Page 166 of Demon’s Snack

Just slightly.

Fear.

There it is.

He cannot fully control what he summoned.

“Corin,” Rhazek calls. “The left hand remains the conduit. Sever it before the next draw.”

Corin’s fingers tighten over mine.

“I need to move.”

“I know.”

“You need to step back.”

“No.”

His eyes cut to me.

I raise my chin. “You need me close enough to keep the devourer’s force from restructuring your hunger. I can walk.”

“You can barely stand.”

“Rude.”

“Accurate.”

“Then hold me upright while you save the district.”

His mouth pulls into a grim, wild smile. “Bossy.”

“Mate,” I correct, because fear has stripped away my patience for lesser words.

The bond flares hot and fierce enough to make both of us inhale.

Corin’s gaze locks on mine for one breath that feels stolen from the end of the world.

Then he nods.

“Beside me,” he says.

“Beside you.”

Together, we turn toward the devourer as its hollow chest gathers another soul-consuming wave over the crowd. Corin’s power burns against my palm, too hot, too vast, and still somehow answering the rhythm I set with my own breath.

I move closer despite the panic, despite Vaerith’s watching eyes, despite the awful pull of the creature’s hunger.

Because Corin is standing between the devourer and everyone else.

And I am done letting monsters decide he has to stand alone.

25

CORIN

The devourer screeches above us, its half-formed body convulsing as the ritual lines feeding it burn clean beneath the courtyard stones. The hollow cavity in its chest still radiates waves of starving force, but the rhythm has become jagged and unstable, each pulse breaking unevenly against the collapsing summoning structure. Vaerith’s dais smokes under black-gold flame. The amplification runes that carried his voice across the district gutter in fractured sparks before dying entirely. His guards have retreated to the outer edges of the courtyard, their formation shattered by heat, terror, and the realization that their lord nearly fed them to his own ritual.