Chapter 33 #2
“Okay, gotta go. People to save, monsters kill...”
Glowing bright purple, the runes on her arms came to life, triggering a rotating ring of light to open next to us. It held the same runes. Another one opened a few steps across from the soldier the crawlers were about to attack on the other end of the dunes.
Stepping into the first portal, she waved at us awkwardly. “Maybe we could like, hang out sometime or something?”
I felt myself nod, totally flabbergasted.
“Sure, I’ll bring the cocktails,” Dante replied.
“Awesome!” she squealed.
“Thank you, Eyra!” I called after her when she ran through the tunnel.
Glancing back at me from the other side, she gave me a genuine smile.
Her demeanor became fierce once she turned, and sent her whip flying through the air, wrapping it along a crawler’s neck and severing the head. Tossing it aside while the creature crumbled to the sand, she ran to the next one and jumped on it—helping the soldier just as both portals closed.
“Who the hell was that?” André mumbled, and I slowly shook my head.
“A Natasha groupie…” Dante’s voice sounded amused.
“I don’t know… but her name sounds kind of familiar,” I confessed, glancing at them.
“I like her.” Hannes nodded like he’d finally decided. “And she’s helping so…”
Right.
The startling moment brought our attention back to the battle and Dante sent out a few shadow bursts to help Gustav and Isis who were fighting relatively close to us.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw she wasn’t seriously hurt, only a few abrasions were visible on her brown wolf.
“How many fucking crawlers did they create?!” Hannes growled next to me.
Those damned things were still coming out of the ground.
“It’s been happening for too many years to surely know,” André explained. “They were created by the old dynasties who controlled the world and used humans for their pleasure. Humans are nothing to them—they drain them, kill them, turn them without regard.” He shook his head.
“I guess those who rebelled against Dariah’s rightful reign continued torturing humans.”
Realizing how many innocent people must have been tortured to create all the creatures we were fighting now tore at my heart, and yet, we had to end them.
Dismay gripped my being as I watched our friends and family fight them in an endless cycle. Would it ever end?
Thunderous battle cries suddenly erupted from the distance, revealing a force as strong as the implacable ocean sweeping onto the battlefield.
The ReinheitWolfe Royal Knight Force had arrived.
Jumping over dead bodies and mounds of ash, the men and women ran full force over the first part of the desert grounds, headed toward the sand dunes. Some shifted into their large wolves, their armors transforming with their bodies until golden shields protected their foreheads, necks, and sides.
The wolves jumped, soaring through the air while the men and women pulled out their swords, the clash of their force against evil becoming almost poetic.
A throng of them joined King Will and his knights as well as Vanessa, Isis, and the rest of our people, offering the backup they desperately needed and bringing relief to my heart. I needed all of them to be safe.
Queen Luna had vowed they’d be here, and she kept her word.
Urgency swiftly replaced my relief, and I let go of André, facing the rocky terrain on the other side behind us. “This is our chance to get out of here and enter the mountain. André and I will fly while Dante—”
“No flying,” Dante warned, gesturing to the yellow swaying energy above us. “It belongs to the Witch who created the ward around your Shadow Born village. Anything that goes through it will be zapped like a mere insect.”
“Okay, plan B?” I asked, limping as I tried to put more weight onto my foot, successfully standing on my tiptoe. My Wolf Shifter healing had taken over after the fire receded, but I wasn’t fully healed yet.
“I can shadow-portal you there—” Dante began but I shook my head.
“Shadow-portal me?” I placed a hand to my chest while I glared at him, faking appall. “What kind of name is that?”
“Seriously. I thought you were sophisticated and shit,” Hannes huffed.
André chuckled beside us as I shifted again, trying to put more weight on my right foot.
“I shall sweep you off your feet with my sensual shadows, Cuore mio,” Dante cooed, making me grin. “André can dash there, and we’ll just leave Hannes behind to be eaten by the crawlers.”
“I’ll allow it.” I nodded, wrapping my arms around his neck while Hannes snorted.
It was silly of us to act like this in the middle of life and death, but Goddess knew we needed the reprieve.
I blew a kiss at my sexy lumberjack, sword-wielding prince just as the shadows took Dante and me away. When the darkness dispersed again, we were far past the battle, the yellow energy, and the rocky terrain.
