Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
The dip of their heads was succinct.
Accepting.
“This way,” I said, and I gestured toward a large industrial building across the road. We kept low, hiding ourselves in the shadows as people continued to pour down the street from the fracture that roiled in the distance, held in a constant barrage of lightning strikes and thunder.
The ground trembled with each, sending tremors underfoot.
A gush of wind rolled over the top of us, so strong that we slowed, hunching our bodies against a frigid squall we could hardly move through.
Wicked voices intoned within it.
“She’s the one.”
“Stop her.”
“End her.”
At least twenty-five of the wicked who were streaming toward the crater stopped in their tracks. Shifting course. Craning their necks as they felt for her.
As if they could sense her presence.
No question, they could, the way they suddenly turned and came running our way.
A whole herd of the deranged.
Crazed as they screeched with bloodlust. Their faces contorted with perversion.
“No more hiding. It’s time to fight this shit out,” Timothy said, and he stepped out first, taking aim and firing. He hit one at the front of the pack, sending the asshole flailing backward.
It tripped up two others, who struggled to get back to their feet.
I did the same, lifting and firing as we all moved in their direction.
Taking them head-on.
I fired quickly, taking three down.
A woman broke from the pack and came sailing for Aria, her voice shrill as she hissed, “End her. She’s the one. He will be pleased.”
Aggression burned through me. The need to protect.
But I didn’t have time to shoot before Dani had lifted her bow and set an arrow free.
It arced through the air and skewered the fiend in the center of the chest.
A shrill scream ripped out of her as she dropped to the ground.
We kept firing, taking them down one by one.
Ellis and Josephine faced the other way, swishing blades outward toward anyone who made it far enough to get around us.
Only they seemed to multiply, more gathering around us with each one we defeated.
“End her. End her.”
I popped off a shot at an old man who was coming for her.
I swiveled, pointing at a bastard who launched himself in Aria’s direction, my finger tugging at the trigger.
Fuck. I was out of ammo.
Fear gripped me by the throat when I realized I wasn’t going to get to him in time—until an arrow flew through the air.
Dani, striking him through the shoulder.
But we were surrounded.
The crowd surging. So thick it was nearly impossible to hold them back. The mayhem so fucking loud it was confounding. People everywhere, fucking flying and dropping. Ravaging and protecting.
“Aria, we need you,” I gritted out as I struggled to reload as quickly as I could.
“I know,” she wheezed, and I could feel her focus.
Could feel her gathering the strength required to garner another surge of that energy.
Another piece of shit slashed a knife as he came toward her.
“Aria,” I shouted, finally getting the mag loaded into the gun, but not before he was right there, two feet in front of her, when another shot rang out.
A bullet pierced him in the temple and sent him reeling sideways.
I looked in the direction of where the shot had come from, and Keith gave me a dip of his chin in acknowledgment before he took aim at others.
Ellis and Josephine pressed their backs up against Aria as they kept her shielded on the opposite side, and Aria ducked her head and pulled from their power as they poured what they had into her.
“Get down!” Aria suddenly shouted, and we all ducked when she released it. A blinding shock wave of light blistered out, cutting through the horde that amassed around us.
It sent every piece of shit surrounding us sailing backward.
Bodies flew high through the air, their shouts of rage climbing into the atmosphere and echoing through the false night before they were extinguished when they slammed into whatever surface they met. Walls crumbled and collapsed with the impact.
The road and sidewalks fractured into splinters.
A shuddering of vengeance against the depraved.
Aria slumped forward the second the energy left her, and we all moved to her.
Surrounding her.
Touching her.
Protecting her.
Doing everything we could to support her in this fight.
She inhaled a shattered breath and forced herself to straighten. Those pale eyes met mine, glints of devotion in the storm. My heart clutched with it, the connection roaring between us.
We had to do this. We had to push through.
She peeled her gaze from mine and shouted, “We have to find Ambrose. Now!”
We all started running up the middle of the road, keeping a barrier around Aria as we moved. Close enough that we were touching her while still fighting off any monster that came our way.
People surged. Streams that gathered in the street and flooded toward the epicenter of the destruction.
Both Laven and the possessed.