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Chapter One
Near dawn, Samuel Daman dragged air into his lungs, each breath like fire as he surveyed the Superstition battlefield.
He’d been fighting death vampires for hours, like the rest of the Militia Warriors.
Sweat trickled from beneath his weapons harness and down his back.
Blood seeped in a few places as well since one or two swords had caught skin.
He was a fucking mess.
But the death vampires kept coming, floating through the dimension on arctic air, fresh and ready to fight, dozens of them hour after hour.
He’d never seen so many pretty-boys at a Borderland before, which meant of course that the chaos left over from Darian Greaves’s defeat in recent weeks, had turned up the heat. Maybe it was a good thing to have the Commander out of the way, but his generals had hauled the remnants of his army into pre-planned hiding places before Thorne, in charge of the Allied Ascender Forces, had been able to run them to ground.
Chaos now ruled Second Earth.
The fucking war was still game on.
At the very least, the current engagement required another eight squads of Militia Warriors. Thirty-two trained men. But what the situation really needed was another Warrior of the Blood who could handle up to eight pretty-boys at a time. Eight, while a squad of four Militia Warriors struggled to slay just one.
He extended his vampire vision and in the distance saw that Warrior Santiago battled – holy shit – thirteen death vamps, way beyond capacity even for a powerful What-Bee. Santiago fought with his back to the immense monolith of the Superstition Mountains, a Latin God in the moonlight, his sword moving like a silver streak of lightning.
Samuel whipped his warrior phone from the slim pocket of his leather fighting kilt and thumbed over the surface. He kept his sword at the ready and turned in a slow circle keeping his eye sharp for more trouble.
“Central Command, Jeannie here.
How can I help, Warrior Samuel?” He served as back-up to Section Leader Nathaniel. He didn’t like the job, but right now what anyone liked didn’t matter.
He explained the situation, that he needed another eight reserve squads called in and another Warrior of the Blood to the Superstitions on the double.
“Done. ” He almost smiled as he thumbed his phone. The women at Central could handle anything. And no argument.
He took one last look at the field.
The Militia squads were holding their own so he knew where he needed to go.
One problem remained: if he didn’t release his dark power on the battlefield right now, something he never did because of the unpredictable qualities of his power, how the hell was he supposed to support Santiago? In his current state, if even three death vamps turned on him, he’d be dead.
Yet he’d vowed never to allow that power to flow again, because the part he couldn’t control forged random streams of killing energy, a terrible phenomenon that had happened a year ago, the day of his escape from a decade of captivity and torture. During his escape, launched by Warrior Duncan, Samuel’s streaming power had taken several innocent lives.
That he’d killed his captors hadn’t troubled his conscience even a little, but he still saw the faces of those guiltless men who had died despite his most strenuous efforts to corral the power and stop the deadly streams. They lived in his mind’s eye, hunched men, little better than slaves, who had cleaned his cell, bathed him while he was strung up in those heinous ropes, and who had fed him. More than once, one of those slaves had offered him a vein, which he’d taken greedily, as blood-starved as he’d been.
Their deaths lived like a terrible fire in his soul and for that reason alone he held back.
He flexed his sword in his hand, his gaze fixed on Santiago. The warrior’s situation hadn’t improved and back-up still hadn’t arrived.
Slowly he started to cross the desert in his direction. With thirteen pretty-boys still harassing him, and not one having yet fallen, it would only be a matter of time.
Shit, a single misstep on the What-Bee’s part, and he’d be dead.
Samuel needed to release his dark power, but if he did, would Santiago get caught in one of those terrible, uncontrollable energy streams?
He heard Santiago give a shout, calling for back-up.
Samuel couldn’t remember the last time a Warrior of the Blood had called for back-up.
If he didn’t do this, if he didn’t at least try, a Warrior of the Blood would die tonight and it would be on his head for eternity.
