Free Wounded: Book 8 (A Rylee Adamson Novel) by Shannon Mayer Page B

disturbance in the energy around us. Like something was sucking the light and life out of the very place we stood.
    That couldn’t be good. “Erik, is that demons I’m picking up?”
    “Yes. And not like the ogres. These will be one of the packs. Stronger, faster. Meaner. How the hell they found us this fast, though, I have no idea. They don’t have a way to Track like you do.”
    I wasn’t up to snuff, my body still catching up from everything. “Fight or run?”
    The demons took the decision away from us as they burst out of the motel’s office, John wrapped in web that covered his whole body except his head. But that wasn’t what really caught my attention. No, it was the demons themselves. They were human looking if you just considered their torsos and initial limbs. Not so human if you counted the wings on their backs, giant rat heads sitting on their shoulders, and the extra sets of arms sprouting from their sides.
    Alex let out a howl, stopping them in their tracks.
    “Hey, where the fuck do you think you’re going with John?” I pulled my whip with one hand and a sword with the other. There was no choice; there would be no running if they were taking my friends. The demons said nothing, just dropped John and advanced toward us. I counted thirteen of the rat faces. “Eve, stay put!” I yelled knowing the harpies would want to be a part of this showdown.
    And did they listen? No, of course not. They dove on the pack, plucking two out and cutting our enemy’s numbers a little. The demons saw the harpies and changed formation, closing ranks completely, making it nearly impossible for any more of their members to go skyward. Eve and Marco harried them, but weren’t able to get their claws into any more.
    Erik took the point, and the fight was on. The rat pack surged toward us, hissing and shooting some sort of nasty smelling goop from their mouths. I dodged the first splash, saw it stick to the pavement. “They shoot their web from their mouths!” I yelped as I snapped my whip toward the rat closest to me, thinking only of keeping my friends safe.
    The whip sizzled as it wrapped around the rat’s throat and I jerked it forward, ramming my sword into the demon’s belly. The actual demon expelled from the human host, leaving me staring at what the demon had been possessing.
    A child.
    Younger even than Pamela. I screamed and had to fight the rage that spooled up through me. They’d possessed children, those very souls I’d sworn to protect above all others. How didn’t matter, only that they had.
    “Rylee, they know your weakness. They did this on purpose, to stop you from being effective,” Erik yelled as he took down a demon and another child lay dead at his feet. A little boy with ginger hair and a smattering of freckles across his cheeks.
    I couldn’t stop the anger, couldn’t control it as I lashed out at the demons. Their bodies took the hits and they snarled and giggled as they circled around me. Screaming my rage, I fought with everything I had, but none of my blows did anything. I wondered where Pamela was in all this; there hadn’t been a single blast of fire from her.
    “Rylee, control it!”
    But I couldn’t. There was nothing in me that could handle this with anything but rage, with the righteous fury that billowed through my body. Distantly, I knew I was going to pay for this.
    If only I’d understood just how bad it was going to be.

    A demon hit me from behind, stunning me, as he slammed my head to the ground. Alex leapt between me and the demon and with a snarling swipe was able to push the rat faced monster back.
    I managed to get to my knees, and I tried to use my magic. But nothing happened. The power slid through my fingers the way Milly said would happen if I got hit in the head. It was one of the few things that could slow down a witch, and I wasn’t to ever tell anyone about it. But it looked like someone had told the demons.
    I grabbed my head and tried to stop the