Chapter 29

When she hit the writhing demon bodies, Adara withdrew into herself. She knew what would happen next. Remembered all too well how the slice of a claw through skin and muscle felt. The pinprick agony of teeth sinking into her flesh.

She checked out of her body rather than experience it again. She floated above, a ghostly spectator that might never return to its fleshy cage.

Away from it all, she watched Desmond engaging Mammon in a fight. The magic flinging fast and furious between them. Desmond hampered by the Earth's lack of magic. Mammon made stronger because of the evil he'd welcomed into his body. Enhancements he'd bought despite the cost.

She really didn't care who won that battle, though. She refused to let Mammon hurt her again. And she refused to believe Desmond when he said he didn't know.

He'd never even looked.

All that time, she'd prayed he would come to her rescue, it turned out Mammon's taunting was true. Desmond didn't care.