Read Rhyn's Redemption for Free Online

plan?” Rhyn snapped. “Just dive through the portal and then what?”
    “What was your plan?” the angel shot back.
    “Destroy everything. It’s what I do best.”
    “Katie wouldn’t approve.”
    Rhyn bit back his response and looked around. No matter what he wanted to say or do, he was stuck with the angel in the forest.
    “I’m cold,” Toby complained.
    “You should’ve thought of that before you jumped.”
    “Hungry, too.”
    “C’mon,” Rhyn muttered.
    He stalked off into the forest, away from the castle and cliff.  Toby clambered through the brush and trees after him, the angel’s footsteps loud where Rhyn’s were silent.  Rhyn found a deer path and followed it until he reached a snowy meadow.  Crossing it, he continued to look for a place to stash the angel where the kid wouldn’t freeze to death.  After another hour of walking, he found a small pocket in the roots of a massive tree.
    “Are there bears in there?” Toby asked as they stopped.
    “Better than demons.  Go.”
    The angel looked up at him doubtfully then picked his way across roots to the pocket in the tree trunk.  Rhyn scavenged for what dry wood he could find and took the armful back to the tree.  Toby was huddled in the small cave, shaking with cold. Rhyn focused the little bit of magic he had remaining on the wood.  Fire sprang up.  With it, Rhyn felt a stitch of the seam binding his power snap. More magic leaked into his body, warming him.
    “Ever skin a demon?” he asked Toby.
    Toby looked surprised.
    “What’d you think we’d be eating?”
    “I don’t want to eat a demon.”
    “Oh, that’s right. You didn’t plan ahead when you jeopardized my suicide mission,” Rhyn said. “If I’m doing the hunting, you’re eating demons.”
    The place where Katie touched him in his dream stung.  Rhyn moved out of the drizzle, close to the fire, and peeled off his shirt.  There was a welt resembling a bee sting where she’d touched him. He frowned.
    “I’ll eat tree bark. But I’m feeling sleepy now,” Toby said suddenly in a rushed tone. “You should go hunt.” The angel ducked into the cave, clutching his backpack to his chest.
    Rhyn looked around, wondering what spooked the kid.  He sensed nothing and pulled his shirt back on. The angel was still shivering despite the fire.  He needed dry clothes and probably, human food.  There was one place where Rhyn could find them.
    “Stay here,” he said. He went back to the deer trail and jogged through the forest to keep his body warm, making it to the castle in an hour.
    Rhyn crept carefully through the demon scouts positioned throughout the forest surrounding the castle.  The demons wore the Dark One’s uniform of all black with waterproof cloaks and hoods.  The demon side of him rendered his presence similar enough to a full-demon’s that the others wouldn’t be alarmed.  He sized up each demon he passed, until he found one who appeared to be his size.  The creature didn’t hear his soft step, and the snapping of the demon’s neck was the only other sound in the falling rain.
    Rhyn stripped and changed into the demon’s warm clothes. He pulled up the hood and strode into the forest, towards the castle.  Beneath the hood, he took in the numbers of demons present.  There weren’t as many as he expected but far more than he could fight without his magic. He entered the castle, and his step slowed as memories he’d buried wriggled free.
    He went straight to the basement, where the body of their father had been kept.  The key to keeping the demon’s away, it had been stolen by Sasha, the brother who betrayed the rest of them.  Rhyn pushed off the hood as he entered what had been the most sacred chamber of the Immortals.
    The coffin was gone, but the mutilated body of his demoness mother remained on the far wall.  Rhyn stood before it as he had less than a week before.  This time, he felt something towards the decapitated creature: hatred.  She’d