Chapter 81 Paying a debt
My feet were dangling in the air.
I coughed and wheezed, struggling to tear her hand away from my throat.
“Come on, show your true face,” she barked.
I growled, raised my hand and slashed right across her own face with my claws.
The flesh around her face broke, spilling over like liquid goo. But she tightened her grip, choking the life out of me.
My head was swimming now, darkness creeping in from the ends of my vision as my lungs screamed for oxygen.
And this triggered a partial shift.
I heaved with my amplified strength and the skin walker went flying, landing with a thud many feet away.
At this point, it had lost most of the skin from whatever poor maid it had killed to gain access to the Grunder mansion.
I howled towards the night sky, rushing for it as my eyes burned and fangs extended. The night walker had barely only risen to its knees when I reached it and aimed my claws to slash its artery open.
It leaned back, moving its head out of my reach.
As we fought, I remembered all I had heard about these demons. Skin walkers were famous for their cunning and intelligence.
Rather than fight me head on, this one spent more time fending off every attack, goading me the whole time.
“Abysmal. Is this really the best you can do?” It danced away from yet another punch. “And they said you were the strongest among your peers. Pathetic."
My claws wrapped around that disgusting flesh, and hurled it far against an olive tree.
It rose to its full height, almost twice my height, furious now and ran for me as blood oozed from its nose and ear.
I braced myself, positioning my body to look like I was about to jump for its throat. But a few inches away from me, I lunged a punch with my unassuming left hand, aiming right for its core, just beneath it's exposed rib cage.
Blood, warm, flowed down my fist, soaked into my sleeve as its belly burst open.
The shriek that followed was like nothing I had ever heard. It was ugly, like scratching your nails against a chalkboard.
I spun around and ran.
Skin walkers were hard to destroy. Fire was the best weapon, but as I had no fire, it could trap me in a fight till I dropped to the floor in exhaustion.
And then it would kill me and wear my skin.
Its feet were thudding behind me now, heavy thuds that shook the floor. I pumped my arms faster, sprinting down my parent's estate, not daring a glance back.
My heart was thudding, scalp itching.
None of this felt right. My howl had attracted no one in a mansion full of wolves.
A skin walker had slipped past everyone, witches and vampires and wolves. Had slipped past Hale.
Faster, faster Lys.
It was so close now. Right behind.
And then a hand grabbed my shoulder. I screamed.
“Duck!”
I would recognize that deep bass anywhere. I did better than duck.
Twisting sideways, I threw myself far right, lunging for the shadows of the queen palm trees. I rolled into a ball as my body tumbled down the slope and stopped just beneath the shelter of trees.
A roar tore through the world, shaking the floor under me as I looked up in time to see the dragon breathing fire.
The sight of it was surreal, something straight out of a children's fantasy book.
His arms, those same arms that cuddled me, were taut now. The veins snaking within them burned a visible bright red. Tiny fire sparks burst from his skin, like fire flies.
And the fire… the fire projecting from his mouth reminded me of a gas station explosion I watched on the internet some time ago.
Red, orange, black, and smoke.
He sustained the fire. Holding it like high pressure water out of a giant garden hose as the skinwalker did a macabre dance in the flames.
Screaming a horrible sound, a mix of a shrieking baby and tortured animal, so eerie I had to place my hands over my ears.
They were coming.
My head jerked up to the sound of a dozen feet, running towards us from deep in the mansion.
Draki snapped his mouth shut, jerking his head towards me.
I recoiled at the sight of his eyes, similar to what they had been in that cave. But he reached for me, and threw me over his just as I caught sight of the first person running out of the side door.
My surroundings changed in a second.
We were home. Moving past the bedroom door.
And as he placed me on the ottoman, I realized my body was trembling. The adrenaline had worn off.
The bedroom door crashed open, and Hale walked in, eyes bright with worry.
“Lys?”
Draki, squatting in front of me, held a hand up without looking back, and Hale halted.
Those flaming eyes, slowly turning back to silver, stared up at me now. And then he took both my hands in his.
My eyes fell onto the dried blood on my sleeve and hands.
“You’re OK,” he said, not a question.
I swallowed and gave him a confident nod. “I am OK.”
His lips moved with a hint of a smile. “Brave girl.” He pulled my jacket off me, wiped my hands clean with it, and then pulled me into a hug.
My eyes fluttered close at his warmth. Like a heated blanket in the height of fall. This, his heat, might just be my favorite thing about him.
When my eyes opened again, they fell right on the curly-haired beauty. Finn had been here the whole time, standing in a quiet corner of the bedroom.
His face was contorted in worry. Worry for me. But the moment our eyes met, he looked away.
“My phone, and purse…” I slowly pulled out of Draki’s embrace as my heart ached.
“The Ashbounds will get everything, doll.” He slicked my hair back, gently.
It felt odd to ask direct questions, but I just had to know. “Those things, where did they come from?”
I regretted it immediately.
Draki and Hale shared an identical look at that moment. A look that was hard to describe. Hurt, rage… hurt rage?
“I’m sor…” I started to say when Draki laid his finger flat across my lips.
Then he moved and sat beside me on the ottoman. “I think it's time you learned about this.” He glanced up at Finn. “Both of you.”
I gave him a nod.
“The Ascendant Ritual is a price,” he smirked. “We don’t exactly jerk off to the idea of killing young women.”
His tone was a mix of irritation and hurt as he leveled Finn a direct stare.
Finn scowled.
“I did something years ago… the details are irrelevant, but the Firstborns disapproved of it.”
My mind traveled back to our wedding night, the shadowed figures who would not stop appearing in my dreams.
“They cannot hurt me, I’m just as much a god as they are.” He brought his hands together, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
I could not help noticing how big he really was, broad shoulders, timber arms, filling up so much space.
“But they took a vote to punish me. To offset my debt, the price they claimed my actions owed the universe,” his eyes found me, “A woman has to die every decade.”
“That’s bullshit.” Finn spoke for the first time.