Page 25 of Secrets of Ruin

The ophidians snickered. They were all here because the ophidians wielded a magic stick that prevented them from using their abilities.

They remained here because these bars possessed the same magic and were impossible to touch. Despite numerous attempts, none of them had broken free before, but he wasn’t about to let that deter them from trying now.

He’d fight to the death for her.

Ryker moved to the front of his cell as the ophidians at the end of one of those poles used them to open the door further. When they did, Brokk moved.

He couldn’t transport, the bars kept him from using that vampire ability, but with the influx of power Kaylia had given him, he moved faster than he had in months… something the ophidians didn’t anticipate.

Grasping the end of one of the metal sticks, Brokk yanked it forward and smashed the ophidian holding it into the bars. The creature’s scream abruptly cut off when the bars flung it backward.

Brokk ripped the weapon free of the ophidian, spun it around, and dodged to the side in time to avoid another pole coming at him. Thrusting his own forward, he pulled the trigger and grinned while the other ophidian screamed before falling to the ground.

Brokk darted out of the cell and turned to use the stick to hold the door open so Kaylia could escape. Before she could, another one of those monsters slithered forward and threw themselves into the door, slamming it shut. They screamed as the current threw them backward.

“Capture him!” the emperor shouted as the other ophidians closed in on him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Brokk spun to the side to avoid the wave of ophidians approaching him. Jabbing out with the stick, he jammed it into another asshole and fired.

The creature jerked and spasmed as he pummeled her with the brutal energy of the thing they wielded against others. Brokk grinned as he released his hold on the trigger. He didn’t know if these things packed an infinite punch or would eventually dry up, so he had to be careful.

The next ophidian lashed out with its tail, and Brokk jumped over it. These serpents had removed all the weapons from the dungeon they’d stripped from them upon capture, but some had swords strapped to their backs.

His fingers itched to get a hold of one of those blades as he leapt over another tail, threw himself to the ground to avoid a pole, and rolled. He came up onto one knee and stabbed the end of his pole into another ophidian.

This one had a sword. As the male crumpled, Brokk pulled the blade free from the sheath, and, with the one-handed training his father had given all his sons, he swung the weapon into the ophidian’s neck.

He released the pole, gripped the sword in both hands, and ripped it free of the tendons, trying to keep it trapped. With another swing, Brokk cleaved the man’s head from his shoulders.

Smiling grimly, Brokk reclaimed his pole and leapt to his feet. Undeterred by the death of their friend, the ophidians closed in on him. He didn’t have help—they outnumbered him at least thirty to one—but he couldn’t let them take him.

The possibility of losing Kaylia propelled him onward. He didn’t have time to open a portal; if he stopped, they’d destroy him, but if he could somehow get away from them long enough to do so…

Another pole jabbed at him; Brokk dropped the sword to catch the end of the pole. Gritting his teeth, he bent the pole upward as a sword emerged from the mix of snakes closing in on him.

Twisting to the side, he avoided a more solid blow from the sword, but it skimmed his stomach to spill his blood. Kaylia gasped, but it was the only noise his fellow survivors made.

Having expected to plunge the sword into him, the ophidian wielding the blade put too much weight behind it and fell toward him. Brokk caught the monster in the back of his head with a solid punch that sent him flying to the ground.

He lifted his foot and stomped on the man’s back; an audible crack pierced the air despite the fact he wasn’t wearing boots. If he could, he’d stomp every one of these things into the ground.

Sensing more closing in on him, he twisted and flung out his elbow to catch one in the face while another stabbed at him with a metal pole. Brokk brought his arm down on top of the pole, knocking it down.

They were all around him now, a mixture of human faces and snake bodies blocking the rest of the dungeon. Tongues flicked at him, and firelight gleamed off their lethal fangs as they hissed at him.

There were too many as they surrounded him in a wall of bodies. Kaylia’s scent still lingered in his nostrils, fueling him. He’d gotten further than anyone else and couldn’t let her down now.

When another tail swung at him, he jumped it but missed the next coming at him. That one swept his feet out from under him, and he hit the ground with enough force to drive the breath from his lungs.

Knowing that he couldn’t stop moving, Brokk leapt to his feet again and, drawing on his dark fae powers, drew the shadows toward him. Despite feeling stronger thanks to Kaylia, his weakness showed as the shadows were sluggish in coming.

Jumping another tail, he plunged the end of his pole into another one and rejoiced in the creature’s gurgled screech. The shadows started sliding around him, but they were too late as one of the ophidians struck him.

Brokk managed to avoid the fangs dripping venom, but a tail crashed into the back of his head. Staggering forward, he lost his hold on the shadows, and they slipped away.

His vision blurred, and white stars exploded before his eyes, but he managed to keep enough of a grasp on consciousness to teleport. He didn’t make it nearly as far as he would have liked.