Excerpt of Locked in Silence by Shiloh Walker

Somebody laughed, and the sound of it made his skin crawl. Worse, the power he felt throb in the air was strong.

The queen—his human was talking to the queen.

Edging to the railing, he peered out of the shadows down to the lower level. It was set up to resemble something like a porn scene. Beds, several of them. A rack that looked part medieval torture device and sex toy—although why a person would willingly go on that, he didn’t know. He’d done his time on the real rack and there wasn’t anything one could say that would get him back on one, no matter the sexual enticement offered.

His sexual tastes might sometimes run to the perverse, but a rack? No. Just...no. Looking at it, even thinking of seeing his human on it was enough to make him want to use one of his larger axes and hack it into splinters.

His human was being backed up, closer and closer to it.

She had a knife in her hand—long, closer to a sword than a knife, but it wasn’t going to do much good against that many of the demonic. The bodies the succubae and incubae possessed became stronger, and even if she could hold her own against a couple...well, ten was too much to ask of any mortal.

Still, there was something about the way she held it that made him think she knew how to use it.

Demons didn’t like pain more than anybody else, and they could be killed—not the way mortals could, but if she dealt a killing blow, their souls would be sucked back to the netherplains. It weakened them, and if they survived, it would take them a good long while to try to cross back over into this world.

Sometimes, they did die. Silence planned to kill the lot of them tonight.

“Come on, precious,” one of them said, giving her a charming, seductive smile. “Put the knife down. You came out here looking for a good time, right?”

She gave him a smile in return. “Well...yes. But my idea of a good time is going to be very different from yours. You see, my idea of a good time is to kill as many of you as I can before I die. I’m already up to two.” She spun the blade and cocked a brow. “Who’s next?”

Despite himself, Silence smiled.

She had guts. More...she knew what was coming. How strange. Odd, that. Perhaps Will had prepared her a bit more than Silence had expected.

One of them lunged for her. She swayed to the side and her knife was a silver flash in the air.

Silence smelled blood in the air. He slid his axe into place and gathered his shadows.

Then he steadied himself. In another few minutes, he’d have to watch her die.

In that moment, he hated Will.

Bracing a hand on the railing, he leaped.

Air rushed along his body, and for a moment, he wished he could hit hard enough, fast enough to end it...end himself so he wouldn’t have to see this.

But that was an easy exit that didn’t exist for him.