The Fae Bound - Juliana Haygert Page 0,10

step toward me, and I stilled. My mind spun, searching for a plan, as I strained against the chains, using my werewolf strength to try to break them. But they barely budged. Fuck, what did I do know?

Drollmor brought his hands up, toward me.

“Master,” a voice came from behind him.

Snarling, Drollmor turned around. He faced the demon standing on the wall on the other side of the room. “What?” he barked.

The demon lowered his head. “I just thought you would like to know, master, but the southpoint warehouse is being attacked by demon hunters.”

A string of curses I didn’t know crossed through Drollmor’s lips.

There was one thing Drollmor hated more than the people who owed him a deal—demon hunters.

Drollmor brought his dark eyes to me again. “This isn’t over.”

Then he left, following the other demon out of the room. The door closed with a heavy thud and I heard the sound of several bolts clicking into place.

I didn’t waste time.

I closed my eyes and focused, using my strength to pull at the chains. I braced my core and gritted my teeth. Pain laced my muscles at the struggle, but I didn’t dare to give up. It was this pain, or having my soul taken to the underworld.

I would take the fucking pain any day.

Finally, I felt the chains budging. After another bout of struggle, they snapped from the walls.

I fell on my face, catching my breath and easing my muscles. But I still didn’t have time to waste, I had to get out of here right now. Against the pain coursing through my body and the dizziness brought on my head blow, I pushed to my feet and stalked to the door.

I checked and yes, the door was locked. Again, I tapped into my strength and pushed against the door. It was even harder than snapping the chains, but after a while, I broke it down with a loud bang.

Fuck. If there were any demons left in this place, they had sure heard this. Even though I didn’t know where I was and which direction I should go, I shifted into my werewolf form and bolted.

I made it out of a stone manor surrounded by woods and was momentarily blinded by the bright sun shining overhead. That was when I finally heard the shouts of Drollmor’s lesser demons coming for me. As if I would stick around and wait for them to catch up with me.

I didn’t slow down as I ran toward the forest. It didn’t matter where I ran to, as long as I got away. Later, I would stop to figure out directions and where to go.

I was just two feet from the line of trees when a shock hit me, freezing me. My muscles locked down and I let out a yelp as pain coursed through me, rendering me useless.

My vision darkened and my head swam in a black cloud of nothing.

I blinked, trying to make sense of what was going. What was I doing? Where I was?

Finally, the darkness covering my eyes retreated and I found myself looking up at a group of lesser demons, all of them snickering at me.

I pushed up to my paws, but my knees buckled and pain shot through me.

The demons hooked their arms around my limbs. I jerked against their hold, but I couldn’t fight it. I didn’t have any strength left.

The darkness took over me as they dragged me back inside the manor.

9

Farrah

With a small lantern in my hand, I teleported to one of the bigger villages in the Wind Court. At this time of night, the market was closed, which was better for me. Careful not to be seen by the patrol guards, I sneaked into the marketplace and easily found wolfsbane and darkmallow.

But I couldn’t find any faerend. I didn’t think I would. Faerend was forbidden to be sold long ago, since it was highly toxic to our kind. As far as I knew, the plants from where this bud bloomed were all destroyed too.

Still, I had hoped some vendors would have a stash hidden to sell behind the authorities’ backs. Or they hid it very well and I couldn’t find it, or they really didn’t have it.

Either way, I was out of luck.

Without any other ideas, I trudged into the forest to look for the plant. I had never seen it with my own eyes, but I knew it was a short bush with green, dried vines, and the small purple buds here and there.

The