Chapter 13
Reeve tackled Viri just in time, knocking her to the ground and landing on top of her with bruising force. His weight pushed all the air from her lungs, but it was his pained groan that kept her from shoving him away and instead made her freeze beneath him.
“Reeve?” she wheezed out, then gasped when she caught sight of the red dagger embedded in his side—the dagger that had been meant for her. “You’re hurt!”
“Get your ass up or we’ll both be dead,” he grunted, rising to his feet and yanking the blade from his body with a sickening squelch.
Viri’s stomach roiled at the sound, then roiled again when she saw the amount of blood gushing from his wound.
But the renewed clashing of steel told her Reeve hadn’t been exaggerating—Sage and Ardin were holding back the reapers, but there were too many for them to handle alone.
Reeve was already rushing forward to help, and Viri didn’t delay in leaping up after him, automatically moving into position at his back.
They were immediately targeted by four of the reapers, their blades slashing hard and fast, while three others continued their assault on Sage and Ardin.
Where the eighth was, Viri couldn’t see, the chaos of the fight and the violence of the storm making it impossible for her to focus on anything other than trying to stay alive.
“Duck!” Reeve bellowed, and she instantly dropped, feeling the whoosh of his sword overhead as he spun in a circle, slicing straight through the middle of one of the reapers.
“Look out!” Viri shouted, and jumped back up to block a different reaper whose blade was on a trajectory for Reeve’s neck.
She staggered against his strength, but it didn’t stop her from bringing her knee up to strike him in the groin, and when he doubled over, she sent her dagger straight into his chest.
“On your left!” Reeve yelled, but Viri was already being tackled to the ground for the second time that night, this time by a woman who snapped her teeth like a feral beast and clawed at Viri’s face with long fingernails.
Viri hissed as her cheek tore open, the rain adding to the sting, but she ignored the pain and bucked violently until the woman lost her grip and slipped off to the side.
Shifting quickly, Viri only just managed to get one of her daggers up between them before the reaper was upon her again, not seeing the weapon until it was too late.
A gargled sound left the woman’s lips as she impaled herself on the blade, leaving Viri to crawl out from under her dying body while swallowing the urge to be sick.
She was no stranger to death—she’d killed before while hunting, but when possible, she always tried to bring reapers in alive.
Tonight, she’d already taken two lives…and those were just two of the many bodies surrounding her, lying in puddles of blood.
As much as Viri longed for a moment to catch her breath and center herself after what had just happened, the fight wasn’t over yet, so she forced herself back to her feet, tugged her final dagger from her boot to replace the one trapped beneath the woman, and reentered the fray.
The storm raged on above them, as merciless as the reapers, but Viri, Reeve, Sage, and Ardin were just as fierce, battling side by side and back-to-back as if they’d been fighting together for years.
They began to take ground, the monsters falling one by one, until, finally, only the four of them remained standing, panting hard over the slain bodies and covered in so much blood and mud that not even the rain could wash it all away.
As if the weather knew that their skirmish had ended, the violence of the storm began to ease, the wind quieting, the torrent slowing to a drizzle, the thunder and lightning fading into the distance.
“Typical,” Sage said, scowling up at the sky, her beige leathers stained with enough filth to make her look like a walking corpse.
“Everyone good?” Reeve asked, his silver eyes scanning each of them, lingering on Viri’s clawed cheek and the rip in her cloak where her arm had been grazed by the first reaper’s dagger.
“ ‘Good’ is relative,” Sage answered, prodding a swelling bump on her head, her purple hair almost black from the rain. “But I’m alive.”
“Me too,” said Ardin, his dark gaze alert as he peered into the shadows of the alley, making sure there were no more reapers lying in wait. “I think we’re clear.”
“Viri?” Reeve pressed. “You good?”
She nodded her lie. Physically, her wounds were superficial.
But mentally, she was reeling—not just from the fight, but from whom she had fought with.
She had so many questions that she didn’t know where to begin, but before she could figure it out, a soft sniffling noise had her whipping around and remembering the reason for the reapers being in the alley in the first place.
The children.
Ardin stood closest to where they were huddled beneath the half-collapsed awning of a derelict building, and he slowly approached them, his hands raised in a calming gesture. “You’re safe now,” he told them. “Don’t be afraid—we’re here to help.”
A few of the children started sobbing—whether from relief or as a delayed reaction to the trauma of what they’d witnessed, Viri wasn’t sure.
But as much as her heart went out to them, there was something she needed to know with urgency, so she moved cautiously their way.
She was aware of how terrifying she looked, covered in muck with blood dripping from her scratched face, but she pasted a comforting smile on her lips as Ardin began sawing through their bonds and asked, “Does anyone remember where you came from tonight? Were there any other kids with you there?”
Headshakes met her question, but a young boy around Jessalyn’s age spoke up and said, his voice wobbling, “It was just us, but they said they were taking us to be with others.”
