Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IDALLIA
Panic gouges a hole in my stomach, but we don’t have a choice. Neither of us has ever disobeyed a direct order, and I understand Bale’s reasoning. Sol’s the fastest phoenix alive, but she’s not here. Fyrestar is far and away the next fastest, and he’ll reach the Elite Wing before anyone else can.
“Let’s do this,” I mutter.
“Fight as hard for yourself as you would for me.”
My throat constricts. I instinctively picture Fyrestar, Rim, Sol, and me all together again in our quarters, and I know I’ll move the stars in the sky to make that happen. “Come back fast.”
Fyrestar swoops low enough for me to vault off his back. I land spinning, my swords out, and both blades slice through a vampire’s neck. The bloodsuckers next to them turn in shock. I grin viciously and strike out.
I kill two more vampires in seconds, but then a spear almost hits Fyrestar because he’s looking back at me, and my heart plummets like a rock.
He neatly evades and continues on his mission, but I abruptly lose the concentration, speed, and strength I’d found.
My swords drop from a blur back to normal.
I stop being able to isolate sounds and hear too many.
Nothing comes into sharp enough focus. The difference is sudden and merciless, and I gasp, jumping back when a vampire nearly slices me in half.
I leap back into the battle, swinging fiercely and trying to unlock my version of magic again.
“He’s the fastest,” Bale growls over the din of swords. Mine crashes without ceasing, but feels horrifically slow compared to before. “It was the right choice.”
I ignore him. Separating me from my warbird is never the right choice. I’ll turn into a fucking animal for my phoenixes. Nothing else can pull the same savagery and strength from me. Nothing else will make me win, no matter what. Not even my own impending death—and things are looking pretty grim.
With that thought, my rhythm breaks. I end up with a vampire boot to the sternum and stumble back.
“Do better!” Bale roars.
“Shut up!” I roar back as soon as I can breathe.
He starts fighting his way toward me. Grambolt has my back.
I think Featherspear is helping Wade and Danica on the other side of the battle.
Bale closes the distance between us, alternating between fighting off vampires on his side and picking off some on mine.
I don’t know whether to be annoyed or grateful. Maybe I should just fucking do better.
Too much of my concentration goes into straining to hit that moment when everything changes.
When I’m not just good, I’m terrifying. When I can kill like a dragon and hunt like a warbird.
When I don’t even see myself coming, my body moving so fast my skin leaves a trail of light in the air, and my swords don’t make a sound until I’ve already killed.
But no matter how hard I push, the change won’t ignite like the oil-drenched torch I know is inside me, and I back away the second I have an opening. Frustrated and nervous, I stay on the fringe of the battle, taking on any blood traffickers who try to circle behind Bale and Grambolt.
“What’s wrong?” Bale shouts.
Everything? I don’t have a second to regroup.
Bloodwold vampires swarm past Bale to reach me again.
Mounting fear helps my ingrained combat skills kick in.
I’m a survivor. I’ll fight to my last breath, but it’s with the furious knowledge that I could do so much better if that thunderclap would just hit.
I kill two more vampires. I’m still deadly, just feeling as if I’m fighting at half speed instead of moving like a meteor. Is it because my body isn’t made to keep up the pace I sometimes have? Without my warbird here to pick up the slack, it’s more obvious than ever when I can’t find my momentum.
Five vampires organize an attack and jump at me at once. Terror always helps, and I kick into action. I wish it were daytime. I always fight better then.
Eat up, Sunshine.
Get some sunlight. It’ll help.
My eyes narrow, and not only because my enemies are suddenly way too close. What the fuck does Bale know that I don’t?
Distraction is the last thing I need, and I falter, nearly losing an arm.
Cursing myself and Bale, I kill three of the five before one gets close enough to slice his blade across my thigh.
Burning pain erupts in my leg, but I keep fighting, not letting the gash slow me down.
The smell of blood seems to attract more vampires to me.
One by one, they turn from everything else and converge on me like I’m the juiciest morsel they’ve ever seen.
I whip my blades as fast as they’ll go. An army just turned on me—and me alone.
I’m surrounded in seconds. Fear finally rips the thunderclap from me.
The totally silent internal surge of strength and concentration helps me fight like a demon and kill, kill, kill.
