I snorted back my response, continuing to be enamored by the way she moved. She was small, unnoticeable in this climate until suddenly she was not.
Her attack was quick, swift, and the metallic taste of blood became strong on my palette as she pulled down target after target of the blood fae she stalked while a battle raged on around her. Her recent victim gurgled their last breath when Lova’s fangs ripped her throat out without remorse.
“I enjoyed killing them with my own teeth, just like how they killed so many of my kin, my friends in kind,” Lova commented, watching herself proudly.
Bodies became a blur around her, as she continued to utilize her shifter speed to take down more blood fae, but her tactics were soon noticed and Lova found herself encircled by powerful blood fae warriors, their eyes glowing red and their skin youthful from their most recent feed.
Hissing, Lova’s head swiveled side to side, licking at the blood that stained her lips and fur, assessing their heartbeats to read who would attack first. Her claws crunched as they dug into the frozen earth when her body coiled, ready for the blood fae’s first move.
But before a single one of them even shifted their feet from the ground, lightning blasted them all from above. Fierce bright blue and white, it sizzled hot, striking them all dead, leaving behind piles of ash.
I wrinkled my nose at the stench, as did Lova. Looking up, her yellow eyes narrowed on Bane "the bloodied" Steelhead sliding across the frozen tundra, coming to her rescue, blood pouring down his face and a grim look in his bright blue eyes.
"They captured Calliope!" he hollered over the sound of the battle that roared with growls, screeches, and screams. Weapons and claws clashing together, drowning out his words quickly even with him only a few paces away.
A bright light had Lova shifting into her fae form, instantly drawing her sword, she faced the fear wrought on the swordmaster's face. Bane never showed his fear but this was different…
"She was pregnant," Lova whispered to me. "She should have never been out here this day."
"Where is she?" Lova screamed at the swordmaster, punching him hard in the gut to shake the shock glazing over his eyes.
Bane grunted,glaring at her through his anger and despair. I watched as Lova breathed a sigh of relief, recognizing it for what it was. She needed Bane “the bloody” right now, not ‘the friend” who was on the verge of panic.
Snapping his head over his shoulder, he glared out into the distance, his fist clenched as he directed fierce lightning across the tundra, striking down another dozen blood fae his comrades were struggling to defeat. "South, I have been tracking them south!"
Hissing, Lova turned, sniffing at the air and narrowing her eyes on the barely there tracks in the cold earth. "I hope you can run swordmaster."
Bane grunted, "Let us see who hunts the best, shifter."
Lova grinned, flashing back into her lynx form and taking off with a long leap across the snowy ground. The swordmaster huffed behind her, his feet surprisingly light for a fae his size, a version of him I knew well. I had, after all, trained with him during my early faeling years.
Easily beating Bane from the start, Lova spied the disgusting metallic trail of blood the arrogant sloppy blood fae left behind and with it, Calliope's scent, cedar, warm and trustworthy.
"Who is Calliope?" I whispered inside her mind, watching the world blur by her in an array of color again, her slight puff of breath in the extreme cold showing her incredible endurance at the speed at which she hunted.
"She was a fierce shifter fae, pregnant with twins during the wars," Lova answered me as we watched her hunt. "Like I said, she was not supposed to be here, her mate had just fallen in battle days before and she was wracked with grief. Revenge had clouded her judgment and instead of keeping her and her mate's legacy alive, she chose to make the blood fae pay."
Twins. My mind whirled hearing Penina's angry voice from the night we stayed at the summit of the Red Cap Mountains. "You always love to remind me of how old I am, you fucking fossil. But you know my very birth had everything to do with that goddess forbidden land since you were the one who cut me and my twin out of our mother’s dead drained body.”
"Calliope is Penina's mother."
Lova hummed, "Yes, but even more so, one of her unborn children had been prophesied by Talgira before her death as the next great seer of our time. Calliope was more than just Penina's mother, for us she held the hope of us all and perhaps that was our mistake. Yousee, at this time, Eve had not returned yet from Sheol, and our goddess was fading quickly, her energy drained by keeping our lands flourishing but also fighting her brother, the blood God Ichor."
"Having another powerful seer born would have been a great threat to the blood fae," I whispered, seeing the scent growing more intense the further Lova ran, dark figures appearing on the bright icy horizon.
A distant high pitched cry that had to be Calliope had Lova bursting with additional speed, launching viciously at the first blood fae she saw. The sharp taste of blood this time was even more satisfying than her last kill but it also mingled with the strong scent of Calliope—her friend, and Lova’s heart stuttered.
It was a deafening sound, one that had my chest tightening with grief. The same grief coursing through Lova.
She was too late. The blood fae had already started to feed.
Faster than her and now high on their nourishment of the shifter fae, they blurred, knocking her like a pinball from one to another, their cruel laughter rising as they taunted Lova with their strength while one took a turn feeding from her friend.
Her blood burned, and she dived, slashing out with her claws and severing the achilles of the blood fae nearby, sending him stumbling into his pack. She wasted no time then, attacking him as he fell and ripping out his throat, but again she was not fast enough.
Gasping and rearing back, a sharp blade plunged deep into Lova’s side and I screamed, feeling it as if it sawed into my own torso.
Lova roared, dropping onto her back and using her weight to crush the blood fae’s neck in a perfect twist. The plunging grip on the blade in her side released immediately just as the final sound of her enemy’s spine snapping echoed.
