The demon holding her roared and his grip loosened. Sable pressed the soles of her boots into his legs and kicked off him, breaking free. She hit the dirt, rolled and came to her feet.
A silver arc cut straight towards her. She gasped and hit the deck, landing flat on her back, and then pressed her hands into the dirt above her shoulders and flipped back onto her feet. She grabbed her blade from the ground and swung hard, cutting through the wrist of the second demon male.
He shrieked and stumbled backwards, and she silenced him by slashing his throat. The other demon lunged for her, one hand over his eye and the knife sticking out of it.
Sable spun on one heel, kicked upwards with that leg as hard as she could to launch herself off the ground and slammed her other boot into the end of the knife, driving it deeper into his head. He dropped to his knees and she rammed her blade into his chest, pressing her other palm to the end of the hilt to shove it deep enough to reach his heart.
His growl died and he fell on his side. Sable pressed her left boot against his chest and yanked her blade free. Two down, around two hundred to go.
Three werewolves rushed past her, snarling at each other and snapping at her. She flipped them off. They leaped in unison at a demon and he went down fast, screaming as the wolves mauled him. Sable made a mental note not to piss off the werewolves. Being eaten alive didn’t rank high on her list of good ways to die.
She turned and ran to catch up with her team. They were miles ahead of her and had gained a few allies. The elves were fighting with them, working to take down some demons who were living up to the image most mortals had of that kind. They were huge, their eyes blazing like green fire and their wings battering her men and the elves as they fought with savage relentlessness.
Several vampires streamed past her, grinning as they fought two demons. A chocolate coloured werewolf raced into the fray and Sable frowned as it bit one of the vampires on the calf. The vampire retaliated, catching the werewolf by its hind leg, pulling it up into the air and biting down.
“You can’t save it for later?” Sable shouted and threw herself into the fight, unafraid of castigating both the vampire and the werewolf. Both looked at her as she stabbed one of the demons in the thigh and then hit him in the temple with the hilt of her blade. How could they think about fighting each other when they had bad-ass demons to take down?
One of the bad-ass demons in question caught her off guard and she found herself flying through the air. No time to brace for impact. She closed her eyes and waited to hit the dirt and the inevitable pain that would follow.
Strong arms caught her and she was suddenly on her feet. Sable really didn’t want to look.
She cracked one eye open and grimaced. Bleu looked pissed.
“More care,” he barked and then disappeared in a flash of greenish light. He reappeared next to Loren in the village and the two of them were incredible as they led the elves, tearing through the demons with their claws and black blades, teleporting swiftly to attack unnoticed and then disappearing again before the demons could retaliate.
She couldn’t keep up.
It was manic.
Sable spotted Thorne at last. He led a group of his men together with Grave, and both of them were savage and brutal as they fought, hacking their way through the enemy with little finesse. They were closing in on the main building and Thorne looked glorious, every bit a king as he fought hard to protect his people.
She shook herself. The battlefield was not the place to lose track of her surroundings.
Sable did a weapons check and then sprinted back towards the fray, feeling as if Bleu had intentionally left her nearly two hundred yards from all the action.
She closed in on the fight and her gift triggered, blaring a warning through her.
Sable turned on a pinhead and dropped at the same time, barely evading the blow aimed straight for her neck. She lashed out with her leg and hit the demon’s knees hard. He didn’t budge.
Her gift went haywire.
He wasn’t alone.
Sable looked over her shoulder. One hundred yards to the battle and the nearest ally.
Her heart pounded.
The five demon males closed in.
Sable readied her blade, remaining in a crouch. Her wrist burned and she ignored it. The first male reached her. Sable launched upwards with her short sword and the male strafed backwards, grinning at her. Another male caught her arm and she slashed down the length of his forearm. He released her and she ducked beneath his arms and broke free of the circle.
One of the demons appeared right before her and she ran straight into his outstretched hand. He closed his fingers around her throat and hauled her off the floor, and she flailed, catching him hard in the thigh with her boot.
Sable narrowed her gaze on him and kicked harder, striking him before he could even think to defend.
She hit him square between the thighs and he crumpled into a heap, releasing her at the same time so he could clutch himself.
She drew her crossbow, flicked it open, and quickly loaded it with the toxic darts. They would slow down the demons but they wouldn’t kill them. She didn’t have a poison strong enough for that.
Sable released one bolt, quickly reloaded and released the second. She nailed two of the demons in their bare chests. They chuckled and tugged the darts free, crushing them in their fists. Their smiles twisted into grimaces as the toxin went to work.
She hooked her fingers into two of the throwing knives under her right arm and launched them at the other two demons. Both evaded perfectly, teleporting before the blades could touch them. Not a good move on her part. Sable cursed her stupidity and made a break for the main fight.
Her eyes darted around, fear making her limbs shake as she waited for the two demons to reappear. She shouldn’t have forced them to teleport. It was the most effective weapon in their arsenal.
