The world is a buzzing, muted place.
I look up at the Keep behind us to see bodies falling. The gunmen are down. Whatever that blast was took them out.
Hunter grabs my arm, his mouth moving with words, neck veins bulging, so I know he’s yelling, but I can’t hear a damn thing, and then the sound comes back on as if a switch has been flipped. The world is screaming at me along with Hunter.
“We have to move!”
Uri is beside us as we head into the fray. His hands light up and two swords of light appear in them. He falters for a moment as if shocked by their presence, and then a grin splits his face. In the next instant, he’s head-to-head with a huge purple daemon who looks as if he could bench press a gorilla.
We’re surrounded by the enemy and my Loup rises to the surface.
I let it out.
Cora
Take that bitches.
God it feels good to have control over something once more. The electric power within me is darker here, more potent, and the blasts blow holes in Mammon’s minions. I stay close to Fee, watching her back as she cuts a swathe through the enemy troops with her scythe.
Man, she’s good with that thing.
Shit.
I duck as a blade whizzes past my ear then lock gazes with the red-faced daemon who flung it at me.
He bares his teeth, and I stride forward unperturbed. “Didn’t anyone teach you it’s rude to throw knives at hot ladies?”
He pulls another blade from the holster at his waist and I wag my finger at him before blasting him with a ball of lightning that takes off his face.
Dick.
Fire cuts across my arm, and I spin to find another dagger-throwing wanker. He’s not alone. He has two friends with him.
Shit. It looks like the ranged weapon crew have found me. Silver blades fly my way.
Too many. Too quick.
My body goes into auto-mode, blasting and dodging, but there’s no way I can evade every blade, but then light blooms behind my attackers and slices across their throats.
Heads roll and Uri grins at me, his face spattered with blood.
Hell yes!
He nods and spins to counter a fresh attacker.
Fee? Shit. I search for my friend, but I’ve lost her in the chaos. Fuck. I blast my way through, searching, heart pounding. She’s alone. I was meant to have her back.
Then I spot her through a gap in the wall of bodies. She decapacitates a demon with a battle cry and ducks to avoid the slice of another demon’s blade, but she doesn’t see the threat at her back. A pale green daemon wielding a mace is almost on her.
Oh fuck.
I try to jump to her and fail.
She’s too far to hear me cry out, but I do anyway. “FEE!”
Hunter
“FEE!”
I hear her name as I claw off a demon’s face. Fee? She’s here? The connection inside me, the power that binds me to her, snaps taut.
She’s here.
My body turns as if propelled by a magnetic force, and I find her through the crowd. My heart leaps at the sight of her and then I catch movement at her back and ice fills my veins.
I surge forward with a roar of rage, knowing with every fiber of my being that I won’t make it to her in time.
Lilith
The stench of blood is an aphrodisiac and the wet thunk of my blade burying itself in the enemy is a balm to my battle-hungry soul. Samael and I fight side by side and back to back like a well-oiled machine, as if it were only yesterday that we fought the hordes. As if we never stopped.
The pain, the loss, the waiting is over.
We’re together again as it should be.
He is mine, and I am his. There will be no one to come between us.
We spin and lock gazes for a moment and a carnal heat flares between us, the white-hot kind that will be assuaged once the battle is done. The kind that will tear cries of release from my throat. It burns through my veins and lends my limbs strength.
And then his gaze slips form my face to a point over my head.
“Seraphina!” he cries.
I catch the glint of a blade to my left and counter. A fresh wave of demon’s attack.
“Samael!” I urge him to focus.
But my love is no longer by my side. I whirl and slice and stab and search for my husband.
I spot him between evasive maneuvers and evisceration. He’s a battering ram, forging his way through the enemy toward the woman with Eve’s face. I see the daemon behind her, a Macer, able to flatten a lesser demon with one blow. I recognize the threat, but none of that matters All that matters is that he chose to save her.
He chose to save her over helping me.
Something dark and dangerous blooms in my chest.
No. This cannot stand.
It won’t.
Fee
“FEE!”
Cora? I spun on my heel to search for my friend as the ground beside me erupted upward from an epic blow.
Fuck!
I leapt away from the monolith at my back. If I hadn’t moved. If I hadn’t... Oh god.
I brought my scythe up to block the daemon’s blow, but the force brought me to my knees. There was a resounding crack and then white-hot pain stole my breath and trapped my scream in my throat.
My leg. I couldn’t move. Oh fuck.
I looked up to see the huge, metal-spiked ball whizzing toward my face. They say when you’re about to die your life flashes before your eyes, but for me, in that moment, there was nothing but an achingly deep sorrow at having to leave my loved ones.
“No!” A roar of rage shattered my eardrums and then the ball was deflected by a huge silver sword.
The daemon spun to face its attacker.
Samael stood over me like a dark, avenging angel.
“You want to a fight?” Samael boomed. “Then fight someone your own size.”
It was such a schoolyard thing to say, but fuck, did it bring tears of joy to my eyes.
The daemon attacked, and Samael countered easily, his blows matching the daemon’s in power and intensity.
“Fee!” Cora hauled me up.
Pain spiked up my leg, and this time my scream found purchase. Samael was visible through my tears. The daemon was powerful but clumsy and Samael was formidable and swift. He fought smoothly, his moves packed with power and surety. The daemon had no chance. Samael kicked it in the chest then sliced his sword across its throat.
I caught a scent on the air, and my Loup rose up and filled me, tightening my limbs as it worked to heal my wound.
Heat bloomed at my solar plexus, and the scent of the vista filled my nostrils.
“Hunter?”
He appeared like a dark saviour, bloody and scraped. His gaze roved over me before locking on mine. His mouth worked then he shook his head and gathered me to him, arms solid bands around me, breath warm against the curve of my neck.
“I almost lost you,” he said. “I can’t lose you.”
A siren blared. Three long bursts.
“Fee!” Cora tugged me away from Hunter. “Something’s going on.”
Around us the liveried demons, Lilith’s army, were backing off. Cheers rose up from Mammon’s minions.
Oh no.
No.
“We have to go!” Samael was beside me. “Mammon has taken the Keep. We need to retreat.”
Oh fuck.