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Phoenix surrendered to this feline demon, letting her drag her across the abrasive sand and into a dark hole. Great Ancients! She prayed this demon was a friend, not a foe, because she didn’t have the strength to fight her.
* * *
GORGO STARED INTO HISflames, his eyes widening with shock. The witch he’d been scrying for the past year had finally come, fallen right out of the sky like a delicious gift from heaven. This child born of magic, less than two decades old with her innocence still intact, she would be a feast for the ages, and he would savor her blood and screams for years and years. And yet, Morana, his spider slave also known as a jorogumo in demon tongue, had failed to capture her. He watched with a mixture of awe and fury as Morana swept up after the girl and then scurried away into the shifting sands, not bothering to return to him. How odd. After Morana had fallen into his dimension a few years ago, she’d been his loyal arachnid and had all but replaced his worthless wolf shifters.
He would make Morana pay for her disobedience, but first, he had to secure the girl. Ever since he’d first scried her image for the Vindictus, he’d longed for her to come to his dimension in search of her mates. He’d used every ancient spell in his arsenal, increasing his sacrifices to the flames, just for a chance to taste the witch’s sweetness. But she had always eluded him, frustrating him with her ability to hide from his seeing eye while giving him just enough glimpses to increase his thirst.
Leaning over his well of flame, he dug his claws into the warm stones. “My pearl has come,” he hissed, his words searing the air like flames of venom.
He watched as the flames receded, and he stared across the empty well at his obedient lechers, four demon shifters he’d cast under his spell almost three thousand years ago when they’d had the misfortune of being cast down to his dimension by the Vindictus. That had been the coven’s payment to him in exchange for doing their bidding. He’d regretted the arrangement the moment he’d signed in his blood, for they’d tricked him into a life of servitude of which he was thankfully now free. His lechers weren’t free, though, and they never would be so long as they were cursed to thirst for blood.
“You must bring her to me,” he continued, staring at the largest of the alphas, who had somehow lost one eye and most of his fur, revealing patches of gray, rotting skin. “Do you understand?”
The alpha pushed away from the slate wall, rattling his chains, his long snout pinched in a snarl. “Eat.”
Gorgo went to him, retrieving the key from his robe. “Bring her to me,” he said as he unlocked the lecher’s rusty chains, “and I will give you food.”
“Eat,” the beast repeated, a big chunk of his top lip falling to the floor.
His brothers moaned their agreement.
Gorgo went to unlock the other three chained zombie wolves. “There’s no time.” He feared Morana had gone rogue and would return to capture the girl, breaking her delicate bones before he had a chance to crack them open himself.
“Eat,” they all moaned, swaying like thirsty plants bending in the breeze.
“Listen, you worthless mutts,” he growled, dragging a hand down his one large center eye. “Bring my pearl to me, and I will let you drink from my own veins.” He jutted a talon toward the door. “Go now!”
The wolves grumbled but didn’t argue as they dragged their crackling bones toward the mouth of the cavern. He knew they would’ve run faster if he’d fed them, but they ate even slower than they walked, and he had no idea how long the girl would be unconscious.
How he loathed the inability to see the girl’s future. Why did this virgin witch’s fate elude him, the most powerful oracle in all of hell? The answer had to be in her blood. He couldn’t wait to taste it.
* * *
PHOENIX SUCKED IN Ascream when she fell down the hole, a rough tunnel slide that cut into her spine. She landed hard on her back, blinking up at a dark ceiling, her wolf-touched eyes adjusting to the dull light. It was much cooler here than the scorching ground above. A damp breeze blew from somewhere, whistling like a distant howling wind. Somewhere beside her she heard the demon getting to her feet. She hoped this demon was truly a friend of her sister, because she had no more strength left to fight. Her head spun and spun like she was on a merry-go-round.
The cat demon released her legs and leaned against a shimmery stone wall. She spun in Phoenix’s vision as if she was on the merry-go-round, too. Phoenix blinked several times until the spinning stopped and the cat demon was just a wobbly silhouette holding a finger to her lips as the clacking grew louder.
Phoenix’s heart nearly beat out of her chest as a shadow passed across the opening above them and several black, furry legs felt inside the tunnel, coming dangerously close to scraping her ankle. She gathered enough of her magic to cast the cat demon and herself in shadow. Not until the shadow above moved on, the clacking echoing in the distance, did she heave a sigh of relief.
“What was that thing?” she asked the cat demon as she released the darkness.
The demon pushed off the wall, standing upright on two legs that ended in large paws, her long feline tail wrapped around her gold and black striped leg. “A jorogumo,” she answered, dragging a paw down her face that looked part feline, part human.
Phoenix’s blood turned to ice. That’s what she’d been afraid of. She already knew what the spider wanted—her body to possess or else eat. “Will it be back?”
The cat creature frowned. “Hopefully not. It sweeps up everything in its path and takes what it collects to its master.”
Phoenix swallowed back bile. “Its master? What kind of sinister mage has control of a demonic spider?”
“Gorgo,” she answered, “the ruler of this dimension.”
“Is he the oracle?” she asked. She could easily imagine the oracle controlling a creature that had almost torn apart her tribe.
The feline stalked up to her, the thick pads of her paws muting the sound of her approach, bringing with her the faint smell of cool mint. “Yes, you’ve already heard of him?”
Phoenix tilted her head, sniffing the air. Where was that mint smell coming from? “I have, but not much.” Phoenix slowly sat up. The dark tunnel they were in slanted to one side, and Phoenix wondered if it was an effect of her dizzy skull or if she was sitting on a slope.
“He’s the epitome of evil,” the cat demon said with a grimace. “He tortures his captives before feeding them to his flames.”
