Chapter 14

Descaris

E verything felt like it was moving too fast. This prison was unravelling like a runaway freight train, and I was struggling to keep it on the tracks.

I went straight to the yard and with a heavy heart, told the dragon it was time. This was my hardest moment. None of my visions were clear about if he would survive, but I needed him. If there were too many guards available to get into the cell block, everything would be under control too quickly and then a whole new path would begin with the monster hating humans at the centre of it. A worse path lined with more monster blood than this one.

I let the dragon use his magic on me to see what I saw. Every part of me wanted to fight it, to not allow myself to be vulnerable in that way. But for her, I did it.

I blipped to the bald human. He had the minotaur trapped in a room and was telling the scrawny guard that the alarms were all disabled. Every part of me wanted to rip them apart then and there. To take my time, giving them what they deserved. But every thought of killing them just brought another vision of my mate dying. I blipped back to the cell block, trying to keep up with it all.

The small woman was in the cell, finding the blade and slashing at the bear that would otherwise have swiped at her again, breaking her neck. The sight of the orc in his full glory swinging his axe like it was a part of him. Decapitating a snake creature so precisely that there was no danger of hurting the human woman in front of him.

Blip. Next I was in the corridor where the minotaur ran straight into me. I solidified the air in front of me, sending him flying. I clicked off his collar and looked him over. He wasn't quite as maze mad as I'd expected. He needed to be at full fighting ability to get through this. This monster had immense amounts of self control. Right now, that was a problem. I needed him at the cell block within moments.

"You know, your intense protective mating instinct comes from your minotaur side. Maybe you should just trust it? Relinquish some of that control that you think matters so much. By the way, the cells are this way."

I floated straight through the wall and heard him crashing through it barely a second later. He ploughed head first and kept going, wall after wall. He built up enough speed and rage to make it through the pure stone wall around the cell block. Perfect. Monsters almost instantly began streaming through. I paused. The orc darted out and began running. The glow of fate left him. His path was his own now. The small angry bird flew out after him, carrying an eyeball hanging from his beak by its optic nerve.

"Delightful."

I felt a tightening of my body, like a corset around me was pulling tight. And then it snapped. A weight lifted off me. I was done. I had done my part and now I was free, too. Time to get back to my love. Back to Ella's therapy room.

I arrived, ready to sweep her up. To take her away and claim her. Instead, when I arrived, a room full of people and monsters awaited me, all looking nervous. Ella spun around and threw herself at me, leaping up and wrapping her leg around me. She kissed me soundly before dropping back to the ground. I looked pointedly around us.

"You've been busy, my dear."

She grinned.

"Yes, well, I know you said to stay here, but I couldn't just do nothing. But I didn't go far. Just enough to help all these people back here, too. So I basically stayed in the room apart from brief moments. We are trying to get the bars off the window. There are skinwalkers nearby."

I should have known that her drive to help others would make it impossible for her to sit here and wait. I wanted to be angry that she had put herself in danger, but I couldn't be. She was shining with the joy of having helped others. I wondered if she knew how much she had saved me, too.

I walked over to the window with the lock that a yeti was pulling at. I placed a finger in the lock and turned it to shadow. The bars swung open, and the yeti punched the window out with one swing. He clambered through and then turned to help the others through. I removed all the collars from the prisoners as they left.

"Run as quick as you can and stay together," I instructed them.

"What about you?" a woman shouted to Ella.

"We'll be ok. Just go."

Clearly she had the same idea as me, as we waited for them to go and watched to make sure they got into the woods safely. She turned around and looked like she wanted to say something, before deciding against it and pulling me towards her. We collapsed together for a moment, before the door behind us burst open and a group of 3 large skinwalkers walked into the room, followed by the scrawny guard. The skinwalkers were your typical old witches, who went around stealing the skins of others to wear.

"There they are! Kill them!" the guard shouted.

"Billy, what are you doing?"

Ella looked horrified. She hadn't known that he was a part of this. An integral part of what would lead to her death. He glared at her.

"You are disgusting. Fucking these monsters? You're as bad as they are."

He was pure venom. But he was also a complete idiot. I'd hated him since the moment I set eyes on him. Since I first saw him trying to flirt with my mate and then with her friend, Serena, later on. I wasn't sad about what was going to happen.

"You understand, Billy, that's your name, right? That you are going to die now?"

"You can't take on these 3," he retorted, gesturing to the skinwalkers.

"Actually, I can. But that's not the issue. They were never going to let you live. Whatever they promised."

One of the skinwalkers, the most haggard one, turned an evil smile to Billy. His face fell. I pulled Ella towards me and buried her face in my neck so she couldn't see what was about to happen. The skinwalker reached out long talons and began ripping at Billy. He screamed briefly before she had him in shreds. I felt Ella tense against me, her body twitching as she began to cry. The skinwalker turned back to me.

"Now then, maybe you'll feed one of my sisters, demon."

I thought about killing them. No vision came. I was truly free of all of this now. I smiled. Now I could truly be my best and worst self.

"Please try."

I blipped myself and Ella outside the window and then left her there as I returned to the skinwalkers. Long talons swiped at me from the first one. I grasped at her wrist and turned it to shadow. Her hand dropped to the floor, no longer attached to the rest of her. She screamed a hideous scream and lunged at me. I turned fully to shadow and let her fall through me. On her way through, I turned her heart to shadow, and she fell twitching to the ground.

The second and third came at me together, hoping to overwhelm me, probably. But there was nothing of me, for them to grab at. I reached out, turning handfuls of them to shadow wherever my hand ended up. Shrieks ran around me as blood dripped from them, chunks of flesh missing from their arms, chests and stomachs. They backed up for a moment, assessing me. I snarled. This was fun.

They came at me again. Whether through blind fury or stupidity, I didn't know. But I reached out for the neck of one and ripped it open so viciously that her head fell to the floor. The third one screamed and bent over the body of her sister. Her grief was palpable. She was too dangerous a creature to leave running around. I wondered when I had started to care about that. I glanced back out the window at my love. Her face was stricken with pain at this suffering creature that would have been happy to kill her.

I turned back to the skinwalker and quickly reached into her head. I turned her brain to shadow, and she fell down over the corpse of her sister. A moment of sadness passed through me at the sight. But I pulled myself away, blipping back to Ella. She sagged against me for a moment and I wrapped my arms around her.

"No one will ever hurt you."

I felt her nod against my chest.

"Time to go."

She nodded again, and I took her away.