Five years had passed since he battled the demon in the tunnel with Saxon and Declan, but he recalled the speed with which the creature moved. That creature had seemed to be everywhere at once, and though it was dead, he doubted its brethren were any slower or less aware.
This was a demon. The Alliance had no idea what they were up against when it came to these monsters. They didn’t know what they were truly capable of or what kind of power they possessed. The abilities of the vampires and hunters had come from them, and they were magnified in these creatures.
Yes, it was aware he was coming, even if it hadn’t looked at him yet.
He was almost to it when the demon turned toward him. Lifting his brother’s head, Lucien threw it at the creature. The monster moved so fast Lucien barely saw it before it caught the head and sent it flying back at him.
He didn’t feel the blow of the head hitting him in the chest as he went low and attempted to tackle the demon around its waist. However, one second it was there, and the next, it was darting away with the agility of a spirit dancing across the earth.
Lucien missed it, but his attack opened the way for Declan, Saber, and Willow to close in on the creature. They battled their way through more Savages while Lucien feigned a move to the left before going to the right.
The demon stalked his movement, and under normal circumstances, it probably would have caught him by now, but Callie’s blood and the power flooding his system gave him a strength the likes of which he’d never experienced before. It made him more volatile, yet it also propelled him forward so fast that the demon had difficulty getting out of the way again.
Then Declan broke free and charged at the creature from the other side. Distracted by Declan, the demon turned, and Lucien crashed into the beast. His impact threw it into Declan’s path. Declan hammered a fist into the side of the demon’s face.
The hood fell back to reveal a pale, ugly creature with eyes that burned more white than white blue now. Its ears were so close to its head they seemed not to exist. It was a little taller than the one they battled in the tunnels, but not as tall as the one Killean described encountering during his search for Simone.
Its features were humanish, but something about it reminded Lucien of a reptile. Perhaps it was the hooked, rattlesnake-like fangs protruding from its mouth. Whatever it was, this monstrosity was as hideous as the last one.
The demon staggered, and when it did, Lucien crashed into its back. Wrapping his arms around its waist, he lifted it and slammed it into the ground. He wanted to let his fists fly until it was nothing more than mush beneath his hands, but if they could take it alive, they might be able to learn something more about it and its brethren.
Even as he thought it, the demon backhanded him across the face. The blow split his cheek open, and blood flooded his mouth.
The demon punched him again, and this time, his nose cracked and gave way. It moved so fast Lucien could barely keep up with it, but he managed to dodge the next punch before delivering one to the demon’s face.
In return, one of its punches connected with his ribs, and one of them gave way with a crack. The broken rib shifted inside him, and the jagged edge of it pierced his flesh. As the demon was about to deliver another blow, a hand seized its fist and yanked it back, pulling it off him and smashing it into the ground.
An eerie, awful shrieking erupted from it. Lucien had heard the same sound in the tunnels when the one they battled there released a similar sound. Then, he believed it was alerting the others to its death. Now, he couldn’t help but speculate if it was calling for help.
Needing to silence it, Lucien hammered his fist into its face. The demon’s head shot back, and the tip of Willow’s sword thrust between them to rest against its throat. The demon ceased its struggles as it realized that so much as a centimeter in the wrong direction could end its life.
Its thin lips skimmed back, and its white eyes illuminated the night as it glowered at Willow. Hatred oozed from its pores, but it didn’t move.
Declan snarled at the look on the creature’s face and unleashed a series of blows that battered its revolting face before knocking it out. Though its head lulled to the side and its eyes closed, Lucien didn’t dare ease his weight off it. He didn’t trust it not to be faking, and he refused to lose it.
Lifting his head, he gazed at the bodies littering the ground as what remained of the Savages fled into the woods as the sun began to lighten the sky.
Chapter Forty-Four
The demon remained unconscious as they bound its hands and ankles. When they finished doing that, they tied those binds together with a rope and cinched its wrists and ankles behind its back, effectively hog-tying it.
When his hand brushed against the thing’s clammy cheek, Lucien’s skin crawled. Its smooth skin reminded him of the feel of a snake’s belly. Saber wanted to put a bag over its head, but Willow argued against it.
“We won’t know if it’s awake,” she said.
“It won’t let us know if it wakes up anyway,” Saber replied. “It could be faking now, and we wouldn’t know.”
They all leaned closer to inspect the unmoving monstrosity, but if it was awake, it was hiding it well. Lucien rocked back on his heels as he resisted the impulse to kick it. It was a monster, but he couldn’t kick a helpless prisoner no matter how badly it deserved it.
This thing was a big part of the reason why Callie was in the back of an SUV with Simone, fighting for her life. That reminder caused his hands to flex as the color seeping through his system pulsed and shifted.
He had so much pent-up anger he had to release, but the Savages who hadn’t fled were dead. All that remained was this creature, and Lucien couldn’t take his wrath out on it… yet.
“We might see something in a flicker of its eyelids or a flare of its nostrils,” Willow argued. “We might be able to figure out if it’s awake that way.”
They all studied it, but Lucien couldn’t tell if it was still breathing beneath its cloak, and he had no intention of stripping that from it. Looking at it with the cloak on was bad enough; he’d prefer not to see it naked.
“We need chains,” Killean said. “These ropes won’t be enough to keep it restrained when it wakes.”
“Once the sun rises and takes care of these bodies, we’ll stop at a hardware store,” Lucien said.
He gazed at the dead Savages spread out across the rest area before shifting his attention to the road. They weren’t next to a highway, but the road was busy enough to warrant a rest area. He hadn’t seen another car in a while, but the flow of traffic would probably increase as the day dawned.
“They were pretty daring to attack us here,” he said.
“They’ve been getting increasingly bold for a long time,” Declan said.
“When do you think they started following us?” Asher asked.
“Callie’s apartment,” Lucien answered. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. They didn’t just stumble across us. Someone”—his gaze traveled to the remains of his brother—“was waiting for us nearby. It was most likely Yannis.”
“What makes you say that?” Logan asked.
“Because, whether I like it or not, we were brothers. It’s been hundreds of years since we saw each other, but we know how the other thinks. He expected me to bring her back there, and he was waiting.”