Twenty-two minutes.

We didn't even wait for the tremors to stop.

We charged. At full speed. Because every second mattered from now until the portal was sealed shut.

The rush of adrenaline had my muscles pumping in ways they've never been used before.

Anyone watching me from above would think I was on steroids.

I was dodging fallen branches and pieces of bark expertly– as if it came naturally to me. My vision was blurred, and the only image my eyes narrowed in on was the flickering numbers on my wrist.

Twenty-one minutes and fifteen seconds.

I had been in battles before, but none of them had me riled up to this stage. This was a war to avenge every innocent soul that gained their angel wings the hard way at his hands.

And the first and last drops of his blood would be mine to claim, mine to savour, and mine to stain my lips.

If anyone could feel the overwhelming need for revenge that burned in my chest, I could probably pass as a vampire because it did not seem healthy for any other species to crave blood like this.

Twenty minutes and twenty-five seconds.

The distance that was supposed to take us three minutes to cover only took us a minute and a half.

We broke through the line of trees that revealed the entry to the camp of the enemy a short distance away, where they were blissfully ignorant of the raid that was to take place on both sides.

The moment we could see the silhouettes of bodies through the thick fog, Alrik threw his head back and let out a chilling howl that put horror movies to shame just as Daxton sped over our heads and released a fierce roar along with a terrifying stream of flames that broke through the fog seamlessly.

There were a few angry squawks in the distance, and a streak of red across the sky as the rogue dragons soared toward them with their mouths ablaze, creating fireworks of blood and flames.

Nineteen minutes.

This had turned into a deadly game of Capture the Flag.

Except we weren't chasing a flag, we were chasing a lunatic.

Alrik was leading his pack warriors to demolish the defense around the camp, Daxton was piloting his warriors through the rogue dragons and diverting their attention so they would not target our side with their flames, and I was charging for the center of the battle with a majority of my coven, five wolves, and Reece.

She was sprinting ahead of me with the other wolves, clearing the path as I used the staff to fight the rogues that broke through the little protective circle. I had discovered the sharp edges on the staff were a great weapon in itself so I was decapitating and wounding wolves left and right.

My energy was meant for Malcolm and the other witches that were with him. None of them had come out to fight so they were obviously sticking to his side, and the last thing I needed was to appear drained in front of them.

Seventeen minutes and thirty-three seconds.

"Jaslynn, your left!"

My first instinct was to stab and then look, and I couldn't help but cringe when I realized I had plunged the staff into the head of a rogue, skewering it for a moment before shaking it off.

I mumbled a mental apology to the Minister as crimson liquid filled the cracks on the staff and grey squishy pieces decorated the tip.

As I wiped it off the best I could do with a finger, there was a series of growls and barks in front of me, and I quickly raised my head to see what had them pissed.

A banshee.

Out of all the demons Malcolm could have summoned, he chose a banshee.

She snarled at us through a curtain of slimy white hair, her eyes glistening like pearls since she had no pupils. I sucked in a deep breath as she tossed her head back, revealing a jagged set of long, black teeth as she screamed.

My heart nearly stopped in my chest, and my eardrums would probably suffer permanent damage from her fatal screech, but the poor wolves in front of me were in worse shape since their ears were more sensitive.

I ignored the pulsating pain in my head and shot the staff forward, "Iaculare!"

She stopped mid-shriek as I flung her away as far as I could, praying she would land back in the abyss.

I shook my head out to try to stop the ringing in my ears as Reece walked over and licked my hand to show her gratitude for getting rid of the deafening creature. As I briefly scratched her head, I realized that the area near us had cleared just a little, probably because the banshee had scared the rogues off.

But based on the thunder of steps approaching us, I knew we had to move quickly or we would be ambushed again.

Twelve minutes.

After throwing five banshees out of the way, I was positive Malcolm had an obsession with them.

They would materialize out of nowhere from the fog and wreak havoc in our heads until I gathered the strength to force them out of the way.

I was furious that ten minutes had already passed just battling his demons and defense system, but I could feel we were nearing the abyss.

The closer the chasm, the thicker the fog.

Unfortunately, the murkiness also meant we could hardly see a few feet in front of us so demons and rogues that appeared were completely surprise attacks.

"Where the fuck is he?" I muttered under my breath, wiping away the blood that was dripping from a cut on my elbow.

Suddenly, there was a roar in front of us, and my eyes widened as a bony, elk-like creature emerged, balls of fire bursting from its mouth even though it did not seem to have any insides to its skeletal frame.

I immediately dug the staff into the ground, "Indespectus clypeus!"

The protective shield flew up just in time as he hurled his flames at us, but now I was torn. I couldn't move without dissolving the shield, and the creature was continuing its attack in the hope that the shield would crack.

I pursed my lips as Reece and that pack warriors growled at the elk, baring their teeth viciously.

Was it possible to kill something that had no soul?

"Miles," I ordered, glancing back at the wizard, "Fire the death spell. Let's see if this thing can die."

He did as I asked, and nothing happened. Instead, it irritated the demon even more.

"Freeze him."

He zapped it with the freezing spell, leaving it mid-roar with a ball of fire stuck in its mouth. I sighed and yanked the staff out of the ground, "I don't know if he has a heart, but let's hope the spell kills him like it's supposed to."

Ten minutes.

I ducked behind a fallen tree, glaring at the group in front of me.

