Pure Destiny (PureDark Ones #12) - Aja James Page 0,105
answered, and was rather surprised that she did.
The boy was nigh irresistible, as if he had the Gift of influence, to persuade others to his will.
“Carbon dioxide is carried out,” she continued as if she couldn’t help herself. “There’s a lever on top that opens to show its face beneath the glass. Do you want to see for yourself if it’s alive?”
He shook his head and said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, “I know he’s alive. I can feel his heartbeat. He’s hurting.”
Louder, he said, looking back up at her, “Let him go. Please let him go, Lily. He doesn’t like it in there. He wants to be free.”
Those big crystal blue eyes did something to her. Lilith’s heart clutched with a phantom pain. His eyes slayed her.
A caldron of resentment and wrath broiled within her. She would not acquiesce to a boy who hadn’t even seen his first ten years of life. That innocent, angelic gaze had no effect on her hardened, unforgiving heart and nonexistent conscience.
She let her face scale over. Sharp fangs descended, her pupils elongating into vertical slits.
“I will never let you go,” she hissed menacingly. “Both of you belong to me now. You’re mine. Get used to it, child. You and your si—”
But she was cut off by the boy’s sudden whoop of jubilation.
“I knew you’d come! What took you so long!”
It was pure reflex that made Lilith duck to the side as a dagger spun at her from behind. It sliced into her arm as it passed, making her hiss with fury and pain.
They dare invade her lair!
She’d show these immortal warriors and this naïve, misguided boy just how monstrous she could be.
Playtime was over.
*** *** *** ***
One moment there was a strangely beautiful, dark-haired woman in the cavernous chamber with the boy, and the next, giant octopus-like tentacles morphed from her body in place of her arms and legs.
Dalair barely leapt over one of the suction-crowded appendages before it smacked into the cavern wall behind him with the force of a steel crane, leaving a jagged fracture in solid rock. If he had been caught by that thing, his bones would be dust by now.
Fuck that.
He and the others hadn’t fought their bloody way through three dozen guards and a variety of motion-triggered booby traps just to be defeated now.
The boy was within reach. He was standing right there in front of that tomb-like object.
If only Dalair or one of the others could reach him…
There was no room to maneuver in the suddenly cramped space, as the monstrous she-demon grew in size, four limbs turning into eight tentacles, her head still human, though extended from her bulbous body by a serpentine neck.
Holy gods! This was not the Hydra that he’d seen when Medusa and Wan’er first transformed into the creature. This was something else entirely.
Just how many forms did the demon have?
Her body was the size of an elephant, her tentacles long and insanely strong. Four warriors against one…whatever the hell it was, suddenly didn’t seem like very good odds. Despite her size, she moved with lightning speed, her limbs unfurling in unpredictable ways.
Eli poofed into barely visible smoke to avoid one of her tentacles as it hammered down upon the ground. Within the blink of an eye, he reformed beside the boy, getting hold of his shoulders.
The long neck of the monster twisted one hundred and eighty degrees around and let out an enraged shriek upon seeing her prize in the hands of the shadow warrior. Faster than the eye could track, one of her tentacles lashed out and curled around the boy’s body, forcing Eli to let go and poof into air again or be crushed in her unrelenting grip.
The boy gasped at the tight clasp and fought futilely against it, pushing at the leathery tentacle with his hands, kicking and wriggling to get loose.
She ignored his efforts without pausing in her attacks, holding him aloft and away from his rescuers’ reach, while she swiped other tentacles at Tal, Rhys and Dalair. She even forced Eli to reform by spewing a spray of glowing acid from her sharp-fanged mouth in the direction that his airy form traveled. A droplet managed to catch him on the shoulder, and the warrior hissed as skin flayed from flesh upon contact.
Fools! A deep, resonant voice echoed in their heads.
You dare invade my home to steal what is mine! Puny humanoids…you will never defeat me, no matter how many or how strong.