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Everything including her? I snarled back silently, hurling at it the memories of what we’d done years ago. Including my friends?
The demon faltered.
Taking the opening, I forced my fingers to unfurl. Forced my eyes to return to normal. “If I ever have to bury her ashes because of you…” I growled under my breath.
The demon grumbled within me, wanting to reject the idea, but the creature knew the cost if it returned. It knew what would happen.
So did I.
And dammit, I also knew that meant I should have left months ago. Years, even. I shouldn’t have risked these men, to say nothing of a beautiful, precious jewel like Gwyneira. Hell, I should have turned around and gone the other direction from the moment I first saw Dex and the others during the war, confining myself instead to the wastelands of Erenelle and wandering the empty salt flats until the day I finally died.
But no, I wouldn’t give up the damned illusion of family. Wouldn’t stop pretending I could control this, hide this, and keep anyone from knowing. Of course my friends would never need to drive me away out of fear for their own safety. Of course I’d never need to bury their burned corpses like I’d buried so many others.
Even now, I couldn’t quite stop believing that fantasy could be true. That the demon wouldn’t return, not fully. That I’d win this fight and protect every fucking person who mattered to me.
No one would die. And no one would know.
I could keep this family, even if I’d lost the one before.
“Roan, please slow down!” Niko called, closer now. “It’s not safe!”
A spike of panic shot through my veins. He wasn’t just close, he was too gods-damned close. At any moment, that fucking vampire king could rush ahead of him and spot me struggling to get my body under control. He could overhear me and wonder what the fuck I was saying to myself.
We were perilously close to ruining everything.
The demon growled at me sullenly from the depths of my mind. Nothing was ruined. No one would come between us and our mate.
Damn you, she is not our mate! I snarled back silently.
The distant sound of a woman’s scream carried on the wind, coming from somewhere ahead.
My head snapped up. I was running before I even realized what I was doing.
“Roan!” Dex shouted behind me.
“What the hell, man?” Clay yelled.
I didn’t slow. Surges of energy shot through my muscles as the forest blurred around the fiery red tinges in my vision. My skin burned, and I gritted my teeth as I held back the change. But the demon wanted out. Wanted to attack. That scream had been strange. Wrong.
Everything in me said it had come from Gwyneira.
A black blur of smoke rushed past, followed by another, and for a terrifying moment, I thought the Voidborn had returned. But green eyes flashed and a wolf’s head formed in the smoke, its fangs like dark splinters of night. It swept onward, sparing me only a brief glance like it was welcoming me to join it in this chase.
Ruhl and that bastard Casimir. They’d heard her too.
I grunted out curses, fighting the monster within me even as I fought to run faster. I’d be damned if that vampire would be her only protector, but I also couldn’t just rush to her only to lose control of my monster and kill her and everyone else here.
But every minute was too long. Every inch of distance between me and her too far. There were no more screams, and with each breath, I dreaded picking up the scent of her blood on the breeze.
The gods themselves would die if she’d been killed before I could save her.
On the far side of a clearing up ahead, Gwyneira suddenly stepped from the forest with Ozias at her side.
I staggered to a stop, relief hitting me like a solid wall just to see her alive. My eyes swept over her, taking in every detail, searching for the slightest injury or hint she was still under the Voidborn’s spell. She was walking gingerly with some measure of discomfort, but I could see no wound to explain why. Her top was gone, replaced by one of Ozias’s massive sweaters. Back in human form, that vampire asshole followed her with that same placid expression I loathed so much, while nearby, Ruhl calmly trailed them all in the smoky shape of a wolf.
A wave of her scent carried on the breeze.
My gut twisted hard. That wasn’t blood.
