I’m across the room before he can finish, one hand holding Dagny to my chest and the other outstretched, wrapped around the soldier's jaw like a vise. My smile spreads as the demon’s eyes roll back in agony, the movement accompanied by several sickening pops as his teeth break and his jawbone is ground to dust in my palm. A high-pitched scream explodes into the air as a river of blood pours from his open mouth, coating the armor covering his neck and chest. My mouth turns down in disgust as I curl one of my wings forward, covering Dagny from any possible spray and the revolting smell of sulfur infecting the air.

Once I’m sure she’s safe, I turn my attention back to the lowly soldier. With one swift movement, I tear his lower jaw from his skull, sending a shower of dark blue fluid onto the floor and revealing muscle, connective tissue, and—just what I was looking for.

Throwing the jaw bone to the floor, I reach up, wrapping my blood-slicked fingers around the blue fleshy thing dangling from his open throat, my smile splitting my face in two from his gurgling pleas of “mercy.”

I rip the useless organ from his body, shredding it between my claws before tossing it to the floor and crushing it beneath my heel. The soldier who dared to call my mate pathetic slumps to the ground in a limp, bloodied heap, either dead or close to it.

The rest of the soldiers stare in abject horror, their skin transitioning between shades of green.

“Slaine’s going to kill you,” the one on the left whispers, his milky eyes darting around the room as if the great Slaine will appear and smite him. “You… you can’t do that…”

“Perhaps, and I just did.” I kick the fallen soldier to the side, refusing to look at any of them. Ants. Not even chess pieces. Fucking bugs to be squashed. “I doubt Slaine will care after he hears you all were plotting to take him out while he slept tonight. He might just reward me.”

The same soldier who spoke earlier turns a deathly shade of white. “We would never⁠—”

“Then I suppose our friend there deserved to die, yes? He was such a nuisance after all. Best not to trouble Slaine with the specifics behind his death.” I lean in with a bright smile, pleased when the soldier shifts back against the wall with a gulp. “You do agree, don’t you?”

“Of course, Malice.” The soldier sends a pointed look to the rest of the group, who parrot his words exactly.