Page 170 of Demon’s Snack

“Probably not.”

“That answer inspires absolutely no confidence.”

“Good news,” I say, flexing my burning hands while black-gold flame coils higher around my wrists. “Confidence is currently very low on my priority list.”

Despite the terror carved across her face, a breathless laugh escapes her.

I lean down just enough to press my forehead briefly against hers, rain and heat steaming between us while the devourer screams overhead.

“Stay behind me when it lunges,” I murmur.

Her eyes narrow immediately. “You already know my answer.”

“Yeah,” I admit softly. “I really do.”

Then I straighten and turn back toward the devourer as the storm howls around us and Vaerith’s burning ritual collapses beneath our feet.

This time, when the creature gathers its hunger for another strike, I meet its gaze openly.

And I let it see something in me willing to bite back.

26

ISOLDE

Corin turns toward the devourer with black-gold flame climbing his arms, and the courtyard seems to bend around the force gathering inside him.

The storm drives rain sideways across the shattered stones, but the drops vanish into steam before they touch his skin. His horns cut through the red-lit darkness in a stark, unmistakable silhouette. Gold burns through his eyes, his throat, the backs of his hands, and every torn place in his shirt where the devourer’s energy has stretched him too far from the inside. He stands between the creature and the crowd with his shoulders squared, his boots planted in fractured rune lines, and his hands open less in surrender than invitation.

The devourer lowers its impossible head.

The hollow in its chest pulses again.

Everyone feels it this time.

A collective cry rises from the crowd as that soul-consuming pull drags through the courtyard. Nobles clutch one another with gloves smeared in soot. Clerks collapse against the witness rail. Sable braces one boot on a broken stone and hauls two frightened humans behind Rhazek’s shield with language so creative that even Lady Syrenya turns her head for a second. Vaerith stands near the ruined dais with his face set in fury, but even he steps back when the devourer’s hunger rolls over him.

Corin does not step back.

That frightens me more than the creature.

“Corin,” I say.

He hears me, but his gaze remains locked on the devourer. “Stay close, Isolde.”

The command should irritate me, and under better circumstances I would make a pointed note of it. Tonight, his voice is too strained for pride. The devourer’s last attack is still inside him, pulling at his hybrid core with predatory intelligence, trying to widen every path he used to absorb it.

I feel that through the bond.

It moves beneath his own pulse like a second heartbeat, colder and older, a deep thud of alien appetite lodged against the infernal structure under his ribs. His power answers it with violent recognition, all heat, rivalry, and protective fury. The two pressures grind together inside him hard enough that I can feel the strain in my own bones.

“Your core is overheating,” I say.

His mouth pulls into a grim curve. “That sounds bad.”

“It is hideous.”

“Appreciate the honesty.”