Instinctively, Tavin ducked. Something whistled past his head. Shouts rose up over the sound of Calder’s curses.
Tavin spun around and threw out some curses of his own as the hot mist cleared, revealing a dozen eyeless Silas demons spilling out of a Y junction and onto the path in front of them.
Calder dropped one with his crossbow before Tavin’s blades cleared their sheathes. Several demons broke away from the pack and charged them, their mouths gaping wide with tiny, sharp teeth.
Reaver, eyes on the leader, coolly tucked Harvester behind him and fired off some sort of icy weapon shard at the lead Silas.
The demon went down, a hole in his chest from the ice shard. The demon behind him met the same fate from the same shard and so did the third and fourth. By the time the shard reached the fifth Silas, it had melted to the size of a pencil, and it shattered on the demon’s sternum.
The Silas cackled. It cackled until Tavin slit its pasty white throat. Blood splashed onto his hand, and at the same moment, the snake bit deep into Tavin’s neck.
What the—
Suddenly, everything became a blur he saw only through a haze of red. It was as if Tavin was dancing on air, striking out at whatever came within reach of his blades. He felt no pain, but neither did he feel the need to protect himself.
There was only the insane, driving desire to kill. And not just kill, but cause pain. He heard himself laughing maniacally as he toyed with one of the demons, cruelly carving out two holes in its face where its eyes should have been.
Tavin.
Tavin!
Someone was calling his name. He didn’t recognize the voice. He turned toward it. A male he thought he should know was staring at him. All around the blond male—an angel?—were dozens of Silas bodies, some of them boiling in pools of liquid fire. A black-haired female stood nearby, her body swaying as if she could barely hold herself up.
The desire to kill revved up again, and he launched a blade at the female. The angelic male dove in front of her, knocking aside the blade. He hit the ground and rolled, hissing when his shoulder hit a stream of lava.
Tavin was going to make him drink the lava. And then he was going to fuck the female. The Nightlash demon grinning with bloodlust as he hacked off a Silas’s head could watch until Tav finished. Then the Nightlash would die.
The snake kept chewing on his neck, filling him with hot, stinging juice. It made him strong. Fearless. This was fucking awesome.
“I’m going to make you scream, female.” His voice rumbled with savagery. “You’re mine.” Drooling in anticipation, Tavin leaped at her, but the blond male hit him with a full-body slam. They both grunted and crashed down on the burning stone.
Tavin. Stop it!
He felt a buzz of energy enter his body, and then a sting in his throat, and for a moment, everything went dark.
“Tavin?”
Tavin lifted his lids. Reaver was sitting on him, a knife in his hand and a concerned look on his face.
“W-what… happened?”
“Shit.” Reaver disappeared the dagger. “I don’t know. But you need to get to Underworld General. Fast.”
Tavin struggled into a sitting position, aided by Harvester, and looked down at himself. Blood poured out of dozens of gashes. Bone was visible in places where flesh had been stripped by the Silas’s blades, and his right knee was crushed so badly his lower leg bent at an awkward angle.
“Oh… fuck.”
“Yeah.” Reaver yanked him into his arms as Harvester led them to the shimmering curtain of light ahead. The Boregate. “You went berserk when the serpent glyph bit you. You tried to attack Harvester. I had to stab it to make it let go.” He cursed. “Hold still.”
Nausea bubbled up in Tavin’s throat as Reaver’s power sifted through him. The snake writhed, and Tav joined it, pain screaming along all his nerve pathways.
Calder’s voice cracked over the sound of Tavin’s pulse pounding in his ears. “Let him die. He’s a danger to all of us if he goes ape-shit again.”
The asshole was right, and Tavin was mercenary enough to know he’d have said the same thing. But fuck… Tav wanted to live. Hand trembling, dripping with blood, he extended his middle finger at the Nightlash male.
Reaver’s breath became labored, and Tav felt the angel’s power become a trickle. “Dammit,” Reaver rasped. “I can’t.”
“You’re out of power?” Or maybe it was corrupted. At this point, Tav figured corrupted healing would be better than none at all.
“No,” Reaver said, his voice thick with regret. “But I will be if I heal you any more than I just did. Calder’s got a point. You’re a danger to us all, and I can’t afford to drain my power.”