FREE NOVELLA CHAPTER Demon Heart Chapter Ten
Demon Heart by Kiss Carson
Copyright 2021
CHAPTER TEN
Why did his words send a shiver of foreboding through her?
Dominique licked her lips where Zachary had crushed them only minutes before.
It all felt so surreal now—the kiss, the declarations of desire, Zachary's
feelings for her—everything. But, one thing she’d learned in life was all good
things always came to a premature end.
An eerie cry reverberated from the sky. Dominique looked up
and her eyes followed a black shape. What was it? A bat? A giant
bird? Swooping lower and lower, the creature cried out again. Zachary's touch
on her arm drew her gaze to his calm grey eyes. By golly, he was divine.
Although, disquiet shadowed his handsome features.
“I will protect you,” he said.
His tone scared her. “Protect me from what?”
The ground vibrated violently. Leaves on the tree she sat under rustled and a handful floated through the air to settle on the ground around her. The stench of burning flesh filled the glade.
Zachary's hand moved
to the hilt of his new sword and tightened until his knuckles turned white.
“Destroyer,” he whispered.
Dominique clutched the summoning candle more tightly. No more than twenty steps behind Zachary stood a black dragon, velvet wings tucked into its body. Taller than a house, it watched her with blood red eyes, unblinking, menacing. Smoke spiraled from its wide nostrils, drifted across the Pool of Truth and disappeared into the dying afternoon sunlight.
“Dorian has sent his pet. This dragon has brought down entire cities. Now, he has come for me.”
Zachary made no sudden movements as he turned to face the monster. The dragon remained perfectly still, his eyes riveted on the
Demon Lord. Hostility thickened the air between them. Destroyer opened his
mouth a fraction. A single vein of lightning erupted from his mouth and struck
the ground close to Dominique. Zachary shoved her from the line of fire. She
rolled a few times to land on her side, the air knocked from her lungs. A
lightning breathing dragon. That couldn't be good. Before she drew a breath,
Zachary heaved her up and hurried further into the trees.
A bolt of lightning hit the tree directly in front of her. The
trunk exploded. Leaves and bark flew into the air. The tree split in half, one
side crashing into the Pool of Truth. Fire licked at the still upright side of
the trunk, and smoke, thick and pungent, billowed into the air. Screaming, and
covering her head with her arms, she allowed Zachary to pull her into the
clearing again. Clearly, hiding in the trees spelled disaster. For the first
time since her arrival in Demon Realm, Dominique feared for her life. Destroyer
had to be the most powerful creature she’d encountered.
Zachary's tight grip on her arm forced her to sit on the grass behind a boulder. Lightning struck the nearby ground. Soil erupted into the air. She ducked her head and found safety against Zachary's chest. She looked up in time to see him scull red liquid from a vial he’d pulled from his pocket. A pale glow surrounded him and then disintegrated into his body.
“The demons
will come,” he told her. “You need to fight them as you have never fought
before. Collect as many red vials and green gems as you can.”
As he spoke, the pale glow returned and covered his entire
body, brightened slowly until Dominique's eyes burned and she had to look away.
A powerful burst of radiance pushed her into the rock at her back. After a few
seconds, she lowered her arms from her eyes. The white angel demon stood in
Zachary's place, magnificent and graceful.
“Do you understand what I’ve asked of you?”
She nodded.
The demon considered her with amazing glowing eyes. “Domini,
prepare to battle.”
Zachary leaped into the air. His elegant white wings lifted
him further and further into the pale blue infinity. Destroyer launched from
the ground. Dominique scrambled around the boulder and ran into the clearing
where she watched both demon and dragon soar into the sky.
A horned cherub clung to her shin and grinned up at her, its
pointed teeth glistening in the sunlight. Dominique shook the pesky beast from
her leg and backed away from the hoard of cherubs that burst from the
rainforest. She tucked the summoning candle into an empty pocket on her belt
and pulled the jeweled dagger from its scabbard. The first cherub lunged.
Dominique battled, determined to beat the little pains in the arse. She
defeated three cherubs and three vials of red liquid materialized. She shook a cherub from her thigh and jumped
on it. The small demon simply vanished. Frowning, she stared at the grass under
her feet but didn’t have time to contemplate the cherub’s demise.
Cherub demons swarmed, shoved and jostled her. Blindly, she
thrust the dagger. Three more cherubs exploded with a shower of glittery dust.
Green gems popped into the air. A pink demon charged head first into her shin,
and then another. With an alarmed cry, she staggered backward, arms swinging,
and fell onto her back. Demons crowded her. Blinded by bulging pink bellies and
stumpy legs, she struggled, lashed out and screamed, but two managed to grab
hold of her legs. Another two held her by the arms. She yelled at them to let
her go, twisted her body, but their grip around her wrists and ankles didn’t
budge.
Exhausted, she swore under her breath and gave one more
valiant kick. The cherub demons’ smiles widened abnormally. Their pointed teeth
lengthened. Dominique struggled more. They
want to eat me! She screamed, long and loud, and jerked her body in a vain
attempt to escape.
“Stop.”
