Lyka turned in time to watch the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen let go of her velvet skirts and lift her hand.

“He’s mine.”

A crackling electrical charge filled the room an instant before power exploded out of the woman.

Lyka instinctively pulled on Joseph’s power to shield her while she covered her brother’s body with her own.

The force of the blast hit her back and knocked the breath out of her. It shoved the heavy bed several feet across the stone floor, where it hit the opposite wall hard enough to shatter the wooden frame. Heat spilled out around her shield, burning precious oxygen from the air.

When the pressure of the magical attack faded, Lyka could feel Joseph’s panic vibrating through their connection. He was desperate to reach her, exhausted from running, but refused to slow as he rushed to her side.

He wasn’t going to make it to her in time. He was too far away. She could tell by the way his thoughts were a distant echo, rather than a powerful mix of emotion and images.

She was on her own.

Lyka spun around to face her attacker while she shifted into her tiger form. The change was instantaneous, easy. Shock rattled around in her, until she realized that she’d managed the feat only because she’d drawn power from Joseph.

She prepared to launch herself at the woman, claws extended, teeth bared. She was going to rip this woman’s throat out for what she did to Eric.

Her body coiled to attack, but she couldn’t pounce—not at this woman. She’d made a promise to a demon to deliver her, and she was bound by the magic of that vow.

Lyka couldn’t kill the bitch. Her own words had tied her hands.

Eric, however, had no such constraints.

She slashed at his ropes, freeing him in a few quick strikes. Her fur stood up on end, warning her of an incoming attack.

In a heartbeat, she resumed her human form.

Once again Lyka used her body and a surge of magic to shield them from the blast. As heat and light washed over them, they were pushed back until they were smashed flat against the stone wall of the cavern.

“No one takes from me what is mine,” screamed the woman.

“Treszka, stop!” yelled Eric. “You don’t even know if you’re pregnant yet. You might still need me.”

“I have from you everything I need now.”

Confusion cast a fog over their words for a second before Lyka realized what they meant. He hadn’t been bound to the bed, naked and chewed on, because he’d been serving as food. This Treszka woman had been raping him.

Lyka’s stomach turned at the implications. She tried not to think too hard about what her brother had been through—at least not now. Now all that mattered was getting the hell out of here.

Treszka’s blast of magical force faded again, leaving behind the smell of ozone. It was hard to breathe. Lyka’s body felt weakened from the lack of oxygen.

Eric was trembling, reeking of stunned regret, infection and weakness. They couldn’t stay in here much longer. They needed an exit strategy.

Lyka pulled power from Joseph to strengthen her body and used every bit of muscle she had to flip the monstrous bed onto its side. It leaned against the wall, forming a tight shelter for her and her brother.

The scent of demons grew stronger, and the sound of their footsteps got louder as they approached the chamber.

“Any other way out?” she whispered to Eric.

“Not that I saw.”

“Where are the young?”

“Separated in two groups. You should have passed one on your way in.”

The smell of the young had been present on her path here, but it had been faint. Hours had passed since they’d gone that way. Maybe days. “I didn’t.”

“Then I don’t know where they are now. I’ll keep her busy here. You go find them and get the hell out. I’ll just slow you down.”

“We leave together.”

If they left at all. As of now, Lyka couldn’t think of any way past the woman and her sledgehammer magic.

I’m coming, Joseph whispered in her thoughts, faint and distant.

It’s too dangerous. Stay away.

Not going to happen, kitten. Hang on.

She had no choice. She couldn’t even fight back against this woman.

But perhaps she could restrain her. Once Treszka was bound, Lyka could deliver her to the demon she’d made a promise to. What it did with her after that was none of Lyka’s concern.

She had no clue what she was doing, but she had to try something. She pulled a steady stream of Joseph’s power into her, letting it build inside her. In less than a couple of seconds, the pressure of the magic became too much to bear. She had to let it out. Now.

“Stay here,” she ordered Eric, and then she grabbed a sheet and darted out from behind the bed so she could see what she was doing.

Power bulged inside her body, pressing against bones and organs. With every passing fraction of a second, more energy collected in her, demanding to be set free.

Lyka tossed the sheet toward Treszka, imbuing it with a living kind of magic. The sheet flew through the air and wrapped around the woman’s legs like a boa constrictor.

She toppled onto her hands and knees. Her black hair fell over her face, and she brushed it back, giving Lyka a murderous look. As those inky locks pulled away from her forehead, they took with it a flap of skin that covered a gaping maw filled with wicked teeth and a single, weeping, bulbous eye.

Suddenly, the woman wasn’t so beautiful. She was all demon.

Treszka ripped the sheet from her legs as it if had been tissue paper. The hem of her velvet skirt was shredded. Her black eye burned with hatred. “What are you?”

“Fifty percent Slayer, fifty percent Theronai, one hundred percent Gonna Kick Your Ass.”

“Guards!” Treszka screamed, and lifted both hands. Every loose object in the room became a projectile weapon, flying right toward Lyka’s head.

Chapter 39

Joseph wasn’t going to make it in time to save Lyka’s life.

He used every trick he knew to fuel his body and give himself a boost of speed. Both she and the demon had moved far faster through the woods than he could, putting him at least a couple of miles behind her.

His lungs burned. His legs were on fire. His body was covered in hundreds of little cuts that branches and brush had left behind. He knew his blood was calling every demon around for miles, but there was no time to slow down and bandage himself.