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Dread filled him. His face had that tight, drawn sensation he got so rarely. The last time he’d felt this way was the moment he realized that he hadn’t been looking at Parisa at all, but a hologram.
His gaze fell to the army on the opposite rim, so far away yet so damn close. Once in flight, the far side of the canyon was only a few wing-flaps away. Though the Grand Canyon seemed to separate the two armies, it was nothing but an illusion.
He felt his phone vibrate and he released his right arm to fish out the black card. Must be showtime.
He thumbed the surface. Though he felt Parisa try to pull away, he didn’t want space; he met her gaze and tugged her back against him. She smiled, turning into him and falling against his chest. She was feeling it, too. So, not good.
“Give,” he said, his voice quieter than he had meant it to be.
A bunch of gravel came on line, “So you’re here.” The music blasted from both sides of the conversation.
“Yep. North end.”
“Endelle wants a word.”
“Hey ass**le,” Her Supremeness said.
Damn that made him smile and shake his head. “Where do you need us?”
“Well,” she drawled as, the music faded out, “that depends. You complete the breh-hedden?”
“Yes.” He gave Parisa’s shoulders a squeeze.
“Anything notable happen?”
Now, there was a question. He could have answered that about a dozen different ways. Instead, he told her what he knew she needed to hear. “Our wings flamed—gold, amethyst, blue, green.”
He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard her murmur, Thank God. “Good” snapped through the line. “I want the pair of you to mount up and do what you need to do. The truth is, I haven’t seen this done in millennia so your guess is as good as mine. Got it?”
“Yep.”
“And Medichi?”
“Yeah?”
“I think it’s all up to you right now.” Then she laughed. “But no pressure.”
The line went dead.
He shook his head.
“What?” Parisa asked. When she drew back this time, he let her.
“Showtime and we mount our wings.”
Parisa gave him a grim set of her lips then moved several feet away. He waited as she mounted her incredible, impossible wings, so massive for her body, all cream with beautiful bands of black, amethyst, and gold. Because of the wind eddies, she drew the wings into close-mount.
He smiled at her. His wings emerged in a sudden burst of power. He, too drew them in close.
“What now?”
He took her hand. “We wait.” But for what he wasn’t sure. Oh, God, how would either of them know what to do?
He glanced at his woman once more.
Worse, what if he lost her tonight after having just barely begun his life with her?
***
Jean-Pierre headed one thousand Militia Warriors at the southernmost flank of Endelle’s army. His heart thrummed in his chest, heavy now, almost painful.
The enemy was in the air across the canyon on the south rim.
Merde.
He lifted his sword and at the same moment mounted his wings. He heard the responding mounting of wings behind him, like a great wind.
This was his job to perform right now, as despised as it was. The enemy was better prepared in every sense. Camera crews were filming every moment of what Greaves most certainly intended to be a complete rout.
But, as was always said among the warriors, f**k that.
Very precise.
The enemy breached the side of the canyon and hit the open air. The distance might still be great but wings moved the body swiftly, so swiftly.
He opened his mouth and, with his sword lifted high, let out a roar. The Militia Warriors behind him echoed it. He flapped his wings in long downward thrusts and rose into the air. He did not need to turn around to see if he was being followed. The anger and the power and the energy of Seriffe’s men pushed at him from behind.
He breached the North Rim wall and was over the canyon now, pulsing forward in slow, exact movements. From his peripheral vision to the left he saw that his warrior brothers had done no less. Closest to him was Luken, the most physically powerful of the brothers, plowing the air, moving forward just as he did.
All that he was as a warrior moved in him now, flooded his veins. The surface of his skin flushed hot. He was ready.
Leading the charge opposite him was a long, terrible row of death vampires. They began to break away in fours, some flying higher and higher, others lower. The ranks behind him would do the same, higher and lower to form a multiple-layered front line, offset so that if anyone fell into the canyon below, other battling pairs and groups would not be impacted.
But battle was chaotic and always the worst happened.
His peripherals closed down.
All he saw were eight death vampires in tight formation aimed at him. He would have expected no less.
On they flew, three hundred yards, two hundred, one hundred. He struck parachute-mount and hung in the air, his heart now hammering. Thirty feet. He did not wait but drew both daggers swiftly from his weapons harness and let each fly. The blades struck home. Two death vampires clutched necks, spun, and fell from the sky, tumbling down and down.
The remaining six were on him. He slashed, spun, levitated at lightning speed, whirled, cut, and the entire time kept his senses fixed on the location of each pretty-boy.
A battle haze consumed him now, the rage of serving for over two centuries, of facing an enemy that drank women to death. He became more animal than man, more flexing muscle and growling instinct.
He sent vampire after vampire into the abyss below, again, again, again.
Every few seconds, his peripherals registered the battle around him and down the line. Militia Warriors on both sides of the canyon fell in fading screams to the rocks and river below.
But when he heard his name called out, and recognized Luken’s voice, he flew high in the air and slaughtered within seconds the warriors who dared to follow. He stretched his preternatural vision and saw Luken tumbling to his death, one of his wings sliced through.
One glance at the battle showed Greaves’s numbers overwhelming the Militia Warriors.
He had a choice to make: to stay and support the Militia Warriors all around him, or to save Luken. But there was only one choice he could make.
He pulled his wings into close-mount, which made a rocket of his body. He headed to the bottom of the canyon. Within seconds he landed below Luken’s falling body. He sent a hand-blast upward beneath him, slowing the warrior’s fall.
Luken still hit the earth hard. He was stunned, shaking, and part of his left wing hung at a painful angle.
