Demon Snare (These Immortal Vows Book 1)

by Kestra Pingree

  Then my dad joins her, crawling with her, toward me. He repeats her words. I’m not being pinned against the wall by Arsen anymore. It’s my parents. They’re staring at me, bloody and torn, their eyes a pale glowing white—not my parents.

  “Avenge us,” they say over and over. “Avenge us.”

  I inhale so sharply it hurts as I fly up into a sitting position, almost throwing myself out of my bed. Sweat threatens to drip into my eyes, but I manage to brush it away with the back of my trembling hand.

  It was just a dream.

  It was just a dream

  It was just a…

  A crashing sound from outside my bedroom door makes me jump again. I don’t know how much more my heart can take. Am I still dreaming?

  My door breaks open and a monster tumbles into my room. All I can see are his shining fangs, glistening with fresh blood. I can smell the iron, the gore. I can hear the shouts.

  The monster leaps into the air, but I scramble out of my bed just before he lands. In the same instant, my hand finds the stake on my nightstand, made from the wood of a golden ash. I hold the stake out defensively, but my hands are trembling. Despite that, my grip is somehow tight around the wood. This thing better be a vampire, or I just chose the wrong weapon.

  I pray my adrenaline is on my side for once. Help me kill this monster, whatever it is. If I don’t kill him, he’s going to kill me.

  The monster lunges at me again, but I somehow escape that attack too. He’s clumsy, stumbling against my nightstand. I drive my stake into his shoulder and, based on the way he screams, I decide I must have made the right choice in weapons. He howls as he thrashes, and then he leaps for me, pinning me to the ground. He’s wild and crazed like there’s too much energy in his body to control.

  I scream when he bites into my neck. It feels like the wound is burning as he drinks my blood. The pain is so intense, I almost don’t understand what’s happening when the vampire throws himself off of me and starts writhing on the floor. Vervain. There’s vervain in my blood. I’ve never stopped drinking it. I poisoned him.

  He eventually grows limp as I watch him in horror. I killed him. I mean, I didn’t physically kill him myself, but he’s dead and I’m still alive. I feel like I should be proud of myself, but I also feel nothing but revulsion as I look at the dead body, mouth fresh with foam.

  Bringing my hand to my bleeding neck, I slide past his limp form and dart outside my room. My first thought is to find Rynne, Fiona, Divya, any of the hunters. I run down the hall, heading for Fiona’s room when something knocks me down. All the air in my lungs is stolen from me as I hit the hard ground below, and my vision blurs. A shooting pain rips through my arm as I scream, but the sound doesn’t last for long when a hand wraps around my mouth.

  “No running,” a female’s voice croons. “No one’s getting out of here tonight. You hunters have been causing us way too much trouble lately.”

  CHAPTER 56

  Rynne

  I WAKE TO THE sound of screams. At first, I wonder if I’m being tormented by the recurring nightmares of my past, but as I come to my senses, I realize it’s much worse than that. I almost can’t breathe because the darkness consuming the base is so strong. I roll out of my bed just in time to dodge a demon busting through my door. He lands on my mattress and skewers it with sharp claws. He’s taken the shape of a creature resembling a jaguar and human combined. Definitely a werebeast. He’s mindless and wild as if there’s a full moon out tonight. But I know there isn’t. What is going on? Werebeasts shouldn’t be out unless it’s a full moon.

  He leaps off my bed and slashes at me again. I’m able to dodge most of his swings, but the room is small. He ends up slashing his razor-sharp claws across my chest. It’s a shallow wound, but it stings all the same. I may need to shift. Based on the amount of darkness I’m feeling, there are many more demons than the one I’m facing. How could this happen? The base was so well fortified.

  Tasia.

  I answer the werebeast’s growl with a snarl of my own. Then I leap for my nightstand and retrieve my silver knife just before he takes another swing at me. I’m ready for his next swing. I position my knife carefully and stab the blade into the monster’s palm. He doesn’t seem to even feel the blade’s sting as he slashes at me with his other paw-like hand. I manage to retrieve my knife and move in time to dodge another attack. If I had fire, this would be much easier.

