I didn’t want her to be like any of the others I’d been with, not my Wren, but I didn’t know how to convince her that she could trust me. Though she would never admit it, the vicious sides of humans and demons frightened her. This woman who had tried to kill Kobal, followed us back to the wall, and remorselessly broken my nose was far more vulnerable than I’d ever realized.
She couldn’t deny the attraction between us. Actually, she could and often did deny it, but deep down she knew the truth, even if she would never admit it. However, she didn’t need someone flirting with her; she needed someone to hold her and assure her that the atrocious things she’d witnessed over her lifetime wouldn’t happen to her. Wren’s biggest nightmare was my kind and all the things they could do. Her abrasive, self-assured demeanor had hidden her insecurity from me, until now.
Releasing her, I leapt up and landed three feet away from her. She lay on the ground, blinking at the sky before rolling to her side and rising. Her eyes were wary when they met mine, but she braced her legs apart in preparation of fighting again.
“You will never have to fear me, Wren,” I promised her. “I will never harm you. I desire you, I will not deny it, but I’ll never push you into something you’re not ready for.”
“Since the day we met, all you’ve done is push me!” she retorted.
“And for that, I am sorry.”
She gawked at me before clamping her lips together and giving me a sideways glance as she edged toward her knife. “What is your game now, demon?”
My teeth ground together as she called me demon in that disgusted way she had of spitting the word out. “No game,” I assured her. “Reclaim your knife, Wren. I will not take it from you again.”
She hesitated before striding over to pick up her blade. She never took her eyes off me as she slid the knife into its holster. “Lead the way,” I told her and wiped the dried blood away from my upper lip. My nose had already set back into place, but it still throbbed.
She glanced at the flakes of blood on my hand. “I don’t want you behind me.”
“It was a good blow,” I told her, “but my nose is healing, and I don’t hold grudges.”
She rested her hand on her knife. “So you say.”
I couldn’t help but smile at her. “So I say. I will walk beside you if you prefer.”
“In front of me.”
I didn’t say a word as I walked past her and into the woods. I didn’t look back, but I heard the crunch of footsteps as she fell in behind me. My senses remained focused on her, the increased beat of her heart and scent. I offered no threat to her right now, yet her trepidation didn’t ease. Eventually, she would learn to trust me.
Chapter Twenty
Wren
I’d been determined to kill Corson earlier, but the harder I tried not to look, the more I found my gaze running over his lithe body. The pants he wore hugged his firm ass as he walked with his shoulders back. He didn’t speak, didn’t ask me if I enjoyed my view in some sarcastic way. I did enjoy the view, but I’d never admit it to him.
I didn’t know what had come over me earlier. Corson unsettled me; he brought out the better-forgotten memories of what had happened to some of my fellow Wilders. He stoked fears I didn’t know I had. I’d seen demons rape and kill men and women before, but in my heart, I knew Corson wouldn’t do that to me. I felt he would keep me safe no matter what.
So why had I said that to him? If I felt so safe with him, then why would I ask him if he was going to rape me? I bit my lip as I pondered this question and tried to figure out the answer.
Because he scares me more than the demons who rape and kill, I realized. I knew what those demons were after, but with Corson, I had no idea what he wanted from me, and my convoluted feelings for him petrified me. Sex was one thing, but when it came to Corson, there would also be feelings involved, my feelings.
I couldn’t stand to have my heart stomped on, and I didn’t know how to tell him that.
Didn’t know how to tell him that the memories I’d worked hard to bury for so long were spilling forth all the time now and at a more rapid rate. Each new memory left me feeling as if it had stripped my skin away to expose my raw nerve endings. I couldn’t try to figure out what Corson wanted from me, or defend myself against him when I couldn’t stop the flow of anguish cascading through me.
The scent of my mother’s perfume had returned to me in the tunnel. The lavender aroma of it had been so intense that for ten steps it had been more real to me than the mineral odor of the rocks. I’d nearly been driven to my knees when I recalled the way my father slapped his knee when he released a good belly laugh. Tears had burned my eyes when I remembered how I would often find them embracing each other as they danced in the kitchen.
There had been so much I’d succeeded in forgetting, but now it was all pouring forth like lava from a volcano. No matter how I tried to shut them down, the memories kept coming until I felt as battered as a ship in a hurricane.
There’s nothing left of me to give.
Forcing my eyes away from Corson, I searched the woods around us and tuned all my senses to our surroundings. Over the years, I’d learned how to detect the subtle differences in separate areas of the Wilds. Unlike at the wall, and from what others had told me of the towns beyond it, the wild animals here weren’t so brazen in their movements. Like the people who lived in the Wilds, the animals had become more cautious.
At the wall, the squirrels running through the trees and the singing of the birds had been much louder. The birds, squirrels, foxes, deer, and numerous other animals in the Wilds were far more subdued than they’d been when I was a child.
I’d barely noticed their actions as a kid. Unless it was something exceptionally cute, they were the background noise and sights of my life. Then the gateway opened, and I didn’t see a bird again for almost a week.