Viri cursed inwardly, but outwardly she kept the smile on her face. “Did you hear them say anything else?”
A girl around the same age whispered, “They called us spares. I—I don’t know what they meant.”
This time, Viri’s inward curse was much more profane. The Reaper Priest was apparently covering his bases, making sure he had more than enough children to guarantee the fifty he needed for the sacrifice.
“All right,” Viri said gently, “thank you for—” She stilled as Ardin cut through the last of the ropes, her face draining of color as she realized there were only two lines of children, not three. Eight kids in total.
There should have been twelve.
Whirling around, she caught Reeve’s eyes, seeing the moment he noticed it as well.
“The eighth reaper,” she gasped out, recalling the one she’d lost track of in the fight. “They got away.” And they’d taken four of the children with them.
Reeve swore, then swore again, swiping an aggrieved hand over his face and swaying on his feet.
It was the sway that broke through Viri’s horror, but she didn’t have a chance to question it before a furious voice hissed, “This is all your fault!”
Viri spun at Sage’s words, finding the purple-haired reaper glaring daggers at her.
“My fault?” Viri repeated, incredulous. “What did I—”
“You’re not meant to be here,” Sage said, closing the distance between them and jabbing a finger at Viri’s face.
Indignation rose within Viri like fire blazing in her chest. “What are you talking about? I helped you!”
“You only got in the way!” Sage spat. “If Reeve hadn’t wasted time saving your ass, we would have taken down that second group before any of them could slip away.” She jabbed her finger again. “You’re the reason we lost those kids!”
Viri rocked backward at the accusation, part of her wanting to scream her defense and the other part whispering that maybe Sage was right.
But before she could decide between rage or remorse, Reeve moved forward to break them apart—only to stumble and fall down on one knee.
A groan left him as he curled over himself, pressing a hand to his side.
His heavily bleeding side.
“Reeve!” Sage cried, rushing toward him, with Viri right on her heels.
His dagger wound—Viri had forgotten all about it, especially since he’d fought so effortlessly that it was as if he’d never even been injured. She’d assumed his enhanced reaper healing must have helped him, but now…
Now she wasn’t so sure.
“I’m fine,” he grunted, trying to rise again, but unable to support his own weight.
“Let me see.” Sage shoved his hand away, then sucked in a sharp breath at what she found. “Elders!”
Viri leaned in to look and nearly retched. It wasn’t just the depth of the wound that was alarming, it was also the skin around it, which had turned an unnatural green color beneath the still-gushing blood.
“Why does it look like that?” she breathed, worried she already knew the answer.
Poison.
Sage didn’t confirm her fears, only ordered, “Grab his other arm.” To Reeve, she said, “We need to get you to Jonas. Right now.”
“The kids—” Reeve gritted out.
“I’ll see them all safely back to their homes,” Ardin said, having appeared at their sides without Viri noticing.
She was about to protest—the thought of leaving the children in the care of a reaper went against everything she believed in—but when Reeve groaned again, the sound flooded her with guilt.
He’d taken that dagger for her. She owed him her help, even if that meant trusting someone whose very nature was untrustworthy.
Ardin had risked his life that night to save the kids—as had Reeve and Sage, to Viri’s unending confusion—so she had to hope his protective act meant he wouldn’t turn around and hurt them now.
“Swear to me that they’ll be safe with you,” Viri said, her voice low to keep the children from hearing. With the storm gone, the alley was nearly silent, the only sounds being the drip of rainwater and the quiet sniffing of the kids.
“Any oath I offer will mean little since you don’t know me,” Ardin said, his dark eyes steady on hers. “But on my life, I swear no harm will come to them while they’re in my care.”
Viri’s gaze dropped to the veins along his hands. He didn’t try to cover them, didn’t hide what he was, didn’t deny what he was, and that more than anything gave her a strange kind of reassurance.
“We need to move,” Sage told Viri. “Help me get him up.”
“One second,” Viri said, sprinting over to the reaper still incapacitated by her fillium to ask where he and the others had been taking the kids. But when she reached him, he wasn’t half conscious and spitting curses, as she’d expected.
Instead, he was dead.
Viri blanched at the sight of his slashed throat, then tensed as Ardin stepped up beside her.
“The reaper who got away must have done this,” he observed grimly, nudging the body with his boot. “They couldn’t free him from your weapon, not without suffering the same effects, so they silenced him to keep him from being interrogated by it.”
Ruthless but effective, Viri thought, disgusted anew by the merciless nature of reapers.
“We’re not all like that,” Ardin said quietly, reading the revulsion on her face.
Viri didn’t bother responding, just reclaimed her fillium and hurried back to where Sage was holding Reeve upright, his head drooping and his face so pale it was nearly gray. She hesitated only a beat before slinging his free arm around her shoulders, buckling slightly as she took half his weight.
“I’ve got him,” Viri said. “Let’s go.”