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They’re here to kill Alina. Kill her. Because it would upset the power balance if our families joined. I am going to fucking slaughter them all.
Ducking under the first fist, I spin the blade in my hand and ram it into the man’s chest. A huff rips from his throat, but I’m already moving again. While yanking the knife out of his chest, I twist and kick at the other guy. He is forced to abandon his strike and instead jump back to avoid getting his knee bashed in.
Two more guys join the others, trying to get around me to reach Alina.
Rage crackles through me.
Whipping around, I slash one blade across one man’s arm while ramming the other into the second guy’s leg. They scream in pain. But the surviving man from the first wave has already recovered and lunges for me again. And two more advance from the other side.
If they had been assassins, real assassins, we would already be dead. But no one in our world would ever be stupid enough to accept a contract to kill a Petrov or a Hunter, so these men are just common thugs with no elite training and no access to real weapons. But there are just so fucking many of them.
Blood sprays across my face as I slice through someone’s carotid artery before I duck underneath a strike and ram my blade into someone else’s gut.
Pain pulses through my arm.
I yank my hand back and whip my gaze around, realizing that some of the men before me have now picked up steak knives from the tables around them.
In the sea of black, something beige suddenly moves to my left. I whip around, dodging a kick to my hip from one of the thugs while also catching sight of that beige smudge.
Eric, in his beige dress shirt, tries to sneak past behind his little army and grab Alina. But she slashes her knives through the air, just like I showed her, forcing him to jump back.
I yank out one of my two remaining throwing knives and hurl it at him.
A cry of pain echoes through the air as the blade sinks into his leg, and he crashes down on the ground. I hurl my final throwing knife into his other leg. Blood leaks onto the hardwood floor, and he tries to crawl away. But his legs are no longer working properly. Good. Because I will be saving him for last.
Fire sears through my skin as a knife suddenly slices across my ribs. I growl, turning back to the main battle that I was forced to ignore for a few seconds. But a few seconds was all they needed.
A mass of black-clad thugs charges me.
Blocking out everything else, I focus solely on them.
Strategies form inside my mind.
And I execute them.
Twist. Duck. Stab. Spin. Slice.
Too many people are attacking at the same time for me to be able to block all their strikes, so I have to choose which attacks to block and which to let through.
Red stains spread across my white dress shirt as those steak knives open up several wounds on my body, and my bones ache from the punches and kicks that slam into me. But since I choose carefully which attacks that I let through, none of the injuries are life-threatening. And none of the attackers get through to Alina.
Clenching my jaw, I keep my mind thinking ten steps ahead to make sure that no attacker ever crosses the unseen line that I have drawn where I’m standing as I fight to protect Alina.
Blood runs down my arms, turning my hands so slick that I have to sacrifice a few precious seconds to twist my blades and wipe the blood from my palms so that I can regain a steadier grip.
But I keep fighting. And the men before me keep dropping.
Spinning and twisting and slashing, I throw all of the rage and fury and my terrible fear for Alina’s safety into my attacks. Blood sprays and screams shatter as I tear through the men like the winds of death.
When the final black-clad man at last drops to the floor, my body is so high on adrenaline and panic that I can barely comprehend what is happening or where I am anymore. A mass of bodies litters the previously spotless hardwood floor. Some of them are moving and groaning in agony. Some are not.
I suck in shallow breaths, my chest heaving and my heart pounding, as I whip my gaze around the room. Eric is trying to crawl away towards the door. And Alina…
I snap my head around.
Relief crashes over me like a tidal wave when I find her still standing behind me with her knives in her hands. She opens her mouth to say something. But right then, noise echoes through the room.
The doors crash open again. I whip back around to see another wave of black-clad men pour across the threshold.
