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“I don’t want to hurt you.” I paused. “And you don’t want to hurt me either.”
She blinked, the frustration apparent in her blue eyes. “I can’t let you go.”
“Then pretend I knocked you out and stay out of the way. That’s all I ask.” I didn’t wait for a response. She could do the opposite: knock me out while she helped Paimon. But for some reason, I trusted her. I knew she wouldn’t hurt me.
I turned and ran through the demons toward Shane—even they didn’t touch me.
Like before, Paimon hid behind a wall of demons, while Shane made his way through them. But he killed one and another demon took its place. The barrier never eased up. Behind his demons, Paimon faced the dragon, a dragon scale in his hands. He closed his eyes and the dragon scale shone bright.
“Father!” I yelled.
His eyes snapped open.
A few feet to my side, Shane faltered when he saw me there and a demon took a good hit at him. I winced, but focused on Paimon.
A wide grin spread over the higher demon’s lips as he turned to me. He pushed his demons aside and took a couple of steps closer. “Raika, my daughter. I’ve missed you.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s such a lie.”
“It’s true! You and Ivy were always my favorites. I thought you two would be by my side when I finally conquer the underworld and make it ours.” He extended one hand at me. “I’ll give you one more chance, child. Join me.”
Was he serious? I balked. “Never.”
He clicked his tongue. “Alas, I’ll have to do what I’ve done with my other children who rejected me.”
I swallowed. “So you’ll kill me?” I was hoping he would hesitate, and I would rope him in, buying us more time for the vampires to get here. “Just like that?”
“Oh, no.” He took another step closer. Shane let out a growl and advanced toward Paimon, but five demons stepped in his way. “I didn’t just kill them. You think I would waste such potential?” His grin turned outright menacing. “First, I absorbed their powers, then I killed them.”
I gasped.
He was a freaking monster and he had to go down. I packed as much of my power in a big darkfire bolt and threw it at him. Paimon waved his hand and the bolt broke into a cloud of smoke halfway to him.
How was he so damn powerful right now?
“Have you found another one of your children and killedher in the last couple of days?”
“Something like that.” He shrugged. “But don’t worry. Before I can kill you, I need to kill the dragon.” He turned his back to me and the demons attacked.
“Don’t hurt her!” Ivy yelled. She surged beside Paimon. “Just … push her back.”
A throng of demons descended upon me, and Shane too, and kept us entertained. They literally grabbed me by the arms and pulled me back, as Ivy had asked.
Meanwhile, Paimon rested his hand on the dragon’s side. The dragon jerked at his touch, but the creature seemed to be weakened and couldn’t do much other than cry.
No! He was going to do it!
Desperation clawed through my core and I sent out a wave of darkfire. It washed over the demons around me and knocked a few out. Some others fell back, but for a few seconds, I was free.
“Stay back!” I shouted, hoping they would hear me.
They hesitated, and that was all I needed. I crouched down and pressed my hand on the ground. Darkfire rose around me, taking the demons down. Not dead, but out of commission for a minute. Maybe two? I wasn’t sure.
I shot up and gasped.
Paimon withdrew his hand from the dragon and a giant bright white ball of magic floated out of the dragon’s body. She let out a long sigh, and her body went still.
“No!” I cried. Without thinking, I ran to Paimon. I rammed into him, pushing him away from the white magic ball. He groaned, losing his grip on the magic. The ball split into two and floated forward.
