[Rock]I saw Trent dash off toward the cars. In my heart, I knew he was running to save Carmen and Austin. That made me focus harder on slowing the demon down. The more time he had, the safer my mate was.The witches had been nervous about me, but a couple of the earth witches talked to me about how to control the earth. I discovered that many of my actions were influenced by witch magic, not troll magic.All this time, my mother thought I had a recessive magic that just hadn’t been in trolls for a very long time. Learning of the possibility that my father was an earth witch was comforting in a way. I knew little about him, but now I could get to know his people better.“You’re going to deplete your magical energy if you keep going like this,” a witch named Sawyer told me.“Trolls have a lot more energy than other people,” I said. “My mate is in that direction. I won’t stop until I know she’s safe.”“If you start feeling tired, let me know. We’ll get you sent with the other recovering witches.”I nodded at him and moved on, pursuing the demon as he pushed through the forest. Out of the corner of my eye, as we approached, I saw Trent carrying Carmen away and felt my whole body relax. As she was safe now, I could concentrate entirely on the demon who had merged with the elf that had taken her away from me.Most people knew not to piss off the trolls, because if you made one mad, the others would treat it as if you had insulted or harmed them. We were assholes to each other, but we were also a community. It was like a family. We could pick on each other, but no one else was permitted to do the same.The demon was struggling to walk with the other trolls holding it down. As I moved closer, I could hear people praying out loud. The trolls were doing it as they held on to the demon’s legs. Anyone who attacked prayed as they attacked. The other witches were hearing it, too. Quietly, I whispered a prayer to the goddess and erected a barrier of earth that prevented the demon from smashing through it easily. He raged and tried to go around it, but I kept praying as I turned my barrier into a hand that grabbed and gripped the demon. No matter how it struggled, the grip wasn’t loosening. Witches gathered around me for a moment, then called out for spirit witches to come for support. I didn’t know what support they could give, but I felt small, soft hands on my back and stomach. Two women and one man had their hands on me. They picked up my prayer and closed their eyes. I felt a burst of energy come over me. I didn’t even realize how much holding the demon was draining my magic stores. They were refilling them. I didn’t realize that spirit witches could do something like that. Then again, I didn’t know much about witches at all. With the added energy, I felt invigorated as I continued to hold on to the demon with my barrier hand. The spirit witches around me continued to pray, their hands firmly placed on my back and stomach, and I saw the demon struggling to escape my grasp. But I held on tight, determined to keep him in place until the others could banish him for good.The demon stopped struggling and turned to look directly at me. Its eyes glowed red as it glowered at me. I pushed the witches away before it felt like a force hit me that was even greater than when Forrest used to hit me at full strength when we trained as teens. I felt a rush of energy leave my body as the barrier hand released its grip. I stumbled backward, my body feeling weak and drained, but I managed to stay upright with a great deal of effort and anger. My eyes met the eyes of the demon and I snarled at it. A brief expression of shock came over the demon’s face before it turned back to where the cars were and pushed forward again. Trolls were immune to attacks using spirit damage or psychic damage. The damage I took was less than a human or full witch might have taken because of my troll blood. Cursing under my breath, I followed the demon, even though the witches tried to get me to go back with the drained witches. The bastard wouldn’t get away from me. I wasn’t a warrior, but I wasn’t useless and I would use every last bit of my energy and my strength to keep Carmen safe. She was the only thing on my mind. As we entered the parking area, the cars that had passed me on the road pulled in and skidded to a stop. Each car held two to three people. Mostly men, but there were a couple of women. They took in the scene before them and talked among themselves. I looked at what they were seeing. Trolls were gripping each other’s arms, trying to weigh the thing down. Vampires swarmed the demon’s body. A few werewolves had gotten up into its hair and were clawing the hell out of it. Witches were casting visible spells from a safe distance and underneath the demon, dark elves ran in to pull out injured people before they were stepped on. Spencer suddenly popped up on the demon’s shoulder and stabbed him in the neck before fleeing behind the demon’s head. The next time I saw him, he was on the ground, running for the people who had just arrived. I gathered all of my strength and summoned the earth to rise and form a wall blocking the demon’s path. They needed more time, if they were backup. The demon let out a deafening roar