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Sacrifices were made in city squares, babies were pulled from their mothers’ arms, sleeping men yanked from their beds by their ankles.
It was a living horror, and it brought everyone together. Petty fights and long-time species rivalries were all set aside as the world came together. Fighting against the Chaos King as a united front was one of the catalysts that led to the Iron Treaty being formed, which, silver lining, I guess.
And to know the Matriarch wanted to bring him back… no wonder she had the Shades with her. They were mindless agents of the Chaos King, if she had them under her control, then maybe she wasn’t all that far from freeing the nightmare.
“Now,” she said, her inky black gaze settling on me, her fingers delicately tracing a sinister dagger at her side. “Give that boy to me, and maybe I’ll let most of you leave here alive.”
I swallowed down a thick lump of fear. Or was that lunch? The walls were closing in on me, the anxiety running like a flooded river through my body, my palms tingling, my forehead and armpits soaked in sweat. I wasn’t ready for this. I was stupid for having coming along.
Shit. Not a great time to realize that.
“You’re not touching a hair on his head,” Damien growled as flames consumed both his fists. Dawn stepped up next to him, Maddox on his other side. I could almost see the sparks of friction catch in the air. I held my breath. I knew what would come next.
It was starting. The fight for our lives was about to begin.
“Fine. I’ll take him by force.” She dropped her head back and let out a glass-shattering screech, multiple tentacles erupting from her mouth.
The room erupted in violence. The Matriarch’s bodyguards, feral and swift, lunged at us. Maddox’s hands shimmered with frost, summoning ice blades, which he wielded with expert precision. He met the group first, like a solid brick wall. Sliced, ducked, spun. The blades of ice were as solid as diamonds and sharp as guillotines.
Two vampire heads rolled across the floor as the Matriarch screamed, throwing herself into the fray, going toward Maddox but being blocked by a solid and shimmering column of sand.
“Thanks, bro,” Madds said as he dodged a swipe from a vampire.
“No problem,” Xavier said, rewinding a vampire who was seconds from sinking a dagger into Xavier’s neck. The golden armored man duck and swept his hand up, twisting the vamp’s arm around and impaling the dagger into her own chest.
The battle had officially begun.
And I could feel myself freezing up in fear.
My legs wouldn’t move. Why wouldn’t my legs move? And why couldn’t I shout? I wanted to shout for help, wanted to shout to stop, but my mouth wouldn’t open. And my hands—my hands wouldn’t work either, my brain felt like it was on overdrive.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I was panicking. Cold dread locked my joints in place.
Damien let a fireball fly through the air, pushing a vamp up against the wall before they could sink their fangs into a distracted Warrick, who was fighting off an increasingly agitated Matriarch by trying to hold her down with thick vines, climbing them all the way up to her neck as if creating a colorful flower covered noose. She had produced a long and wicked onyx black blade, swiping it through the air and cutting the vines clean off her body.
Snap. Out. Of. It.
The mirror on my hip felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. But I didn’t have a clear shot on the Matriarch; I couldn’t risk another vampire looking into the mirror and wasting the enchantment.
A loud hiss behind me caused me to spin around. Seeing the grim-faced vamp running toward me was like dropping a bucket of ice cold water over me. It woke me up. This wasn’t the time to give into my fear or my doubt. I had to face this head on, same as my friends were doing. I had trained for this, I had grown. I could do this.
I can do this.
I instinctively reached for the hilt of my short sword. This was a move Xavier had me practice over a hundred times.
Swing around, pull it out, aim it up.
The vampire got one hand around my neck before it became impaled by my sword. She looked down with a shocked expression as she went limp, the blade having gone directly through her heart. She’d likely heal in five minutes or so, but this would at least stop her for now.
And it was me who had done it.
Holy shit… I had no time to celebrate my sword-fighting prowess as another vampire lunged at me. I braced myself, holding the sword in a defensive position, ready to counter the assault with a broad stroke of the blade.
But before the vampire reached me, vines snaked out from beneath the marble floor, ensnaring the vamp and throwing him down to the floor. Warrick winked at me before turning his attention back to his own fight.