A hot prickle went through her and she dived to her left just as a sword appeared right beside her. She cried out as the tip of the blade slashed across her biceps and hit the ground hard. The pebbly surface scraped her other arm and her side as she skidded a short distance.
She growled in frustration and launched a knife at the demon. He sidestepped it and raised his blade above his head, and Sable stared at it. It dropped towards her and she rolled with everything she had, barely avoiding it. It hit the ground with a clang and the demon shifted it in his hands and came at her again as she kicked off from the dirt and broke into a dead run.
Her wrist burned hotter.
Her leg ached.
Not now. She didn’t need her old injury acting up and slowing her down.
Two of the demons appeared right in front of her and she broke left, skidding on the loose ground at the same time and almost ending up flat on her face. They laughed at her and she hated them for it, knew they were amused by the little mortal fighting for her life.
Screw them.
She had been born to fight demons.
Strength surged through her and her heart steadied, and with it came a hunger she had never experienced before.
A desire to crush all the demons.
Sable ground to a halt and turned to face them.
All five sauntered towards her and began to fan out, forming a wide line.
She glanced off to her right, where her blade lay on the black ground.
Feint an attack with her remaining throwing knife. Slide for the blade. First demon attacks. Decapitate before he can swing his sword. Kick off and launch at the second male, incapacitating him before striking the third, one of the poisoned. The fourth and fifth would attack in unison. Gut the fourth, another of the poisoned, and stab the fifth, their leader, in his black heart.
Sable palmed the remaining knife strapped to her ribs.
Destroy the demons.
She feinted and the demons fell for it, all five of them bracing themselves. In the split second she had, she was across the ground and sliding in for her blade. She caugh
t it before she slid straight past it, turned onto her belly and kicked off hard.
It all went horribly wrong at that point.
The leader disappeared and reappeared right in front of her and made her thoroughly acquainted with his boot, lodging it deep in her side. She rolled hard, pain burning through her, and struggled to breathe.
The ache in her leg grew worse.
Damned demons.
“Die,” she snarled and was on her feet before she knew what was happening, running straight at the leader. He had to die. The demon filth had to die.
Darkness clouded her thoughts, the hunger to maim and kill filling every inch of her, driving her to obey.
Thorne appeared in the midst of the demons, swinging his blade and decapitating two in one go. Light broke into Sable’s mind, the flash of his silver sword penetrating the darkness, and she shoved her pain down deep. He whirled to face another of the demons, beautiful in his fury as he slammed his fist into the male’s face and drove him down.
Sable launched herself at the leader, catching him unawares as he watched Thorne. She slashed across his calves and he turned on her, snarling and flashing his fangs. She ducked and dodged his blows, and stabbed his sword arm. He dropped his blade and she grinned.
Too soon.
Never celebrate until your enemy is dead and you have his head in your hands.
The male’s fist crashed into her arm, pain spider-webbed along her bones, and she dropped her blade.
He grinned now.
She was screwed.
The darkness swirled inside her and the urge came again, the undeniable desire to destroy this demon.
Wretched filth.
The pain in her arm disappeared.
He launched a hard left hook at her and Sable caught it in her right hand.
The burning in her wrist exploded into an inferno.
The demon male frowned down at his fist.
“Die,” Sable whispered in a voice that was distant to her ears.
The male arched backwards and roared at the dark sky. She watched on, cold and complacent, as the skin on his hand charred, orange light breaking through cracks in it, as if lava filled him.
The darkness spread up his arm and Sable blinked, her emotions rushing back in as if a dam had burst as she yanked her hand away from him and stumbled backwards.
The demon’s agonised scream tore through her and she covered her ears as he burned to ashes before her eyes.
Air shifted around her and a muffled grunt sounded behind her.
Sable turned on her heel, her eyes wide and her hands still covering her ears.
A headless male lay slumped to the ground at her feet.
Thorne stood before her, his chest heaving, covered in sweat, dirt and blood, and his blade hanging limp from his hand.
He looked beyond her to the pile of black ashes and then back into her eyes. She didn’t want to look at the mess behind her. She didn’t want to think about what she had just done, because it frightened her and she didn’t understand it.
Thorne’s face softened and he laid his sword down and took hold of her wrists on either side of her head.
He hissed and snarled, and released her.
Sable stared wide-eyed at the burns on the fingers of his left hand and shook her head. Her right wrist burned fiercely and she drew her hands away and looked at the charred bandage around it. The cross beneath shone through, bright crimson and gold when once it had been black.
She shook her head again and didn’t stop this time as tears filled her eyes, her strength draining away and leaving her cold. “It’s just a tattoo.”
She mumbled it on repeat, trying to convince herself that she was going mad. She had got it done… when? She didn’t know. It had been there for as long as she could remember.
Thorne moved closer and she looked up at him, holding her wrist out to him.
“It’s just a tattoo, Thorne. Isn’t it?” Her words sounded weak to her ears, trembling as much as she was inside.
He looked as if he wanted to hold her and she stepped back, afraid that he might and she would hurt him again. The compulsion to destroy the demons hadn’t faded, and her gift labelled him as a mark too. A demon to eradicate.
