AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Kai preferred not to ride into battle, but he was proficient. He loved hand-to-hand combat the best. To come face-to-face, up close and personal with death. Whether to deal it or receive it. The adrenaline rush and intimacy of holding life and death in his bare hands, seeing it in his opponent’s eyes, was incomparable.
Fighting on horseback inserted distance that he didn’t relish, but needs must depending on the circumstance. He could hold his own.
Fighting on horseback whileflyingwas a different proposition altogether.
He realized quickly that he needed both arms to hold on, as she sent her steed into sharp dives and sudden ascents. And that wielding his axe off balance behind his savior might land them both in trouble.
He tossed his axe in a whirling arc to dispose of the encumbrance, beheading two zombies in the process. Hands free, he circled the warrioress with both arms and molded his front to her back, holding her close but not tight enough to impede her movement.
If he couldn’t help her fight, at least he could protect her on all sides. Except for her face, all sharp objects flying their way would have to go through his muscles and bones to get to her.
With nothing better to do than making himself a living, breathing body armor, he focused on the woman instead of the war.
This was a novelty he’d never before had the opportunity to indulge in. Nothing had ever taken his attention away from a fight. But, then, he’d never been rescued by a warrioress on a flying horse before.
He knew the moment their hands connected whom his savior was. But he’d not had the time to reflect upon this knowledge.
It was the black-haired siren from the night before. When she turned in profile earlier, he’d caught the splash of freckles across her pale, translucent skin. Her long lashes cast dark shadows on her cheeks, hiding the color of her eyes.
Never had Kaineededso keenly to know the color of a woman’s eyes.
He could only focus on other parts of her right now, as she concentrated on dispatching their undead foes.
How she smelled and felt. How she fit so seamlessly against him. As if his body had been created for the sole purpose of cradling hers. As if she was the masterpiece carved from the mold of his rock bed.
Something inside him simply clicked into place.
When he held her, the rest of the world receded. Kai didn’t, couldn’t, understand it. But he could no more fight or deny it than the cycles of the sun and moon, the comings and goings of tides.
When he held her close, he wasfree. As free as if he were in dragon form.
He wasalive.
Two other warrioresses joined the fray on their own winged steeds.
One was golden and one was flame-haired. Both inhumanly beautiful and strong. They charged at the zombies with gleaming swords and bow and arrows.
The golden one pulled Ere out of the muck, while Sorin removed the Draug clutching his legs by detaching the limbs from its body. Ere kicked the dead limbs off as he swung up behind the warrioress.
Only Sorin was left in the bog by now. The Draugar swarmed him en masse and dragged him down beneath the mud surface.
The flame-haired female shot five arrows at once into the swamp as she dove with her steed. She leaned halfway off her horse to lengthen her reach, just managing to grab Sorin’s outstretched hand—the only part of him still visible above the marsh.
She pulled hard, baring her teeth in a determined clench.
Kai’s female and the golden one circled around, throwing spears and daggers into the swamp, disabling a few zombie hangers-on.
Finally, Sorin’s face rose above the muck. He took a gasping breath and reached up with his other arm, now clutching the redhead’s forearm with both hands.
She dragged him through the mud for some distance, gaining speed as her steed beat its wings. Gaining altitude too, as it rose higher into the sky, slowly but surely pulling Sorin from the swamp.
Three zombies dangled from Sorin’s legs, one of them trying to climb up his body, circling its skeletal hands around his neck to choke him.
But Kai’s female and the golden one hacked efficiently away at the undead, finally cutting them from Sorin’s body.
He let go of one hand and used it to pull off the detached limbs still locked around his throat, tossing them back into the bubbling bog.
A chorus of ghostly screeches, like thousands of insects crying, rose up from the swamp. The Draugar bobbed up and down from the surface of the bog, screaming their fury that they’d lost three new bodies to join their ranks. Lid-less eyeballs glaring. Lip-less mouths with rotten and missing teeth gaping.
