Chapter 31 Lucan
The sentries keep coming from every direction like a multiplying horde of ants.
I try my best not to kill them, just to maim or knock out cold, reminding myself what they really are: only humans, appointed to this position by the Guardians. They’re just doing their job.
Still, I keep seeing them charge at my woman with their rapiers, and my anger swells until there’s a mountain of unconscious bodies growing around me.
The shouts and cries that stab the night are surely going to attract the Guardians themselves, and I can already see several citizens of Xantera pressing their faces against their windows that border the main street.
Just when I’m wondering what the hell is taking Saskia so long, the alarms start going off.
They ring throughout the city from every loudspeaker, so piercing and echoing it’s like the sound is coming from inside my skull. Like all of Xantera is wailing in pain.
“Shit.” Just as three more sentries charge at me, I use my own stolen blade to clash against theirs, twist, and morph back into a werewolf.
The remaining sentries freeze in place, eyes popping out of their heads.
A few of them shriek and back away. But my canine teeth bare themselves in a grin, because that electric bolt of Saskia’s presence floods my veins.
You okay? I ask her.
Yeah, she answers immediately. Diggory’s with Gaia now. But Lucan—they must know we’re here.
The alarms overlap now that we’re connected, as if I can hear them through her perspective from the end of a long tunnel. My teeth grind together at the sound, but honestly, I’m only surprised it took the Guardians this long to notice our invasion.
Satisfied that Saskia is momentarily safe, I dissolve my mental block until I’m streamlining with the entire pack.
Everything good in the catacombs?
Yes. The voice belongs to Gabriel, which tells me that Vivian, Merrick, and Soren must be busy talking to the prisoners in their human forms. We’ve freed most of them, and Ashe and Kyra are on guard right outside the prison.
No signs of any more vampires so far?
None.
Good. That means they only know about me and Saskia.
I can feel the authority in my voice threading through the connection that binds us all, a strategy unfolding itself in my mind.
I’ll try to lure them out here in the open if you and the pack want to sneak out of the catacombs and divide into groups of twos.
Surround the city if you can, then slowly close in.
You’ve got it, alpha, Gabriel says, and my heart swells for the bastard. Despite all the times he tried to fight me for this position in the past, now that the moment has finally come, he’s all in.
Just in time, too, because a BOOM sounds in the distance, overpowering even the alarms. When I look up, it’s to find three humanoid shapes bursting through the doors of the Blood Moon Palace up ahead and whizzing toward me with a speed that blurs their features.
I stand my ground, tail flicking, digging my claws into the road beneath me.
For a moment, I’m certain they’re going to maintain their speed and pounce on me at the same time, but then they screech to a halt right in front of the enormous pile of sentries at my feet.
The alarms die with one last echoing blare.
“Well, well, well,” one of the Guardians huffs, his long throat lengthening even more as he lifts his chin. From all the times I’ve been in Saskia’s mind, viewing the world from her perspective, I know they call this one the Eleventh. “If it isn’t the Monster in the flesh.”
I chance a glance at the other two Guardians, both of them giving me eerie smiles with crimson hate dripping from their eyes. One of them is the Fourth, a female with skin and hair whiter than her fangs. The other is the Tenth, a male with a dark skin tone as smooth and alluring as silk.
All three of them begin to stalk closer.
“And would you look at that?” the Eleventh Guardian continues, his voice growing loud enough to reverberate up and down the road. “You’ve killed our people, just like we knew you would if you were ever able to claw your way in.”
He jerks his head at the pile of bodies between us.
I don’t take the bait, don’t feel the need to tell him that every single sentry is still alive when I know he can hear their hearts beating as surely as I can—until the Eleventh Guardian cranks his head left and right and I notice the people watching from the alleyway.
Dozens and dozens of Xantera’s citizens have crept out of their housing units, still clad in their identical issued nightgowns, to investigate all the commotion. And now hundreds of eyes widen at me in horror as they bounce from me to the bodies before me.
No, I want to tell them. I’m here to save you. But in my werewolf form, all that comes out is a growl that makes several of them gasp. Somewhere to my left, a baby begins to cry.
Well, fuck. That didn’t have the effect I was going for.
“Don’t worry,” the Eleventh Guardian continues, and I catch the smirk lifting the corner of his thin lips, even though he tries to keep his face a careful portrait of concern. “We’ll protect all of you from this vile abomination. Just like we did before.”
And all three of them pounce.
I throw myself forward, leaping over the pile of bodies and catching them by surprise as I slam into the Eleventh.
The collision of our bodies sends a crack through the air, and he slams into the ground beneath me. I don’t waste time sinking my canines into his chest to rip out his heart…
But before I can, razor-sharp nails dig into my shoulders and spine so hard that I roar.
A pair of fangs sinks into the back of my throat, tearing through my flesh. Vampire venom shoots through my veins like hot poison, setting my body on fire. I thrash, twisting to tear the two other vampires off of me just as the Eleventh scrambles to a stand again.
“You really think one Monster can defeat three Guardians?” the Fourth Guardian laughs in my face.
She kicks me in the stomach, knocking the air out of my lungs. I double over, dropping to all fours, but then immediately use the momentum to swipe my head at her legs and send her sprawling.
My relief is short-lived, though. The Eleventh Guardian jumps onto my back from behind, curls an arm around my throat, and squeezes.
I rear upward, toppling backward so that he smashes against the ground beneath me. It works, but then the Tenth Guardian is on top of me, slashing at my stomach with his fingernails like claws. I snap at his neck and toss him off as far away from me as I can.
Just as the other two vampires close in on me again, the Tenth Guardian’s body slams into one of the power lines, making it crash against the nearest housing complex. Sparks ignite. Flames burst to life. The rooftop catches on fire, and several people scream.
Double fuck.
On a whim, I jump up and melt back into my human form, relishing the way all the watching humans suck in a breath as they witness my shift. Maybe now they’ll rethink everything they’ve ever been told. Even the Eleventh Guardian pauses behind me, caught off guard.
The Tenth is already back without a scratch, narrowing his eyes at me next to the Fourth. I was trying to get all three of them herded together, but these two will have to do for now. “What’s this? Surrender? Ready to get on your knees and bow?”
“No,” I rasp, the pain from their nails and fangs searing through me even more in my human form. I swear, they carved out entire chunks of my flesh. “But you’re about to.”
A sound, wet and sticky, squelches through the night.
Before the two Guardians can even turn around, their eyes flash open in shock. For a moment, they stare at me, mouths gaping, blood leaking from the corners of their lips.
Then they fall to their knees and keel forward, faceplanting at my feet.
“What?” the Eleventh Guardian cries behind me, but I smile up at the glorious sight that will be painted on the canvas of my brain for the rest of my life.
Saskia. A terrifying, beautiful nightmare haloed in a backdrop of flames, splattered in blood…
Holding a shriveled vampire heart in each fist.