Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“Dar!” I barely got out.
It was hard to breathe, and it was smart of Kamosh not to let me touch the ground.
“Dar!” Lorne’s cry was ragged. “Osko! Gwyn!”
Kamosh flung me down hard. I was winded, and it felt like my back was broken. I put both hands in the dirt.
Heal, the land said.
You heal, I answered as the demon closed in on Lorne.
“Osko, Dar, Gwyn,” I yelled, and the demon stopped and turned back to me.
I had a moment to think as it came toward me again, and Lorne rasped my name, that the land could not keep us both alive for long, and given a choice, it would save me and allow Lorne to be killed. The land couldn’t understand that his death would leave me broken and unable to be the guardian I was.
Rolling to my stomach, I pushed up, and with the strength and adrenaline I had left, I rose, got my legs under me, and bolted over to Lorne, passing the demon, and fell down on top of the man I loved.
“Xan,” he murmured, and there were tears in his eyes before he clutched me to him as he looked up.
Turning, I saw the demon lunge for me, but was instead caught in the jaws of Gwyn, the largest of the Cŵn Annwn, the three dogs that belonged to my lord Arawn.
The demon shrieked as Gwyn dragged it back by its arm, and even as I thought how, I understood. Kamosh was made of shadow now. Corvus could not imprison him, it couldn’t even touch him. It had tried, for me, and would try again, but it was useless. But Gwyn, in normal form, as she was now, was not corporeal. She was made of the ether, no more solid than Kamosh was.
As we watched, the demon tore free of her hold, striking at Gwyn, and she snarled and slashed at him, finally returning to stand between me and Lorne and the demon.
Lorne reached for her, and the moment his hand grazed her, she became solid, his hand sliding through her glossy fur. She always liked it when he petted her, and she would change so he could.
The demon bellowed, Lorne instinctively put a hand up to protect Gwyn, and I put myself between them and Kamosh as I roared no.
Something moved past me, and whatever it was, there was heat rolling off of it in waves. It felt like that blast that hit you when you opened the oven door.
It took me a moment to see it was a trident made of blackened iron, the prongs now red-hot like a brand. Instantly, it speared that which was suddenly corporeal, a wasted gore-covered skeleton. The tines drove through the demon’s head, shoulder, and chest all at once. Kamosh wailed as it was engulfed in blue flame, screaming and burning, pinned to the ground, first turning solid black and then in moments to ash before evaporating.
The fire went from blue to green, and the flames spread, engulfing everything, running in all directions as Gwyn licked Lorne’s face, then mine, and bolted across the grass toward the trees, where she disappeared.
The gratitude rose from the land in waves, and the intensity of the happiness made my jaw clench tight as it rolled through me. Lorne struggled to sit up, and I helped him before slumping sideways against him. When I turned to look at him, only then did I notice that his head was tipped back, all his focus above him. Lifting my eyes, I found my lord Arawn glowering down at me.
I gasped, and then couldn’t breathe and started choking.
Lorne tried to breathe too, and he must’ve swallowed some spit in the process, his body just now remembering how to work, and he started choking as well.
Both of us were trying to get to our knees as fast as we could.
“Peace,” my lord demanded, sounding really annoyed, and we both froze.
When he released the trident, it blurred from sight, disappearing as though it were never there, before Arawn knelt in the grass. I could only imagine how terrible we looked, both of us flushed and sticky with sweat, covered in dirt, with debris in our hair.
Arawn’s brows furrowed, and I had a moment to realize that Gwyn could have never come on her own, that he had to be right behind her. The tears were no surprise.
I wanted to say, Please forgive me, my lord, but nothing came out. It felt like my throat was scorched.
“Demons—all demons—are my dominion.”
We both nodded.
“Never are you,” he rumbled, “to stand against a demon. Hear me?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Pushing his hand into the ground, he spoke in Old Norse to Corvus, and when he lifted it from the dirt, he had made a fist. Relaxing his hand, opening it slowly, there was an enormous bloody, wet, dirt-covered heart there.