“Vampton?” Mackenzie made her way across the slippery ground to Hartt and helped him onto his feet.
“Vampire and phantom. It sounded better in my head than Phanpire… but now I say that out loud I think I like it more.” Syn hefted her blade and rolled her shoulders. Black leathery wings unfurled from her back, white flecks of snow spotting them as she stretched them and then allowed them to settle. “I’ll go scout the skies, see if I can find who’s causing this blizzard and take them out… before I addle demon-boy’s mind with my beauty.”
Frey scoffed at that but said nothing.
When Syn kicked off, he looked stunned, as if he hadn’t actually thought she was going to fly through a blizzard. In a heartbeat, the huge demon male had spread his own dusky leathery wings and was launching into the air after her.
“You don’t think…” Mackenzie looked at Hartt and then shook her head as she wrinkled her nose. “Nah.”
There was no way that Frey was interested in her friend.
There was definitely no way that Syn would be interested in him. She hated demons of his kind and avoided them as best she could, something she had told Mackenzie was due to a bad history with them—a history her friend flatly refused to tell her.
Although, Syn was being uncharacteristically nice to Frey, teasing him rather than trying to take his head off with her sword.
Hartt pivoted away from her as shadows loomed in the darkness. Clones rushed from the blizzard. She plastered her back to his as she sensed more coming from the other direction and realised they were surrounded. It felt good to work in tandem with him as the clones attacked, as she cut and slashed at some and blocked others, and then turned with Hartt to handle ones he had injured, and any who tried to sneak up on them.
Another blast of heat swept past her, warming her fingers, and she glanced at the sky, relief beating through her as an orange dome of light formed again, the shimmering wall of it slowly falling to cover an area at least three hundred feet wide. The snow instantly melted, the blizzard dying and revealing the enemy.
Gods. There were more than before. For every one they cut down, another two appeared.
A black shadow moved through the throng, a wraith that sent clones flying in all directions, even took out several of the ones that had been rushing towards Mackenzie. Vail. He was brutal as he cut through the copies with claw and blade, pirouetting and somersaulting to evade any blow they tried to deal him, bringing his black sword down whenever he landed. He cleaved a copy in two down the middle and then kicked off, disappearing into the fray.
Hartt twisted with her, grabbing her shoulder and shoving her back, and grunted as he took a blow meant for her. The copy’s blade slashed his coat but bounced off his armour, failing to cut him, but it still hurt. She felt the pain echo on her shoulder. He pushed her down and lashed out with his blade, cutting across the chest of the copy she had been about to block and growled as the male’s sword jabbed him in the side of his ribs.
Pain erupted there on her too.
“Stop taking blows for me,” she snapped.
“Never.” He lifted her and spun, set her on her feet and she twirled away from him, cutting down a clone that had been raising his sword to strike at Hartt.
She knew why he was stopping the clones from getting near her, that it was instinct for him to protect her, sparing her the pain he would feel too if the clones landed blows on her. Their bond was both incredible and sucky.
She opened her mouth to argue with him.
Grunted as a clone grabbed her and ran with her. She battered him as she wrestled to pull back from him, slamming the pommel of her swords into his shoulders in the hope he would release her. He didn’t. He grinned at her as she looked at his face.
An all too familiar face.
He was a clone of the one who had hired her.
Panic swelled inside her, fear that he was taking her to that witch compounding to have her striking him harder and fighting to teleport. She couldn’t. She gritted her teeth and twisted her blade, stabbed him in his back several times. He grunted with each one, his step faltering as she continued her assault.
Mackenzie drove her blade into his spine.
The male silently dropped and she tumbled from his grip, rolled across the hard ground to land on her feet. She lifted her head, scanning to find where she had been before the male had grabbed her, fear for Hartt gripping her as she felt his pain echoing in her body.
As soon as she spied him, she pushed off.
Heard a bellow and a scream that came from behind her. Syn.
She turned to look for her friend.
Froze as she came face to face with a black-haired male.
Not a clone.
His crimson eyes narrowed as he smiled at her, slowly canting his head. “Mackenzie.”
She focused to teleport.
Cried out as he lunged forwards, his hand a black blur surrounded by a halo of blue, his movements impossibly fast. She felt the hot slice of the blade he gripped, smelled her own blood as an inferno swept outwards bringing white-hot pain in the wake of it that felt as if it was incinerating her from the inside out.
A spell.
She stared at the jagged obsidian blade the mage clutched, cold sweat trickling down her spine as shivers wracked her despite the fire that was burning her up inside.
Fear spread through her.
Fear that if she died, she wouldn’t be coming back this time.
The mage’s smile spread into a grin, his crimson eyes sparkling with satisfaction as he watched the blood sliding down her thigh and then met her gaze. Behind him, five copies of himself with milky-blue eyes appeared.
His fingers flexed around his dagger as his eyes narrowed on her, his actions echoed by his clones.
“This was not the way I had planned it, but perhaps it will be just as satisfying to kill you myself.”
He lunged at her.
Chapter 30
Hartt roared as pain erupted in his side, hurled his free hand out and sent all the clones around him flying. His gaze scoured the bleak land, his heart racing. Mackenzie. Where was she? He grunted as fire burned through him, had sweat breaking out on his brow as he tried to find her.
A black snarl tore from him when he spotted her.
Spotted the mage.
Darkness poured through Hartt as he teleported, was swift to consume him as he leaped out of the other side of it. He swept his sword upwards, another growl pealing from his lips as it slammed into the dagger the male had aimed at Mackenzie and knocked it flying. He pivoted on his heel and brought his sword down, but rather than cutting through the black-haired mage, his blade sliced across the chest of a clone.
He cursed in the elf tongue and twisted his blade, beheaded the wretch and snarled as he looked for the mage.
More clones came at him, closing in to obscure his view. He fought to hold back the darkness as he battled them, awareness of Mackenzie’s pain driving him towards the abyss as a black need to protect her flooded him. He clung to that awareness, to the fact she was bleeding and needed him to keep his head. If he lost himself to the darkness, he would leave her behind, would be engulfed by a need to fight and wouldn’t be able to stop himself from cutting through the enemy.
He swept around in a fast arc and cut straight through the waist of the final clone, breathed hard as he stilled and searched for more. No. Mackenzie needed him. He reined in the need to hunt for another foe to kill, focused not on the battlefield but on his mate instead.