Page 19

DOMNO

K areth looks between us with a smirk, but his body is tensing. "Well, now that that's over…"

"Esalyn, get back!" I snarl, my body already moving before conscious thought forms.

Kareth lunges toward them, a flash of charcoal skin and amber eyes.

I intercept him, slamming my shoulder into his chest with enough force to crack ribs.

The impact rattles through me, but I barely register the pain.

We crash into the table, the stone crumbling as we hit the floor in a tangle of limbs and blades.

"Run!" I shout to Esalyn, catching Kareth's wrist as he tries to drive a dagger toward my throat. His skin burns hot beneath my grip, those crimson undertones swirling across his flesh like lava beneath obsidian.

Esalyn grabs Erisen and bolts for the door, the boy's wide golden eyes locked on me as they flee. Something in his gaze—trust, fear, confusion—twists in my chest like a blade.

Kareth's teeth snap near my face, too close. "You've gone soft," he hisses, his breath sulfurous and hot. "For what? A human whore and her half-breed whelp?"

Rage explodes through me like wildfire. I smash my forehead into his face, feeling cartilage crunch beneath the impact. Kareth howls, amber eyes flaring brighter as black blood spurts from his broken nose.

"Not. Another. Word." Each syllable punctuates another strike as I drive my knee into his sternum, using the momentum to throw him off me.

He recovers with unnatural grace, those stag-like horns catching the light as he rolls to his feet. Blood drips down his chin, staining his teeth as he grins at me.

"You know what Vorrak does to human women," he taunts, circling me like a predator. "What he'll do to her when I bring her back. Maybe he'll let me watch this time."

I don't answer with words. My blade whistles through the air, barely missing his throat as he dances backward through the doorway, drawing me out into the street. Exactly what he wants—space to maneuver, to use his speed.

We spill into the narrow alley, blades catching the morning light. Around us, onlookers scatter, pressing into doorways or fleeing entirely. No one interferes when demons fight. They know better.

Kareth moves like smoke, each strike flowing into the next. His double daggers blur as he slices toward my ribs, my throat, my eyes—testing, taunting, looking for weakness. I block and parry, my larger frame making each impact heavier but slower.

"I followed you for days," he says, voice casual despite the violence of his movements. "Watching you play house with them. Pretending you're something other than what we are."

His blade nicks my shoulder, drawing a line of hot blood. I barely feel it through the rage pounding in my veins.

"When Vorrak sent me, I couldn't believe it." Kareth's laughter is cold as winter. "The great Domno Vrath'Sarrin, reduced to petting a human child and fucking its mother."

I roar, abandoning defense for a brutal offensive strike. My blade catches his upper arm, opening a deep gash that spills black blood down his skin. The satisfaction is short-lived as he uses my momentum against me, spinning inside my guard to slam his elbow into my ribs.

Pain flares, sharp and bright. A cracked rib, maybe two.

"I'm going to enjoy this." Kareth's eyes gleam with something darker than ambition. "When I'm done with you, I'll find them. Bring them back to Vorrak in pieces if I have to."

Something fundamental shifts inside me at his words—not just anger but clarity, crystalline and absolute. This isn't about me anymore. Not about my failures or my past.

This is about Esalyn's smile in the morning light. About Erisen's small hand trustingly held in mine. About the life I never thought I deserved but suddenly, desperately want.

"You won't touch them." The words emerge as a promise, cold and certain.

Kareth's mouth twists. "You can't stop me. You couldn't even save your own brother."

The blow lands harder than any blade. For a heartbeat, Zevan's face flashes before me—young, trusting, dead because I failed him. The memory nearly costs me my head as Kareth's dagger whistles past my ear.

I recover, barely, catching his wrist and twisting brutally until something snaps. He doesn't scream—demons like us were trained to swallow pain—but his eyes flare with hatred.

"They're not yours to protect," he snarls, striking with his off-hand in a move that slices across my chest. "They belong to Lord Vorrak."

"They belong to themselves." I drive my knee into his stomach, following with an uppercut that snaps his head back. "And I belong with them."

