Page 71 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

“Don’t make me remind you who you belong to,” August growled, yanking me into a kiss that shut me up in the best possible way.

“You know I love a challenge,” I whispered against his lips.

He pulled back with an exasperated huff a beat before a howl split the distance. “Thinking that’s a good thing right about now,” he muttered as a half-dozen deer bolted through the clearing, eyes wide, heading for the cabin. “Kingsley have any fighters?” he asked, tracking their path.

“Plenty.”

“Where are they?”

I reached into the other and scanned the threads. “He’s sending them—or he’s about to.”

“Can we call backup?”

I already knew the answer. “Aren and the Callahans are with the healers. The Carters are on Westerlund defense. Freya and the Greeks are engaged.”

The sharp, warbled howl of a blood wolf cut the air.

“We’re severely outnumbered.”

“Great,” August deadpanned.

“They’re not alone.”

“Of course they’re not.”

“Something…stronger, lurks with them.”

“Yep,” he said, popping the ‘p’.

Shadows moved at the edge of the trees. I caught flashes from their minds—crawlers skittering low, tormentors slinking behind. And then⁠—

My stomach bottomed out, heart going with it.

A crowned demon. The crowned demon. The same from the hospital—Aren, bleeding out on a poison-drenched blade. That flickering hallway.

“A crowned demon,” I whispered.

“Like the one that⁠—”

“Yep.”

August blew out a breath as thunder rumbled above us, the sky darkening by the second. “Let’s roll, baby.”

“Give ‘em hell.”

More howls. Twigs cracked under clawed feet.

“Follow my lead.”

August scoffed but nodded. “Learned my lesson. I’ll always bet on you, my love.”

Those words sank into me like fire into flesh. If they were the last I ever heard, it’d all be worth it.

I turned and struck—blade flashing—an enormous head severed with a spray of blood. I slipped into battlefield calm, instincts syncing with August’s. We moved like one, choreographed chaos in perfect rhythm.

A blood wolf barreled toward us, jaws gaping. I threw up a wall of fire, singeing fur, scorching flesh, incinerating the crawlers beneath it in a single blast. Thunder cracked. Lightning followed.

The beast shrieked, crashing to the earth as gore flew like shrapnel around us. A bolt of lightning speared between demons, sending them flying in the same moment I lowered my blade with a satisfying squelch into bone. It shrieked—inhuman, horrible as always. Claws swung wide and I ducked just in time, teeth bared.