Page 116 of Demon's Bane

The second thing I see is the target it hits.

Rage like I’ve never known rushes through me as I watch Joan stagger, see her reach for the blade only to fumble with it, barely keeping her legs beneath her as she pushes forward, a pained cry breaking from her lips.

In the split second I look away from her, I see a human male standing near the Veil, eyes burning with hatred as he curses and starts to advance.

I’ve just taken a step toward him when the commander materializes behind me.

“Deal with him!” I call out, changing course to turn back toward my mate, only for a stab of horror to lodge itself in my gut.

Standing too far away to do a damn thing about it, I watch as she falls—first to her knees and then sprawled across the ground beneath her.

“Joan!”

Stepping through a portal I’m barely conscious of summoning, I’m at her side a moment later, knees hitting the ground as I drag her into my arms.

“Joan. Hey. Look at me, Joan.”

Her eyelids flicker, but don’t open, and each breath she drags into her lungs sounds more labored and weaker than the last.

Goddess, no.

Anything,everythingI have or am. My own life. It’s all forfeit to make this stop.

Joan coughs, and a trickle of black blood trails from the corner of her mouth. When she tries to breathe, the air rattles in her chest in a sound that echoes of death.

37

Joan

There’s nothing left but pain.

Jagged and consuming, burning through the rest of the world until it’s all I know.

In the few seconds before sense and reason and my ability to think in a straight line are destroyed by that pain, I realize it must have been poison. One of David’s foul, toxic creations coating the knife, spreading through my veins with each beat of my heart.

One, my vision goes hazy around the edges.

Two, my knees buckle.

Three, I’m on the ground.

I try to get up, but my shaking limbs won’t cooperate. I try to call out, and something warm and wet and thick crawls up the back of my throat, choking me. With a ragged cough, some of it comes up red-black and horrifying on the ground beneath me.

“Joan!”

I barely recognize the voice that calls for me. Frantic, broken, furious. The sound of my name echoes in my ear as I savor the cool press of grass against my cheek.

It doesn’t last.

A second later, the pain surges up white-hot and unrelenting, and any momentary relief flees in a wave of agony.

But with each heartbeat, there’s also something else, something tugging right at the edge of my consciousness.

Rhett.

Rhett.

Rhett.