A demon spotted me. His heavy clawed feet stomped along the soil before he expanded his wings and flew at me with his arms outstretched. I leapt and smashed into his body, twisting him in the air and decapitating him in one smooth move. I crashed to earth and dusted off his crawling remains. I needed to reach the wolves, and none of the damn flying monkeys were going to stop me.
The two Geminis fought a demon well over seven feet tall and almost as wide. Stone gray skin covered his humanoid form and sickly yellow eyes narrowed with challenge. His long leather appendages slapped at Gemini and shielded him from the wolves’ snapping jaws. A good offensive maneuver, but not enough to guard his back.
I jumped on his shoulders and shifted him up to his neck. He jerked his head around, hissing when saw me. My leg swung back and connected with his head, sending his skull to roll like a soccer ball into the ferns. Wet, pulsating insides spilled from his neck, shriveling once exposed to the fresh breeze.
Three smaller creatures shoved me against a tree. Two held my arms while the third dug his talons into my shoulders. A serpentlike tongue slithered through his fangs and wrapped around my throat, halting my screams and robbing my breath. I gasped from the need for air while his clawed hand yanked at my shorts.
Anger forced me to act. I brought my arms together, slamming the creatures on either side of me into the third. I sliced off the tongue that strangled me with my claws and kicked each in the groin before smashing their heads into the tree like spoiled watermelons.
I drew in ragged breaths as I crushed the heads of small butterfly-size demons crawling along my flesh. Damn it. Where did they come from? I scanned the skies. More flew above in a V formation, similar to geese until they dove straight down, landing inches from the battle.
Shayna sliced three into confetti in a whirlwind of swinging blades. Maggotlike intestines littered her face, but she managed to sever the arms of a large demon who’d landed in a squat behind her. Poor Shayna, though, had taken on more than she could handle. The immense creature encircled her wrists with his tongue and dragged her away into the thick brush.
I fought my way through the remaining horde to reach my sister, killing anything that got in my way. When the monster saw me approach, he released her and traded for me. We wrestled, his razor-sharp fangs biting into my shoulder as I attempted to puncture his chest with my claws. I screamed from the pain of his teeth piercing through my bones and gagged from his hot, rotting breath. My head spun as his saliva sizzled against my skin, eating its way through my muscles and tendons. I tore his wings to force his release, only to have him clamp down harder.
Shayna was near, but she didn’t seem able to strike. So I continued to roll on the ground while my blood smeared the earth and the creature’s tongue eagerly licked my wound. I screamed in agony as flesh tore from my bones. I thought he was eating me alive until the weight lifted off my chest. Above me, Aric held the decapitated head in his hands. He threw it aside, then gingerly pulled me to my feet.
Aric’s face shone chalk white. But his obvious worry for me quickly turned to rage. He held tight to my hips. “What the hell were you thinking? I told you to run!”
I pushed away, angry at him for yelling at me, only to cringe. My thrust caused a ghastly pain to shoot through me. I hunched over and instinctively grabbed where it hurt. My fingers sank into the large bloody chunk missing from my shoulder. I shouldn’t have looked. I really shouldn’t have, because the ruptured blood vessels and mangled flesh caused me to become abruptly faint.
Aric caught me before I hit the ground and yelled for Emme. I barely heard the last few splatters of demon remains drench the earth. We’d won the fight. By some miracle, we’d all survived. My sisters hurried over, screaming when they saw my condition. You know you’re in bad shape when women who’ve decapitated vampires can’t bear the sight of you. They pleaded with me not to close my eyes, but the horrible ringing in my ears made it hard to understand their speech. My eyelids drooped as if lined with tar, despite my struggles to keep them open.
Aric continued to hold me while Emme touched my skin with trembling hands. “Hang in there, baby,” he whispered. “Don’t leave me.”
Emme’s soft yellow light surrounded me. Slowly I regained my strength. My head began to clear, and the horrible pain receded. The moment I healed, I broke free from Aric and put ample space between us. Damn, I was furious. “It’s not okay for you to yell at me!”
Aric’s expression went from shocked to glaring. He yanked on the shorts Liam tossed him while narrowing his eyes at me. “Those things could have raped or killed you because you didn’t listen to me!”