Page 61

Before she could finish whispering the plan, a shout came from the gate. “They’re running!”

“Dead or alive, no one leaves this island. The lord needs them all for the maw!”

They planned to kill them all.

None of the children made a sound, though a few of the Omegas cursed. The tall girl ran on her bare feet across the sharp stones, carrying the toddler. At the fence, Lachlan’s head appeared by his brother, and he swam through the gap in the fence, meeting her.

I could see them clearly, dozens of torches streaming through the gate, held by robed Alphas. Their noseless faces looked like a child’s worst nightmares in the light of the flickering, harsh flames. There had to be almost a hundred of them. Far more than the forty Beta guards I’d killed.

But I was about to be their worst nightmare. I drew the swords I’d stolen from some of the dead Betas in the guard’s lodging and took up a fighting stance by Goran. The Alphas would be funneled toward us between the longhouses, though some might be able to slip around the sides.

As if my thought had given them direction, Tally and Adiah split away from their groups and took up positions at the corners of their respective longhouses. They were hiding in the shadows, but both stood in decent fighting stances, their weapons ready.

My heart lurched. She’d only had days to train them, but she’d given these children as much as she could.

I could do no less. Still, I swallowed hard when I saw just how many Alphas were approaching, though they’d slowed to a walk at seeing just the two of us defending the beach.

Where the fuck was the kraken? Or the ice god? Had she been unable to heal them?

I glanced over my shoulder once more, then turned my back on the sea, knowing the selkies would take care of the women and children, if they could get them away from the land.

Then the battle began.

I met the first Alpha with a spinning jump and a quick slice across the throat, mouthing a prayer for his soul as he fell to the ground still blinking, not knowing he was already dead.

Then I killed another, and another. Every death killed a part of me.

I did not hesitate.

Goran fought noisily beside me, but every bit as efficiently. Bodies began to stack around us, but we didn’t slow. We knew what we protected.

We knew whose commands we followed.

My prayers and my fighting had always been intertwined. The discipline I’d learned at the temple as a child and practiced my whole life made my fighting an extension of my service to the Goddess.

Even after I’d killed a half-dozen men, I kept on. I’d already broken my vow to Her many times over, but I would never break the one that I’d made to my mistress. I’d die protecting the captives on Pict with every breath, every thought, every measure of my strength and drop of my blood. I would give my life for their safety.

I’d serve at least one mistress well by dying to protect the ones she treasured.

The children were still clustered on the beach when the first of the Alphas managed to get past Goran. With a scream, one of the Omegas lunged between him and the child he’d been heading for, but I had already flung my sword at the man’s back. I watched the blade sink between his shoulder blades.

A blade in the back.

I hadn’t hesitated to throw it, even when I might have aimed for his leg or made sure the hilt of the weapon hit his head. I was skilled enough to do either of those things.

But I’d murdered him, like I’d murdered the Betas with poison in their communal meal. Like I’d killed the first few who came against me on this beach.

I’d learned to kill from the woman I loved, who’d never once romanticized death. She’d even tried to explain it to me. “If I kill them, it’s because they more than deserve it. They need it, to cleanse this world.”

I’d judged her silently for years, assuming there was always a better way.

I’d been wrong.

I turned around to kill more of the invaders, but my feet slipped on a blood-slicked stone and I fell to my knees instead.

The world stopped.

I was frozen, unable to move. Unable to blink. The scene around me was equally frozen, the battle almost like a painting made with firelight, water, bloody black sand, and corpses. Like the pictures the priests had used to teach about the Goddess’s hells.