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"Who the fuck would threaten a cat?" I demanded.
I thrust my arm forward, distracting him with the serrated blade I stole from Shira while I brought my other knife around and jammed it into his throat.
Blood spurted everywhere, satisfying and dark. I jumped out of the spray, keeping my stare pinned on him even as movement caught my eye behind him.Bel,I thought, until a violent, growling voice cut the air.
"Avie!"
Taj?
I whipped my head up on instinct, my heart legitimately skipping a beat at the sight of him vaulting the low wall between the churchyard and the fairground. His massive stone-grey body was visibly bristling with rage and protectiveness, the veins of deep red lava literally throbbing.
My delusional instincts sighedwe're safe,and in my moment of weakness Eidolon snapped an arm out behind himself and grabbed my throat. His claws bit deep enough to make me gasp in surprise, and I was acutely aware of my fragile mortality as he turned, his hand locked around my neck.
I was going to die, but hell if I wasn’t going to take him with me. With a scream of rage that echoed Taj’s roar, I went stab-happy with my knife, jamming it into Eidolon’s chest over and over.
Looking mildly annoyed instead of in excruciating pain, the bastard lifted me into the air, his hand icy and rough around my neck.
"I'll deal with you later," he muttered.
"Just—kill me now—" I challenged, teeth bared. He couldn't, could he? "Coward."
"I'm a father, not a coward," he argued, brown eyes glowing with true, deep anger. "I could never kill you, Avie."
My heart did a pathetic little skip. For a moment, I thought he'd set me down, pat me on the head like he did when I was small, and tell me to go practise my knife throwing. Instead he tightened his fingers around my throat, and I got deja vu tosomany moments in my life where he'd cut off my air until I was sure I'd die.
But this time he didn't knock me unconscious. His scaly arms bulged as he lifted me higher off the ground, until even the tips of my toes didn't brush the grass.
He said, "You'll thank me when I'm on the throne, Avie."
And he threw me across the field with superhuman strength.
I crashed into the wall so hard, I knocked bricks free. My head slammed into stone and everything went terrifyingly dark.
Voices broke through, yelling my name, screamingprincessandLina, sweetnessandbabygirl, but even as I reached for my mates and begged my eyes to open, the world slipped sideways and fell away from me.
Fuck,I thought, and passed out.
44
Icame back to consciousness with the distorted sense that I'd only been out for a few minutes. Something cold and wet dripped down my cheek, thicker than tears, gooier than blood.
My nose wrinkled, I cracked an eye open—andsqueakedat the huge teeth that hovered inches from my face, each as big as my forearm and attached to an equally monster-sized head.
The creature that loomed over me was easily ten feet tall, with golden fur, a swishing tail, glowing blue eyes that flashed when I stared up at the behemoth and—
Hang on a drooling fucking minute!
I wiped the cold slime off my face and gave the monster a wide-eyed stare. Iknewthose eyes, and that fur was the same fur I'd been wearing—and swallowing, andbreathing—for days.
"Mallie baby?" I whispered, half afraid I'd died and gone to heaven.1
The enormous dog whined and slammed her nose into my face, licking my cheek so I was dripping with even more slobber. Her tail wagged like crazy.
I reached up and hugged her giant neck in a daze. She was more shire-horse-sized than dog-sized now, but she was ahellhoundso I shouldn't have been so surprised.
"Mallie, back up," a deep, rumbling voice ordered, and my bottom lip wobbled at the sound of Dev's voice.
And then he was there, pushing past the supersized golden retriever to clasp my hand and pull me to my feet. I was so consumed with the sight of him that for a moment I didn't notice the utter madness behind him—armies of demons and blood-people clashing.