We stood about fifty feet from the entrance to the mountain.
André flashed to my side at the same time that Hannes landed next to us—using his giant Beasty leaps.
Taking a settling breath, I turned to face them, still limping. “I have a plan for the ambush that awaits me in there, but I need you guys to trust me.”
“With our life,” André answered without hesitation for all of them, Hannes and Dante nodding anyway.
“Perfect.” I smiled. “I figured out what your bond tattoo is meant to do…” Lifting my hand towards Hannes, I pressed it against the place where my wolf was drawn on his arm.
Blue light ignited with my touch, glowing so brightly that it pieced the fabric of his war suit, rushing over each line just like it did when we finally claimed each other. The light dashed toward his neck, a crescent moon igniting in his eyes before everything settled.
“Is it done?” he asked. His hand went to his chest, rubbing it.
“It’s—”
“Well, well, well. Look who finally decided to visit,” A woman’s voice echoed behind me.
I whirled around to find a Witch levitating several feet above the ground while bands of yellow magic weaved between her feet, keeping her there.
“We would have been here sooner if you hadn’t sent your zombie dogs on us,” I replied, lifting my chin to look at her—defiantly, not because she was levitating. Just saying.
Laughter rang from her black lips, but Dante didn’t seem amused.
“Go in without me,” he instructed through the link, the eternal night pouring freely out of him and making his suit twinkle like the star-studded cosmos. A cape unfurled from his shoulders, fluttering behind him against non-existent wind.
A protest died on my lips when he stretched his arms to the sides, and midnight shadow bands expanded around him, lifting him into the air too.
What I could only describe as revolving rings of silver starlight appeared at the north, south, east, west, front, and back of him, continuously moving and intertwining with each spin.
Beaming, their energy sent an eerie silver wave over his entire body before they vanished… Their power left a soft glow over his form.
He looked like a god.
“You should know better than to mess with the Lord of Twilight.” His voice echoed all around us without him opening his mouth—a thousand voices in one.
Holy hell.
The mirth faked by the Witch was replaced by rage…
and the vicious signs of unadulterated envy filled her brimstone eyes.
Strange black markings appeared all over her body, even over her face, making her look cursed.
They glowed until several, yellow swirling orbs formed at either side of her—one for every marking.
There were a lot.
“Go!” Dante shouted into our minds just as she fired.
André gripped my waist and dashed with me out of there. The last thing I saw before the darkness of the mountain surrounded me was the explosion of yellow and midnight energy engulfing the sky.
Heart pounding, I turned to face the hall inside the mountain, pushing forward even though all I wanted was to return to Dante. However, I had a mission, and my mom was counting on me.
There was only one path ahead, so we took it. Bracing for the pain I ran with them on my bad foot toward my impending doom, aka the ambush. I focused only on the possibility of seeing my mom again because nothing else mattered, so I hardened myself for what I had to do.
It was going to work. It was going to work. It had to work.
A million things could go wrong, but I had to trust my instincts, and everything inside me screamed that this was what I had to do.
Four men with power bands rushed out a dark opening on the far wall when they heard us coming.
“Surrender yourself!” One of them boomed, sending weak waves of energy to sweep over us.
Nothing happened.
“Is that supposed to be compulsion?” I snorted. “The real ability didn’t do anything to me; what the hell makes you think your little toy watch would?”
My immunity to it took him by surprise, and fear seized their expressions when the fire licked up my fingers. The other two urgently lifted their glowing bands toward me—I assumed, trying to block our powers.
It didn’t work anymore.
The revelation André, Dante, and Hannes were about to have when I shut them up to escape from the Dark One was true. Now that our mate bond was complete their fake powers couldn’t get to me.
My mates made me stronger.
Forgetting about my injury, I lunged toward the first one and scissor-kicked him, his head blowing back before I landed on him, pressing my flaming hand to his chest.
Standing, I held myself against the wall. It was clear to me that whatever healing my body had left to do was taking longer given how vicious the venom had been. As I glanced down at the torn part of my boot, I could see the edges of raw flesh through it.
It is what it is…
Rocks crumbled all around us when Hannes slammed two of them against the cave walls, ripping the power bands from their wrists, arms and all.
He hadn’t even shifted to the Beast.
The men’s screams swiftly cut off when Hannes finished them.