Mated (The Queen's War #1)

Chapter 12

Sweltering heat was the first thing Perci felt as she skidded to stop on the other side of the portal. Once the light stopped blinding her and her heart ceased to race, she turned to see an enormous red-skinned demon come through in a rush of fire which he quickly doused with his hands.

"Are you okay?" He asked, breathlessly.

"Abaddon?" Perci took a step back, confused.

"Oh, my apologies, I should have warned you." He swatted a stray flame on his hip. "When Lucan gave me the power upgrade it forced my body to... alter"

"From a Hellspawn to an Archdemon? I didn't think that was possible."

"Neither did I."

Perci looked away from Abaddon's partially scorched body, uncomfortable with the amount of skin she could see peaking through his shirt and glanced around at their surroundings. The portal had dropped them in the middle of a rainforest complete with bugs, mud and vines. The sight of so much greenery was enough to make her legs shake. She'd been cooped up far too long in the rocky underbelly of the Citadel.

"Where are we?" She asked Abaddon, who took out a large bulky phone from his pocket only to throw it on the ground with a growl.

"We are in the middle of a rainforest, about half a day's hike from civilization. And the portal just destroyed my SAT phone."

"Perfect." She sighed.

"We will have to go to the closest town. We can organise transport from there."

"And that would be in which direction?" Perci spun around and tried to see past the thick foliage but it was near impenetrable.

"West." Abaddon looked up and could just about see the sun through the plethora of branches and leaves. "This way."

Perci followed behind him and watched as he jerked his right hand slightly and dagger-like claws grew out from his fingernails. The sight made her press her own into her palms by reflex. Then with strong arm motions Abaddon slashed at the brush and vines until he made a large enough hole for them both to continue forward.

She was initially worried that Abaddon wouldn't be able to keep up his energetic path-clearance, but after hiking through the dense rainforest until the sun was starting to set she realised just how much of a different league he was in. Then that of course made her start to pay more attention to her own demonic body. Every muscle in her new form was toned to perfection. Not in an overly muscular way, but enough that she looked healthier than she ever did as a human. She also practised elongating her nails into claws for a time like Abaddon, but after a while it started to freak her out too much so back she distracted herself by trying to spot the noisy parakeets in the trees.

That only worked for a few minutes however, and then her mind drifted back to her Archdemon form and the differences she noticed between her appearance and Abaddons.

"It seems a bit unfair that you have wings and I don't." Perci huffed, accepting Abaddon's hand as he lifted her up over some boulders a short while later. "Aren't we both Archdemons?"

Abaddon let out an uncharacteristic snort. "You are not the first person I've heard say that."

"I'm not? I thought I was the first female Archdemon."

"No, but you are the only one alive." Abaddon said without stopping with his slashes.

"Can I ask what happened to her?" She asked gently and it took a few minutes for him to answer.

"Her name was Maranthye. She was Grigori's daughter."

"That's awful." She sighed. "I guess that explains why he's so... prickly."