  “Rynne! Get down!”

  I recognize Blade’s voice from outside my room. I don’t think. I do exactly as she says. I dive to the ground, as far as I can get from the monster, and cover my head. A howling cry erupts from the werebeast’s mouth along with the hiss of a flamethrower. I shimmy up against a wall and watch as the beast melts into a black gooey mess like tar.

  “The world’s gone crazy,” Blade mutters.

  “Thanks,” I say as I meet her in the hall. She’s with Divya and the rest of Gold Team. “Where’s Tasia?”

  “I haven’t seen her.”

  “I’ll go look for her.”

  “We’ll come with you,” Donovan insists.

  “No,” I say. “I’ll be right back. Tell me where to meet you. I’ll grab Tasia and then we’ll regroup. There are other hunters that need you right now.”

  Divya replies, “The lobby. We aren’t letting these monsters take our base without a fight.”

  As I rush off, Miguel calls after me, “Keep Tasia safe!”

  “I will!” I shout back, and then I’m rushing off down another hall. All of the base’s defenses are down. There are small fires everywhere. Some of them are growing, and I see bodies, monster and hunter alike. I have to find Tasia. I have to find her right now. Please be okay. You can’t die here. It’s not your destiny to die here.

  And I can’t lose you.

  I rush past the pleas and cries for help echoing through the base. I can’t fight an army on my own. If there’s only one person I can protect, then what I have to do is obvious. I have to ignore everyone else for her. I know at least one other angel should be watching over her, but this situation is dire. I’m not sure a natural angel and a made angel like myself will be able to fight this army on our own. We can’t count on the hunters because they’re losing. I see more bodies than I care to count just as I make my way to Tasia’s hall.

  That’s when I see her. She’s pinned to the ground by a demon in the guise of a wolverine, an aswang.

  “Rynne!” she screams. “Help me!”

  There’s no more hiding. I can’t risk it. I allow my body to change. My need to protect Tasia encompasses my entire being and I reveal my shifter nature. My body morphs and grows until my clothes are shredded and my body is covered in thick white fur. Any sign of me being human is erased as I shift completely into a polar bear. I growl and charge the wolverine, swiping her off Tasia with my paw. The aswang yelps as she hits the wall. I hear bones cracking.

  Tasia’s chest rises and falls in ragged and uneven breaths as she looks first at the wolverine, then at me. Her eyes are wide, she’s covered in cuts, and she’s favoring her arm, but she’s alive.

  “Angel!” a group of hissing voices accuses me from behind.

  I take a protective stance in front of Tasia and bid the demons to come to me. I bare my teeth at them and strike a couple as they rush up to me. They underestimate my speed as I smack them into the ground, halting their advance. I’ll do what I can, but I’m not going to be able to hold off these kinds of numbers for long, even if there isn’t a natural demon among them. The fact remains, I’m nothing more than a made angel, a mortal masquerading as a celestial messenger.

  Glancing behind me, I try to give Tasia a reassuring gaze. The fear in her eyes isn’t as prominent when she looks back at me. She’s accepted that her life is now in my paws.

  CHAPTER 57

  Tasia

  I MUST HAVE HIT my head.

  I saw Rynne shift into a polar bear. It doesn’t make any sense. Rynne is a shapeshifter? Aren’t only monsters s
hapeshifters? But these monsters… They’re calling him an angel.

  My body aches everywhere, and I’m bleeding. Rynne’s fighting off monsters while I’m sitting here defenseless. I try not to make a sound as I attempt to drag myself away from the battle. If I can’t fight, I have to do my best not to get in the way. But I feel so confused, so conflicted. What is Rynne? Is this what he meant when he said there are things about him I don’t know? If he’s really an angel, why has he been hanging around me all this time and what is he doing, claiming to be a human and a hunter? What purpose would an angel have for doing those things?

