Shadowbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 2) by Spencer DeVeau Read Free Book Online

of sword, stopping its teeth just inches away from the cross-guard, and admittedly, too close for comfort from touching Harold’s hand. The weight of the thing was excruciating for the moment as it hung skewered like a shish-kebab. But thankfully the Deathblade, as beaten as it was, didn’t take long in working its magic.
    And the Demon exploded in a fit of dark orange and misty green. First the head vanished into glittering pieces of dust, then the neck, and finally the body. Harold wrapped his arms around Sahara, digging his heels into the floor, pushing himself as far away as possible from the pile of ash that was now the Demon.
    But it wasn’t over. Another Demon, currently preoccupied by the Bat, fought with a rage and grace Harold had never seen before, the closest thing he could liken it to was the way Charlie swung his sword.
    And the Bat looked to be losing. Each strike raised another bloodcurdling howl from the former Vampire King, yet no howl prickled inside of Harold. And the once Realm Protector whimpered like a frightened child.
    The Demon bellowed something in its Hellacious language. A spray of blood exploded from the King’s stomach, and from Harold’s view point, two of those scorpion-like talons sliced through the King’s middle, poking their way out of his back.
    He collapsed in a violent screech. Knees thudding the floor, rocking Harold’s vision. And in a blink of an eye, he began to shrink into the plumper version of his normal self. Except now his black leather robe had a large gash in the middle, and the blood flowed like a river from the wound. His body shook, and he sniveled.
    The Demon raised its other claw, letting out another roar. Before the talons came down on the King like three axes swung simultaneously, Harold thought the Demon’s black eyes caught his own, letting him know he was next. Yet Harold shook his head in disbelief. It couldn’t be happening to him; he should’ve died a long, long time ago. And now that he was no longer immortal, susceptible to all forms of dying both natural and supernatural, he wished he’d had a gun. Because going out the way of a vicious goat-looking Demon was not at the top of his list.
    The claws came down with a squish and another mist of red. All Harold heard after that was a deep grumble in the Demon’s open chest, where a glistening black heart pumped the venom through its veins. And then the King let out a throaty death rattle, signifying that his reign had come to an end.  
    As had Harold’s.  
    Until a flaming arrow whizzed past his eye. For a split-second it seemed to move in slow motion. And Harold studied the harsh looking arrowhead — about as jagged and broken as Sahara’s blade with curved spikes jutting from the middle of the shaft and what looked like crow feathers tacked on the end, dancing through the smoky air.
    It stuck with a twang into the wooden throne, and he hadn’t noticed, from too much shock apparently, that it had taken his hat with it. A sound like a muted gunshot went off and another arrow speared the air. Harold had the good grace to duck that time.
    Great. Demonic Katniss has arrived on the scene, he thought.
    But that arrow wasn’t intended for him.  
    The Demon turned its head too slowly, and the arrow had pierced it through the side of the neck, giving him something like Frankenstein bolts. Black blood gushed out from the exit wound. It gurgled and fell to its knees, looking at Harold with wide-eyed terror, though Harold couldn’t imagine something like that ever being terrified even in its death, seeing how it was probably already dead to begin with.
    And to Harold’s surprise, Demonic Katniss hadn’t passed the threshold of the broken door to the former King’s chambers. Instead a very old-looking man had. And he marched over to the Demon hunched on its knees with the grace of a young man, gripped just below the black crow feathers of the end of the shaft, kicked his foot into its back and yanked the