“They must have moved.”

For some reason she wanted to comfort him. She shouldn’t. Her future with him wasn’t exactly certain. However, certain things couldn’t be denied. She couldn’t deny that he had the ability to make her heart race or for her breath to catch. She also couldn’t deny that she wanted to know everything about him and how he came to be cursed.

Something was happening between them. Maybe it started with that kiss or maybe it started before that, she couldn’t be sure. They spent so much time together that it was all beginning to blur. Still, once she got powerful enough, she was porting her butt out of here and leaving him in the wind. If he came back after her, she’d be powerful enough to keep him away. Of that, she felt certain. He already said his mother was more powerful than he was and only Abby would be able to kill her, which technically made her more powerful than him too. Just, not yet. She was getting there though. Her powers were growing, becoming easier to reach and use.

“What are we—?”

“Krishnoe!”

He held his hand up at her, stopping her mid-sentence.

A new wave of tension poured over him and she stilled too. She didn’t know what he just said but she got the gist of it. Even without thinking about it, her body tensed, breathing turning quiet as her eyes scanned the distance. Something was very wrong.

Alrik silently lifted his hands and grabbed the handles of his swords. With only a soft hiss of metal on the leather casing, he lifted the swords over his head and freed them.

They had no warning when it came. It all happened at once.

The sound of dozens of feet pounding the earth sent Alrik and her spinning around. From the forest, she spotted a small army of idummi demons sprinting for them. Abby backed up behind Alrik without realizing she’d done so.

“These aren’t the demons you were talking about, right?” She tried to insert some humor into the situation because right now, she had to fight the urge not to run in the other direction. He couldn’t possibly win against so many demons. Before there had only been one and he’d taken care of it quickly. But now there had to be at least twenty headed right towards them.

“No they are not. Stay back!”

That was all he said before he let out a roar that threatened to deafen her and charged into the forest. Abby pressed a fist to her mouth, teeth biting down. The man was a warrior.

He caught up to the first demon heading the pack and slew him to a bloody mess in seconds, but there were too many. The demons narrowed in on him, their line formation closing in, circling him. They jumped at him at once, their heinous cries and squeals piercing her ears.

But, something else caught her attention. That eerie feeling of being watched. Abby froze and slowly looked left. There, three demons had broken off from their friends and slowly came towards her, their knees bent, arms dangling low with sharp curved knives at their belts.

Abby didn’t think—she acted. In a blast of magic, she shot the demons back. They flew into the trees, barreling into them with a hard whack. She didn’t stay to see what happened with them—she ran.

She never ran as hard in her life as she did in that moment. She didn’t know how she knew that the idummi would get up and come right after her, but she did. They were going to kill her. An ear-splitting war cry followed right behind her. She flinched knowing that sound was directed at her and what she’d done.

Pounding feet sounded behind her. Abby strained to make her body move faster. She just had to go faster, that’s all.

Her lungs worked hard to suck in air through the panic. Any strain on her limbs didn’t register as she was in panic mode. She raced flat-out across the plain, swiftly stomping down patches of grass and flowers in her wake. She headed for one of the hills towards the left. Some thought that she could hide there came to mind and she charged forward with her only goal to escape.

The pounding feet closed in on her. The creatures made clicking, gnashing sounds with their teeth. She pushed her last reserves of energy hoping it’d be enough, but a hard body slammed into her. Abby cried out as she went flying hard to the ground, the momentum of her speed banging her head into the ground and making her ribs kiss her spine.

She groaned, unable to move. The thing that tackled her growled and grumbled in a hissing deep voice. It spoke garbled, strange sounding words at her. She was flipped, not gently, onto her back and another painful groan escaped. She had to move. She had to fight back and get away, but her body had given up.

The fall had knocked the wind out of her and sharp pains made each breath she took a chore. Her right knee throbbed with a fiery, burning sensation from the landing. Her bruised sides pulsated in anger at the treatment.

Her eyes flashed open as an idummi climbed over her, one leg on each side of her waist. Its teeth gnashed together in a chomping motion making yellow spittle drop from its mouth. The spittle hung from its thin green lip for a long second. Then it fell from his mouth. The spittle landed on her shirt and started to sizzle, a tendril of grey smoke swirled up. It burned straight through the shirt leaving a black hole. Then it touched her skin. Abby cried out as burning pain engulfed her. She scrambled and wiped with her shirt at the spittle until the pain ebbed.

Breathing hard, she stared up at the demon. It had a nasty sort of smile on its face that only served to bear sharp, pointed teeth.

Only straight meat eaters had such teeth. That thought popped into her head at that exact moment, and it scared the shit out of her. She wasn’t going to become a meal for this thing.

Sucking in a deep breath, she thrust her leg up in a brutal kick catching the demon between its legs. The demon’s hands flew between his legs as its knees buckled. Before it collapsed over her, she scrambled backwards. Now that she wasn’t running, her body started sending warning signals to her brain to let her know her body hurt in a bad way from that fall.

The demon screeched and its yellow, strange red-inflamed eyes narrowed on her. She had a moment to gulp before it launched itself at her landing on top of her. All the air whooshed out of her at its weight. The thing was shorter than she was and bony, yet had a layer of hard muscle over it. It seriously weighed a hell of a lot more than she’d expected. It felt as if a grown, fat man was sitting on her.

The demon’s eyes widened with glee and a black, forked tongue slithered across its lips. It pulled its curved dagger from its belt, pressed its knees into her chest to lock down her squirming body, and lifted the dagger above its head with two hands.

“Kraju d’menuni kash!” it hissed. Then it jerked its arms further back an inch and lurched down with the blade.

Abby screamed and shut her eyes waiting for the knife to plunge into her body. A whizz of air stirred her hair making her flinch. She panted, waiting for the blow, but the demon groaned above her and fell to the side. Abby jerked up, scrambling away.

“Huh,” she grunted.

An arrow was stuck in the demon’s chest where its heart should be. Dark murky blood oozed around the wound. Black feathers were stuck in the end of the arrow. It looked handmade and very real. The demon didn’t move any more.

Abby started to shake. She couldn’t help it. She’d been in several scary situations in her life, especially since meeting Alrik, but this one took the cake. She stood up and her knee gave out. She could already feel it swelling from when she landed, but she locked it and gritted through the pain so she could turn around.

What she saw she could barely comprehend. A group of demons, not idummi, but tall, human-looking demons like Alrik surrounded her. They had various colored skin and hair just like Alrik too. They carried an array of swords, knives, axes, and one in the front held a black bow. He seemed to stand taller than the rest, though that may just be the command that surrounded his presence. He strode towards her. His lips were moving and garbled sounds came out, but she didn’t understand any of them. She recognized the sounds of Demonish being spoken between the men.