Once she was gone, the horses attached to the vehicle lunged forward again, but this time, the driver had no lines to control them. The wheels and springs creaked as the animals dragged the carriage forward a few steps before coming to a stop behind the horses blocking their way.
With the lines cut, the driver couldn’t stop the horses’ frantic movements. The animals tried to spin, but the straps binding their harnesses to the carriage shafts remained in place and kept the animals bound to the contraption.
The horses’ nostrils flared, their hooves tore up the ground as the driver jumped from the carriage, and one of the shafts snapped. The driver hit the ground and rolled toward the guards who’d emerged from the vehicle. The second man on the carriage leapt off the other side and vanished.
The horse closest to us heaved forward, dragging broken wood and severed lines with it. The other horse tried to boltin the opposite direction, but it was still too entangled with the contraption to break free.
Bows twanged and arrows whistled through the air. I tensed as my body braced for impact. Lately, I’d become a pincushion for the deadly projectiles, and I’d prefer not to have any more of them invading my body.
Throwing up my hand, I unleashed a wave of lightning that sizzled through the air. The bolts of electricity split apart to deflect the arrows as Scarlet, Tucker, and Fletcher army crawled across the grass toward us.
Ellery lifted her head when more lightning lanced out of the sky; it struck the earth and flung chunks of dirt and grass upward. The horses, still connected to the carriage, screamed as they reeled back to evade the deadly bolts, but I hadn’t aimed at them.
The guards on the hills shouted as they threw themselves away from the bolts, but some of their brethren weren’t so lucky. Smoke streamed from their eyes as the lightning pinned them to the spot, burning them from the inside out, until it relinquished its electrifying hold. Their charred bodies crumpled to the ground.
Ellery’s fingers entwined with mine as movement to the right caught my attention. Blocked by the horses and riders trapped in this section of road, the other guards had spread across the land as they came over the hills toward us.
CHAPTER THREE
Ryker
I pinnedEllery against my chest and rolled with her. As we did so, our lightning entwined until it swelled to the point of erupting.
It exploded from us in a torrent of destruction that peppered the hillside and slammed into some of the guards, sending even more scrambling backward. When someone nearby grunted, the sound drew my attention to the guards still near the carriage.
They fired more arrows at us as I released another wave of lightning. I destroyed some of the archers while the others rushed for cover.
I couldn’t keep my attention on them as we had to keep the guards pouring over the hills at bay. Mine and Ellery’s lightning surged higher and faster as it built within us.
The intensity of our powers feeding off each other reminded me of the extreme reaction I experienced while standing so close to the Heart of Stone. We’d been in that underworld town, littered with the ashes of the dead, and all I’d wanted was to fuck her until we were too exhausted to move.
That stone had awakened something inside me, and I felt it again now. Except now, passion didn’t consume me. My desire to protect her compelled me, while I also relished how much stronger we were together.
Within this buildup of lightning, I felt all those times when we couldn’t stop touching and fucking. Our soul-deep connection drew us together and poured out in a rush of lightning that would destroy any who dared threaten her.
The lightning increased as it sliced across the sky, hammered the earth, and erupted from our joined hands in a steady stream of blinding white, lethal energy that decimated our enemies. All while a white glow encompassed us in a warm ball of love and power.
“We have to get out of here!” Tucker shouted.
“We can’t leave Callan and Luna!” Scarlet yelled over the crackle of electricity.
Many of the guards pouring over the top of the hill fell back as the lightning lashed at them, but behind them, more still came. Twisting, I shifted my attention back to the guards who’d emerged from the carriage.
Most were still hiding, a couple had been struck dead, but one fired another arrow at us. The riders had either scrambled from their frightened mounts or were thrown from them.
The coach horses must have broken free as the carriage lay in the middle of the road, its broken shafts buried in the sand. The chests remained strapped to the roof. I didn’t know if the horses had charged over the hills or somehow broken through the barriers ahead of them, but they were gone.
I searched for Callan and Luna amongst the wreckage but didn’t see them. “Did they open a portal out?” I demanded.
“No,” Tucker said. “At least not that I saw.”
“They wouldn’t just leave here,” Fletcher said. “If they fled, they would have made sure we knew it.”
The guards stopped coming over the top of the hill to take up defensive positions as they brought out metal shields. With their bows and arrows in hand, archers ran onto the field to stand behind the shields.
Those metal barriers would draw our lightning away from the guards. My father had planned well for our possible attack on the caravan.
“We need that money,” I said.
