CHAPTER 34 #4
To your left! I turned on my feet just as a Soulless spread its hand towards me.
The power surged through my hands, but this time it didn’t hurt.
The black mist seeped from my hands and wrapped around the blades of my swords, the metal's veins glowing brightly in response.
As if some power was controlling my motions, I struck out and cut through the arm stretching for me, separating its hand from its body.
A piercing screech emanated from it as it tried to extend its other hand towards me.
In a quick motion, I removed that hand as well.
Its black, beady eyes stared directly at me before lunging forward.
I ducked and shoved my blade up into the bottom of its chin, piercing it upward through its head.
The screeching stopped as the lifeless body fell to the ground, and black blood pooled around it.
I removed my sword and wiped the blade on the grass before looking around to see where Ulric was.
Ulric had a serpent-like creature on the ground, ripping its head off with his massive jaw; a group of guards had a Soulless surrounded, and …
my heart stopped. Max was fighting off a large catlike creature.
The creature had him pinned to the ground, and he was holding it back with his sword pushed against its chest. I rushed towards him without thinking.
How do I do that again?!
The voice didn’t answer, but the tingles radiated through my hands.
Lifting them upwards, swords in hand, the mist unfurled from my fingertips.
The wolves reappeared, toppling over one another as they churned into a shifting cloud of mist and fur.
The cat-like creature swiped at Max's chest and tore into his leather chest piece.
“Max!” I screamed, and my wolves attacked, taking the cat creature down to a pile of flesh and bone.
I got to him and looked his chest over as he said, “What the fuck was that!”
His chest was bleeding slightly, but he would be fine.
“We don’t have time, we need to help the others!” I turned away from him.
“No, what the fuck did you do?” He grabbed my arm, trying to stop me.
“Not now, Max! We need to go!” I shrugged him off and broke into a sprint. His footsteps pounded the ground behind me as Ulric joined us on my other side.
“What the hell?” Max said under his breath, but still loud enough that I could hear.
“He’s with us! Keep moving.” I yelled to him as my own feet hit the ground, running as fast as I could towards danger.
Ulric took down a Soulless that was draining a guard’s soul, but it was too late by the time we reached them; the guard was gone.
I thought you said it wasn’t the normal Soulless? I fired in my mind as Max threw a dagger that I didn’t even know guards had into the head of a bear-like creature that hardly had any fur left.
It wasn’t. They joined in the fray.
Fuck. We turned the corner of the manor towards the front entrance, and Zen was on the stone pathway.
Red and black blood covered the once-glittering stones.
He was surrounded by Soulless and three of the two-headed beasts.
Ulric let out a growl before charging towards them, but stopped when they flew away from Zen as strands of black shadows shot out of his hands.
But just as fast as they hit the ground, they got back up.
The beasts adapted their fighting tactic, learning what he was about to do, and instead of all at once, they took turns going at him.
He knocked the first to the ground, and then the second.
Ulric charged forward again, taking down the third about to attack Zen.
Before the fourth could attack, the first one was back up, and a two-headed beast jumped, both heads latched onto Zen’s arm.
His only response was a sharp inhale through gritted teeth, but then his sword went right in between the eyes of one of the heads, causing it to go limp and throwing off the balance of the other.
He went to strike the second head but stopped and stabbed a Soulless coming at him from the right.
A screech cried out from it, and it fell to the ground.
He turned back to the dog to strike again, but there were too many of them!
He couldn’t fight them all off! They were adapting to him too quickly and were anticipating his next moves.
The tingles danced through my fingers just as a Soulless caught him by the neck without even touching him and lifted him off the ground; Ulric was pinned down by another two-headed dog, pushing it away with his paws as both heads snapped, spraying slobber everywhere.
“NO!” I screamed, and as I did, my mist wolves jumped from my hands; this time, there were more of them.
A small army of wolves charged forward, running into each other, becoming mist and wolves, until they broke off from one another into clouds of mist surrounding our enemies.
Each wolf erupted from their cloud and lunged at one of the creatures, pulverizing them into nothing but rotten flesh and bone.
Zen dropped to the ground and grabbed at his neck, coughing, then turned to look at me in utter shock.
“Fucking.” He breathed in deeply, “Amazing.” His gaze turned to one of admiration.
“Can you get any more beautiful?” He walked over, leaned in, and kissed me.
It was laced with the yearning and passion he was feeling in this moment.
I kissed him back, not caring that we were surrounded by chaos and death.
I was going to consume this man, just as my wolves had consumed the creatures.
“Ahem.” Ulric had shifted back into his human form and somehow had another damn pair of pants on. Where was he keeping them all? “We have company.”
Lost in the moment, I had completely forgotten that Max had accompanied us here, and I looked to where he stood; the heartbreak in his eyes brought tears to mine.
“Max...” I stepped forward towards him.
He held up a hand, “Stop, Avyn.” Hurt sliced through his words. “We need to help the others.” And he turned, making his way towards a servant running for cover.