Page 107 of Infernal Bonds

Whatever had dug up the ground had taken out the trees along the same path and continued for what looked like miles in both directions.

I squinted. “Wait. What’s that?” I pointed to the right, where it seemed as if sunlight brightened the area.

“The path!”

I looked at Cyn. “The path?”

“The path from the gates to Moicae. I don’t know how much farther to the wall, but the path guarantees faster travel.” He looked at me. “Safer, too.”

Zeke had stopped talking and slumped against me, forcing Cyn to support his other side so we could move him more easily. He wasn’t making weird noises or acting feral, so we kept moving instead of stopping and tempting fate.

As we closed in on the path, an eerie howl pierced the air.

“Not now,” Cyn muttered.

I looked at him with wide eyes, uncertain of what to do.

“Go,” he whisper-yelled, his expression hard as he stared at the path to freedom.

I jerked to a stop when the source of the howl crashed through the trees and landed in the trench, blocking our way.

I didn’t know what to call the lesser infernal. I couldn’t even think of an animal that suited it.

The gray-skinned creature crouched low, its thick, muscular arms proportionate to its body and its clawed hands flat on the ground, while its hind legs bent forward. If it stood upright, its shape would resemble a humanoid, yet the way it moved when it landed in the trench hinted it didn’t walk on two legs.

A jagged mouth stretched ear-to-ear across its flat face, lined with sharp, thin, needle-like teeth that dripped with thick, black saliva. The liquid fell to the mud, sizzling against the decaying foliage beneath its feet.

Great. Another lesser infernal capable of melting my skin off.

The bald thing’s glossy black eyes fixed on us without blinking.

“Take him,” Cyn whispered, moving Zeke’s weight against me as he shifted into his alternate form, preparing to fight. “I won’t let it hurt either of you.”

Before the creature could even move, I shivered as a strange clicking sound echoed through the surrounding trees, followed by familiar chittering.

“Cyn, wait,” I hissed, trying to stop him from approaching the beast.

He looked back at me, brows drawn.

“Look.” I nodded to the left.

My three shadow friends, whom I hadn’t seen since Cholian, emerged from the trees and moved into the trench between the beast and us.

They looked the same as I remembered, but something about them felt different. I felt power radiating from the shadows billowing around them like smoke.

When the beast growled at them, the smallest hissed back while the largest one’s shadows flared and formed whip-like tendrils that snapped at the beast to silence it.

They circled the beast, hissing and making the cute chittering sounds I’d started associating with comfort since they always took care of me.

Cyn backed up until he was beside us again, taking the bulk of Zeke’s weight off me. Zeke had grown a lot heavier now that he was unconscious.

The beast roared and charged forward, tearing up the ground as it barreled toward us, but before it got more than ten feet, my shadow friend’s shadows lashed out and morphed into thick black ropes that wrapped around its neck and body, mummifying it in seconds.

It thrashed, trying to break the solid ropes, but to no avail.

The smallest infernal climbed on top of the beast and put its hands on the ropes. At least I thought they were hands. With all the shadows, I never saw their actual forms. I only knew they felt like marshmallows to the touch.

Their sounds rose in a crescendo before a bright white light burst like a silent flashbang in front of us, momentarily blinding me.