I wouldn’t run, though. What I felt was nothing more than Amal’s magic, bleeding through. Playing with her enemies before she tired of the game.
And the creature she sent was horrendous beyond any expectation, not wolf, not human, but something in between. The product of a tormented mind, rotting through centuries filled with vengeance and the desire to step back into the light.
Demanding obedience… or destruction.
“Ready?” I asked Angel, my voice level.
She nodded. I released the bowstring. The arrow thwacked wetly, sinking into the soft eye socket.
The creature howled. Angel exploded into movement. I drew and shot a second time, blotting out the unnerving human scream as the wolf reared back, flinging his head from side-to-side, trying to dislodge the arrows. But he still had one good eye, and his gigantic claws gouged solid stone, leaving white marks as he charged. I couldn’t take the risk in getting close to him. He would crush me with those jaws, those massive claws. I dashed to the side, spun and nocked another arrow, silver-tipped but having little effect beyond slicing through that heavy pelt.
But from the side, the Blackfish alpha charged. Angel vaulted to his back, gripped with her knees and plunged the sword into the shaggy head. She needed all of her weight to force it through while blood first seeped, then gushed.
When the animal fell, she jumped to the side. Braced her foot to pull the sword free as a new rumbling vibrated through the hall.
Arrows pelted down like bloody rain.
“Run,” she ordered as men dressed in the dull uniforms of Amal’s conscripted army barreled down the center of the hall. Not an aisle, since no benches or pews blocked the way. They were from Cariboo, cold-eyed and hunting for captives and not victims. Amal wanted us alive. Or she wanted me alive. Angel held little importance.
But Brin had escaped Levi and warned the hunters, judging by the group charging toward us.
Angel was bent low and running, skirting the edge of the shadows. I scooped an arrow from the floor and shot wildly. Scooped again and again. Saw the enemy for what it truly was. Not men but corruptions with one thought. Wolves who once were normal, and now charged like mindless beasts, driven by beating hearts that would not stop.
Until I stopped them.
Unholy screams echoed from the stone walls, reverberating with the eerie synchronicity of the Gemini Witches and their twitching lips. The tumbling words. How much of this was Amal’s illusion? Her wet dream of horror and destruction?
One man went down. As Angel raced by, she yanked her knife from his chest and threw it toward a second man. She’d had two wicked knives in sheaths at her thighs. Easy to imagine she had more hidden, this dark angel seeking vengeance. Not only for the sins of Amal. The sins of the kings and queens. But the sin that had killed her brother in front of her when she’d been eight years old, muffling her cries, letting the blood pour from her eye.
My arrows thudded with sickening regularity. Conscripts fell. The clamor of scuffing feet and keening lessened enough to hear the moaning from the shadows, more accidental than deliberate, but enough to set the murky darkness churning. Through the gloom, I recognized a shape against a wall, arms outstretched. Gods—I’d seen men in that position before, hanging in the great hall at High Citadel. Men pinned like Julien before I freed him.
Antoine… Barend’s sire? The vampire Cariboo talked about? The vampire emissary who’d disappeared months ago?
Or Grayson, my love? My mate?
In my haste to get to him, I didn’t see the broken candle sconce and stumbled. Still off balance, I heard the feathered whistle of an arrow and failed to avoid it. My knees buckled beneath the impact. Something wet ran down my back, but… no pain?
Shock, most likely. I pushed to my feet. Drew the bow and searched for the wavering glint of magic. A way to destroy the cloaking illusion. Behind me, Angel grunted, her boots scuffling, scraping leather against stone.
“Where is it?” Was I screaming? Did it matter? I glimpsed the shimmer of magic, a flashing taunt, and let the arrow fly.
Shadows dropped like shards of broken gray glass, scattering across the floor, revealing the wall and the vampire—or what was left of him. The depravity twisted my stomach. The cruelty beyond human imagination. Immortal vampires withstood the loss of limbs because the limbs would regenerate. The loss of fingers… eyes… sanity was the most at risk.
The vampire struggled to lift his head. Black, clotted blood obscured the features of his face, other than his mouth. The faint, ruby light in one eye. Of course, she’d leave one eye whole, want him to see his torment. See those who came to gawk and vomit on the floor. A warning to others not to cross a centuries-old queen.
She was the monstrosity the vampires created once the wolf kings and Pelonie were done. I saw nothing redeeming here. Nothing worth my compassion for an ancient queen turned against her will, and the ice in my spine turned to stone.
“Shit, Noa!” Angel stood behind me, whipping the quiver from my shoulder and tugging up the shirt beneath. The heavy wool. Her fingers prodded my back, searching more worriedly with the passing seconds. “Where…”
She jerked me around. “Where are you wounded?”
I shook my head and said, “I don’t think I am.”
“Blood runs down your back.”
“Not mine.” Kneeling down, I dumped arrows from the quiver and reached inside. “They killed the blood bag.”
I pulled it out, Barend’s blood dripping between my fingers, and held it toward Antoine, where he hung on the wall.
