Chapter 32
Chaos exploded before us the second we arrived, standing at the edge of the battle.
The sun beamed powerfully in the clear sky, instantly making my skin feel like it was burning, and forcing our eyes to adjust to the glaring brightness.
The one day I don’t wear sunscreen…
On the bright side, the blue flecks that swam inside André’s hazel irises sparked to life, glowing almost as strongly as the source of his power.
The king and his Iron knights stood before us, forming a protective wall while my mates and I looked all around us, trying to get our bearings just as Bj?rn blinked out again.
The earth was soft beneath my feet, unstable, and we quickly realized we were in the middle of the Sahara desert.
To one end, in the far distance, colossal pyramids stood tall, sphinxes anchoring the remnants of an ancient civilization they thought gone.
To the other, a city of stone temples and glass rose, a mixture of past and future.
Far behind us, a large makeshift cult fortress had been erected, and I could see the blocking towers surrounding it in the distance.
That was where my dad had been when he called.
I almost asked what we were doing all the way here, but the trail of drained Hunters and other Vampiri scattered all the way from there to where we stood said it all.
Facing the raging battle again, I noticed the multileveled dune desert that extended beyond it. It was barely visible given how vast the desert was, but on the other side, a group of rock formations stood tall and wide, creating a natural fortress—one of them closely resembling a mountain.
Something told me that was my destination. The cave where they had my mom trapped was there. Of course, just as Hannes had deduced, we had to go through the raging battle to get there.
Pulse racing, my focus pulled back to the fight developing on the massive barren lands before us, feeling the last of our group materialize behind us.
Vampiri fought against Vampiri.
Shifters fought against Vampiri. And as some moved faster than the human eye could see, blood, guts, and limbs flying everywhere, it was hard to tell which ones were the Dracul Army.
Wait. Where were the crawlers?
“We are here for one purpose only.” King Will’s voice thundered in my direction, and I found his eyes focusing on me. “You will want to help our allies, you will want to save them, but this is not our fight. We are here to save your mother.”
Screeches, deathly hisses, and powerful growls pierced the air as people crashed against each other several feet before us, but I nodded.
“Not my circus, not my monkeys. Got it.”
With a pleased nod, the king focused on Hannes.
“Do not shift unless absolutely necessary. The Beast is your ultimate power, use it wisely.” When his gaze focused on André, the determined light in his eyes increased.
“If they surround her or you get stuck use your wings to get her out.” He glanced at me too.
“Use your wings and get out. Don’t worry about anyone else, your mates will catch up to you. Just get out.”
Sighing he turned towards Dante.
“If their wings can’t help them, you get Natasha into your shadows and to the other side.”
“Understood,” Dante, André, and Hannes answered in unison.
Settling between me and Isis, Bj?rn transformed—his eyes turning red, darkness rushing over every inch of his skin until it was fully black, and twisted claws protruding from his fingertips. My gaze briefly went to his broken horn, the only evidence remaining of his encounter with the Dark One.
His slate grey hair was swept back by the breeze when he turned to face us all.
“If you see the demon, the Dark One, get as far away from him as fast you can. He can’t travel through the Ether like I do, but he’s as strong as I am and very enraged.
We don’t yet know what bloody powers he has, which makes him more dangerous,” he warned. “Leave him to me.”
Everyone nodded.
“Ryker is mine,” I announced to the others too, a wolf growl distorting my voice.
The look on Dante’s, André’s, and Hannes’s faces said they strongly disagreed, but I ignored them.
If there was one monster that I need to get justice from, it was that asshole, and I wasn’t letting anyone take that from me.
Okay, girls. Here we go…
I knew I would no longer hear Natalia’s and Starlight’s voices because we were one, unified soul again. Yet as strength coursed through me, filling every cell in my body with fiery courage and feminine Alpha rage, I knew they’d answered, nonetheless.
My mates and I exchanged a glance before King Will and his Iron Knight pulled the swords from their backs deathly slow. With a silent sweep of his sword in the air, he gave the signal.
Together, we ran forward, clashing into the fight.
A glint of yellow called my attention to the sky, finding that an energy field seemed to sway over the battle area. I made a mental note to tell Dante about it.
