Page 23 of The Princesses of Ruin (The Princesses of Ruin #5)

Chapter twenty-one

Alastair

T he beast disappears in the shadows, but my demon senses him moving through the cave. He’s trying to get behind me, to snatch Lily.

Mine.

I whirl around, grabbing Lily with my tail and pushing her with my wings until she’s safe behind me once more.

The duskwalker growls a low click and the air moves in front of me.

I take a step back but not fast enough. There’s a spark of light as its dagger-like claw drags across my plated chest. My scales split from the impact and pain worms into my ribs.

“Alastair!” Lily’s sweet voice only drives me harder.

I lurch forward, swiping at the invisible creature but finding only air. How does this monster do it? I can sense him there, my demon knows he’s there, but then he’s gone—disappeared into the darkness.

“Hold onto me,” I say to Lily.

She grabs onto my shoulders and hugs my sides with her knees. I must get us out of this cave. It was designed to be the duskwalker’s death, but without our traps, it will soon become ours.

“ You would condemn her to death with you? ” the monster hisses in my ear .

I roar, flapping my wings and pushing us away from camp.

The rocks scrape my leathery wings and the pain is fleeting but a reminder of the creature’s words.

He wants Lily, and in return for her, he’ll give us what we need.

Denying him could be my death, and her capture, with no salvation for the world.

Am I willing to risk the world for my jealousy, for craving my wife?

Rage ripples through me and I toss my head. The beast is affecting me somehow. His words drip like honey into my mind and coat the truth in his lies.

There is no world I want to live in where my wife is a captive to a horror like the duskwalker. There is no future where I would surrender her in exchange for the world’s salvation.

They can all fucking burn.

I grit my teeth and push into the storm. Icy wind batters me to the side, but my wings catch the updraft, and we soar over the arctic sea.

There’s a tug at my back and Lily screams. I roll, holding her hands at my neck while swiping with my claws through the open air.

Except it’s not air. The snow parts around the whispered shape of the duskwalker, revealing a black-feathered wingspan twice that of mine.

My talons connect with the monster’s face.

I shiver at the scrape of my nails on the bones protecting its skull, but I dig in deeper, creating a furrow down its snout.

The duskwalker shrieks like a crow and whirls to the side.

“We’re falling!” Lily screams.

I turn my attention to the icy ground rushing up toward us and flex my wings. We pull out of the dive and I right her on my back.

“Unlock my wings!”

Her words spear me with terror. If I let her separate from me, he could take her .

“No!”

I sense the duskwalker’s approach and roll out of the way. He shoots past us like a massive arrow, then unfurls his wings and pulls up, approaching from underneath. I’m turned at an angle and Lily is exposed. The duskwalker reaches out with his long, muscular arms, claws glistening with blood.

I growl, delayed pain smashing through my leg.

Lily hugs my hips with her thighs and pulls her wrists from my hand. Her green magic explodes in a shield around us and the duskwalker crumples against it. The beast backflips off the magic and pushes away from us, disappearing into the torrent of snow.

“My wings, right now, or we both die!”

I roll in the tussling wind and push her onto my chest with my tail. She squeezes my ribs with her legs and shivers. I rip through the material of her coat across her shoulder blades in an X, then run my thumb down her spine, activating the runes that unleash her.

Her wings snap out and we’re torn apart by the wind.

Fire pumps alongside my blood and I fight the storm to get back to her.

She aligns under me so I’m close enough to protect her and stretches out her body, pointing one hand forward.

She draws a series of runes that push the snow out of our path, then burn the air.

The flakes melt and rain pours down in our wake.

She’s highlighting our position but making it much more difficult to approach from below. The duskwalker won’t be able to snatch her out from under me.

The air above me gets heavy and I turn my head just in time. The beast is diving for us again. I pump my wings to get ahead of Lily, then whirl around. I let the force of my twist launch my axe from my grip. It sails through the storm and lodges in the monster’s chest .

It roars in animalistic pain but doesn’t stop.

We collide claw to claw, my body bending under the strength of the beast. It snaps at me, and I turn my head, giving it horns.

It bites down and shakes me like a rabid dog.

I kick the axe, trying to shove it deeper into the duskwalker’s chest, but it captures my leg in one of its bird-like claws after the second unsuccessful hit.

The ground is rushing up too quickly. I try to pump my wings, to push myself out from under it, but the wind and its weight are stronger.

The duskwalker cries out, releasing my horn as it twists us from the death spiral. Lily’s green-glowing eyes meet mine and she smiles overwide, revealing rows of razor teeth. She unhinges and opens her mouth like a snake and latches onto the duskwalker’s wing joint, causing it to scream again.

Its back claws tighten on my leg and rip into my scales.

