doubt they’d be back, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
When the dragon ran into a tree, Dimitri grabbed the beast and swung, ripping off its wing. The creature howled in pain, green fluid dripping from its severed cavity as it flopped on the ground like a fish out of water.
Dimitri jumped back when the earth opened and another fleshy tunnel appeared, swallowing the demon whole.
Fuck! This place was a living nightmare, and she was beginning to worry they’d never wake.
Chapter Fourteen
TATIANA WOKE WHEN SHE heard a feral hiss. A strange pair of glowing white eyes blinked at them from behind a tree. She tried to remember where she was and what was happening. She was nude, her human body covered in bruises and cuts, and she vaguely remembered she and Dimitri were lost inside the haunted forest. Her head was on her fated mate’s lap. Dimitri was in protector form, his white fur matted with blood and green pus that seeped from large welts under his fur.
The glowing eyes moved closer.
“Dimitri.” She shook his furry shoulders and shifted into a wolf.
Dimitri woke with a snarl. She stood in front of him, her tail limp, nodding at the glowing eyes that followed their movements.
Dimitri rubbed his face, then tiredly got to his feet. “Who goes there?”
“It is I, pui de lup,” a familiar-sounding woman said. “Your mama.”
Tatiana whimpered. Had Katarina found her way to the haunted forest? If so, that didn’t bode well for them. She didn’t trust the demon bitch.
A nude woman with pale, matted hair crawled toward them like a spider moving along a web. She had two twisted arms and six long, spindly legs and gray skin that nearly matched the color of the petrified trees. What the fuck had happened to her?
She had Katarina’s face, but the rest of her was attached to something ghoulish.
Dimitri stepped in front of her, holding out his hands. “Stay back, demon!” he boomed. “You are not my mother.”
“I am!” the creature yelled. “Your wolf bitch cursed me, and now I’m gruesome.”
Tatiana moved back as Dimitri retreated ahead of the demon’s advance.
“I’m warning you,” Dimitri growled. “Come closer, and I will tear you limb from limb.”
The demon let out an ear-piercing wail. “Dimitri, my favorite boy, your evil mate has turned you against me!”
“You are not my mother!” Dimitri stomped so hard, the earth shook and split open in front of them, revealing bubbling lava.
The demon’s lips pulled back, revealing fangs that dripped yellow venom that sizzled when it hit the earth. She sprang over the lava and landed on Dimitri, biting hard on his injured leg and reopening the wound.
He let out a howl, trying to shake her off.
Tatiana ran and bit her spindly leg, surprised when it fell off in her mouth. She spit it out, violently shaking her wolf head at the rancid taste of rotting flesh.
The demon with Katarina’s face released Dimitri’s leg and limped toward her on her remaining legs. A sinister laugh erupted from the demon’s throat as the missing leg grew back.
Tatiana, trying to avoid the creature, yelped when her back paw slipped into the lava. The crack in the earth had widened, creating a stream that cut across the forest. She jumped over it and grunted when something slammed into her back, then howled when the demon bit her ear.
Dimitri pulled them apart and tossed the demon into the lava. Its agonizing shriek was so high, she thought her eardrums would burst. She covered her ears with her paws until the demon slipped out of sight in the flames.
She nuzzled Dimitri when he picked her up and carried her through the forest, dragging his injured leg.
They could not survive this forest much longer.
“TATIANA! DIMITRI!” Constantine, in protector form, paced in front of the veil like a caged tiger. Enraged, he threw the tree limb he was holding into the veil. It crackled like a log on a fire.
Dimitri’s trail had ended at the white mist dividing the living from the place of his childhood nightmares. Jovan had reported seeing Dimitri run into the mist. Even if they survived the demon that had taken Tatiana, how would they escape the haunted forest? The thought of them trapped in there, turned into unholy creatures, was more than he could bear.
Andrei and Dejan paced beside him as wolves, whining and sniffing the ground.
They should’ve come out by now. They’re either trapped or dead, Andrei projected to him.
We have to go get them, Dejan insisted.
Clenching his hands, he