Page 49 of Sienna Rossi: Beyond Shattered Trust

All three of the drakaths turn at once – towards her.

As if only now realising her presence.

The shift is immediate, predatory, as though an unspoken signal has passed between them. Their black eyes fix on Sienna, and something in their posture changes, heads tilting with a sinister wave of power that washes over me.

They speak in that jagged, guttural tongue that sounds as wrong as their very presence.

Sienna seems to be on edge.

“What did they say?” I ask, realising she understood.

“It’s her,” she replies softly.

As if that didn’t bother her, she moves to run for Mikhail. I catch her arm before she can take two steps.

“Then you protect yourself,” I say, my voice low and firm.

She pulls free. “I won’t run away.”

And then she runs straight at them.

The sky answers the surge of panic in my chest. Thunder cracks overhead as my wolf roars within me, power rising in violent response. I drag lightning from the clouds and hurl it at the drakath she is charging towards. The bolt strikes clean, engulfing it in white-blue fire. When the light fades, its arm and part of its shoulder are gone, black blood spraying across the snow in a hissing arc.

It staggers, but despite its state, it still seems to survive; its flesh begins to knit together even as it straightens, smoke rising from its ruined side.

“Be careful it does not touch you!” Mikhail thunders in warning as he tosses his sword and pulls out two guns.

But out of fucking nowhere, Lieutenant Ana darts in, raising her sword. The drakath lashes out with terrifying speed. Its knife-like claws slice across her flank as she twists away, but she’s far too late. She’s wounded, even if it isn’t as deep as it could have been.

She collapses with a strangled cry, limbs locking at unnatural angles as her body begins to shudder.

Mikhail swears viciously and empties his gun into the creature’s chest. The bullets tear through it, slowing it for a fraction of a second, but the wounds seal almost as quickly as they are made.

“How did you kill one of these fuckers last time?” Uncle Alejandro asks as he rips off a limb, while I call another crack of lightning down upon the drakath he’s fighting.

“I do not know! I kept attacking until it dropped fucking dead!” Mikhail’s words are barely clear, his accent thicker than ever.

“That’s a shit fucking plan!” Uncle Alejandro growls.

“Then do you have a better plan, pup?” Mikhail snarls back.

From somewhere in the darkness ahead, Ahren chuckles. I guess no one has called Uncle Alejandro a pup in decades.

“Call me a pup again, and I’ll show you who’s the fucking pup!” Uncle Alejandro snaps back as he leaves the drakath to me and runs over to Lieutenant Ana, moving her out of the way.

Their bickering grates against the roar of battle.

I force myself to focus and look.

Really look.

Trying to find an answer. Everything and everyone has a weakness. Even the gods. Helios was proof of that.

The drakath before me moves with brutal precision, elongated limbs a blur as it races towards me. I notice that, unlike the ones that came from the cocoons, this one wears armour plates.

Why does something that can’t be killed wear armour that covers barely anything?

It makes no sense.