Really, they have no idea what I’m capable of.
I feel their eyes on me as I glide past them into the hall, feeling like a queen.
Ready to find my king. Ready to find the man who makes my heartactuallyswell, my cockactuallyswell, my soulactuallyswell, all of it with a mingling of giddiness, happiness, and warmth.
Ready to find Rirth.
Chapter 50
Sephania
I take my troop of hard-fighting citizens east of the cathedral hill, to our right, aiming to cut off the retreat of the humans scampering across the backlit ridge. Nerves are frayed, everyone is tired and blood-spattered, eager to see the faces of their loved ones again.
Lukain and his Grimsons launch west, to find the Nuhavians running in that direction. Together, our army encircles the hill, attempting to sever any chance of escape for our infernal enemies.
As we barrel through dilapidated roads and crumbling architecture, I glance northward to the hill and see a vicious knot of fighting taking place. Silverknights glitter in the moonlight, blades flashing. Dark shapes join the fray—black-clad specters moving gracefully, attacking the green-robed Faith Ward bloodsuckers.
I spy Lady Helget ripping into a squishy Buver with her bare claws, rending out its heart with a swipe through the chest, before moving onto the next while voicing a shrill battle-cry. Her three mates surround her, swords drawn, creating an impenetrable wall of flesh, steel, and teeth.
Good,I think, with the wind tickling my face as I veer back into the fog,seems we have the north sectioned off as well. Our reinforcements have arrived.
Through the thick eerie mist, I hear sounds of fighting up ahead. Grunting, wailing, ripping flesh. Cries and . . . blasts? That certainly sounds like stones crashing together.
A rush of heat wafts against my face, blowing my hair about. I pull up short and tighten my grip on my swords, as an army of boots thuds the cobbles near me. “Ready yourselves!” I shout to them.
We burst through the mist—
And find Vallan Stellos arcing another explosive through the sky, launching it at a building crawling with vampires. The explosions stuns us all, a momentary freeze for a heartbeat before theboomrocks us on our heels.
The structure collapses in on itself, the second story falling into the first.
Vallan’s axe comes out next. He charges in wordlessly, soundlessly, swiping left and right as he makes his way through the smoking ruins of the building. I can only see him through the windows, as the massive vampire falls into his bloodrage. His attacks are so powerful he sends bloodsuckers flying through the smoke-clogged air left and right as he cleaves through them. Body parts sail, blood rains down all around him.
Vall is joined by Tymon Aldion’s treasonous rebels, the bloodies who believed in Skar’s revolution. He has the situation well in hand, so I rush past the building and move to the next—
Where I see a small human body being pushed into the front door. I let out an involuntary gasp and shout, “There! Focus there!”
Garroway, who is the only mate still with me at the moment, yells my command louder so all the humans can hear me through the chaos of the war zone.
We make our way over just as Faith Warders stumble into view around the sides of the house, seething and baring dripping fangs at us, trying to bar our path.
My swords rasp as I take off one vampire’s hands at the wrists, the bastard trying to reach too closely to me. It screeches and whines, while Garro runs in and jabs his daggers into its heart. He slides the body away and spins to the next, backhand stabbing it through the skull, straight into its melted brain.
I’m right behind him, gritting my teeth, hearing the Green Road butcher and other humans rip into the vampires with their farming tools, their spears, their rakes, their shovels. They’re doing as much to prevent any vampire from getting too close to me as anyone else, and it creates a tunnel of space for me to charge into the building.
There, in the main room, three vampires wait, holding the line while a man behind them ushers younglings onto a stairwell that leads down into the house’s basement. Likely to a tunnel beyond that will lead them out of the Faith Ward.
I won’t let that happen.
The man ushering the Nuhavian hostages wears a dingy white robe of the Truehearts, and my heart squeezes at the sight of his betrayal to his own kind.
As I kick the door off its hinges and rush in to take down the vampires between us, he spins round with a shocked look on his young face. “You shouldn’t have come down here, Hellwhore!” he screeches, rushing forward with a dagger in hand.
My eyes dance past him, to a girl’s head jutting out from the floorboards, peeking over at the last moment before he closes the board over her with athunk. There’s a glint of glass reflecting from her face—spectacles.
Imis!My mind screams, because I can think of no other who would be wearing protective eyewear.
I want to keep this man alive, interrogate him, and then flay the skin from his body.