Chapter Fourteen #2
With the realization that they wouldn’t bend, we quickly moved on, hitting two more villages, and transporting those needing to evacuate.
The fear of us was far less here because of the battle that was taking place so close to them—close enough that we could hear it with our enhanced hearing as we left the last village, marching over a hill and coming within sight of our target: Malakai’s castle.
Kyella stood frozen next to me as she stared at the castle, where she had been imprisoned for so damn long and where all of this had started.
I could feel myself hardening emotionally, thinking about the bloodshed that would need to take place—hell, the blood shed that had taken place.
No matter how hard we tried, lives would be lost, but I would do my damn best to make sure it wasn’t the wrong ones.
“Kyella,” I intertwined our hands, looking down at her as she met my gaze. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Her eyes shone with a fierce determination as Kolvar squeezed her hip gently from where he stood behind her and Elijah dropped a kiss on top of her head.
She kept her gaze forward but spoke in a soft tone, “I love all of you so much. When this is done, I can’t wait to go back home. Together.”
And we would, I would make sure of it.
We were about to enter the real battle and there was only one true way out: victory.
From the moment we hit the outskirts of the capital, we were thrown into chaos.
The battle taking place, through every city street, storefront, and darkened corner, was violent and volatile in nature.
Properties had been destroyed in the process of fighting, and while I knew deaths had taken place, it seemed our forces were holding strong.
We didn’t hesitate as we stormed through the streets and threw ourselves into the heat of the battle, a rage-filled cry leaving Kyella’s lips as I felt my own surge of adrenaline.
I snapped into a mode that had been honed from years of training, using my enhanced speed and strength to meet the enemy head on.
The first vampyre to surge toward me was one basking in the violence; he was covered in blood and smiling maniacally. I didn’t hesitate to draw out my sword and dart toward him, taking him down in seconds.
The castle loomed over our battle and the chaos taking place, the sound of swords hitting one another paired with angry and agony-filled cries that echoed through the air.
Bodies and severed limbs were piling up, beheaded vampyre corpses and mortally wounded humans bleeding out and painting the streets with their carnage.
I watched vampyres clash with one another using their full strength, their weapons, and instruments of death as they tried to pierce through the hearts of their opponents.
A bloody scream was cut off as a vampyre from Malakai’s camp ripped off the head of a human, lobbing it toward a pile of massacred bodies.
“Move toward the castle!” Kyella ordered, my sword arcing through the air and defending her from an attack that came out of fucking nowhere.
I knew her armor was durable, but I hated the idea of anyone coming for my woman.
I slammed my sword into the vampyre bastard’s chest, not caring if he was forced to fight or doing it willingly.
If he was a threat to Kyella, then he died.
Kyella grabbed my arm, pulling me away from him and navigating us through the city streets turned into a battlefield, following Kolvar’s.
Elijah held the rear. I noted that there were many humans here and that they were far less eager to fight, trying to stay on the sidelines and out of conflict unless forced.
None of our forces were targeting them unless provoked.
In the mix of terror and bloodshed, I hoped some were slipping away to leave the city.
It would be the smart thing to do because Malakai was creating a mass grave with the number of humans he was trying to barricade his castle with.
The truth of his plan revealed itself as we neared the castle and met more and more humans.
“Watch it!” I called out to Kolvar as a human man, looking terrified, was shoved forward by a vampyre.
The human was forced to run at Kolvar, a sword raised above his head in an untrained move.
Without hurting him, Kolvar knocked the weapon from his hands so we could carry on, and the human man dropped to his knees, looking as if he might cry in relief.
Until the soldier who had pushed him forward stabbed him.
The human’s face blossomed with horror, anguish coating his features as he looked down at the sword that had sliced cleanly through his chest. The flimsy armor they had given him, probably the standard for humans, did nothing against the force of his attacker.
When he looked up at me, I felt momentarily frozen at the despair filling his expression.
The cackle from the soldier who killed him filled the air as he spit on the dying human. “Useless—they’re all absolutely fucking useless.”
My gaze darted around briefly, and my stomach turned with the realization that many of the dead humans may have been killed by bastards like this.
It was likely there were some thralls fighting for their masters, but most of these individuals were being thrown into the line of fire as fucking shields.
If they couldn’t accomplish that, they were irreverently disposed of.
The fury I felt seemed to roll over me in a deadly wave. I drew my sword and sliced off the soldier’s head easily, not hesitating for a single moment. Scum like that didn’t deserve to live.
Trying to push myself past the moment as we reached the castle gates, my eyes went immediately to where my parents were brutally executed. I felt a snarl slip from my mouth as memories flashed in my head, and I realized with horror that there were corpses there even now.
Not just soldiers, but innocents. I blinked, seeing a child’s lifeless body. Horror washed over me at the sight. Without a doubt there would be casualties in war…but a child? That should have never happened.
I knew our forces wouldn’t have killed a child, which meant there was only one other option. Malakai’s vampyres were killing children. Children who probably lived in the city, either from families or street orphans who someone like Malakai would assume wouldn’t be missed.
It couldn’t matter to someone like Malakai what their age was or if they were even capable of fighting. The only thing that mattered was that their lives could be forfeited to protect his own.
Everything went dark as rage roared through my veins.
Memories from the day my parents were unduly executed eclipsed me, and suddenly it felt like I couldn’t breathe.
My chest tightened, searing with pain, and I was left feeling like it was on the precipice of exploding.
My eyes burned with unshed tears, the sound of my parents begging me to run rattling my brain. Fuck.
Crimson coated my vision; reality having faded completely to black and leaving me in a dark-red void. I was drowning in the memories, unable to focus on anything except all the children who had been slaughtered. All the families that would be broken apart by this. All the deaths.
So many bodies...so many that we couldn’t save—
“Dakath!”
At the sound of Kyella screaming my name, my eyes snapped open, and I cursed.
Drawing my sword, I barely had time to position it defensively as a soldier barreled toward me.
I gritted my teeth, plunging my sword toward him and watched as he embedded himself on my sharp blade.
Blood dripped down the metal to my gauntlets seeping between the interconnected metal and burning into my skin with the realization that I had allowed myself a moment of vulnerability at a time when it could not be afforded. “Fuck.”
“Sorry,” I hissed to her as she grabbed my arm, looking panicked.
“We are fighting for every single child that is still alive, Dakath,” Kyella said gently, her eyes soft before they filled with a fierce light. “We are fighting to stop that from happening to any more of them. We cannot let memories of the past stop us from helping them in the present.”
Her words ignited my hunger for retribution. I yearned to obliterate every vampyre who thought it was okay to take the life of an innocent.
Before I could respond, Kyella’s head snapped up, like her name had been called and drew her attention. On either side of us, Elijah and Kolvar fought their own small hordes of soldiers, but Kyella’s focus turned to Barnabus, who flew ahead of us.
“Shit,” Kyella bit out. “We must get into the castle. Barnabus said Malakai is trying to escape.”
Our priority had always been saving as many innocent lives as possible, but we simply could not allow Malakai to escape. Turning our attention away from the battle in the shadows of his castle was the only way to ensure more lives wouldn’t be lost because of his continued, tyrannical reign.