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“Yunez! Are you down there?” A voice echoed down the stairs. It was familiar. I could almost place it, but the face of the voice eluded me.
What caught my attention was the pain and panic speared through those few words.
Jan cameto a halt as he barreled down the stairs. His likeness to Yunez was so uncanny, that I sucked in a breath when he appeared. Even with his blood streaking his face, and stress twisting up his features, he still looked so much like Yunez.
“Jan? What’s going on upstairs?” Sage asked as he grabbed my hand and tugged me forward.
Yunez gripped Jan’s shoulders and gave a little shake. “Talk, cousin. What has happened?” His voice was strained while his eyes briefly glazed over as he tried to access the sight.
“Chaos. Utter chaos,” he gasped as he gripped one of Yunez’s forearms. “Fighting…Mazza.”
“Oh, shit.” I squeezed Sage’s hand and grabbed Egan’s as I dodged Jan to run up the stairs. If the Mazza was upstairs, that was bad news bears.
Steps pounded on the staircase behind me, and I threw a hand out as my fear and anxiety leapt in my throat. The door guarding the entrance to the dungeon blew open, banging against the stone wall.
“Hell, Issy girl,” Egan murmured before planting a kiss on the side of my head and moving around me.
I stood in stupefied silence while my men and Jan filtered around me. When I was the last one left, still clutching Sage’s hand, I jolted back to myself. I did it. Just then, I’d used my powers, and it had been like second nature in a weird way.
Diabolical laughter rang through the hallway, coming from the grand room that had been the site for so much trouble in the last twenty-four hours. I knew that voice.
“Let’s go!” I yelled. We took off at a cautious run. If this wasn’t a life or death situation, I might have cracked myself up. As we coordinated our efforts on glancing right and left, we almost seemed like a pack of sexy men—and me—doing a Sanderson sister impersonation.
Ridiculous.
I changed my timing so I had the opposite side covered while everyone else’s attention was turned to the right and vice versa.
A few younger people ran past us as we neared the entrance. As soon as Jari stepped through, he caught a young man who had been blasted off his feet.
“Thank you!” He quipped with a scowl and ran back into the fray. And it was a fray. Men in gray signaling the Fiasla Mannos were scattered throughout the floor.
Everyone was fighting.
Everyone.
Toste. Aamori. Ureste.
All of their people. Even in exhaustion from traveling, they bore savage smiles as they wielded their house powers. Knives flew, rocks formed barriers, small animals and birds dove in and out of the crowds.
The heat in the room sweltered, and the stench of sweat and blood clogged my nose.
Then there was the Mazza and her mates on the other side of the room. Her laughter was still tumbling from her poisonous lips as she held a struggling man’s head in her hands and kissed his forehead. He fell with a scream.
She was using her Zien powers. Damn it.
And her mates, minus Brody, were fighting at her side with brutality and disregard for innocent life.
I didn’t need to say a word. My LL and I moved as a synchronized unit through the throngs of screaming people. I threw out a hand and froze a knife mid air, saving Aamori from a back stab.
It fell to the ground, and whatever noise it made was swallowed up by the sounds of war.
Egan caught a man in a chokehold, giving his neck a sharp twist, saving Toste from yet another attacker. He gave Egan a nod and kept fighting.
We helped where we could as we moved across the floor, but never straying from our destination.
When we were feet from them, the Mazza dropped another dead soldier at her feet and straightened, licking her lips and smoothing her hand down her thick, lustrous braid. Damn her for having great hair in the middle of a fight.
“Well, well. If it’s isn’t the Mazza wannabe. Had any luck learning how to be an ass kicker yet? If my memory serves right, you and your men were subpar at best.” Her manic laughter bubbled up once again.
