Caim screeched as he descended from the air with his talons extended and his beak gaping open. He caught the next calamut branch looking to spear his brother and jerked it to the side before it impaled Raphael.
A thunderous crash sounded from behind me, and I turned as another branch pierced through the side of the brick building. I swung my sword out and jumped back as the limb shot through the air. If I hadn’t gotten out of the way, it would have speared me through the heart.
My first instinct was to sever the branch that almost killed me, but my survival instinct was stronger, and it stayed my hand before I attacked the calamut. As it was, I didn’t know how we were going to make it out of here. Between the nuckals, the rampaging calamuts, craetons, and horsemen, it wasn’t looking so good.
Wrath’s fire spread over him as he dodged a swipe of a nuckal’s claws before taking out the creature. When a branch whipped toward his head, he wasn’t as discerning as me and severed the limb.
“Wrath, don’t!” I shouted. “You’re only making them madder!”
I didn’t think he’d set his ability free, or at least I wasn’t feeling the effects of it, but since he was my Chosen, his ability to incite rage wouldn’t affect me as strongly as someone else. However, the rest of the patrons weren’t mindlessly trying to destroy everything in their way. They were too busy avoiding the nuckals and the increasing frenzy of the calamut limbs breaking through the ceiling and the side of the building.
The entire building quaked, and a high-pitched, nymph-sounding scream resonated from the back of the building. Outside, one of the hounds howled. It wasn’t the mournful cry of one who had lost their mate, and thankfully it wasn’t a cry of pain, but something had them riled. Either more nuckals were coming or the calamuts had turned on the hounds too.
A branch swung out of the air and slapped Caim down. The black angel spiraled toward the earth, but Raphael took flight and caught him before he hit the ground. He steadied Caim before releasing him and twisting sideways to avoid another branch.
Hawk jerked Aisling to the ground as a limb swung toward them. He wasn’t fast enough to avoid taking a blow to the side of his head. Blood erupted from the wound as he hit the ground.
“Hawk!” Aisling screamed.
Fire erupted from her hands, and when another branch whipped toward them, she grabbed it. The smell of burning wood filled the air as an ominous groan started. Debris and dust rained down from above; it was only a matter of time before the place collapsed.
A trail of fire spewed from the calamut when it jerked free of Aisling’s grasp. She cried out as blood spilled from her palms and splashed onto the floor. Hawk tenderly grasped her hands and pulled them toward him.
“Are you okay?” Hawk demanded.
“Yes!” she yelled over the growing cacophony filling the room. “I’m fine!”
Corson and Wren jumped out of the way of a nuckal charging at them. As the creature passed, Corson swung upward and embedded his foot-long talons in the nuckal’s throat. Red blood spilled onto the floor as he twisted the beast’s head to the side at the same time Wrath severed the rider’s head.
The musclebound horse attempted to rear and free itself from Corson’s talons, but Corson twisted it to the side, bringing it down and pinning it to the ground. Wren used her talons to sever its neck. When Corson lifted its head free of the body, the beast gave a few more kicks before going still.
Wrath kicked aside the rider’s head. “You have to cut offbothits heads to kill it.”
More calamut branches burst through the side of the building. This time, when one came at me, intending to disembowel me, I hacked off the limb. Inflicting injury on the calamuts was enraging them, but they weren’t giving us any other options.
“We have to get out of here!” Shax shouted.
Raphael and Caim dodged more branches as they spun through the air and dashed in and out of the lethal projectiles.
“Raphael! Caim!” I yelled. When the angels looked down at me, I pointed toward the holes in the ceiling. “Leave! Both of you, go!”
Someone had to survive this, and they were the only ones with an exit. Caim dove toward us, and Raphael followed. Before Raphael reached us, a branch pierced through his calf and plunged him toward the earth. When it embedded itself in the ground, it pinned him there.
“No!” Wren shouted as Caim released a caw so loud I had to resist covering my ears.
Caim twisted and turned through the air to avoid more branches before arcing and swooping low past a group of nuckals. Unable to turn over to face the calamut, Raphael couldn’t release the ball of life forming in his palms.
Running forward, I shoved past Wrath, who was fending off another nuckal with Magnus. Lifting my sword over my head, I gripped it in both hands and swung it down to sever the branch impaling Raphael. He started to rise as another branch burst through his back. Blood spewed from his mouth and sprayed my face before the calamut pinned him face-first to the ground.
I ducked another branch and rose to sever the limb skewering Raphael when a fiery hand clasped my wrist and yanked me back. My shout of protest died away as Wrath pulled me down in time to avoid the hooves of the nuckal that would have bashed in my head.
As it was, the hooves grazed my temple, split open my flesh, and caused warm blood to spill down my face. Wrath’s fire didn’t burn me, something he would know from our battle in the minotaur’s lair, but his touch seared through my skin and imprinted itself on my cells.
He’d saved my life. That realization didn’t rattle me as much as the concern in his eyes when they settled on the blood spilling from the gash on my head. I could handle him being antagonistic and arrogant; I could not handle him caring about anything other than himself.
I jerked my wrist free of his grasp as Caim transformed back into angel form and crashed into the branch pinning Raphael to the ground. The impact snapped the limb, but a foot-long piece remained jutting out of Raphael’s back.
Caim knelt beside his brother and rolled him over to reveal Raphael’s ashen face. The branch had pierced straight through his heart, and though he was still alive, he was unconscious. Blood oozed around the broken branch embedded in him, and once removed, the blood would pour from him.