Malcolm was surrounded by his comrades as he recited the spells out of the Book of Demonic Magic with his wand outstretched over the abyss. The fog looked more like smoke now as it billowed out of the endless chasm with an occasional demon crawling out.

He had two cyclops on guard that were waving their clubs in the air menacingly as if they wanted to fight the air.

I swallowed hard.

There was no way our small group could charge with those two monsters there. We would be thrown aside like rag dolls.

Reece shifted back and crawled over to me, "What do we do now? We need back up. Our pack warriors have been trained to fight a lot of things, but not that."

We both winced as one of the grotesque one-eyed beings grabbed a tree branch and started nibbling on it like it was a carrot.

They seemed to get distracted easily so that could work in our favor.

I turned to a witch kneeling beside me, "Are you comfortable climbing a tree?"

She blinked in surprise at my random question but nodded affirmatively.

"Good, I need you to climb a tree and shoot blue sparks into the sky. That will let Daxton know that I need help down here. And please hurry," I said, glancing at my watch.

"What's the plan?" Reece asked as the girl scurried away.

"We're going to create a diversion. If all of you can distract those one-eyed beasts and the wizards around Malcolm, I can head straight for him. I don't know if I'll be able to force him into the portal, but the most important thing to do now is get those pages away from him."

She gave me a confident nod, "Sounds good. If we make a good diversion, we can even force the cyclops back into the portal."

Eight minutes and forty-seven seconds.

"Any questions?" I whispered, running my gaze over the dragon warriors, the pack warriors, and my warriors.

They shook their heads, and I turned back around, studying the cyclops one last time, "Go!"

The shifters morphed back into their other forms and charged to the left with my witches and wizards at their heels. As I expected, the cyclops were confused by the incoming brigade and began chasing after them.

I glanced at Reece, "Ready?"

She rumbled her approval, and we took off.

Malcolm's supporters were too busy frowning at the cyclops to realize that we were coming for them. And when one of them finally spun around to see us, Reece pounced.

There were a few squeals as Reece clawed through a wizard like he was a toy, and Malcolm stopped his chants to face the commotion.

I walked up to the wizard that was standing closer to Malcolm, patted his shoulder, and waited till he flipped around to knock him over the head with the staff, "Hello and goodbye."

He crumpled to the ground, and Malcolm whirled around, his eyes narrowing on the staff, "Of course you have the Minister's staff now. You were always the favorite."

"Now, now, Mal-Mal," I drawled, enjoying the look of disgust on his face at his nickname, "Jealousy is a sin. We don't want karma to bite you, do we? It's not like you've done a ton of other shit, like open hell."

As if on cue, there was a distant scream of a banshee from the portal.

A taunting laugh left his mouth, "You think you've won just because you made it here? Think again."

He whipped his wand in my direction and sent a crackling bullet of electricity in my direction that was meant to break my arm, but I ducked out of the way in time that it skimmed my upper arm.

I ignored the singe and rolled my eyes at his cocky smirk, "Is that all you can do? You've really gotten weak since your expulsion from my coven."

His eyes flared with anger, and I smiled back sweetly before launching my own attack against him.

Three minutes and eleven seconds.

I could feel the blood dripping down my temple from the small cut on my forehead, but because of the armor I was blessed with, I was faring much better than Malcolm.

–He had three broken fingers, a broken wrist, and a large wound on his shoulder.

But despite all that, his grip on the pages never loosened.

I was about to attempt to freeze him again when a large weight landed on my back. Instantly, I fell to my knees trying to fight off the rogue that was trying to tear the armor off of me.

The struggle ended shortly as Reece yanked the rogue off my back and fought it herself. I raised my head and almost gasped at what was happening in front of me.

Malcolm was eating the pages.

I grit my teeth and bit back a growl as I rose to my feet and started firing all sorts of spells at him, praying that one of them would nail him in the head.

And out of all the spells to hit him, it was the fainting spell.

His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and I rushed forward just as his body landed with a soft thud.

There was no time for me to try and fling his body into the portal, but I had time to make him regurgitate the pages.

I pressed the staff against his throat and whispered, "Eiciam."

Immediately, a gush of vomit flew out of his mouth, and I flipped his body to the side so it would spew all over the ground.

Much to my surprise, the pages flew out in their crumpled up state, completely unharmed by his chewing or swallowing.

Whoever made the Book of Demonic Magic thought of everything because these pages were digestion-proof too.

I kicked the pages away from the pool, gave them a quick rinse with the staff so they didn't drip of vomit, and picked the little balls up and sprinted back to the abyss.

Reece was parading over the dead bodies, and when she saw me running, she bounded after me.

Forty-five seconds.

I threw the remains of the book into the black hole and watched them sink into hell slowly. The portal was already beginning to close, the circle of darkness growing smaller and smaller.

It was a lot more anticlimactic than I had expected, but that changed quickly when there was a squawk behind me.

I flipped around and dove out of the way just as two dragon warriors flew over my head, the cyclops attached to their tails.

They whipped their tails as they made an abrupt rotation to avoid the abyss, causing the cyclops to lose their grips and fall into the portal.

And not a second too soon.

The pool to hell completely disappeared as the head of the second cyclops sunk into the blackness.

I released a breath that I didn't know I was holding in.

It was almost over.

Until I heard a yell behind me,

"Jaslynn, Alrik's been injured severely!"