The wing sends me flying. The air turns into the ground and I’m weightless . . . weightless . . .
“Sephania!” Lukain bellows.
I crash with a hard thud, sliding across the pavement. My face contorts with pain, but I’ve long since turned that setting off. No bones are broken, so I get right back up and charge over to the battle.
Aramastun decides he’s had enough of toying with us, flies high and over the arc of Vallan’s swing, and comes to land in front of me.
“Fuck,” I croak.
“Yes, fuck indeed.” He grins wickedly.
Vallan and Lukain sprint against all hope to get to me, but there’s no way they’ll get here in time.
I swing at him before he can swing at me. I’m suddenly fighting four appendages, all of them seeming like extensions of the bastard—wing, sword, wing, whip.
“I was hoping to find a needle in the haystack, you know,” he says calmly. “When I opened Nuhav’s gates. Find Loreblood without findingyou.Turned out I needed to do the jobmyself.”
My brow furrows.That’s why he opened the gates? To try and find a human with Loreblood other than me? That’s it?!
I wonder if he’s distracting me while we parry blades. My training is high, and I’m the best human fighter I’ve ever known.
Still no match for this motherfucker.
When our blurring swords become too swift for my human eyes to keep track of, his sword gets me in the thigh—only a shallow cut, but from a sword that big it’s essentially a cut as wide as my wrist.
I gasp, fighting back agony as blood sprays warm across my leg, scoring my own hit unfathomably on his shoulder, and making him growl in discomfort.
His wing comes out to batten me aside again—
Itthudsbut never hits me.
Vallan is standing between us like a stone wall, taking the wing on his arms.
I stab, get him in the stomach this time, because Lukain has him distracted on his flank. Then Aramastun manages to noose the whip around Lukain’s sword andflingsit from his hand, halfway across the rooftop.
Lukain growls, Aramastun tuts, thinking the vampire has become weaponless, but that only spurs Lukain on to attack with his teeth and claws like a fucking rabid animal.
The Lukain I remember from the Firehold, as my master, returns in full force.
And no one sees the lithe, small body of Palacia squeeze into the scene. Not even me.
Not until a sudden ripping sound andpoke—
A small hole appears in the middle of Aramastun’s left wing.
He growls, hissing with pain. “You little bitch!”
The wing flies back and knocks Palacia away like a ragdoll.
Pissed off, the Night Judge flies off—a bit slower and more unsteady now in the air, bobbing on the wind with the hole in his wing—and lands in front of Palacia.
Lukain is nearest to them, gathering his sword.
“No, Pala!” I cry, sprinting with Vallan but, again, knowing we won’t get there in time.
Palacia crawls back on her butt and palms like a crab, wide-eyed but still frowning calmly even as the massive vampire-demon raises his weapons to end her.
Ashlickof ripping flesh—
