Page 164 of Demon’s Snack

His hands curl slightly, black-gold flame flickering between his fingers. The devourer’s first wave is still inside him, fighting for space, trying to convert his hunger into an open gate. He looks as if he is holding a collapsing furnace behind his ribs.

“Do not come closer,” he says, voice rougher now. “I mean it.”

“I also mean it.”

“This is not a negotiation.”

“It rarely is when you say foolish things in a heroic tone.”

His laugh breaks out of him harsh and breathless, and the bond steadies for half a heartbeat. The slight shift tells me enough. Humor still reaches him. My voice still reaches him. The rhythm between us remains intact beneath the devourer’s pressure.

I step across the scorched boundary.

Heat climbs my legs immediately, and the circle’s residue snaps at my boots. I keep my gaze fixed on Corin’s face and walk toward him, one hand out, palm open. The devourer’s pull intensifies, trying to hook into my breath, but Corin’s attention locks on me so fiercely that the bond becomes a shielded path through the storm.

“Isolde,” he says, and this time my name sounds less like refusal than plea.

“I am here.”

“You are too close.”

“Yes.”

“That was not permission to continue.”

“I did not mistake it for permission.”

His eyes flash with something that would be outrage in calmer circumstances. “You are impossible.”

“Frequently.”

The devourer’s right arm tears another inch free of the breach. The ground fractures under its hand, and the hollow in its chest opens wider. A second wave of soul-consuming force gathers inside it, deeper and colder than the first.

“Corin, it is drawing again.”

Corin looks back toward the creature.

The hunger inside him answers with a surge so violent my knees almost weaken through the bond. His body wants to meet the attack. Absorb it. Challenge it. Dominate it. That instinct is not madness; it is structure recognizing threat, but the devourer is too large for him to contain alone.

I reach him before the second wave releases.

My hand lands on his chest.

The heat is staggering.

His shirt is soaked, torn, and hot enough to sting my palm through the fabric. Beneath it, his power pounds in heavy, uneven pulses, each one edged with the devourer’s invading force. His breath tears in through his teeth as if my touch both helps and hurts.

“Breathe with me,” I say.

His eyes do not leave the devourer. “Bad time.”

“I know. Try anyway.”

The second wave hits.

Corin turns his body instinctively, shielding me from the brunt of it while keeping one hand lifted toward the devourer. The force slams into him hard enough that I feel it through my teeth. His arm shakes. Stone cracks under his boots. Heat pours from him into the space around us, wild for one terrifying breath before my palm against his chest catches the rhythm beneath it.

I breathe slowly.