The cherubs looked up. Zachary hovered a body length above
them, a slow smile spread his demon lips. A glowing ball of energy flew from
the palm of his hand and hit the cherub holding her left arm. The pink atrocity
exploded.
“Battle well, Domini,” Zachary called as he disappeared into
the pale sky.
With her free hand, she swung the dagger and stabbed the
cherub that held her right arm. She fell heavily to the grass but ignored the
pain. The other two demons met the same fate. Breathing deeply, she lay on the
soft, cool grass. Her chest heaved. Her head throbbed. This demon slaying crap
was for the dogs. She focused on the battle ensuing way up in the sky. Forks of
lightning stretched from the dragon to Zachary and illuminated the sky in a
myriad of colored sparks.
“Red vial,” Zachary bellowed.
Startled alive again by the desperate shout, she crawled to the nearest
bottle and tossed it into the sky. The vial flew a beeline into the angel
demon’s body. She threw a green gem to him for good measure. One could never
have enough energy during a major battle.
Captivated by the war in the sky, Dominique failed to see the
shadow specter until the moment before it entered her body. The specter passed
straight through and careened into the air, shrieking with laughter. On her
knees, she wrapped her arms around her middle and doubled over. Her legs
trembled. She didn’t like shadow specters. They didn’t fight fair. Another
specter headed her way. She stood and lunged. The dagger hit its mark and the
shadow specter rewarded her with a small bottle of purple liquid. She tucked
the bottle into her belt and turned to face the shadow specters that surrounded
her in a sea of death.
Dagger held before her, she turned in a slow circle. Each
hideous face was different, each shadow distinctly unique. In a warped way, the
shadow specters were beautiful and elegant, but deadly. The throng pressed down
on her, forced her to kneel, and then onto her back. Silence, heavy and
frightening, covered her. Then the shadows parted to allow a larger, darker and
more ferocious looking specter in. Fear twisted around Dominique's heart. It was
Prite, the shadow specter who’d rendered her unconscious a few days before. He
floated no more than a centimetre above her, his gaping eyes and mouth level
with hers.
“What do you want?” Her voice trembled.
“What every demon wants.” A single shaft of ghostly vapor
touched her chest like a cold finger. “The Hope Stone shards.”
Her heart pounded uncomfortably. She drew in a deep breath.
“They are reserved for Dorian,” she replied in a hoarse whisper. “One demon at
a time, please.”
Prite’s face shifted into what could have only been a smile.
“Dorian promised me a large part of Demon Realm. He said I would no longer need
to hide as the new Demon Realm will embrace me instead of abhor me.”
“Demon Realm is not Dorian's to give away,” Dominique replied.
“It soon will be.”
Just when Dominique thought her end was nigh, the shadow
specters scattered. Others shattered into a million pieces that rained down
onto her like feathers. A familiar bellow echoed across the glade. Prite lay
over her for a few more seconds. He stared into her face before he finally
swooped away. Gagan charged the specters again. His finest battle armor
protected him and sent the shadowy demons flying in all directions. Her
determination renewed, Dominique climbed to her feet and moved forward, step by
jarring step, and thrust the dagger into anything that moved.
Zachary's cry sounded above the eerie groans of the shadow
specters. No longer the angel demon he tumbled from the sky, head over feet, to
land in the midst of the ghostly demons. A few exploded and left behind green
gems, which his body sucked in, but they weren’t enough. The dragon plummeted
toward him, veins of electric fire spewing from its mouth. Shadow specters
closed in.
Dominique ran across the glade, waving her hands to deter the
specters. She passed through the nebulous creatures and immediately stiffened.
Eyes wide with shock she fell to her knees. She sucked in a breath but her
lungs refused to inflate. Gagan’s roar sounded kilometres away. His powerful
form ran across her line of sight. Shadow specters dispersed. Now able to move,
Dominique crawled to Zachary and collapsed to the grass, her head on his chest.
He didn’t move. Enemy demons moved in but she didn’t care anymore. Let it be
over. She closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath and opened her eyes again. Please, no more.
The bottle of purple fluid had fallen from her belt and now
laid a hand’s breadth from her face. A crack slowly moved down the side of the
pear shaped bottle. Glowing purple fluid seeped onto the grass. The liquid
bubbled and a strange smell lifted from the puddle, similar to garlic and mint.
Pizza? A horizontal line of purple mist lifted from the ground and touched the
shadow specters that hovered above, waiting to strike. The formless demons burst
simultaneously. Gems and bottles of remedy cascaded and entered Zachary.
Destroyer’s high-pitched shriek reverberated through the air.
Forks of lightning struck the ground all around Dominique. She shimmied up
Zachary's body to protect him from the wayward veins. Pressing her cheek to
his, she wrapped her arms around him and breathed his scent. Sounds bombarded
her: the sizzle of electricity from the lightning, the wails of the shadow
specters as they died, the unforgettable screams of cherub demons as the purple
mist annihilated everything in its path. The mist reached into the heavens,
wrapped around Destroyer like an unbreakable chain and pulled the dragon from
the sky.
Destroyer swooped and twisted. He tumbled lower and lower
until he hit the Pool of Truth. Spouts of water arced into the air. The earth
shuddered, followed by a blast of light that shook the very air Dominique
struggled to breathe.
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