his skin each time, but the percussion caused by his rapid hits was enough to cause some damage. Blood burst from the male’s lips, the smell of the fetid black liquid rousing rage in Keras’s veins.
Rage that demanded he surrender to it and destroy everyone present for daring to enter his father’s realm.
Sullying it with their presence.
Rage that demanded he deal with the traitors by gutting them, using the entrails from one to strangle the next, a fitting punishment for what they had done.
Enyo’s bright silver blade cut up the back of the second daemon and his furious bellow as she caught his wings satisfied the rage building inside Keras, bringing it back down to a more manageable level. He fought to suppress it further as he raked talons over the throat of the daemon he had pinned beneath him, but it spiked again as glyphs appeared in a wave over the daemon’s skin.
The protection spells needed to go.
“Cassandra!” Keras bellowed.
Daimon appeared with her a few seconds later, his brother swift to spin her away from him when the daemon Enyo had been fighting made a lunge for her. Daimon took the blow, staggered backwards as the male’s fist slammed into his chest.
Ice spikes erupted from the ground between them.
Shattered as they struck the male’s skin rather than piercing it.
“Damn it,” Daimon muttered. “We really need to do something about these bastards. Baby?”
“Working on it.” Cass sounded strained.
Keras looked up at her where she stood over the daemon, her hands moving slowly and rhythmically between her and the daemon who looked up at her too, his crimson eyes growing wider by the second. Ribbons of colourful light formed between her fingertips and the daemon’s chest, danced in the air, undulating and twisting, growing brighter as Cass’s eyes fell shut and she wavered on her feet.
Enyo barrelled into the daemon that Daimon had been fighting, taking him off his brother’s hands just as Cass’s legs gave out.
Daimon caught her and held her up, his black armour blending with her leathers and corset, and the tumbling waves of her hair as she leaned her head back against his chest. “You good?”
She nodded and swallowed, some of her colour returning as Daimon held her. “I know the spell. I did not cast it, so I cannot reverse it. Piecing together a counter-spell for it now.”
Beneath Keras’s knee, the daemon struggled, his desperate actions jostling Keras as he tried to keep him pinned. It seemed he didn’t want to lose the spell that was protecting him.
Enyo and the other daemon danced back into view, her blade glancing off his skin as the male blocked her with his bare arms. Glyphs shone wherever she struck, her face a picture of growing determination as she narrowed her jade eyes on the male and hit harder, putting all of her strength behind her next blow.
A wave of dazzling crimson and aqua light burst outwards from Cass.
Enyo’s sword cleaved right through the arm of the daemon as the spell passed through him and sliced at a diagonal into his chest, from his shoulder to his heart.
The huge demonic male looked down, his scarlet eyes wide, shock washing across his rough features.
He lifted his one remaining hand.
Didn’t make it as far as touching the wound.
He fell to his knees and crumpled, the action yanking Enyo forwards as her sword went with him.
Keras stared at the dead male.
Cassandra’s counter-spell hadn’t only made the daemon beneath him vulnerable as Keras had expected. It had made all of the furie’s bodyguards vulnerable.
He didn’t take his eyes off the dead daemon as his shadows tore through the one beneath him.
The valkyrie his shadows had been attacking suddenly screamed and then went silent. He looked over his shoulder at her as his shadows flowed away from her, tendrils of them snaking across the ground and seeking their next victim.
Two daemons and one valkyrie down.
They could do this.
He looked up at Enyo.
Roared as a thin rope of silver wrapped around her neck and she shot backwards. The horde of males and females who were on the enemy’s side swallowed her, stealing her from view, tearing another feral bellow from him as his darker side surged to the fore.
Snarled at him to find her.
Protect her.
Because Nemesis had her.
He barely spared a glance at Cal, looked at him for just long enough to see that he was fine and that Daimon and Cass had joined him, together with Esher.
Keras kicked off and teleported, growled as he landed in the middle of the enemy forces, the darkness inside him building faster as a muffled grunt reached his ears.
Enyo.
Lightning struck around him as he tore through the Hellspawn between him and her, lashing at them with his talons and his shadows. The white-purple bolts hit hard and fast in a line, and Keras silently thanked Valen for helping him as they cleared him a path.
A pained grunt burst from his lips as a valkyrie slammed into his right side, knocking him into a group of males and taking him down. They leaped on him and he curled up, defending himself as best he could with his shadows and his armour, deflecting blows from both blades and fists.
The darkness surged deeper this time, seemed to sink into his veins, down into his bones, and black needs filled him, spun around his mind in a twisted pleasing spiral that had him falling deeper into the abyss.
“Keras!” Marek bellowed.
Around him, shards of black earth shot up, ripping pained screams from both the Hellspawn males and the valkyrie.
Keras was quick to launch to his feet again, made a mental note to thank his brother later as he threw his hand forward and sliced through the wall of earth that protected him with his shadows, cleaving a great hole in it.
And the enemy on the other side.
Several of the males went down.
He stepped through the hole and scanned the battlefield, seeking Enyo.
Marek and Caterina fought nearby, tackling the valkyrie who had attacked Keras, taking her and her small group of males on with blades and spears of earth.
Keras looked left.
Snarled as he caught a glimpse of scarlet.
Nemesis.
A flash of silver followed, together with a battle cry that roused his blood, had his heart pumping harder as adrenaline surged.
Enyo.
He tried to step to her and growled when his head turned, warning him that teleporting would be a mistake. He couldn’t afford to pass out on the battlefield. He would have to reach her through other means.