Panic like I’d never known before seared through me. I felt like I was falling into the empty pits of his eyes, being pulled away to something more, something that was watching me from the other side. Something I had to resist, or I would be lost.
Screaming, I threw myself backward before I could be sucked further into the abyss. I knew whatever was on the other side would latch onto me; what it would do to me afterward was something I didn’t want to contemplate. Fire burst from my palms, smashing into the man so brutally that I launched him five feet straight into the air. I rolled out of the way before his roasting body could plummet back down onto mine.
Panting, I lay on the ground, staring at the empty eye sockets across from me as the fire consumed the man’s flesh. My arms trembled when I got them underneath me and managed to push myself to my feet. I took a stumbling step forward before something leapt onto my back. Bony fingers encircled my throat and dug into my flesh.
I grabbed hold of the hands, trying to pull them away before it could crush my windpipe. Stars burst before my eyes as I labored to draw breath. I choked, gagging when the fingers dug in deeper. Dizziness assailed me, and the world lurched beneath my feet as I staggered to the side.
Fire flashed from my palms, sizzling into the creature’s hands around my neck. Its shriek caused my legs to buckle when it released me. My knees hit the ground as air rushed into my lungs. I’d knocked the thing off my throat, but now its bony fingers clawed at my back. The feel of its hands scrambling over my flesh caused a shudder of revulsion to wrack me.
A maddened bellow rent the air. I’d just managed to get my head up when Kobal arrived at my side. His arm swung down and he backhanded the thing on my back so hard he knocked its skull from its spine. Its body flew off my back; its head fell at my side. I gawked at the skull until Kobal lifted his foot and crushed it, splattering bone and bits of flesh across the ground.
I didn’t have time to react before Kobal wrapped an arm around my waist and plucked me off the ground. My head fell back against his shoulder as my lungs still labored to draw air into my deoxygenated brain. I hung limply in his grasp as he braced his legs apart.
The revenirs surrounded us on all sides. No matter how many were cut down, more arose from the remains of the soldiers and volunteers who fell beneath the monsters. No more gunshots filled the air. As I watched, some of the soldiers used their empty guns to beat back the death hoard closing in on them.
“Kobal!” Bale shouted as Shax fell beneath a pack of those creatures.
Kobal placed my feet down, but he kept his left arm around my waist, pinning me to him. “Stay against me, no matter what,” he commanded in a hoarse voice.
I didn’t think I had the energy to move anywhere right now anyway. As he raised his right arm, disbelief filled me when the strange symbols and flames tattooed on him began to move and twist across his skin. I had the strangest compulsion to touch those symbols, to know what they would feel like as flames leapt to life across his flesh.
I didn’t recoil from him as the fire spread over his arm and up toward his shoulder; instead, I burrowed closer to the warmth of those beautiful flames crackling over his flesh. Keeping me against him, he turned to the side and released a stream of fire that shot from his palm and across the air toward the creatures clawing at the other demons. Shrieks erupted from the monsters as they were flung away.
The fire slid over the demons, illuminating their flesh and burning their clothes away from them, but they remained otherwise unaffected by the flames as the fire sputtered out around them.
He turned in a circle, releasing more waves of fire upon those creatures, careful not to hit the humans though some of them lost a few articles of clothing too. I couldn’t imagine having that much control over my ability; it must have taken him hundreds of years of wielding it to become so adept at it.
Around us, fire blazed to life to eat away the remains of the already charred town. Any of the creatures trying to scramble away were hit with a ball of flame that sent them spiraling to the ground with screams of agony.
The heat of the fire coming from him didn’t burn my skin or char my clothing. Instead, it enveloped me in its warmth as he continued to emit a punishing wall of flames. Adjusting me, the hand of the arm around my waist slid beneath my ruined shirt. His thumb brushed over my flesh soothingly as he held me closer.
When only a few of the creatures remained and the rest of the demons were ruthlessly slaughtering them, he withdrew his stream of fire. The symbols and flames of his tattoos readjusted over his deeply tanned flesh, looking the same as they had before.
I was tempted to burrow against the heat still radiating from him and lose myself in the security of his arms, but I couldn’t. Exhaustion beat against me, and my head still felt murky from the lack of oxygen, but even feeling as if I was wading through mud, I saw the confused, terrified, and angry stares of the humans swinging in our direction.
CHAPTER 33
River
Mac took a step toward us, his mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. His gaze shot between the two of us before settling on Kobal’s arm around my waist. Kobal’s hold tightened on me; a growl reverberated through his chest. The tension in him ratcheted up to a whole new level. A chill raced down my spine, but I didn’t try to slip free of his arms; there was no taking back what they had all witnessed, and I wasn’t ready to lose contact with his body yet.
The rest of the demons, finished with dispatching the remaining skeletons and any humans who might rise again, walked toward us. They barely acknowledged the humans as they strode by on their way to stand behind Kobal. The flames still crackling in the town found no ground to spread across the scorched earth and dilapidated buildings; they began to sputter out around us.
“What were those things?” Mac inquired, finally seeming to find his voice again.
“I’ll meet with you in an hour to speak,” Kobal said to him.
Kobal turned away before Mac could reply. With a jerk of his head toward the demons, he strode purposely away from the survivors. “They didn’t know you could do that, did they?” I whispered.
“No,” he answered in a clipped tone.
I glanced over my shoulder at the people still gawking at the carnage surrounding them. Many of their gazes still slid between Kobal and me as he carried me across the ground.
“You should put me down,” I said. His jaw clenched and a muscle twitched in his cheek when he looked at me. The amber had faded from his eyes to leave them the liquid pools of obsidian I’d once found a little unsettling; now they caused a strange flutter in my heart. “I have to walk out of here on my own. They didn’t trust me before; they’ll distrust you more now. They have to think I’m stronger than this.”
Reluctantly, he released me from against his chest and moved me to stand beside him. I’d assumed he would release me completely, but he kept his arm locked around my waist as we started walking again.
“What were those things?” I inquired.