as it pounded its fists against the wall of earth, but I held firm. I could feel the demon’s rage growing stronger with each passing moment, and I knew we didn’t have much time. We were already an annoyance, but too much of an annoyance and it would react seriously, as it had when I stopped it with the earth grip thing. “Do you really think you can win against me? Your army is nothing compared to my strength. I’ll kill all of you, but first I want that blind bіtch and the omega,” the demon growled. It was the first time I’d heard it speak. I thought all it did was growl and roar. Though its speech was impressive, its choice of words was bad. The trolls became angry after hearing that it was after Carmen. Forrest yelled out that demons were edible, and that was all it took to get the trolls to start taking bites out of the demon’s legs. Spencer’s posse watched in awe as he talked to them. One by one, they started pulling weapons out of their backs. Each one of them was armed with a glowing sword, like Spencer’s sword. Templars. We had about nine Templars in total now. The demon still didn’t seem to notice them. He was trying to pull trolls off of his legs. Whenever he was successful, he would toss them as hard as he could. The witches were on top of catching the trolls. I told them that enough of an impact could shatter a troll and it could take decades to put them back together again. It wouldn’t necessarily kill them, but it would harm them and their life pretty badly. No one ever realized exactly how hard it was to kill a troll, at least no one who wasn’t a royal elf. It took breaking our heads off of our bodies. That was one of the strongest connections we had. Even when shattered, the head was still connected to a large piece of the abdomen in many cases. It rarely happened that a shattering destroyed the head or snapped it off a neck. It was enough that the witches were actively working to make sure my people weren’t even risking the chance of dying. They were saving all the other supernaturals whenever they could, as well. It appeared their leader’s lack of respect wasn’t theirs. The demon gave up on trying to pull trolls off and started looking around the lot. I saw the Templars prepare for the demon to attack them. Instead, it sniffed around and zeroed in on my truck. He struggled over to it and picked it up to look inside. With an angry roar, he threw my truck into the distance. I winced at the sound of the crash. I knew my insurance didn’t cover acts of god, would it cover acts of demon? Probably not. “Where are they?!” Trent ran back into the area. He caught my eye and gave me a nod. They were safe. I felt a wave of relief wash over me, knowing that Carmen and Austin were safe. But the demon’s attention had turned toward us once again, and we were running out of options. The wolves were getting tired, and the witches were running low on energy. We needed to end this, and fast.As the Templars readied their attack, the demon’s ear twitched and his head whipped around to the way Trent had come from. With a renewed energy, he pulled as many trolls off as he could and started off into the forest. “Shіt,” Trent growled and turned back. It was what I thought. He somehow knew where Carmen was, and he was going after her and Austin. I pushed myself harder than I ever had to keep up with Trent. We sprinted through the forest, the sounds of the demon’s heavy footsteps echoing behind us. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as we ran toward Carmen and Austin, praying that we would make it in time. I could feel the tension rising in my chest as I thought about what this demon could do to Carmen and Austin.The demon stopped near a short cliff face. We came up behind it and moved to stand between the demon and the wall of stone. I didn’t see any openings, but I could feel five people. One was smaller than the others and I could feel the goblin magic in the earth. Dolly was around here. I was fairly certain that meant Rhett was with Austin, Carmen, and Matt. The demon pounded on the wall of stone. If Dolly had made a cavern for them, there was a chance it could collapse. She was a child. Destroying old caverns was easier than building sturdy new ones. She didn’t have the experience or strength to make an indestructible one. Rhett’s magic was depleted. I didn’t know how long it took him to recharge, but if they were hiding, I was certain he couldn’t teleport them away. The demon stopped and bent down. “Come out here. I know where you are. A royal fae can find any other fae and the blind bіtch is just fae enough for me to track her. You’ll never be able to escape me. You have the half-goblin girl and I know you can hear me. Give me the werewolves and I’ll let the half-goblin live,” the demon said loudly before resuming his pounding on the rock wall. Rhett once said he cared about Carmen. He cared about Dolly as well. This was what would show if he cared for one over the other. I would understand if he chose the life of the girl he considered his daughter over the life of a friend. Children were precious to fae. It would be up to me to protect Carmen if he picked Dolly’s safety over Carmen’s. I would protect my mate with my last breath if that was necessary.