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My stomach knotted. If Petra was in the human realm and the shadow was in the human realm, it wouldn’t need me.
And what would stop it from using the pendant’s magic to send itself and Petra right back to my world?
Me.
I rolled to my feet, wavering as the shadow increased its mental assault to regain control. It was like the worst headache ever jacked up on meth and steroids. My vision blurred and pain screamed through me.
Or was that me? Was I the one screaming?
It was too much. I felt my knees buckling, but another blast of white-hot rage pulsed from somewhere inside me, blinding me to at least some of the pain.
“Take her.” I heard Petra’s command and wheeled around to see those soulless fucking frat boys closing in around me.
The blood-curdling sound of growling and snarling rushed in from behind me, followed by more screaming that I was pretty surewasn’tcoming from me. I dared a glance over my shoulder to see Leo slashing those deadly claws across the face of one of the frat boys.
Wild didn’t even begin to describe him in this state, and I was honestly terrified to turn my back on him.
A rough hand landed on my shoulder, jerking me forward, and wouldn’t you know it, the damned pendant started to glow. Fresh panic washed over me, sending a stinging wave of ice over my very raw nerve-endings. Glowing meant working. Working meant…
Trouble.
I couldn’t let the shadow use it. I couldn’t let Petra get it. If I died now, I couldn’t do anything to stop them. Before I could talk myself out of it, I yanked it off, and hurled it as hard as I could at the first hard surface I could.
It hit the stone behind Petra’s throne and shattered in a gut-wrenching display of amber light. The explosion illuminated everything in the area, tearing away the glamour and revealing Petra in her true form. Her alien-looking skin seemed to absorb the light, like she was a void in space rather than a physical being. Except for the multiple rows of small, pointed teeth glistening in that impossibly large mouth, and a pair of eyes that would put the darkness in the depths of the sea to shame.
She—It—was hideous and fucking massive compared to what I remembered. In my world, Petra had stood roughly seven feet tall. The creature before me was nearly twice that.
Terror bled through me at the sight even as a wicked, hateful feeling seeped through the cracks forming in my mind.
My control was slipping.
“Leo, run!” He needed to get as far away from me as he could because I was as good as dead after what I’d just done.
Just thinking about it made me sick to my very core. Yes, I’d kept a powerful demon from using the pendant to get to my world, but it was more than that. That pendant was my only hope of getting back home, back to my little brother, and I’d destroyed it.
Then there was Hook.
He’d trusted me with that piece of himself, and I’d smashed it into tiny little pieces.
What kind of monster did that make me?
Hands grabbed at me, yanking me this way and that as the frat boys dragged me toward a furious Petra. She wasn’t even trying to hide behind the island beauty glamour anymore.
Behind me, another fight was in full swing. My heart sank when I heard Leo’s voice, his very human voice, groaning in pain.
This isn’t the way this was supposed to go.
The shadow laughed inside me, and a new realization hit me: It wasn’t fighting anymore. I could feel it slithering, but it wasn’t trying to wrestle control. It was just watching and waiting for the demon to kill me and release it from this weak human cage.
Someone kicked me from behind and I reeled forward, landing on my hands and knees at Petra’s taloned feet. I didn’t even have a chance to drag in one measly breath before her grotesque hand wrapped around my neck and hauled me back up. And up. Until my feet were dangling several feet off the ground, and I was hanging face to face with the thing that had haunted my most recent nightmares.
I clung to its fingers, nails digging into that nasty skin just below my chin. Despite the litany of colorful phrases flooding my mind, I didn’t dare try to talk. Hell, I could barely suck in enough air to hold myself up and keep myself conscious.
But I could glare at that evil bitch.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” she asked in a snakelike voice. A gross, yellowish tongue slithered out between flat lips.
Yeah, I had a pretty good idea. I’d stopped the wicked witch of the enchanted island from moving in on my turf.Suck on that.
