Stepping into the first portal, she waved at us awkwardly. “Maybe we could like, hang out sometime or something?”
I felt myself nod, totally flabbergasted.
“Sure, I’ll bring the cocktails,” Dante replied.
“Awesome!” she squealed.
“Thank you, Eyra!” I called after her when she ran through the tunnel.
Glancing back at me from the other side, she gave me a genuine smile.
Her demeanor became fierce once she turned, and sent her whip flying through the air, wrapping it along a crawler’s neck and severing the head. Tossing it aside while the creature crumbled to the sand, she ran to the next one and jumped on it—helping the soldier just as both portals closed.
“Who the hell was that?” André mumbled, and I slowly shook my head.
“A Natasha groupie…” Dante’s voice sounded amused.
“I don’t know… but her name sounds kind of familiar,” I confessed, glancing at them.
“I like her.” Hannes nodded like he’d finally decided. “And she’s helping so…”
Right.
The startling moment brought our attention back to the battle and Dante sent out a few shadow bursts to help Gustav and Isis who were fighting relatively close to us.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw she wasn’t seriously hurt, only a few abrasions were visible on her brown wolf.
“How many fucking crawlers did they create?!” Hannes growled next to me.
Those damned things were still coming out of the ground.
“It’s been happening for too many years to surely know,” André explained. “They were created by the old dynasties who controlled the world and used humans for their pleasure. Humans are nothing to them—they drain them, kill them, turn them without regard.” He shook his head.
“I guess those who rebelled against Dariah’s rightful reign continued torturing humans.”
Realizing how many innocent people must have been tortured to create all the creatures we were fighting now tore at my heart, and yet, we had to end them.
Dismay gripped my being as I watched our friends and family fight them in an endless cycle. Would it ever end?
Thunderous battle cries suddenly erupted from the distance, revealing a force as strong as the implacable ocean sweeping onto the battlefield.
The ReinheitWölfe Royal Knight Force had arrived.
Jumping over dead bodies and mounds of ash, the men and women ran full force over the first part of the desert grounds, headed toward the sand dunes. Some shifted into their large wolves, their armors transforming with their bodies until golden shields protected their foreheads, necks, and sides.
The wolves jumped, soaring through the air while the men and women pulled out their swords, the clash of their force against evil becoming almost poetic.
A throng of them joined King Will and his knights as well as Vanessa, Isis, and the rest of our people, offering the backup they desperately needed and bringing relief to my heart. I needed all of them to be safe.
Queen Luna had vowed they’d be here, and she kept her word.
Urgency swiftly replaced my relief, and I let go of André, facing the rocky terrain on the other side behind us. “This is our chance to get out of here and enter the mountain. André and I will fly while Dante?—”
“No flying,” Dante warned, gesturing to the yellow swaying energy above us. “It belongs to the Witch who created the ward around yourShadow Bornvillage. Anything that goes through it will be zapped like a mere insect.”
“Okay, plan B?” I asked, limping as I tried to put more weight onto my foot, successfully standing on my tiptoe. My Wolf Shifter healing had taken over after the fire receded, but I wasn’t fully healed yet.
“I can shadow-portal you there—” Dante began but I shook my head.