  I find my way to a wall and rest my back against it. I hold my left arm as still as possible. It hurts so bad. It’s definitely bruised, and maybe even broken. More than anything I want to scream or cry, but I have to be strong. I can’t be any more of a nuisance than I already am. Rynne’s right here fighting for me. His white fur coat is already splattered in blood. If it’s his, the monsters’, or both, I don’t know. He’s still fighting relentlessly, so I hope that means he isn’t hurt. I won’t be able to bear it if he gets hurt because of me. Or worse.

  “You’re all a bunch of useless sacks of meat,” the silky smooth voice of a female sounds from down the hall. I turn my head in the direction of the voice, but most of the lights have been busted. Fires are scattered around and growing, but she’s too far away to see clearly.

  A hush falls over the screams and clashing noises that filled the hall just moments before. Even Rynne has stopped fighting. His sides heave with labored breaths, and I know he’s almost spent.

  The woman speaking before reveals herself just underneath the flickering of a lone light. She’s beautiful, voluptuous, curvy, seductive in every sense of the word, and she’s all legs. She’s the kind of woman you only see in magazines, the kind of woman portrayed in illustrations of a temptress. She’s the kind of woman with beauty you can only achieve by digitally modifying a photo. Then I see her glowing teal eyes. Her eyes are different from the other monsters’. They’re the kind of eyes I’ve only ever seen from demons.

  “Exones must have been careless,” the woman states as she walks past the flickering and burning light.

  The other monsters clear a path for her. “You don’t look so tough,” she says, “especially not at the moment.” Her eyes are glued on Rynne. She looks like she wants to eat him. “Why don’t I rip out your heart so you can feel exactly what he did when he died?”

  Rynne growls at her, but the sound is weakened. I can see him shaking. He was barely holding off the other monsters before, and they were nothing compared to this demon. No monster is.

  This is it. This is the end.

  Tears spill from my eyes as I’m consumed by my inadequacy. Rynne wouldn’t be hurt and dying right now if it wasn’t for me. If I was stronger, we would be working together to stop this demon. If I was stronger, I could save him. But I’m not strong. The only things I have left are my diamonds, but they can’t help us either.

  CHAPTER 58

  Arsen

  THEY REALLY ARE A worthless bunch of sacks of meat. Not to mention the angels. They left Tasia with a single made angel? I know they had more protection surrounding her before, I suppose it’s possible an angel is waiting on the sidelines, but there’s far too much demonic aura filling this place now for me to tell.

  I’ve been waiting patiently, and the made angel has been fighting decently against the made demons, but he’s hurt and exhausted, and now he has a natural demon to deal with. He isn’t going to survive unless backup comes for him right now. Tasia isn’t going to survive unless—

  My beast steps in and takes over my agency. I slip in through one of the entrances the demons made into the base. Then I emerge into the hall, undetected, where I proceed to slice off the heads of each of the made demons there as I allow my beast’s claws to envelop my fingernails. It’s only when the heads start dropping to the ground that my presence is noticed.

  The made angel has just taken a fatal blow from Solanis, but she hasn’t touched Tasia yet. She turns around slowly to face me. Her lips twitch at the corners of her mouth. “Well, well, well,” she says, “if it isn’t the cursed son, Arsen.”

  “Solanis,” I regard her with a slight nod of my head.

  “I would ask you if you’re here to join in the fun but,” she gestures to the headless bodies around her, some limp, others attempting to reattach their heads, “I think it’s fairly obvious you’re not.”

  “What about you? Don’t you have better things to do?”

  “Didn’t you know, Arsen? I’m doing this for my brother. They killed him.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why you’re here. It’s not like the two of you got along.”

  “I never skip out on the chance for revenge, and despite our differences, he was still my brother.”

  “How sentimental.”

  I glance at Tasia again, even though I know I should only be focusing on Solanis. She isn’t weak despite never having seen or been to Ilenima. Fighting her won’t be anything like fighting made demons. Still, she has them for backup while I have only myself to depend on. My beast shuts down my logician and lets rage flow through my body. All of that stuff is just useless extra information. I have to kill Solanis, so I will. To protect her. To protect Tasia.

  “What the hell are you thinking?” Solanis asks as she lets her beast manifest partway, revealing lunar moth-like wings and deadly poison barbs on her hands. The fuzzy antennas on her head twitch violently, taking in every square inch of this area. “Why are you fighting against me? We’re on the same side.”

