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Aurora’s lungs seared as she sucked down gulps of chilled air and sprinted past gnarled tree trunks. Sprawling roots lay sheltered beneath blankets of prickly ferns. Her boot caught on a hidden root, and she sailed forward, crashing onto her forearms.

She clawed her way upright, leg muscles groaning in protest. A runner she was not. Every inch of her body rebelled, but she forced herself to keep moving.

A scream rent the air from farther down the valley to her right. Her insides shriveled, bile rising to her throat. I can’t let them catch me. She slid down a slippery gully, mud caking the backs of her thighs and dress bunching around her wide hips.

On her hands and knees, she crawled up the other side of the ravine. Her fingers burrowed into the thick, sticky mud for leverage as the sound of rustling plants and pounding footfalls reached her ears. Spots danced in front of her vision from the violence of her thundering heart.

Pushing past the dizziness, she pulled her knees free of the muck with a wet, suctioning pop and stumbled over the edge of the ravine.

Dense forest continued to her right, a break in the trees to her left. Only allowing a heartbeat to decide which way to run, she bolted away from the trees. She had no chance of losing her pursuer within the chaotic spread of trunks and branches that threatened to trip her at every turn.

Aurora sprinted, but the crunching behind her intensified. Cold sweat poured over her skin, her breaths shallow and panicked.

She scanned the ground for anything of use. A fallen branch, a rock she could throw, a magic portal that would transport her out of this nightmare. Nothing.

Hollow ringing began in her ears. No! No! No! She couldn’t pass out right now.

Something caught her around the knees, and she barreled to the ground. When she twisted onto her butt, she found a demon staring back at her.

The blood in her veins turned to ice. It was the man she’d been worried about. Before this horrifying ritual had begun, this man had stared at her in a way that had made her whole body ring with alarm. He’d looked large before when they’d locked eyes from a distance, but now…he was massive.

He began gathering the length of black corded rope connected to her knees in his enormous, clawed hands, his stare never wavering. Aurora’s stomach lurched when she realized he was preparing to drag her toward him like trussed quarry. The expression in his blood-red eyes could only be described as hungry .

Wheezing, she scrambled onto her belly and shimmied the cord down her legs with one hand while army-crawling away. The world moved in reverse as she was dragged backward in a whoosh. One more tug like that and she’d be within his reach.

She flipped onto her back again and clawed at the cord, trying to loosen it enough to slip it over her ankles. But it had somehow tightened. Magic?

A desperate whimper escaped her throat as the cord went taut again.

The demon’s black brows wrinkled.

She had no time to examine what the look meant before another man, a paler shade of red than the first, barreled into the clearing with a roar.

Though both demons had sharp horns sprouting from their foreheads, they were different in shape. The giant holding her rope securely in one dinner-plate-sized palm had longer horns that curled back over his head. The smaller had shorter horns which stuck vertically into the air, and he’d just used that advantage to impale one of them into the other man’s stomach.

Aurora froze.

A roar that rattled Aurora’s bones quaked out of the larger demon. Blood spurted from his stomach as he twisted toward the smaller male, who was digging his heels into the dirt for leverage so he could bury his horn deeper in the giant’s gut.

Shock must have had its claws in her since though she recognized the sensation of vomit crawling up her throat, Aurora’s only thought was He hasn’t let go of the rope.

Rage had the massive man’s glowing eyes pulse an angrier shade of red. He dropped the rope, but before she had time to react, he stepped on it, trapping it under his anvil of a heel. Then, with dripping fangs bared, he gripped the horn not buried in his stomach and wrenched the smaller man’s head to the side.

For a moment, Aurora was sure the sickening crack echoing off the trees was the snap of a neck, but then the man shrieked in agony.

One ragged, gushing stump on his forehead was all that was left of his horn as the smaller man stumbled back. He raised his head toward the giant, swiping dripping blood out of his left eye and lifting his claws to fight, but he was too late. Before he could sink fully into a defensive crouch, the giant’s fist had swung, sturdy as a hammer. The smaller demon crumpled.

Aurora gaped at his unmoving body in horror. Only when her vision began to spot out did she realize she’d stopped breathing. The victor took one look at her, and the angry crimson still glowing in his eyes brought a scream rushing up to clog her throat. But she didn’t have the air for it.

He took a step toward her, abandoning the slack rope on the ground. She scooted away as fast as she could while keeping him in her sight, but was stopped when her back hit a tree. Frozen in place, she watched him grip the tip of the broken horn protruding from his belly with obsidian claws and rip it out.

Blood from the unplugged wound sprayed over her chest and face. When she tasted the coppery tang on her lips, her trapped scream finally exploded out of her.

Ringing boomed through her ears as Aurora emptied her lungs. The scream had taken the last of her precious oxygen. She was hyperventilating and couldn’t stop it.

He crouched in front of her, holding out the gruesome horn. Her vision faded as hot drops of blood dribbled onto her knee. She shrank away, though her limbs were heavy and uncooperative.

The demon’s brows furrowed, his full lips pulling down to hide his fangs. He held the horn closer to her. “An offering for you.” Before her vision went completely black, she heard him say in a deep rumbling voice, “My little wife.”