My swords blur and blood flies. Heads roll, but not mine, so I keep fighting while the others shout for me, trying to push their way through.
Grambolt caws out a warning too late, and a violent hit from the side leaves me reeling.
A gigantic vampire uses the split second I’m off balance to jump on me, fangs out.
Holding me in a vice grip, he goes straight for the juncture between my neck and shoulder before I can get my weapons between us, his hands clamping down on my shoulders and squeezing so hard my arms go numb.
I scream as his fangs sink in, the pop of skin the ugliest sound I’ve ever heard. He bites viciously, gulps loudly. He’s close enough to the base of the torque that his fangs must touch it, because he suddenly drops me and rears back, his eyes shooting wide in shock.
My blood drips down his chin. I stagger, swinging again to keep others off me as feeling comes back to my arms. His fangs blacken and fall from his mouth. His hand flies to his face. He roars in terrified fury, but I’m too busy trying to stay alive to appreciate the moment.
“Idallia!” Bale shouts for me. I don’t see him through the horde.
He suddenly rises in dragon form, locks eyes with me, and moves like a cyclone, crashing down hard by my side.
The bloodsuckers immediately slash at his softer-scaled throat and chest, but Bale shifts back, leaving only his tail to sweep enemies out of the way and make room for Wade and Danica to land.
They all shift back to skin too fast for the vampires to land a solid hit, and then they’re next to me, helping me drive the predators away.
Wade and Danica are covered in blood, slashes, and bruises, but they fight the onslaught alongside us.
Featherspear and Grambolt attack from above, burning and clawing, but we’re still surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered.
The rest of the team needs to get here now.
“What happened? What changed?” Bale shouts.
“I don’t know.” I think back to when this battle went from bad to worse. “I bled?” In all our years of facing vampires, we’ve never been outnumbered this badly, and I don’t think I’ve ever actually bled before. Scrapes, bruises, and even broken bones—I’ve done it all. But gushing blood—never.
“What the fuck is wrong with these bloodsuckers?” Wade growls as we take in the frenzied battle.
“Never seen anything like it,” Danica yells back.
The vampires are feral. We kill or injure them, and they don’t even care. They crawl over each other, over bodies—alive and dead—to get to me, their focus total, their fangs out, and their eyes seeming to see nothing but my blood.
I stumble back, breathing hard. “Bale, we have to retreat.”
His eyes flash to me. “If we try to fly out of here, they’ll fill us with spears and arrows.”
He can shift and heal, but the others can’t. And what about the warbirds? “There are too many. And they’re fighting in a way that doesn’t make any sense.”
“The others will be here soon.” Bale pins me with a stern look. “Just stay one strike ahead.”
I nod, but I’m not the blur I was before. I’m injured and tiring, and I’m not the only one in danger. Danica is bleeding from a gash on her forehead, although the vampires are still focused on me, and Wade is slowing down, grunting with effort.
Sweat stings my eyes. Fatigue and constant effort send a wave of shakiness through me.
Having lost a few deep pulls of blood straight from my jugular can’t help, and blood still drips down my thigh.
My pant leg is soaked through, my boot squishing.
And the more I bleed, the more the vampires go into a frenzy.
They finally manage to get between me and the rest of the team again when the bigger, stronger ones start killing their own in order to reach me.
My pulse thrashing, I keep my blades moving and my feet under me. Where’s the team? Where’s Bale? All I see are vampires.
“Fyrestar!” I don’t know where he is, but I scream anyway. “Fyrestar!”
“Idallia!” Bale shouts back. How did he get so far from me?
I kick a bloodsucker off me, and my sliced leg almost gives out.
While I wobble, another vampire dives straight for my middle and knocks me over.
I land with a grunt, dread lurching through me.
The vampire on top of me twists, and his fangs sink into my bleeding thigh.
I cry out, the pain searing. Danica charges in, tears him off me, and throws him into another.
She disappears, swallowed by the writhing horde.
A woman with the longest fangs I’ve ever seen jumps on me before I can get up.
She bites down the second she hits me, sinking her dagger-like teeth straight into my breast. I shriek and pound at her head with the hilts of my swords.
She doesn’t even seem to feel them and keeps dragging down long gulps of my blood like it’s a drug.