Darian quickly set me down on my feet and rubbed his hands up and down my shoulders. “Sorry, lovely, it was either that or let you give yourself a concussion when you ran into me.” His body relaxed as he took me in, but his expression was troubled. He bowed his head closer to me. “Where the devil did you go, Raine? When I didn’t find you in our rooms, I thought— Well, never mind that now. You need to go back there and stay out of sight.”
“Where’s Asher?” I gasped as I tried to get air back into my lungs. “I need to speak to you and Asher. To all of you. I was just at Warrick’s lab.”
Confusion and panic flashed across Darian’s face, and he moved even more into my space. “What do you mean you were at his lab?”
“Justlisten,” I said, ignoring his question. “I found something out. It’s Warrick, he—”
“You’ll have to tell me later, lovely. Right now, you need to return to our rooms. Promise me you’ll go there.”
My brows lowered at Darian’s steely expression, but then I noticed the fear shining in his crystal-blue eyes. It wasn’t fear for me. “Where’s Asher?” I asked as I straightened, my voice becoming higher.
Darian’s gaze flicked to the tunnel behind him, and that was all I needed to know.Asher’s still at the party.I maneuvered around the siren and began running toward the ballroom again. Darian caught up to me in a few strides, his long legs easily keeping up with my pace.
“You can’t go in there. The fight had barely ended when outliers crashed through the windows. The creatures must have climbed up the mountain. I didn’t have time to count them all before I realized you were gone and went to search for you, but there must be around two dozen.”
Two dozen outliers?I tried not to think about what I was running toward. Would Asher already be dead?“If it weren’t for me, you’d still be fighting alongside Asher,” I said between heaving breaths. “I’m not going back to the rooms.”
Darian was quiet for a moment, and I felt his assessing gaze on the side of my face, but then he finally said, “Then, for the love of all that is good, try not to die.” At that, he lifted his hands, drawing the swords at his sides and handing one of them to me, hilt first.
I wrapped my hand around the cool metal and gave him a sharp nod.Right. Try not to die. How hard can that be?
~ Darian ~
Iheardthebattlefirst—the grunts, snarls, pained cries, and clangs of steel on steel. Next came the scent of the smoke. The woody, earthy smell was mixed with the underlying tang of brimstone, and it tainted the musty mountain air the closer we ran to the ballroom. It wasn’t the same smoke that fogged the air when monsters danced. No, this was something different. By the time we reached the double doors that marked the entrance, the scent of the smoke was strong enough that I could taste it at the back of my throat, and the magic in the air made my tongue tingle.
Raine’s eyes were wide as she gripped the sword I’d given her, but I wasn’t going to ask her to turn back again. I hated that she wasn’t somewhere safe, but she’d made her choice. I’d do everything I could to protect her, but I wouldn’t leave Asher there to fight the outliers without me.
Inside the ballroom, it was chaos beyond what I’d imagined. Many of the Katakin monsters had fled when the outliers first appeared, but some had been unable to escape or remained to fight the creatures. Most of the alphas from the high houses were there, and I was glad they’d stayed.
Twenty outliers were spread around the room, and the Katakin monsters battled them with deadly efficiency. Centaurs worked alongside shifters and vampires to bring down the creatures made of red fire. The outliers, who were each the size of a bear, had bodies resembling those of giant rats. Flames coated their wrinkled skin to the tips of their long, wiry tails, and everywhere they moved their unnatural red fire spread. Thankfully, because the fire was caused by magic, the smoke wasn’t overpowering, but the few flammable items in the room were already burning. Fire crackled and popped as it ate away at the long velvet curtains hanging from the windows, and flames devoured tables and settees.
The outliers made hissing and clicking noises as they attacked the Katakin monsters in the ballroom, and a bellowing howl rose over the din as an ogre accidentally stepped into one of the unnatural fires and caught alight.
My own skin felt uncomfortably tight at the heat of the fire, and I focused on the feel of my sword in my grasp.
“Over there,” Raine said behind me, and she pointed her sword to the opposite side of the room, where Asher was fighting two outliers. My demon brother was covered in sweat and blood, but he appeared unharmed as he fought with terrifying precision against the creatures. Relief rushed through me at the sight of him, and I sent a silent thank you to the Devil Enzal for keeping him safe.
With a roar, Asher’s powerful arms lowered as he sank an ax into the first outlier’s head, then he pivoted in time to throw his other ax at the next outlier that charged him. The weapon buried between the creature’s red eyes, the metal instantly catching fire as the outlier fell to the ground.
“Stay on my heels,” I said to Raine as I indicated with my head for her to follow me. Then I jogged forward, moving around my fellow monsters and picking what I deemed to be the safest path through the room. While constantly scanning the area around me, I listened to the sound of Raine’s breathing and turned my head every so often to check she wasn’t falling behind. I wasn’t willing to lose Asher or Raine to these beasts.
My demon brother spotted me when we were halfway across the room, and he dropped low to grab the discarded sword of a fallen Minotaur before running over to meet us.
“Why didn’t you take her to our rooms?” Asher shouted when he caught sight of Raine behind me.
“Given your delicate nature, Raine thought you might require her assistance,” I said.
Sweat streamed from his face, and his lips quirked to the side. “Delicate, hey.” His gaze slid back to Raine, and his body tightened as he flexed his massive muscles.
She looked unimpressed, but some light returned to her panicked eyes. “Admit it, you’re glad to see me,” she said, though her gaze moved from him to swipe around the ballroom as she tracked the outliers.
“While I always enjoy seeing you, sweetheart, Dar should’ve made sure you stayed in our rooms. Even if he had to stay there with you.” He gave me a hard look then, and all amusement was gone from his face.
“And listen to you boast for the next century about your victory against the outliers?” I drawled. “That wasn’t happening.”
Raine coughed, and her grip tightened on her sword. “Shouldn’t we stop talking and do more stabbing?”
Asher’s face became grim then, and with his free hand, he wiped sweat away from his eyes. He shook his head. “Everything that touches these beasts catches fucking fire. I enjoy a good joke, but this is bad. At first, I grabbed weapons from the fallen and used a few of the bigger shards of glass from the broken windows to kill the creatures, but as you can see, I just lost my axes, and most of the glass is now covered by fire. There aren’t many weapons left.”
