“I can’t tell. I know it’s here, but it’s hiding.” Her brow scrunched together. “It’s strong.”
“Is it a Gyss?”
She shot daggers with her eyes right through my skull. “No.” She turned back around and continued parallel to the ocean, searching for something I didn’t even know how to look for.
So it wasn’t a Gyss, but I didn’t want her to forget. I hadn’t. She was so averse to the beast that I wasn’t sure she’d tell me if it were nearby anyway.
“Wait.” Leena froze. Her eyes darted wildly across the beach. Endless rows of sand dunes stretched to our right, and broken shells stood out like teeth against the tan grains.
The nearest dune shivered.
Leena whipped around and crouched low into her heels. “Found it.” Power swelled in her aura, and the rosewood glow of her emblem ignited against the evening air. Just as she was about to move, the mound struck first.
Showering the earth in a gritty spray of sand and shells, a monster erupted from the top and landed before us. More than thirty feet long, it stood on four powerful legs that ended in hooked fingers. Its wormlike body was plated in thick, orange scales and slick with a shimmery mucus.
“What. The. Fuck.” Calem’s words couldn’t have been more appropriate. Three eyes on either side of its mandibles snapped to his location. And then it let out a shrill cry that shook the beach and covered us in the stench of rotting flesh. Eight pointed tongues spilled between rows of jagged teeth.
Leena flexed her hands. “It’s a Scorpex.”
“Like that tells me anything!” Calem fell into the realm of shadows, dodging one of the errant tongues and reappearing behind us. The Scorpex snapped its jaw shut. For a moment, it did nothing but stare at Leena.
“Wait a minute.” She dropped her hand, and the glow about her emblem died. “This one is already tamed.”
Unease stirred low in my gut. “What do you mean, it’s already tamed?”
“I can sense the bond. It’s…” Her eyes went wide. Fingers trembling, she barely found her words. “It’s his.”
The beast shrieked again and lunged. With impeccable aim, it whipped its tail around and struck its stinger in the earth—right where Leena had been. I’d yanked her out of the way just in time.
The bastard Charmer from Midnight Jester. When I hadn’t immediately delivered Leena’s corpse to his feet, he must have decided we needed some encouragement. Fire sped through my veins, and I slit a deep gash across my palm. “Kill it. Now.”
“My pleasure.” Ozias’s normally calm face was granite, and he glowered at the enlarged insect with heaping amounts of disgust. Shadow blades molded between his fingers, and he formed heavy fists before launching toward the monster. He connected with the side of its neck, and two of the blades drew blood.
The beast’s high-pitched screech ripped through the night. Reeling back, it struck Ozias across the chest with one of its feet. He careened through the air and smashed through a dune hill before his spine cracked against the base of a palm tree. Kost and Calem sped forward, calling forth shadow blades as they moved, and flung daggers at the Scorpex’s hide.
“Wait!” Leena’s voice barely registered above the shouts of my brethren and the beast’s cries. “I don’t think it wants to be doing this.”
Frustration spiked in my chest, and the blood in my palm quivered before shifting to a serrated blade. “And?”
“Don’t kill it.” Wide eyes locked on my weapon. “Please.”
I couldn’t believe what she was asking. The smack of flesh meeting flesh reverberated through the air, and Calem’s body flew past us into the ocean. Water sprayed the night, and he leaped up. The same ire he’d possessed while sparring with Leena consumed him, and all recognizable traces of Calem were lost in his manic growl. He lunged past us and bulleted toward the beast, thrusting more blades into its hide as he went.
One arm bruised and broken from his earlier crash, Ozias flanked Kost’s side. They brandished fresh weapons and charged. But their blades slipped against the beast’s thick mucus, dropping to the ground in tacky pools. Between the Scorpex’s barb-covered mandibles and the stinger at its back, they dodged life-threatening cuts at every turn.
No more.I stalked away from Leena.
“Noc.” She gripped my wrist. “I can feel it. I don’t know why, but I can. Let me try something first. And if I fail…” Her gaze slid to my blade. “I won’t get in the way.”
Everything inside me demanded I say no. But she leveled me with her hazel stare. Those eyes could tear through all of my constructs, all of my careful plans and rationalized defenses. She was an impossible force, and I didn’t have the strength to resist her.
Gritting my teeth, I yanked her toward the beast. “I’m not leaving your side. If it makes one move to strike you, it’s dead. Understood?”
She nodded. “Call them off.”
“Fall back!” I bellowed over the roar of the creature, and Kost and Ozias slipped into shadows. Without hesitation, they reappeared behind me. Calem didn’t respond. Lost in his anger, he continued to lash out at the beast.
Blow after blow connected with the Scorpex’s hide, but it only had one target now, not three. Sand dunes toppled to the ground as it whipped around and locked its gaze on Calem. And it struck. Fast. Its stinger barreled through the air and punctured Calem’s shoulder.
