Page 24 of The River of Fire
He might be enraged, but all the training he received over the years is guiding him into all the right moves. He immediately tries to swipe towards my middle again. I manage to evade it and get some space between us.
I need to go on the offensive. The next time he charges at me, I duck, but I also use both of my swords to slash at his legs. He staggers back, the twin tears in his leathers weeping blood.
“Fucking bitch!” His face contorted in rage, he feints and kicks me in the stomach instead. My breath punches out as I fly backward, trying to hold on to my swords through the impact with the ground. “I’m gonna fuck you with my sword before I cut open your throat.” His voice is full of glee as he slowly walks toward me.
But my eyes are not on him anymore. They’re on the figure that materialized beside him.
The black-haired archdemon grabs Nick’s arm so fast, that he doesn’t even manage to fully turn his head before I hear his bones being crushed with a nauseating sound. Nick’s high-pitched screams join the clap and boom of the thunder from the storm still ravaging the skies, and he drops to his knees.
I gather the courage to stand on shaking legs as Nick sobs, clearly in shock from the realization of who just attacked him. This is the third time I’ve been near this demon – though I only really saw him the one time. His face is absolutely expressionless and the roiling flames of his eyes are the only sign of life.
“Did I call you?” I blurt out, my voice surprisingly even. His gaze slowly moves to me, then to the cut at my side and the dark, shining wetness on the leather around it. He takes a step behind Nick and places a hand on his shoulder.
“Please, please, please,” the man on the ground snivels. The crotch of his leathers turns darker as he empties his bladder from pain and fear.
I should voice protest at whatever will surely happen to Nick… but he tried to kill me. I have no doubt he would’ve desecrated my corpse if it came to that. I look up from Nick’s wet face and meet Ashtaroth’s eyes. The thunder goes silent. He must take whatever expression he sees on my face as a green light and tightens his grip on Nick’s shoulder.
A wet tearing and snapping sound, the likes of which I’ve never heard before is far too loud in the sudden silence, and it makes a primal part of me freeze. I can’t quite focus on what the archdemon is doing, staring into the distance instead, but I expect he’s ripping Nick’s head off.
Instead of a head, something white, red, and pink is thrown before me, startling me from my stupor. I know I shouldn’t look down, and maybe that’s what makes it impossible not to. The thud of Nick’s body hitting the ground is muffled by the high-pitched ringing in my ears. It takes longer than it should to realize that the off-white serpentine shape lying before me, with pink smears of blood and pieces of flesh still attached, is Nick’s spine.
I turn away from the macabre sight and cover my face with my hands, like the grisly scene could ever be unseen. It’s burned into my retinas and I feel my gorge rising. I place a hand on my stomach and the other over my mouth as I gag, my body convulsing violently.
A scent that’s both fresh and homey invades my nose, soothing my roiling stomach. As I slowly rise from my hunched position, I can see Ashtaroth lifting his hand towards my face. His red, gore-covered hand. “No!” I blurt, but he just braces the back of my neck using his other hand to keep me from flinching away and touches my forehead with his blood-streaked thumb. I can feel him leave a smear of wetness, like he’s anointing me with warpaint. Like I’m a certain lion prince and my father, the king, is about to show me off to his subjects in the jungle. The subjugating action has me fuming enough that I tear out of my stupor. I clench my fists and bare my teeth in a snarl. I want to bite that infuriating smirk clean off his perfect face.
He slides his clean hand down slowly from my neck to the small of my back, then pulls me into him. I gasp as our lower bodies come into contact. I don’t want to know what part ofthis made him hard, whether it was the violence or my anger, but I can’t ignore the pulse of liquid heat I feel at the press of that hardness against me. Looking up at his face brings vivid flashbacks from the dream I had just a few hours ago and I flush. I’m a sick, sick person. My colleague just tried to kill me, who is now lying as spineless in death as he was in life just a few feet away, and I’m cozying up against the archdemon that butchered him.
I don’t find out what it is he has planned for me though; the eyes roving languorously over my face halt as the hand holding me against him tightens. He growls quietly.
“Soon.” His perfect lips form the promise that makes me shiver and between one blink and the next, he steps back and disappears.
I must have been leaning on him more than I realized, because I stumble back and opt to sit down. The movement stretches my wound and I send what little energy I have left to its healing. It’s not much. But that’s Daniel I see running towards me – and Nick’s remains. Divine intervention, I snicker to myself. Yeah, I’m definitely not mentally sound these days.
“What happened?” Daniel asks, sounding less surprised than I would have been if I happened upon a spineless corpse.
“He attacked me,” I answer, waiting for the third-degree. But Daniel just nods, like it makes perfect sense that his trainee is lying on the ground sans spine, his other trainee the only other person that’s present.
He kneels next to me and inspects my wound. “It appears to be healing on its own. We will clean and dress it at the keep.”
“How did you know?” I ask numbly.
“I was pacing outside. I felt… disquieted. I had already decided to follow you when I saw the first lightning strike. I hurried over and had barely glimpsed you standing with him in the distance before he noticed my presence.”
I hang my head. He saw me pressed against the archdemon, a detached spinal column garnishing the romantic scene, bits of gore sprinkled around like rose petals. Instead of beingdisgusted with me, Daniel stands up and offers me his hand. “He prevented your death.” Once more he’s reading me like an open book.
“Again…” I mumble and let him pull me up.
“I cannot resent him in this moment,” Daniel says, his voice steely.
“But, Nick?” I gesture towards the grisly remains of the vicious young man.
“Did he deserve it?” He asks pragmatically. An odd question coming from such a kind being. Deserve it? Does anyone deserve to get their spine ripped out? Though, it was a quick death. Aside from some crushed bones, he didn’t suffer. I have a feeling he would have made me suffer…
“Yes,” I reply, lifting my chin. “He deserved it.”
Chapter 18 – Ashtaroth
Istare at my viscera-covered hand and flex my fingers into a fist.