The truth of it reverberates through me as we crash against a stone wall, cracking the mortar with the force. Blood slicks the cobblestones beneath our boots—his and mine—as blade meets blade in a dance we've both known since childhood.

I drive my blade deep into Kareth's throat, twisting to ensure the wound is fatal. His amber eyes widen in shock, then narrow in fury as black blood cascades over my knuckles. His mouth opens, forming words I'll never hear as he slides down the stone wall, leaving a dark smear in his wake.

"Find peace in the dark, old friend," I mutter, though we were never friends. His body slumps forward, those antler-like horns scraping against the cobblestones as he falls.

The sudden silence rings in my ears. Battle-heat drains from my limbs, leaving me hollow and aching as I stalk down the alley?—

And find nothing but empty air everywhere I look. No sign of Esalyn and Erisen.

My heart stutters in my chest. I scan the alleyway, the doorways, the shadows between buildings. Nothing. They're gone.

I did tell her to run, but I didn't think she'd get too far. Away from the house, yes, but to hide. To come out when I was ready.

But I don't see them anywhere as I slip through the alleys, toward the market. I don't know where they've gone.

"Esalyn?" My voice echoes against stone walls, unanswered. "Erisen?"

The boy's name catches in my throat. I remember his small hand in mine, the way his golden eyes—so like my own—had widened with wonder when I showed him how to carve wood. The trust in his gaze whenever I lifted him to see farther, higher.

She fled. Of course she fled.

She must have grabbed Erisen and disappeared into the labyrinth of Velzaroth's winding streets while Kareth and I were locked in combat. Smart. Practical. Exactly what she should've done.

But knowing this doesn't stop the gnawing emptiness that spreads through my chest like poison.

I stagger back toward their home—what's left of it. The place looks even more pitiful now, the door hanging crooked on its hinges, the table I carved for them splintered beyond repair. My blood and Kareth's stain the floor like an accusation.

They're gone. Both of them. And with them, the only light I've known in years.

"Dammit!" I slam my fist against the wall, sending a tremor through the rickety structure. Pain lances up my arm, but it's nothing compared to the hollowness consuming me from within.

I hadn't realized until this moment how much they'd become a part of me. How Esalyn's wary smile when I brought food had become the benchmark of my day. How Erisen's quiet excitement when I appeared was like sunlight after an eternity of darkness.

And how could she know any different? All she saw was another demon—another betrayal—another hunter coming to collect.

In her place, I'd have done the same. Run. Hide. Trust no one. Especially not the bounty hunter who'd been pretending to care.

Except I wasn't pretending.

Stalking back to their home, I sink to my knees in the wrecked room that made up their entire space, my fingers brushing over one of Erisen's colored stones, abandoned in their flight.

The smooth surface is cool against my blood-warmed skin.

Next to it lies the batlaz I carved for him, but the bird is missing. He must have taken it with him.

The sight of it all splits something open inside me—a wound deeper than anything Kareth's blade could inflict.

"I wasn't pretending," I whisper to the empty room.

For the first time since Zevan died, I had found something worth living for. Something that made the endless years stretching before me seem like more than just an exercise in survival. And now they're gone, thinking me another monster sent to drag them back to Vorrak's cruelty.

The thought of Esalyn and Erisen alone, hunted, afraid—perhaps thinking I'd led Kareth to their door—claws at me with talons sharper than grief.

Blood drips from my wounds, pattering onto the floor in a rhythm that matches the throbbing in my chest. My failures pile up like corpses: Zevan, who trusted me to keep him safe. And now Esalyn and Erisen, who never knew they could.

I can't lose them too. Not like this.

I push myself to my feet, ignoring the protest of torn muscles and cracked ribs. The hunt that brought me to them ends here, with Kareth's cooling corpse in the alley and my heart torn open on this splintered floor.

But a new hunt begins—one not for bounty or salvation, but for the chance to prove what I couldn't say when it mattered: that I choose them. That they are mine to protect, not capture. That whatever future I have left belongs with them, if they'll have me.