“Come on,” she jeered, teeth flashing in the firelight, her anger taking her past the point of mania. She burned with the need to kill as many of these fuckers as she possibly could. “Come on, you fucking cowards.”
They made no move, the three remaining Astraea looming just out of arm's reach, pulling their blades free from their sheaths.
“We need to get her out of here,” Fenrir said without taking his eyes off of them.
Aelia’s lip curled. “We have to get past them first.”
“Take her and go, I’ll hold them off.”
“Not fucking likely,” she spat, glaring at the steel that glinted dangerously in their hands, wickedly sharp and competently wielded. No way was she leaving him to face that alone. “We push past them together?—”
Her words cut off as she realised belatedly what the Astraeans had been waiting for. More black uniformed figures stalked towards them from between the churning mass of people, all armed and ready, a red crest emblazoned on their chests.
Their slim chance of surviving faded to nothing, but as her eyes met Fenrir’s, she was filled with an overwhelming determination. He nodded and looked back at Mirra.
“Give them hell,” he said, a thousand unspoken words passing between the three of them in the fraction of a second they had spare.
Then the Astraea were on them.
Aelia slashed wildly with her dagger, but her untrained efforts could only keep them at bay for so long. They grabbed her and threw her to the floor, away from Mirra and Fenrir. Boots thumped into her as they kicked at her from all angles, and she curled in on herself, quickly abandoning all attempts to stand as pain took over all her senses. She could see nothing past the legs surrounding her, each of them swinging mercilessly until she felt sure she would die there, tucked in a ball on the floor.
When they stopped, she could barely open her eyes past the agony, unable to distinguish what hurt and what didn’t. Itseemed like every inch of her had been beaten to a swollen, sticky pulp. She forced her head up, opening her eyes to see Fenrir still standing, lashing out as the Astraea reached past him to grab at Mirra.
There were too many of them, and she watched him succumb, three of them restraining him as Mirra was dragged away. Fenrir roared, wrenching an arm free and throwing it at the man holding her. The Astraean deflected it, pulling Mirra in front of him and wrapping one arm around her neck, locking her in place.
Fenrir threw his elbow back in the face of one of the other Astraeans, loosening his grip enough for him to pull loose, lunging towards Mirra and trying to wrestle her free. The man wrenched her back, dragging her by the neck towards the cages.
Aelia tried to push up off the floor, but only managed to prop herself up on one elbow before her arm collapsed from under her, her cheek slamming into the ground. Fresh waves of pain immobilised her, her body unresponsive despite her terror as she watched Fenrir drop to his knees under the weight of several of the Astraea, his arms twisted inescapably behind him.
His face dropped, anger slipping into horror as his eyes landed on Mirra. Dread, oily and nauseating, washed over Aelia as she twisted her neck to look.
The Astraean was crushing her neck with his arm, mistaking her frantic writhing for a bid for freedom as he suffocated her. A tortured scream rasped out of Aelia as she tried to crawl towards them, watching Mirra fight for air as the unwitting man hauled her backwards to the cages. Her fingers clawed at his arm, her mouth gaping open, her heels sliding desperately against the blood-soaked grass.
Her struggles weakened and her eyes, bulging and bloodshot, turned glassy as her body sagged, a deadweight in the man’s arms.
Aelia sank her fingers into the earth, trying to pull herself towards her friend, mouth open in silent despair as the Astraean noticed Mirra had collapsed. He twisted himself round, pausing as he took in her lifeless expression, and dropped her to the ground.
“You just cost me a captive.” The timbre of that voice, the distinctive way it wrapped its words in calm familiarity despite their vile nature, would be forever lodged in Aelia’s mind.
Beserkir sauntered over, hands in his pockets, stepping past Aelia to address Fenrir.
“You don’t look like your second form is anything that can slip through bars,” he continued, his gaze running over Fenrir’s broad, heavily muscled shoulders. “I suppose it’s only fair that you take her place. A life for a life. Load him up.”
The Astraeans hoiked him to his feet, ignoring his snarls of pain as they wrenched his shoulders nearly out of their sockets. Aelia cried out, trying to push past the pain to stand.
Beserkir looked down at her and snapped his fingers at one of his thugs, who wasted no time in swinging his leg back and kicking her in the face. Her head snapped back, her neck wrenched to an unnatural angle. Her vision flickered, blurring into black at the edges, and she waited breathlessly for the next impact.
When it didn’t come, she tried to blink past the darkness encroaching on her consciousness, but she was only able to make out two pillared legs spread wide, right between her and Beserkir.
She tried to lift her gaze higher, squinting at the hazy image in front of her. Numbly, she recognised the figure, and the last thing she saw before she succumbed to oblivion was the looming shape of the man with the fire. The man who’d held her back.
CHAPTER FIVE
Asombre silence reigned over the forest, even the birdsong seeming subdued in the grey morning light. It was a risk to attempt this in the daytime, but Keeran had missed his chance last night, and he certainly wasn’t going to leave without finishing what he came for.
He checked around him, certain no one was watching but needing to make damn sure. There was no movement between the vast trunks; the paths that cut into the dense undergrowth were deserted, the wooden houses perched overhead showed no sign of life, and Keeran doubted they would for hours yet.
The Astraea had taken all the humans they hadn’t killed from the village, leaving the surviving artemians reeling. Peregrinians and locals alike had grouped together to try and control the fire, tending to the wounded and moving the dead. It had been a long night for everyone, and those who could had retired to the safety of their homes, whilst those too injured to make the climb were being tended to in the village hall.