The knights spun before me the next instant, their swords turning in the air. Their blades glinted under the sunlight when they sliced through Martell Vampiri and RavenWolf shifters without hesitation—beginning to open the path for us.
Dante shot a stream of Twilight towards our left, while André’s light blades swung toward the ones coming at us from the right, cutting them in half. In both cases, black fire erupted from the fallen bodies, the Vampiri turning into ash and blending with the scorched sand.
Hannes moved firmly beside me, as my shield, while we forced our way through the masses, but when a few Vampiri caught our advance, I knew our not intervening had ended.
They flashed toward us, and I called upon my fire, feeling its heat spread along my fingers.
Before I could shoot, Hannes pulled a sword out of his back and spun, cutting through four of them at once while Dante and André took care of the others in seconds.
Holy shit.
Royal Prince Hannes was even hotter than Beasty, sexy lumberjack Hannes, and that was saying a lot.
Papasito…
I had no clue when I’d learned Spanish on top of everything else, but I knew that meant he was an extra, extra, extra sizzling hottie.
Focus, Natasha…
Right.
The king and his knights soothingly spread around us, taking care of the threats without breaking a sweat, but a new mob rushed forward. This time, a smile curved my lips when my eyes caught the burgundy suits they wore—a small dragon shield was etched on the left side, above their hearts.
The Dracul soldiers crashed against the Vampiri and shifters near us, taking them down one by one, and soon, more came to our side. Caught in the middle, we watched them fight all around us but steadily, their forces began to concentrate all along the center of the battlefield.
A chasm slowly began to extend within the mayhem—created by each creature they fought out of our way. They were opening the path for us.
“Go!” King Will shouted, and we began to run again.
Bodies fell all around us as we advanced freely this time, thanks to Countess Dariah’s army, and I wondered if she had told them to look out for us and help, or if they’d just recognized us as allies.
Thankfully, we hadn’t encountered any Martell Vampiri with power bands yet.
A black wolf lept toward me when we neared the other side, but before anyone could react, a soldier grabbed him by the hind legs, tossing him away from us and cracking his legs in the process. A shrill whimper tore through his throat.
With an acknowledging nod, the woman turned around and flashed toward the shifter, finishing him.
Our running resumed, and sooner than expected we exited the chaos. I felt someone running back behind us, and I turned to see Vanessa standing at the edge.
“Vane, let’s go!” André urged, but she shook her head.
They helped us… Her eyes begged, and she turned to do the first thing the king told us not to do.
“Vanessa Dracul!” she shouted her own name before taking the biggest breath.
The action confused the majority of the Vampiri who turned to face us, rage flaring in their eyes as they began to run toward us.
Still, the right ones understood.
All Dracul soldiers dropped to the ground, covering their ears a second before her bat shriek cut through the air at an extreme potency.
Her lethal soundwaves boomed along the battleground, extending above our allies, but crashed against the incoming Vampiri and shifters.
The impact physically blew them back from the force.
Several heads exploded on contact, while others began to convulse, blood spewing from their ears, eyes, and mouths until they collapsed—turned to mush inside.
“Delightful.”
Vanessa looked at me and shrugged. “I aimed to kill.”
“No shit.” Dante nodded, impressed.
Rising from their feet and finishing the monsters still writhing on the sand, the Dracul soldiers flashed towards us, joining our cause.
“That was surprisingly easy.”
Gustav growled, glaring at Alyce. “I swear to the Goddess, Alyce. I love you to pieces, but if you just jinxed us—”
A sound I wished never to hear again cut him off, and we all faced the vast desert before us to find the multileveled dunes shifting.
That wasn’t good.
Crawlers began to, well, crawl out of the dunes, sand falling from their deformed bodies like rain when they rose to their feet. Hundreds, and hundreds, and fucking hundreds of the ugly creatures had been hiding under the sand, waiting for us.
“Get ready, here comes the second wave,” Hannes announced, and everyone took their fighting positions.
This was the fucking blockade where they would try to take me. To quote the great Countess Dariah Dracul, over my dead fucking body.
The Iron Knights and the Iron King were supposed to take over now so the rest of us could move forward but seeing row after unending row of crawlers come out of the ground told us it was going to take all of us to survive this.
If they weren’t so big, I would say they looked like a cockroach infestation. Gross.