After a while, they’d started re-emerging and singing once more, but it was never the same. As if they somehow sensed the melancholy hanging over the wilds, a sad hesitance had found its way into their songs.
“Where are we going?” Corson asked, pulling my mind away from the animals.
“There’s a town a few miles ahead. If we keep following the sun, we’ll be there soon.”
To my right, a squirrel ran halfway down the trunk of an oak tree and froze. At first, I assumed our presence had caused it to hesitate, but its head turned toward the woods ahead of us. Its nose twitched, and its black eyes bulged as it lifted its tail over its back and gave it a shake. Soundlessly, the squirrel spun and fled up the tree.
My hand shot out. Gripping Corson’s arm, I pulled him to a stop. He glanced at my hand before his eyes met mine. His eyebrows drew tightly together over the bridge of his nose as I placed a finger against my lips. Releasing his arm, my hand slid to my knife and I pulled it free.
Then, to my left, a stick cracked and a footstep sank into the leaves. Corson’s head shot in that direction. He stepped forward to stand slightly before me as a lower-level demon emerged from the shadows of the trees.
The demon resembled what some had imagined the devil to look like. He had two, foot-long black horns curving toward the center of his head, a broad chest, red skin, and the legs of a goat. The penis hanging between his legs was impossible to miss and would have made a horse jealous. Its cloven hooves dented the ground when it stepped closer.
“Corson,” it greeted in a guttural voice slurred by his snake nostrils and lack of lips.
“I’m at a disadvantage here,” Corson said with a smile that would have made any sane living thing tuck tail and run. The demon didn’t move. “You know my name, but I have no idea who you are. However, I have to admit I don’t care what it is, and you probably won’t live long enough to tell me.”
The demon’s yellow eyes narrowed on him before sliding to me. My hand tightened on Corson’s arm when a forked tongue slid out to lick over the demon’s grotesque face. “Lovely,” he hissed.
Corson
> My talons slid free as the lower-level demon’s gaze raked Wren from head to toe again. I watched his eyes as I determined to tear those out of his head first for looking at her in that way. I knew exactly what he would do to her if he got the chance, and for that, I would make him pay. If Wren wasn’t with me, I would have been on him by now, but I couldn’t take the risk of him somehow getting by me to her.
Wren’s head tilted to the side as she mimicked the lower-level demon’s perusal of her. “And you’re an ugly…” her voice trailed off when her eyes landed pointedly on his cock, “bitch, I’m guessing.”
I couldn’t stop myself from smiling at her as the demon stomped one of his cloven hooves. I knew well how Wren could bait someone into action. She knew exactly how to get this demon to react with reckless abandon.
“When I shove it in you, you’ll know,” he snarled.
“Shove what in me, honey?” Wren taunted.
The lower-level grabbed himself and wagged his dick in the air. “This,” he declared as if it could be missed.
“Oh, that little thing, I’ve seen bigger dipsticks on the wild dogs roaming through here,” Wren replied with a dismissive wave of her hand, and the lower-level stomped his feet again. Any demon with half a brain would know she was trying to goad them into doing something stupid, but most lower-level demons didn’t possess a quarter of a brain, never mind half of one.
“It will tear you in two, bitch!”
“This guy is original,” Wren said to me. “Do they have someone who teaches them all the same lines?”
“Those are the only ones they can remember,” I replied.
“Makes sense.”
The demon’s eyes bounced back and forth between us before he stormed toward us. He bent forward to lead with his shoulders as he sought to barrel us over. When he was within arm’s reach, Wren spun out of the way. The lower-level roared as I leapt into the air and swung my fist forward. He dropped his head to ram me with his horns, but I’d anticipated the action and lowered my hand to pierce straight through his eyes.
A grim smile curved my mouth as the lower-level opened his mouth to roar again. Before it could release a sound, Wren sank her knife through his neck until the blade burst out of the demon’s throat, effectively silencing him. The demon’s hands flew to his throat as Wren placed her foot in his back and tore her knife free.
I would like nothing more than to cut this thing into tiny pieces for what he’d said and anticipated doing to Wren, but she couldn’t witness me doing that. She’d seen and experienced too much violence in her life already, and I wouldn’t expose her to any more than what was necessary. With a swing of my other hand, I sliced the demon’s head from his shoulders.
Wren’s eyes met mine over the demon’s back as I pulled his head away. The body remained standing for a minute before slumping to the ground. When I retracted my talons from the demon’s eyes, the head thumped onto the ground. Wren bent, wiped her blade on the ground, and slid it into her holster.
“It’s a good thing most of them are so predictable,” she murmured.
“That they are. We make a good team.”
“Yes,” she said, and I hid my surprise over her agreement as she rose. “We should go.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Wren
Hanging low over the trees before us, the sun touched the horizon as the first remains of a house came into view. Thick vines encircled the sagging roof and walls of the home like a snake choking the life from its prey.
All that remained of this town were the fragments of homes and the ghostly memories of those who had resided here. These streets had once been filled with neighbors like mine, who had baked pies, held cookouts, and kissed the skinned knees of their crying children. Now, they held nothing but bones.
