Chapter 82
Chapter Eighty-Two
APRIL
Remember my proclamation that fear is useless, in my other life when all I cared about was staying alive and hidden?
Yeah, I still stand on that fact as I watch Marcus, one second sitting mute at the table like a statue, and the next pouncing on Eddie so fast he’s just a blur in front of my eyes.
For a split second, everything is frozen—me included—and the sound of the chair hitting the marble floor is like the boom from an explosion echoing inside the restaurant.
Eddie must’ve expected it, because as fast as Marcus is on him, jaws open wide and fangs gleaming aimed at the smaller male’s throat, that fast he is flung back, his body slamming into the table and taking the three hundred and fifty dollars of fish eggs with him on the floor.
The sound of the wood splintering is accompanied by a loud clap of thunder from outside, the lightning casting ominous shadows across the space.
Another clap of thunder rattles everything, and that’s when it happens.
All hell breaks loose.
Magic drenches the air, burning my nose as mages start flinging whips of electricity and fire our way.
My chair topples to the side when one of the Guardians throws himself at me, covering me with his own body, while the second unsheathes the two swords that are sticking up from his back.
From under the man caging me on the floor, I watch the Guardian turn into a possessed dervish, spinning around gracefully, his swords slashing in an endless loop around him that turns his fighting into a mesmerizing dance.
Magic that flies at him is sent back as soon as the metal of the weapons makes contact with it, and the sound of glass shattering is deafening through the chaos.
“Get her out of here,” I hear Marcus snarl, and I wiggle under the Guardian, craning my neck to see him.
He is crouched on the floor, eyes glowing red on his snarling face, his upper lip curled over fangs as long as my pinky.
The sophisticated, elegant look he is sporting just adds to the ferocious picture he presents at the moment.
The short hair on the back of my neck stands at attention when his gaze hones in on mine, and I gulp loudly.
Marcus is pissed.
The Guardian above me grunts as if in pain but doesn’t move from me, although his head swivels, probably looking for a way to whisk me away from here.
I really need to learn the names of the two men I trust to have my back instead of referring to them as Guardian, so I make a promise to myself that if I live, I’m going to do that.
But no way in hell am I going to run and leave Marcus in the middle of a nest of mages.
“Don’t even think about it,” I tell the man above me, jabbing him in the chest. “I’m not leaving him here to die because I’m stupid.”
The windows still standing rattle, this time from the roar coming out of Marcus when he joins the fight.
Screams and crashing assaults my ears, disorienting me for a moment.
Something stirs in my chest, burning to get my attention and spreading like a wave, but I shove it away, worried that my friend will die if I don’t help him.
“April.” Now he decides to listen and call me by my name. The Guardian ducks his head, looking down his chest at me. “Your safety is most important. As long as you are here, he will fight. If I take you out of this damn place, he will follow.”
“This is a bad time for you to be smart,” I shout at him, but my anger dies when his body jerks above me and his face pinches in pain. “Get off me.”
Shoving him away with both hands pressed on his chest, I roll onto my knees, looking around wildly.
The monstrosity that simmers deep in my chest screams its fury when I see the second Guardian and Marcus fighting alone against a horde of mages swarming them like bees.
Both men are injured, bleeding from gashes on their arms, legs, and backs, their clothing shredded in places or burned with fire licking the exposed skin there.
Some tiny part that was left intact when Andrei died finally breaks inside me at the determination of the two brave idiots who will die while I’m hugging the floor like a coward.
I surrender to the power that, to this day, scares me, and like a dam being broken, it gushes in a strong wave bursting out of me.
Time slows to a trickle, even the strong wind lashing at us from the outside bringing stinging rain like razors zapping across my skin to stop and move at a snail’s pace.
My eyes open and my back bows, flinging both my arms behind me, but I have enough sanity left to shout at the two in front of me.
“Get down!”
I’ve never known blind trust like the one given to me without me doing anything to deserve it.