No. She didn’t want to hurt Thorne.
He removed one of the leather cuffs around his forearms and she jerked backwards when he moved towards her again.
“Sable,” he snapped and her gaze leaped to his. He edged closer again and she didn’t stop him this time. “I will not hurt you.”
“But I might hurt you,” she whispered in response and tears slipped onto her cheeks. She cursed them and how uncertain and afraid she felt. She was stronger than this. She kept telling herself it even when she wanted to break down, kept clinging to the last shred of her strength and fighting the tears and the panic clogging her throat.
“You will not,” he said softly and moved the cuff towards her. “You only hurt me when I touched it.”
He placed the leather vambrace around her wrist. It was too large for her. He grabbed her t-shirt and she gasped as he tore a strip off around the hem, leaving it several inches shorter than before, so it showed off her midriff.
Thorne tore the piece of material in two, wrapped them around the vambrace and tied them tightly, so the leather sat flush against her arm. The pain in her wrist dulled to a throb and she looked up at Thorne. She didn’t want to kill him.
Several men rushed towards them and the compulsion to slay them all didn’t return.
They spoke to Thorne in the demon tongue and he nodded and then turned to her.
“The village is safe and we have some captives we can question.” He stooped and picked up his broadsword and stabbed the tip into the black earth. The enormous blade slowly sank into the ground and her gaze tracked it until the red pommel disappeared and the earth healed over it. Thorne held his hand out to her. “Come.”
Sable nodded and clutched her wrist to her chest as she walked. She stopped when she came across her blade, picked it up and sheathed it, and then continued walking. Thorne stayed at her side the whole time, his eyes on her. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
What had she done to that demon?
It was just a tattoo.
It had killed that demon though and had burned Thorne.
What was wrong with her?
They entered the village and she spotted Loren with Bleu, and Olivia. Her friend saw her and came rushing over.
“What’s wrong… are you injured?” Olivia reached out to touch her wrist and Sable jerked away from her.
“It’s fine. I don’t need you to look at it, okay?” she snapped and shook her head, backing away from her friends. She didn’t want them to see it glowing or discover what she had done. They wouldn’t understand.
She didn’t want her best friend to think she was a freak.
Olivia’s face fell and she quietly said, “Okay.”
Thorne looked at Sable.
Sable couldn’t bring herself to face him either. He had seen what she had done and she had hurt him when he had tried to touch her. What if she would hurt everyone who touched her now or that strange urge came over her again? She shuddered and moved another step away, trying to distance herself from everyone.
“We should take the injured back to the castle,” Loren said.
Bleu reached out to grab her arm. Sable slapped his hand away and clutched her wrist to her chest, her heart pounding at a sickening pace. Hurt filled his purple eyes and she shook her head and looked down at her feet.
“Maybe I can walk back,” she whispered to her boots and then risked a glance at her friends.
They all looked at her as if she had gone insane.
Thorne snorted, grabbed her and dropped into a dark abyss with her.
The moment they appeared in the courtyard of his castle, she shoved away from him.
“Have you gone crazy?” she barked. “I might have hurt you again!”
Thorne grow
led, grabbed her and pulled her back to him. She stared up into his crimson eyes.
“I went crazy the moment I set eyes on you, my little fated one.”
Sable struggled against his grip. “Don’t… not right now… I can’t take it.”
Because she wasn’t strong enough to fight him. All she wanted to do was rest her head against his chest and ask him to hold her and tell her that she had imagined everything that had happened at the battle, that she had been knocked out and dreamed all the craziness.
He released her and cold swept through her.
“True friendship is rare, and you have it with Olivia. Do not push your friend away because of this. Olivia will understand, even if you do not.” He sighed and his tone softened, and she didn’t stop him as he brushed the backs of his claws across her cheeks, sweeping her tears away. She looked up into his eyes and fought the urge to ask him to do more, to hold her. “Rest, Sable. You will be safe here at my home while I oversee proceedings at the border.”
He disappeared before she could respond.
Now she knew how Olivia felt whenever Loren did that.
Furious.
Alone.
CHAPTER 12
Sable roamed the cold, silent corridors of the castle, slowly wending her way downwards, beneath the sleeping quarters, in search of the kitchen.
At least she had been at first.
Unable to sleep, she had wanted a drink of water to quench the burning in her throat, needing to rid herself of anything that reminded her of what had happened and what she had done.
Her tattoo had reacted to those demons and she had felt compelled to kill them.
To kill Thorne.
She shuddered, shoved that memory out of her head, and trudged onwards, following the quiet hallway. She hadn’t seen anyone since leaving her quarters on the first floor. Everyone had retired to their rooms to rest after arriving back from the battle and she had avoided the main courtyard in her search for the kitchen.
Now, she wasn’t sure where she was beneath the castle, but the hallways were growing narrower and gently sloping downwards, and she didn’t have the energy to change her course. She walked onwards, her mind wandering as much as her feet were.
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