Blue fire rushed out of my hands in anticipation, licking up my arms with purpose when more deformed assholes appeared to our right, coming for me.
I was ready.
Sand exploded under my boots when I ran towards them, taking them head-on while André and Hannes began to fight too. One of the creatures swiped at me, but I dropped to my knees, sliding past him. My flaming hand caught his leg before I stood again, the fire instantly catching and rushing up his body. His frenzied screeches split the air, myEternal Blazeconsuming him.
Lifting my palms, I shot double streams at the next two rushing toward me. It hit the first one on the chest, setting him aflame, but the second saw it in time to jump out of the way.
“Not today, asshole!” My ball of fire slammed against his side when he lept for me, claws first.
Heart pounding, I dove for the sand, rolling under him as he soared above me, his claws missing me by an inch. That had been way too close for comfort. When I jumped back to my feet, I found him writhing on the ground, the fire bursting from hiseyes and his slack mouth. The scream didn’t have time to leave him; he became nothing but black ashes on the ground.
Something captured me from behind, lifting me from the ground on arms that were half-rotted muscles, and half-tattered skin. Reaching above me, I gripped his head while he attempted to bite my neck, sending a surge of fire. Disturbing shrieks ripped out of the damned creature, my power consuming it.
Its claws dug into my sides with each jerk of its flaming form but were unable to pierce my suit before Hannes ripped what was left of it away from me.
“You, okay?”
I nodded, and we ran together to the next assholes—his sword slicing through a few while I burned the rest.
The sun briefly dimmed before beaming stronger, and André threw his arms forward, five arched blades of light leaving him. They rotated so fast it was hard to track them, but my Vampir gaze caught the moment they pierced the group of crawlers coming for us.
Some blades hit their chests, others their arms or necks, and then disappeared inside them. The creatures’ bodies convulsed like something was moving through them, until the light blades came out of their backs, turning back toward us like a boomerang.
André’s blades vanished when they neared him, their light seeping into their source. Meanwhile, his targets crumbled to pieces, torn from the inside out.
Vanessa flashed past me the next instant, her boots stomping on a cut-off crawler before she jumped, flipping over the incoming one. Her shriek penetrated his ear before she righted herself. When she landed, the creature was already jerking on the ground, his head splitting open from the fierce soundwaves she’d sent right into him.
Hannes and I intercepted a new group of deformed creatures heading toward Alyce and Isis, who were fighting another four together. We each took on two of them, and I sent a few fireballs toward the ones we caught, while Hannes’s sword cut through the rest like butter.
With a fluid turn mid-air, Gustav expertly avoided my fireball, just like he did all of the creatures’ attacks. Jumping toward a new crowd, he fly-kicked two crawlers, landing and then whirling around to slam both hands against another one’s chest. Ashes rained all around him with each kill while more came at him, but he didn’t even blink.
Gustav fought like none of us did.
His power was consuming them, but it was unlike anything I’d seen.
Stunned, I watched a rush of red energy that almost looked like fire intensify along his body with each strike he delivered—his bare feet, his palms, his leg, even his elbow when he slammed it into a throat. It was like he could consciously direct his power to the part of him he would use for each blow.
One by one, the creatures collapsed in his wake, but this time, instead of turning to ash, they shriveled and stilled, life leaving them. I saidlifebecause they weren’t crawlers anymore—they were back to human.
Wiping the sweat off my forehead, I continued fighting along with my mates, trying to move closer to where the rocky ground began, marking the end of the dunes and the beginning of the large rock formations ahead, where my mom probably was.
Hannes killed a few more, fighting just a few feet from me. He hadn’t left my side since we started fighting.
Burning another one to ash, I lifted my gaze to see more coming. “What the actual fuck?!”
We weren’t even half done with these assholes when more began to swarm us.
I turned in a slow circle to assess what was happening, while bursts of crimson and black blood, red energy, darkness, and light crashed all around me.
TheEternal Blazeburned through me, eager to be of use. I sent a few streams at the monsters trying to get to me, but my heart constricted when I noticed several of Countess Dariah’s soldiers slaughtered along the blood-soaked sand.
Their bodies rolled when more crawlers emerged from under them, their infestation expanding along this seemingly endless fight. No matter how many creatures we killed we were still losing.
My head suddenly snapped right, capturing movement way past the dunes.
“They are in the rocky mountain!”I sent through our shadow link, alerting my mates.“I just saw someone get out of there, but they disappeared before I could see who it was.”
Fuck!
