My eyes roam over his face, his confession of feeling inadequate tugging at me but not enough to stop my next words. “No. It makes you ablindone.”
He goes to respond when his head whips to the right, his eyes narrowing on the darkness gathering between the thick vegetation. “Get your spear out.” His tone leaves no room for argument as I reach over my shoulder and slide the spear from its loops in my pack.
“What is it?”
Kaigrowlsas he scans the area to our right, my mouth parting as I watch his irises turn golden. I wipe the gathering rain off the skin of my brow and grip my spear with both hands in front of me.
“I need—” He hisses, his hand shooting up to his neck and yanking something out of it. “Fuck!” he grits out, dropping to one knee.
“What’s wrong?” I stand in front of him as the rustling of leaves reverberates out into the quickly coming night. “Kai!”
On his hands and knees, his breathing is labored as his head hangs between his shoulders. “Rebels. Poisoned,” he huffs out slowly, holding what looks like a tiny vial attached to a dart.
Ice invades my veins as steps sound, and I look over my shoulder to watch three figures emerge from the jungle and onto the path ahead of us. It’s what covers their faces, however, that halts my next inhale.Skulls.They are wearing fucking animal skullsfor masks.My training overrides the fear winding through me, and I change my stance to put myself between Kai and the rebels.
“Ten minutes,” Kai grunts.
“I’ve got you,” I say back before he fully collapses onto the ground.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” the shifter in the middle shouts, his voice deep and booming over the rain. “We just want the king. Move aside, and we’ll leave you alone.” He steps forward, the sound of metal sliding from a sheath cleaving between us as he swings the short sword in front of him.
“How kind of you,” I yell back, my grip tightening on my spear. “But you’re not going to touch him.”
Each of the rebels takes another step towards me, the two on the ends fanning out to form a crescent shape as they box me in.
“He is as inept as his father was before him. We deserve better; the Shifter Kingdom deserves someone with the capability to lead them. Not some feral, half-breed bastard that stole the throne right under our noses,” the largest of them snarls.
Of all the things to fucking feel right now as I’m being surrounded by three shifters intent on taking the passed-out king behind me, guilt certainly isn’t one I expected. There’s culpability that takes root at the fact that I’ve called Kai a bastardmultipletimes in my head, and as it turns out, he actually is one.
“Last chance. Don’t get yourself killed over someone who wouldn’t do the same for you,” the shorter male shouts.
I swing my spear out, the metal leaf-shaped tip pointed directly at the largest male in the center. Lightning cracks overhead, and the brief flash of light makes their skull masks glow. I can’t quite make out what animal they are, the space between us blanketed in rain, but I think I catch a glimpse of twisted horns and elongated eye sockets.
With the newly fallen night now cloaking the rebels’ movements, I brace myself for the incoming attack.Let them fucking try to hurt me or the idiot on the ground behind me.
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Bahira
“This won’t even befun,” a female says, unsheathing a weapon of her own—twoweapons actually, the sound of metal against leather the only indication in the dark. “It’ll be over before it even starts.” Her preemptive deep breath gives her away before the whistling of a blade flying through the air makes me duck quickly. The weapon embeds into the trunk of a tree behind me with a resoundingthunk, the female growling in frustration as her steps disturb the pebbles on the path.
She swings her second weapon towards me, and I slam my spear up to block her. The rain is slick against the body of my spear, the metal twisted within the cool wood against my palms. We exchange several blows, her movements agile but not lacking in strength. Dancing around her, I split my attention between the rebels, all while diverting her attempts to move me away from Kai.
“What kind of spear is that?” she asks as we separate, retreating a few steps.
“A special one.”
The gravel beneath our feet crunches to my right—making me spin and jerk my spear up to block the incoming attack from the male now at my front, bracing it with both hands and crossing it diagonally in front of me. Blood rushes in my ears and my muscles strain as I pant through clenched teeth. Lightning flares, providing a quick break in the dark as the female ambushes me from the side. With a roar, I kick my leg out as hard as I can, connecting with the center of her chest and sending her flying backward as she curses into the rain.
“The masks are reallyfuckingcreepy,” I state, squatting low and avoiding another swing of the male’s sword.
He growls beneath his mask, advancing on me again with heavy steps. His silhouette is just barely given form by the silvery moonlight, enough for me to see the outline of his movements. Adjusting my hold on my spear, I leap towards him, spinning in the air as I swing it down at him. He blocks at the last moment, metal clanging out around us against the raging storm. We continue our evenly matched sparring, the other two rebels moving in the shadows somewhere beyond us.
Brilliant light forks across the sky again, thunder rolling behind it and hiding the steps of the second male until he’s already barreling into me. I collide with the groundhardas Iland on my side, grunting out in pain. My spear is knocked from my grasp when the rebel falls on top of me.
“Get theki—” I jerk my hips up, unseating him and forcing a stop to his command as we tumble to the side.
Once again, he ends up on top, my back sinking into the wet earth as he straddles my hips. I stare up at the sockets of the elongated skull, the shifter beneath it tilting his head to the side as he winds his arm back. My arms lift up to cradle the sides of my head just in time to block the first of the barrage of punches he unleashes, strength and gravity on his side. My heart beats heavily in my chest, the sound of the storm around me fading out to give way to the ringing in my ears as I focus on getting myself free. The first attempt to dig my heels into the ground is met with my boots slipping against the slick pebbles. The move costs me a punch to my ribs, my shout met with an answering laugh of menace.
“Not so tough now, are you?”
