His ragged voice and the confidence of those words caused me to inhale sharply. My teeth bit my bottom lip, drawing his attention to it. A sound of hunger reverberated through him, and my breaths came more rapidly, driving my breasts more firmly against the unrelenting flesh of his chiseled chest.
I didn’t have a chance to respond before his hands fell to his sides. He gave me a look full of promise and turned away from me. He froze when he spotted the large crowd who had followed our battle since the start. His upper lip curved into a sneer at everyone gawking at us.
The demons stood at the front of the large group filling the burnt-out town. Their expressions were a mixture of amusement and intrigue. Our fight must have gathered soldiers from the town too, as the number of people around us was nearly triple that of the volunteers who had been on the hill training with me.
Most of them were slacked-jaw, some looked irritated by what they’d witnessed, and a few were staring at me as if I were the lowest life form in existence. I noticed those stares were mostly from the women, but there were a couple of men staring at me as if I repulsed them too.
Apparently, some people didn’t approve of interspecies relations, even if there weren’t any relations between us.Yet, I had to admit to myself.Weakling, I scolded afterward.
Turning back, Kobal took hold of my elbow and propelled me forward. I tried to pull my arm from his grasp, but he only clamped his hand more firmly around it. “It’s better if they know you’re under my protection.”
“I can protect myself,” I finally managed to protest as my exhausted legs strove to keep up with his lengthy strides.
His eyes had returned to black when they latched onto me. “You’remineto protect now.”
“I’m notanyone’s. I am not a possession. I’m a person, sort of, and I’m not here for you to order about or for them to judge!”
The arrogant oaf didn’t bother to respond as he continued unrelentingly through the wasteland of the town surrounding us. I tried jerking my arm away from him again, but he held on. I could feel my blood pressure rising as my temples pounded with the beats of my heart.
In an instant, he faded away and all I saw were the burned out homes and landscape surrounding us. The blackened trees still standing amid the rubble stretched into the cloudless sky. A single crow sat on the branches of the only other living thing, a large maple tree near the edge of town. Some green grass peaked through the rubble here and there, but most of it was buried beneath the remaining wreckage of the leveled town.
After thirteen years, the smell of fire and death still permeated the area. Layers of blackened walls from the homes were stacked where they had fallen on the ground. Charred beams rose into the sky, and more than a handful of brick chimneys still stood as testament to the homes and people who had once loved, laughed, and died here.
Died. The breeze blowing over my skin dried the sweat on it and sent a shiver down my spine. Death, so much of it here and somehow I knew there was more coming.
Then I saw the eyes, or not eyes, as there was nothing within the shrunken, weathered eye sockets facing me from underneath the remains of a roof. Even if there was nothing left to stare from, I could feel its gaze on me. Around those empty eye sockets was a glistening rim of white bone. Shrunken and discolored skin stuck to its skull.
A hand slid out, the skin of it was grayed and flaking with decay. Bones poked out from the ends of its fingers. No clothing covered its withered chest and arms as it pulled itself from beneath the roof. My throat went dry as a strange combination of mummy and skeleton emerged from the wreckage.
It looked like it would fall apart at the same time fresh, slimy flesh adhered to its bony remains in some areas. It dragged its right foot behind it on the ground; the bones of its knees were clearly visible but green clumps of skin clung to its broken foot. The clumps fell off the creature as it moved forward. It may not have any lips, but I was certain it was smiling at me as its teeth chattered together.
So focused on that one, I didn’t see the others until more hands slid out from beneath other toppled homes.
“River.River.”
The abrupt tug on my arm caused me to blink. I shook my head to clear it of the images still filling my vision.
“River.”
I looked up at Kobal. He gazed at me with concern; the fine lines around his eyes and mouth were more visible as he stared at me. I had no idea why I hadn’t pulled him into this vision with me, maybe because I was so tired, but he hadn’t witnessed the insanity I had. What I’d seen simply couldn’t be true. Bones didn’t come to life and drag themselves from rubble.
And demons didn’t exist either.
“What did you see?” he demanded.
“Death,” I answered as the gleaming eye sockets of the first one emerged from beneath the house. “Death is here.”
CHAPTER 31
Kobal
River’s feet planted so firmly into the ground I almost lost my grip on her arm when she abruptly stopped walking. Turning toward her, I was prepared for whatever tirade she was about to unleash on me. Instead, I found her eyes glazed over. They had become the pale violet color they turned when she was in the grip of something beyond this world. They’d been the same way when we’d been fighting, but the color had flooded back into them as soon as she’d hit the wall of the house.
I pulled on her arm, hating the terror growing in her eyes and that she became so vulnerable when these visions took her over. I tugged on her arm again, stepping closer in the hopes of pulling her free from whatever held her.
“River.” She finally blinked, and her eyes returned to their normal amethyst hue when she came back to this world and herself. “What did you see?”
“Death. Death is here.”