There were so many of these abandoned towns in the Wilds that it was impossible to differentiate one from another if they weren’t marked somewhere by those who had already traveled through here.
I hoped someone had come through this town recently and left some indicator that it was a safe place to stay. I knew where we were in relation to where we’d left the others, but they could have moved on already, and even if they remained in the same place, we’d never reach them before nightfall.
We had to be somewhere safe before sunset. Demons didn’t strictly travel and hunt at night, but they moved around more once the sun set. With only the two of us, it wouldn’t be safe to camp out in the open.
The browning grass surrounding the homes brushed my knees as I walked through it. The further out of the forest we walked, the more broken pieces of wood stood up from the crumpled remains of collapsed and burnt-out houses. In between the remains were the few structures that had managed to withstand bombs, fires, fighting, and time.
Sunset streaked the sky with vibrant pinks, yellows, and oranges, but when I glanced back, I spotted black clouds creeping across the sky. A subtle shifting in the air and the growing ozone scent forewarned of a coming storm.
Stepping out of the thick grass and onto the pitted road, Corson strode boldly down the street while my eyes darted around it. The further we traveled the road, the more homes remained standing, though most looked like I could push them over. The gravel crunching beneath our boots was the only sound in the growing twilight.
“We’re going to have to find somewhere to bed down for the night soon,” Corson said.
“We will.”
I halted to examine a stop sign. Signs were a favorite place for fellow Wilders to leave messages as few signs remained, and those that did drew the attention of others. The rusting sign post slanted precariously to the side, and in the center of the O in “stop” were two rectangles. Beneath the word stop and inside one of the rectangles was the number five. Within the other rectangle, someone had written #2-25.
The rectangles specified brick houses, but there were numerous brick homes on this stretch of road. However, when I counted five down from the sign in both directions, there was only one made of bricks while the other was a wooden duplex.
I didn’t look for the second house indicated by the #2; I’d be able to find it if it became necessary for us to retreat there. However, if the first house remained safe, there was no reason for Corson to know there were two safe houses in this town. We were all working together now, but some secrets had to be kept just in case.
“This way,” I said to Corson and walked toward the brick house.
Throughout the Wilds, there were at least fifty different Wilder groups spread across the land. In the beginning, there had been distrust between the groups, raids, and murders. Quickly, many Wilders realized that if they continued to fight each other, they would never survive the demons. Representatives from each of their groups met to write and sign a pact to work with each other. The agreement set down laws and punishments for the way rule breakers would be handled. Since then, the Wilders had become a symbiotic network throughout the Wilds, though a few factions kept mostly to themselves as they preferred to remain as hidden as possible.
After I first approached Kobal, word had been sent out with messengers to let the other groups know I’d agreed to work with the demons and that they would be safe if they also came forward. Most of them decided to work with the demons once they realized they wouldn’t be slaughtered and that they needed help to survive what had escaped Hell this time.
Randy’s group had always been one of the largest and strongest, but Wilders regularly rotated in and out of the various groups to travel to different areas or for other reasons. Over the years, and with all the various movement between groups, the Wilders had adopted a universal marking system no one would notice or understand unless they knew what it meant. The system was kept as simple as possible so people could remember it and so those who couldn’t read would still be able to understand it.
Turning onto the broken walkway leading toward the brick house, I picked my way over the chunks of rubble to avoid twisting an ankle. I clambered up the sagging ste
ps of the porch.
“What are you doing?” Corson inquired from behind me.
“Eventually, I’ll be going inside,” I replied.
“Let me go first.”
I gave him a hard stare. “I don’t need you to protect me.”
“I never said you did; I know you don’t. But you can count on me to help you.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
The certainty with which he’d stated it left me speechless. He turned away before I could respond and stalked over to one of the windows. Cupping his hands against the sides of his face, he bent to peer inside but I knew he wouldn’t be able to see in. I stared at the chipped, white front door before turning to search the porch.
A terracotta plant holder sat beside a broken bench. Walking over, I lifted the pot of dry soil and gazed at the numbers on the wood beneath. Some numbers were carved into the wood; others had been written on it.
The last date, scrawled in black marker, revealed someone had been here three months ago. The earliest date was only five months after the gateway opened. This house had been used as a refuge often by Wilders over the years, but that was before the seals fell. There was no telling if it remained safe now.
I didn’t hear Corson move, but I felt his body against mine as he peered over my shoulder. “So it was safe here in August,” he stated.
Setting the pot down, I covered the numbers. If I wasn’t careful, he’d figure our language out. Unlike the lower-level demons, he was far from stupid, and it wasn’t exactly a complicated way of communicating.
His citrine eyes were a honey brown hue when they met mine. I found myself gazing into them for longer than I should have. Turning my head away, I pushed past him to return to the front door.
I gripped the handle and gave it a small turn, but the wood, sagging on its rusting hinges, groaned and held firm. I leaned my shoulder against it and was about to shove it when something leapt through the shadows next to the house.
Hell on Earth (Hell on Earth, Book 1) (Hell on Earth Series) Page 13