Page 84 of Dream Reaper

He ground his teeth together, wincing as a blow bounced off their right shoulder. The strike sent him pinwheeling to the side and into a thick tangle of branches. He came out the other side covered in bruises and scratches. Ahead of him, Ava had already renewed her attack as she drove Talos down a ravine and into a muddy gully.

He hurled vile curses at her, using words even Jerrid had never heard from the most hardened of riders in the barracks.

If the curses stung Ava’s tender ears, she didn’t show it.

Maybe she didn’t care, not with Dragon controlling her every move. Her every thought.

She had sold her soul to the devil, and maybe she would never care about anything ever again. And there was nothing Jerrid could do to change that. He was beginning to believe that as he fought helplessly for any measure of control, but he couldn’t even form words on his own tongue anymore.

Now the silence he had so coveted became his prison.

I can set you free.

But at what cost? No, Jerrid wouldn’t listen—he couldn’t listen to these false promises. Not if this creature was as vile as Ava had led him to believe.

Ava’s cry echoed through the trees, and Jerrid forced his eyes open, trying to ignore the reeling nausea in his belly from being yanked around. Talos rose from behind a snarl of thorny bushes, his left hand swiping blood from the corner of his mouth. And Ava…

Where was Ava?

Jerrid wobbled on his unsteady feet. He forced his body to move toward Talos, who now leaned against a tree as if struggling to stay upright.

“Where is she?” he demanded as he kicked his way around the thorn bushes.

Talos spun to face him, eyes black with rage. “You!”

He took a step toward Jerrid but then disappeared with a muttered curse as he staggered to the ground. Jerrid dove after him and nearly stepped on top of Ava. She had both arms wrapped around Talos’s legs, pinning him to the ground.

Talos, on his back, lifted a hand and snapped a fireball into existence, but Jerrid kicked his hand aside to send the flame spinning uselessly into the trees. Ava looked up as Jerrid shoved his foot down on Talos’s wrist, pinning it.

The dark elf swung a fist of fire and slammed it into Jerrid’s thigh. Pain and heat exploded in his leg, spinning him off balance.

He tumbled into the thorn bush, sharp bits of the vine digging into his exposed arms and face. Behind him, Ava cried out.

Furiously, Jerrid battled the bush to disentangle himself, but the thorns gripped him like tiny fingers, shredding his skin and clothes as he yanked himself out of the bush. Stumbling around, he saw a tangle of arms and legs as the two dark elves rolled through the undergrowth.

A blast of blue fire lit up the forest.

Ava flew backward, smashing into Jerrid and sending him careening back into the bush as he wrapped his arms around her. He landed on his back, vines digging into his spine. Ava’s weight pressed down on him, one elbow against his chest and the other bent awkwardly against his neck.

She muttered under her breath, chest heaving as she tried to wiggle off of him, the bush ensnaring her as determinedly as it had him moments earlier. Together they struggled out of the bush, shoving the thorny vines aside.

Jerrid kept a firm grip on her elbow.

“Let go,” Ava hissed, trying to jerk her arm loose.

Jerrid tugged her closer, her dragon scales digging into his palm as he kept a firm hold of her armored elbow. “Ava, you need to stop. Don’t let Dragon take control of you.”

She shoved him hard in the chest and drove him backward several steps, Dragon enhancing her strength to remarkable degrees. “Where did he go? Where’s Talos?”

Jerrid scanned the forest, the shadows hiding their secrets. A flash of movement to the west.

“There!” He pointed.

Ava’s breath hissed through her teeth. “He’s headed back toward camp!”

As one, they bolted away from the thorn bush and back toward the ruins. Ava outpaced him within seconds, her lithe form moving like lightning between the trunks, leaping over fallen limbs, ducking under low branches. Jerrid’s breath tore at his lungs as he fought to keep up, but without Dragon…he didn’t stand a chance.

Ahead of him, screams ripped from the camp. Jerrid forced himself to keep moving, but his legs still felt like jelly.