ra

tom of the abyss with a deafe

violent impact sent me flying. My shoulder slammed into the thi

he dried mud on my face. The sickening jolt threw my mind back to the night our family h

was absolute, dead

obbing and frantic, breathless pr

the grating. I moved quickly to the thickest load-bearing pillar in the center of the cage a

beyond the bars, th

eath my boots began to vibrate with the

. A suffocating wave of wild, feral pheromones flooded the air, mixed with the

rabbed the iron bars and shook them, screaming a

massive, pitch-blac

k, jagged scales and dark red, glowing runes carved directly into the beast's flesh. I recognized those markings

ed onto the to

its muscles. The reinforced steel bars, designed to withst

he cage. His shriek lasted exactly half a second before it

d through the bars. It splashed a

n't make a sound. My survival instincts screamed at me to stay perfectl

. They scrambled like blind rats, pouring out of the torn g

lued to the pillar, my eyes tracking th

imson eyes. The sounds of the slaughter were horrific-the tearing of flesh, the crunching of sk

ing in the cage kept me i

My fingers brushed against a sharp, jagged piece of glass I had pi

ll into a heavy, suffocating silence, broken o

s appeared at the tor

s than ten

that was Kaelen, the Mad King. He was a terrifying hybrid of a demonic wolf and a dra

as sniffing the air, sorting thro

olently I thought it would crack my sternum. I gripped th

toward the shadows.

and squeezed his upper body through the torn metal. His jagged spikes scr

drive it straight into his eye. My noble blood d

. His muscles coiled tight. He

ut on my palm tore wider. Several heavy drops of warm, crimson bloo

od hit the air, e

. But it wasn't just fear. A strange, unfamiliar heat coiled at the base of my spin

locked up completely. His crimson pupil

of blood-unless that blood was the exact cure it had been starved of

breath blasted

e?" I thought, my min