  “No, we’re not,” I say through clenched teeth. My fangs elongate, and my horns push through the skin on my forehead. I stop my beast from transforming my body any further after my tail, large draconic wings, and scales have manifested. “Everyone in this base belongs to me. You’re threatening what’s mine.”

  “You think just because you’re older than me that you can boss me around,” Solanis says coolly. “But any way I look at this, it just doesn’t make sense. Why won’t you join me in destroying them? What’s really going on?”

  I’m done talking. I leap forward, ready to land the first strike, but I fall back at the last second, as fire starts enveloping Solanis. I look at the previous burning piles of rubble to see that the fire is gone from them and is now surrounding her like a protective shield.

  “I’ll burn you alive,” she promises. “You’ll pay for underestimating me.”

  She spreads out her hands and pieces of the flames ball themselves up into bullets as they fly forward. I can feel made demons from behind, about to grab me and hold me in place, so I wait until the fire is just about to sear through my flesh before leaping up to the ceiling and holding myself up by a light fixture. Shrieks of pain echo through the halls as made demons are pierced with fire bullets.

  I just drop down from the light fixture I’m holding on to when Solanis sends more fire spiraling in my direction. I send out my awareness, desperate to find a water source. I’ve heard some demons are so in tune with the planet they can pull moisture from the air itself, but I’ve never seen anyone accomplish such power in Terra. Terra dampens our abilities to control the elements, no matter how in tune we may be, and I don’t want to try gathering the snow and ice outside.

  It seems I’m in luck. There’s a large water pipe located just below. I bring my claws to the ground and hit the glazed concrete floor. The earth hears me and parts slightly, but it isn’t enough. I don’t create a big enough hole in the ground to avoid the next barrage of fire bullets. My jaw locks down as the flames bite through my imperfect draconic armor, but I ignore the pain and hit the ground one more time before another stream of fire can burn me again. This breaks the earth down to the water pipe below. All it takes now is a slash of my claws to break through the pipe.

  Water bursts up from the hole I created. I take control of the unruly liquid and will the spray in front of me as I hop out of the hole in the
ground. The water coalesces in front of me to create a transparent wall. Solanis shrieks as her fire extinguishes piece by piece as it hits my water wall. Unless she or one of the made demons starts another fire, she won’t be able to use that element for much longer. She’s almost used every last bit of fire surrounding us. Even if she had more available, it doesn’t look like she’s going to last much longer. The immense strain Terra puts on us when using the elements is showing on her face, in her body. She’s trembling and sweating.

  She tries hitting me a few more times, testing whose will is stronger, but my water wall holds and her fire withers away into nothing. Using the planet can make us strong, but it can also leave us weak. Now’s my chance.

  While Solanis tries to recover from the strain, breathing heavily and backing away from me, I command the water in front of me to rearrange around her head. Water floats and bubbles into a solid orb encompassing her head like a helmet. She starts choking and drowning, but I hold my hand firm, willing the water to stay. My willpower is stronger than hers. The made demons around me can see that for themselves, and most of them flee. Loyalty isn’t a quality we creatures of darkness usually possess, so I’m grateful when that statement holds true, because my body is starting to give out. I just need to hold on for a little longer. I just need to drown her a few more times.

  I keep the water under my control for a couple more minutes, and then I can’t hold it anymore. I lose all control of the element, and the water encasing Solanis’s head like a solid glass orb falls away and splatters onto the ground. She is still alive, but she’s too weak to call upon the planet again. So am I at the moment, but I still have all of my life essence while she’s died many times already. I pull her up by her hair as she coughs and tries to recover from the grueling torture I put her through. She never gets the chance. I slip my claws into her chest, remove her heart, and devour it.

  The burning sensation of her heart clawing its way down into my stomach lasts for only a moment, and then what was left of her life essence becomes mine. I wipe the blood from my mouth as I drop her limp body onto the ground. Then I say, to any of the made demons still hanging around, “Unless you want to die as well, I suggest you leave.” They do. Like the cowards they are.