Page 108 of Infernal Bonds

When I blinked away the black spots dancing in my vision, both the beast and my shadow friends were gone.

“What the fuck was that? Where did they come from?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, scanning the treeline for any sign of my friends.

“We could have used them a lot sooner.”

He wasn’t saying anything I wasn’t already thinking. If they were able to find me so easily, why hadn’t they found us earlier? And why didn’t they stay and help us home?

The more I encountered them, the less I understood them. What I knew for sure was that they only wished to keep me safe, so they couldn’t be evil.

“Let’s keep going. I’m worried about Zeke,” I said, giving up on finding them.

Cyn’s jaw clenched. “We’ll go faster if I carry him. Here, help me get him on my back.”

It took some work, but I managed to help Cyn hoist Zeke’s dead weight onto his back for a piggyback ride.

Grunting, Cyn hoisted him up and started moving. I hurried to catch up.

When we stumbled out onto the path, I looked back the way we came. The path was so long I couldn’t see much of anything but what looked like distant brown mountains. Moicae?

I turned the other way and released a shuddering breath. “Look!”

Off in the distance, I saw what looked like the massive walls of Elyrdin rising up above the treeline.

Relief hit me so hard my knees nearly gave out.

“Thank fuck.” Cyn dropped his head back and exhaled. “Come on.”

We’d walked for what felt like another couple of hours before I noticed something in the distance that made the hairs on my arms stand up. Was it another creature—or more? Whatever they were, they weren’t small, and there was more than one.

“Cyn,” I said, unable to hide the hint of fear in my voice.

“Where are those shadows now?”

I looked around, hoping like hell they’d make an appearance because I knew Cyn couldn’t handle this alone, and I didn’t have the powers to help anyone. I hated feeling useless. But this wasn’t Earth. The problems here weren’t practical.

The enormous creature, surrounded by smaller infernals, moved toward us slowly as if it hadn’t noticed our presence yet, but I knew that as soon as it reached us, we were dead.

I reached for Cyn’s arm, wrapping my hand around his forearm as he held Zeke a little tighter. “What do we do now?”

28

RESCUE

ASH

Three days. It’d been three days since I’d last seen Rae.

If we didn’t find her and my brothers soon, I was going to do something reckless and stupid.

When I came to after the attack, the only things left were bodies and tire tracks.

Ezra had been motionless beside me. For one terrifying second, I mistook him for one of the dead. Then he groaned and pushed himself onto his hands and knees.

When he saw we were alone, his sclera flooded black, and he roared, his shadows flaring and lashing out as he transformed and rose to his feet.

It’d taken everything in me to bring him back.