“Where is she?” I screamed to my mates as we dodged the razor-sharp pincers of an ungodly as we fought in the melee.
Petals drifted across my neck.
I was seconds from losing control.
For the last forty hours, we’d slaughtered every infected we’d come across. Thousands of them.
We were thorough.
Unrelenting.
Exacting.
When there were less than a hundred infected left, we’d chased them through the halls and they’d fled into an expansive room.
The last stronghold.
It appeared to be the compound’s living space because there were four stone fireplaces and excessive furniture.
Now smoke filled the windowless space. Velvet chairs and sofas were broken into pieces and scattered about.
Bodies were everywhere, discarded swords lying beside their ripped corpses.
Weapons clashed.
A hair-raising roar echoed. Jax was partially shifted; he had a bear’s head and razor-sharp claws. Infected dropped around him as he swiped.
Cobra was covered in writhing shadow snakes, and they were all over the room, biting infected and sending them to their knees, screaming.
Otherworldly wings clattered as the angels hovered on the ceiling and stabbed downward into the fray. They’d ditched their ice swords in favor of the lighter, easier-to-wield enchanted swords.
The room was chaos.
Pieces from the paintings that had once filled every inch of wall space smoldered as they fell like rain.
The dying screamed.
Our plan had been going perfectly until someone had detonated an incendiary device. When the dust had cleared, Arabella was missing.
She had to be nearby, but for some reason, we couldn’t find her.
It was maddening.
Our Revered had disappeared.
The tether on my control was fraying precariously, and I couldn’t remember why I held myself back from unleashing my voice and slaughtering the world.
Why did I care?
My vocal cords ached to be used.
I chucked a dagger at an ungodly as I dropped to my knees, and Scorpius swung an enchanted sword where I’d stood. Blood splattered. He sliced two infected clean in half.
Ungodly ripped from their flesh, but Corvus tore their heads off before they could stand tall. Scarlet flames poured off him as he threw the severed heads down onto the red-and-green rug and stomped.
At one point, the rug had been white.
Corvus tipped his head back and growled like a beast. He’d dropped his weapons when we’d realized Arabella had disappeared, and he’d been fighting with his bare hands ever since.
He was no longer a soldier.
He was an Ignis whose Revered was missing—a feral creature.
Arabella had to be nearby because the bond sickness hadn’t incapacitated any of us, but we’d searched every corner of the large living space where the fighting was concentrated.
She wasn’t beneath the piles of corpses.
We’d checked.
“Where the fuck is she?” I whisper-yelled as we stabbed, lunged, and dodged in unison.
Panic mounted every second she didn’t appear.
Cherry blossom petals drifted faster across my collarbone, and I gritted my teeth as gore splattered across my face.
Five minutes. If we didn’t find her in the next five minutes, I was unleashing my powers, and I didn’t care if we slaughtered our own soldiers.
They could all die.
“Is Aran with you?” one of the twins shouted as they punched an infected man, stabbed him in the heart, then sliced the emerging ungodly in half.
“No,” Scorpius snarled as he spun and kicked. “We can’t find her.”
The twins stopped moving. Clad in all black, they seemed to disappear into the shadows as the battle raged around them.
“Excuse me,” Luka said with vehemence, “where the fuck is my wife?”
I was startled by his voice because he never spoke; it was deeper than his twin’s.
“She’s not your wife yet,” Corvus replied harshly. “Arabella is unmated and unbonded.” Flames multiplied on his shoulders.
John scoffed as he gutted an infected. “Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth.”
Corvus growled viciously as he grabbed an infected woman’s face and snapped her head to the side like he was imagining it was the twins’。 She dropped dead. He repeated the motion with the ungodly. Green gore covered his arms.
Flames poured off his fingers and set the rug aflame.
“She has to be nearby,” I said to the twins. “Because the bond sickness hasn’t set in.”
Scorpius dropped his sword and unsheathed serrated daggers.