Selene summoned her own power, throwing streams of light from her fingers at the melee. She managed to ash a few marauders, but it wouldn’t be enough. There were too many to stop.
The light of her Atlantean soldiers’ lives went out one after another as the vampires overtook the front line.
Selene could hardly contain her terror, her sorrow. She clung to her rage and determination, firing more light into the battle below.
“I’m going down there,” Sebathiel said. He turned to face her, his expression grave. “You can’t stay out here, Your Grace. You need to get inside the palace and stay there.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere when I can fight.”
“It’s not safe here for you, Selene.”
“It’s not safe for anyone now,” she replied.
On a scowl, he pivoted then rushed away with sword in hand. She heard him rally the civilian men from the throne room, shouting to them that every able hand that could wield a weapon was going to be needed.
After a few moments, she saw him exit the palace with a group of men and head toward the skirmish along with more soldiers who’d been posted on the hills.
Down below on the beach, the sand was dark with blood and the dead.
Selene glowered at the Ancient as he calmly oversaw the violence he’d brought to her shores. She kept hurling streams of light into the fray, striking down as many enemy combatants as she could.
She didn’t know how long her men could hold the Rogues back. The onslaught continued, leaving more dead Atlanteans on the ground and bringing the fight closer and closer to the palace compound.
Inside the throne room, civilians grew anxious, fearful. Children were crying as mothers tried to comfort them with reassurances that everything would be all right.
Selene prayed they were right.
In her heart, as the combat waged on and the darkness swelled, she wasn’t sure how long she and her brave army of soldiers could hope to stand against such immense power and evil. Each pulse of light she summoned forth cost more and more of her strength. She would give it all to prevent the realm from suffering the same fate as the colony.
The crystal would renew her, but she feared it wouldn’t be enough to stop the Ancient and his dark power.
Her pulse hammered in her ears as she kept up the fight from her perch on the promontory.
The rhythmic sound grew and grew, until she realized it wasn’t only her heartbeat she was hearing . . . it was the low thump of helicopter blades high overhead.
CHAPTER 44
What had started out appearing to be a strange, black storm in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea had grown into a vast, swirling darkness. The helicopter in the lead carrying Darion and a number of his Order comrades flew into the center of it, following his directions to the Atlanteans’ island realm.
They flew in one of several military-grade helicopters currently en route to help Selene and her people fight the Ancient and his Rogue army. As Gideon had relayed to Darion, all of the Order had deployed to Rome where that city’s commander, Lazaro Archer, and Andreas Reichen of Berlin had arranged for transportation to the realm.
Darion and his fellow warriors were suited for combat with UV-protective gear at the ready. As it turned out, they weren’t going to need it.
The darkness they flew into was a thick curtain that consumed the morning sun’s rays. Like a black vortex, the churning cloud completely engulfed Selene’s island and surrounding waters, plunging the whole area into a night-like terrain.
As they approached from overhead, Darion peered down from where he stood in the open side of the helicopter. The carnage he spotted on the beach and the hill leading up to the palace compound took his breath away.
Slain Atlantean soldiers and male civilians outnumbered dead Rogues by more than ten to one. Blood painted the sand on the beach and the grassy plain below the palace stronghold.
The fighting was brutal, and ongoing.
Selene’s legion had managed to hold their line on the hill below the towers, but from the looks of it they didn’t have long before the horde of Rogues broke through and made a run for the bigger prize.
As the battle raged, streams of bright white light shot from one of the gardens that jutted out from the palace towers. Selene stood there, using her power to help her soldiers as best she could. One of her volleys hit a Rogue in mid-leap, ashing the big male before he could come down on Sebathiel, fighting in the middle of the chaos.
Darion couldn’t hide his awed expression as he watched her in action. He had guessed she could have blasted his ass into next week if she’d wanted to, but seeing her turn all that firepower on the mob of invading Rogues gave him an all-new appreciation for just how incredible Selene truly was--both as a woman and the queen of her realm.
“That’s your female?” Tegan asked from beside Darion.
