the leshane grew quiet. The torture stopped, and all I could feel anymore was the familiar thrashing of the demon inside of me.
And my newly broken ribs.
Emma sat back, breathing hard. She put a hand on the ground to keep herself steady, trying not to pass out. My blood was streaked all over her clothes.
Around the room, there were groans of pain as people came around. Alexei gasped for air as he changed back. The cut on Theo’s chest was already healing, but as he shifted into a man and touched the wound with his fingers, he winced with the sting. Stefan helped Delmare to her feet, while she held her head. A bruise had formed from her chin to her hairline from the demon’s slap.
It could’ve been a lot worse. My shifter magic worked to repair my battered body, but it would take a few days to heal completely. The fresh cuts on my chest began to close as I sat up in desperate pain.
Kiara’s eyes watered with tears. We’d gotten the demon out of my body for mere moments, but after all that work, we hadn’t managed to sever his connection to me once. It hadn’t worked.
“I didn’t know it would be like that.” Emma’s voice shook as her tone grew accusative. She whirled around on Kiara. “Why didn’t you tell us it would be that horrible? I was completely unprepared.”
“If I had told you what needed to be done before, you wouldn’t have tried it.” Kiara wiped away tears with the back of her hand. “This isn’t over. We can try again.”
“No.” My voice was firm as I struggled to remain upright, giving a cough. “We aren’t doing that again.”
“We have no choice. We have to get this demon out somehow,” Kiara pleaded.
“It nearly killed you all,” I spat. “I will not risk the lives of my friends, or the life of my mate. Let the demon do as he will.”
“We can’t give up,” Emma demanded. “This is the only way.”
“There is another way, and it is to let me die,” I said harshly. “That is the end of it. Do not ask me to risk the well-being of my friends a second time. It’s over.”
Emma’s lip wobbled. I forced myself not to care. The exorcism had failed. This demon was here to stay. He was determined to sap the life out of me, his host, before continuing his rampage elsewhere.
I was powerless to stop him. Which meant I needed to stay far away from my friends, to protect them. I didn’t want them to become collateral damage when the demon regained control. What happened today was merely a taste of the carnage the demon would cause when he finally broke loose. I would not be a puppet for this creature’s bloodlust.
I had to get my affairs in order. Then, I had to prepare to die.
Chapter Eight
Emma
I’d failed to save my mate. It was only a matter of time before I lost Ethan forever.
Watching him go through that pain as we tried to get rid of the demon… it was terrible. I would’ve rather experienced a thousand agonizing deaths than witness Ethan clinging to my shoes, begging me to stop the agony I was causing him. I used every violent illusion I had in my arsenal to kill the leshane, but nothing I had did any good. The demon shook my magic off like dust and continued on his violent rampage.
I’d faced a lot of monsters since I’d come to Malovia, but the leshane made all of them look like playthings. I didn’t want to put the demon back into Ethan, but I knew if I didn’t, the leshane was going to kill us all. We outnumbered him, but he was vastly more powerful than us. I tried and failed to put the demon into something else while we were fighting him— an object in the room, even myself to spare Ethan pain. But I couldn’t do that, because as much as I wanted to wrench the demon free, he wouldn’t come loose off of Ethan’s soul. The leshane was still attached… still stuck.
So I made the hardest decision I ever could; my mate, or my friends.
I chose my friends, because I knew I could save them. I didn’t know if we could save Ethan. I yanked the leshane back into Ethan’s body through our bond, and kept him there until we could figure out what to do in the meantime.