Marcus and the Guardian drop, flattening their bodies on the floor, and the mages go flying back like pins hit by a bowling ball.
I feel the fangs punch out of my gums, and my nails elongate, sharpening into deadly claws.
My vision turning red, my body moves, and I lift up on my feet, scanning the bodies tangled into large heaps on the ground.
No matter how hard I look, I can’t see Sara’s brother anywhere.
The little shit probably fled the second the rest of them released their magic.
My scream of rage is so loud that a couple of the remaining windows shatter from the sound.
Everything returns to normal speed with a slap, like an elastic band snapping in half.
Sound smacks me in the face, and Marcus and the Guardian jump to their feet, joined by the second Guardian, who rushes to them from behind me.
All three of them give me wary glances over their shoulders, not daring to turn their back on the dozens of mages scrambling to stand as well.
The fuckers that think they can kill those I care about without consequence and gloat about it in my face while feeding me fish eggs.
Saliva dribbles down my chin, and Marcus’s eyes widen a fraction.
“Kill them all.” My voice is low, unrecognizable to my own ears.
The connection I have to the three men through my blood expands, and the power churning like a tornado inside me rushes toward them.
Their injuries mend, deep gashes knitting together before my eyes, and it seems like they grow in size.
All three of them gasp, their shoulders snapping back and their spines straightening.
Marcus turns his head to look at me and nods.
I don’t deserve the awe I see in his eyes.
And then we move.
The four of us are just a streak in the space, ripping throats open and gorging on their blood.
My fury feeds the rage of the three men, and we descend upon the mages like wraiths coming from Hell itself, adamant to take their souls.
Gut-wrenching screams of terror feed my thirst for blood just as their life fluid wets my throat.
The more of them I kill, the hungrier I get.
I feel their magic ripping at my skin and clothes, but I’m too far gone to feel anything but a passing sting.
At one point, I turn my head to see Marcus grabbing a mage by an arm and a leg, our eyes locking as he holds the man suspended in the air.
Without blinking or looking away, he yanks his arms in the opposite direction, ripping the body in two.
Blood sprays in a wide arc, splattering my face all the way where I’m standing.
My tongue darts out and I lick it off my lips, grinning at him.
Marcus grins back a second before a horrified expression crosses his handsome face.
I spin in time to see a man and a woman, their arms linked, and the free ones outstretched in front of them holding a ball of green magic like a large balloon between them.
Their lips are moving as they chant under their breaths, stepping determinedly toward me from a few tables away.
With each step, the ball grows, and my knees bend as I prepare to bolt at them and rip their throats out.
That warmth I felt when all of this started is a burning inferno at the center of my chest now, but I ignore it, my focus solely on the two idiots coming my way.
“April, no!” Marcus roars, but it’s already too late.
Rain and wind lashes across my face and body as I dart towards the two aiming to kill me.
I have no idea what kind of a spell they are using, but the green poisonous tinge of it tells me it’s nothing good and I don’t want it anywhere near me.
I think I have time, and killing them both will stop whatever it is that they started, but I’m terribly wrong.
There are only a couple of feet between me and them when both sets of eyes, which were cast at the floor, snap at my face.
Being covered in blood like a crazy woman should scare them to death, but both of them smile serenely at me, confusing the hell out of me.
The green balloon thing they are forming between their hands bursts, but before it does, I see them both drop lifelessly to the ground like puppets with their strings cut off.
A scream is wrenched from my chest when the burning magic starts melting the skin off my bones, but before it disintegrates me, a body slams into my side, catching me off guard and taking me to the ground.
With a resounding crunch, my head hits the marble, turning my vision dark, and in that split second before I lose my grip on reality, I discover two things.
One, that thing burning in my chest like an inferno that I stupidly ignored was my bond with Sebastian.
Two, Sebastian has found me and is crushing me to the floor at this very moment.
If I survive the erosive magic, I think I’m fucked.
Literally, and figuratively.
Like an idiot, and in terrible pain, I grin at the thought before I lose consciousness.