Page 9 of Fated to the Demon Lord

Tears stung my eyes, and I tried to struggle. “Mira!” I cried. “Mira, run!”

He merely laughed and signaled with his free hand. Another demon came forward with Mira grasped in his claws. He also bore the black lines across his flesh. His fingers dug into her skin, his hand over her mouth. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

Still gripping me firmly, the troll stepped up to my friend and ran a finger over her cheek. “You, my dear, will be of use later.”

Something inside me snapped. “Let her go. Let her go, you evil bastards!”

A cruel smile split his lips. He waved a dismissive hand at Mira. “Put her with the others.”

“Yes, General Throk,” rasped the voice of the demon clutching her, and he backed off, disappearing into the mist.

I turned to the demon holding me—Throk. “Stop this, please.” Part of me knew my plea would do nothing to sway him. Still, the realization that my escape had failed crushed me all the same. I could barely breathe.

“I don’t think so.” Death flashed in his unyielding, glowing gaze. “We’ve been tracking this army for days. You’ve just granted us a magnificent gift. And yet, I believe there is going to be an entire camp of demon spirits that will want your blood when we are through. Your pathetic, insignificant life shall be a useful appeasement to their anger.” Violent hunger filled his expression. He glanced behind him. “Keep her close.”

He shoved me away and into the arms of another demon. This one had a spindly, ant-like body with two arms that walked on two legs. He also bore the black cracks in his form. I’d never seen this kind of demon before, but its long, thin hands dug into my shoulder, holding me in place.

Throk faced the mist and shouted. “You know what to do. Soldiers move out.”

His words confused me. If he wanted to seize power from the mercenaries, surely he hadn’t consolidated power so quickly after my mass poisoning.

A figure surged past me within the haze. And then another, and another.

Their movements were slower, a bit more jagged. Their flesh hung off at odd angles, dark black cracks lining every part of them. Deadly beacons in the mist, their orange glowing eyes stood out. And they kept coming.

That was when I realized—this wasn’t only a couple of Spiritu Malignos demons looking for easy pickings.

This was a completely separate army.

An army of the dead.

Three

They didn’t even bother to bind my hands. And why should they? They outmatched me in every way. Against these monsters, I was weak and powerless.

Throk ensured I remained near the front, although Mira had likely been sent with the slaves toward the army’s rear. Somehow he could tell I was to blame for the death I’d created.

The army marched on, dragging us back to the mercenary camp—the last place I wanted to return to.

The trees I'd passed during my failed escape rustled their leaves as we went by, as though they were mocking me. Months of planning. Months of waiting for the perfect moment to act.

All for nothing.

Tears of rage and helplessness burned behind my eyes. What was I supposed to do now? How could I ever reach Gerand? For one wild moment, I imagined wrenching my guard's sword from its sheath and driving it through his chest.

But that would only get me killed faster.

Gods... what if Gerand was lost to me?

We first came upon the bodies of those who’d pursued us into the trees. Tricken’s body lay cold and lifeless with ten other demons on the ground, their limbs askew and their faces a sickly shade of purple. Foam mixed with blood slid over their cheeks. Their unseeing eyes stared up into the clouded sky.

A dark satisfaction swirled within me.

A tall Spiritu Malignos demon with antlers and green skin along with the telltale black cracks across his flesh and orange glowing eyes, knelt next to Tricken’s body. He pulled an obsidian knife from his sheath and cut into his own finger. An ebony substance bubbled up from the wound. Leaning forward, the demon drew a circle with a line through the center on Tricken’s forehead, then, chanting, plunged the blade into the corpse.

Tricken’s motionless form convulsed, and then his mouth fell open and an inky mist rose, curling upward into a cloud of blackness. Within the vapor, a shape formed—Tricken’s horns, his wiry body, his eyes which now glowed a pale orange. He stood on the ground, his form a soft, ghostly outline, as shadowy mist faded into a soft gray. A glowing yellow cord strung about his neck attached to the knife still in the chest of his corpse on the ground.

Other bodied demons from Spiritu Malignos were plunging their knives into the dead with the same results.