We flap our wings discordantly, pulling at the wind as the storm pummels us.

The duskwalker flexes his long arms, shoving me away in a massive push.

My left claws slip, but I cling to the creature with my right, digging into the bones of its hand.

He twists his wrist and my forearm snaps. Blinding white pain rips up my shoulder, but I don’t let go—I can’t. He has her. She thinks she has him, but he has her . I can see the sense of victory in his yellow eyes.

I flail against the agony and keep my wings pumping to right myself. The duskwalker grabs my wrist with his other hand and squeezes. Another snap and I lose sensation in my hand, but my claws are still in him. Blood, his and mine, runs down my arm and freezes against my scales.

Lily rips a chunk of feather and flesh from the duskwalker’s back and spits. The creature reaches for her on reflex, releasing my hand. She dodges his attempts to snatch her, then grabs one of his antlers and yanks on his head.

We twist through the air, pushing over the edge of the frozen wasteland and out to the sea. I grip the haft of my axe with my good hand, pulling myself close enough to wrap my leg around the monster’s hip.

It’s all snapping teeth and scraping claws. Desperate attempts to survive, to kill, to claim.

“She’s mine!” I roar at the beast, drawing his attention back to me.

Lily bites the duskwalker’s neck but quickly yelps in pain and rears back. The monster shakes his arm, trying to loose me from his flesh, and the jostling of my shattered bones sends a fresh wave of agony through me.

The wind batters us and I’m slammed against the frosted cliff.

I push with my injured leg and get myself close to the duskwalker again, getting my tail around his other leg.

I tug hard, yanking my weapon free. The pain of dangling by my shattered wrist is distracting, but the taste of triumph is in the blood on my tongue.

Lily pulls back on the duskwalker’s antler hard and I swing for his exposed throat. An explosion of yellow sparks blinds me. When I can see again, my axe head is shattered—gone. Only a broken haft remains.

I flex and pull myself closer again, shoving the splintered tip of the weapon into the duskwalker’s gut. The stake sinks between his ribs, and sharp teeth snap around my clavicle at the same time.

The air is punched from my lungs, and then we hit the ground. Lily screams as she’s thrown from the monster’s back. I roll with the duskwalker, trapped in a deadly embrace of teeth and claws. We skid through the snow, burying ourselves in freezing bloody white .

Despite the pain, I pull my arm back and ram the stake into him again. The duskwalker growls into my neck, biting harder. My bones crunch and suddenly it’s dark.

I blink my eyes open, and the beast is chewing, biting, eating…

Yellow light swirls around us. I stab him again, but the two previous wounds are already sealed.

Lily screams. “Please! Stop!”

She leaps.

It’s dark.

She’s pinned in the red snow beside me. Tears stream down her face.

“Anything! I’ll do anything! Just stop eating him!”

The duskwalker rears back, and I see its bloody maw covered in my gore.

“The time for negotiation has passed. I will take now,” the creature says.

I lose awareness again and then the weight of the duskwalker disappears.

“No! You’re mine!” the monster roars.

I turn my head. Lily’s bleeding from her throat, a shard of my axe buried in her jugular. He tries to pull the sliver from her neck but is rebuffed by a green shield.

“Lil—no.” My lips move and the sound is faint, but I catch her eyes.

The duskwalker shakes her. “You’re not allowed to die! I need you! I need love!”

“I could never love a monster like you,” she utters, blood dribbling down her lips.

“And yet you could love this demon-touched creature,” the duskwalker says, glaring at me .

She nods and blood gushes from her neck around the shard.

We’re dying.

“Always. I’ll always love—”

She gurgles.

The duskwalker curls around her and presses his mouth against her ear. He’s going to eat her, too…

It’s dark again. The warmth of Nol’Ther’s cloak wraps me tightly and I dream of my sweet wife.

It’s cold. There’s a yipping. I can’t feel my arm, but the rest of my body is alive with pain.

“We’re safe now.” Lily’s sweet voice trembles against my ear. She repeats it over and over.

I’m being tugged, my body bouncing from my feet to my head. There’s a groaning, flapping of sheets, sprinkles of cold.

We’re alive?

“Drink,” Lily whispers, and something touches my lips.

“ Nyet , he cannot have more.”

It’s Adrik.

There’s such a loud yipping.

I groan and open my eyes, but my vision is bright and blurry. I can’t see. It hurts my head, so I close my eyelids for some relief.

Lily whimpers. “I’m so sorry, my love.”

“What…” My throat is raw and used, as if I were screaming for days.

“We got the antler,” she says.

“How? ”

She’s quiet for so long, but I can feel her body shaking. She’s crying.

“I…”

She drops her head to mine and nuzzles against my ear. I relish the small comfort in a sea of agony.

“I made a terrible choice.”