I snorted, but as Leigh’s face went ashen, I forgot my mirth. “What’s wrong?”
She pressed the speaker button on her phone, and Gael’s voice flooded the bunker. “They’re back on the field and heading this way. There are significantly more of them this time. Heavy pixie presence in addition to uniformed ODL enforcers. Every warrior is needed on the field as quickly as they can prepare, and we need the bunker locked down. Bring the big guns. No one in or out until the attackers are gone. Leigh… I love you. Keep our little girl safe.”
I shared a grim look with Elodie, both of us catching the importance of what this second attack meant. It was confirmation of what we suspected, that the ODL had gone rogue. And since we had outed them to the IGC, apparently, the pixies had decided to directly join the fray.
Leigh pressed a hand over her lips, took the phone off speaker as she turned to answer him. Together, Elodie and I bolted for the stairs.
Chapter 63
Elodie
We donned our extra weapons and raced out to the battlefield, dodging the chaos in every part of the castle as we went. An alarm had gone off mere seconds after we spoke to Leigh and Gael, and now everyone was scrambling for weapons, including some of the heavy artillery we’d held back the first day.
I made a mental note to address it first thing tomorrow, when everyone was fresh. In wartime, there was nobreak. Not really. There was fighting and readiness. Anything else was not acceptable.
Perhaps I could work with some of the Alphas on the systems we’d used as maidens to stay prepared? It was something to discuss with Valens later, at least.
My wolf noticed the pixies before I did. They were small—about the height of a man’s forearm—when in their flying forms, and highly magical creatures. They were a blur of sparkly colors, and if you didn’t know better, it would be easy to write them off as too cute to be dangerous.
When they were all together, they basically looked like a glittery rainbow cloud. Something that would make a kid Bence’s ageoohandaahwith wonder.
But in reality? They had viciously sharp teeth and claws, and their glitter fucking burned anywhere it touched bare skin. It wasn’t quite acidic enough to cause permanent damage in small quantities, but it was damn uncomfortable, and the more of it you got on you, the more damage it did.
There weren’t too many defenders on the field ahead of us to face the ODL enforcers that had returned with the pixie horde. So when we raced down the hill, there was a whole wide field of enemies to choose from.
“Left or right?” I shouted as we ran, noticing both flanks were trying to collapse in on our first line of defense, surround them, and decimate them before backup could arrive. But defenders were streaming steadily out of the castle now, and I knew Valens and I could hold the line until more arrived.
“Go right. They’re in trouble,” he called back, veering that way as he drew his sword to help our early responders.
I followed, whipping out my staff and immediately twisting the shaft to separate it into two short swords. Pixies were small and fast, not large and lumbering. Flexibility was my best option given how many of them there were.
Especially as they swarmed in a cloud around eye level, swooping up then diving down from overhead to attack. The extra reach of a staff wouldn’t do me much good.
I spotted a wolf in trouble—absolutely crawlingwith pixies, and a vampire ganging up on him—and executed a running slide to his left before launching myself into an aerial flip. It was a little awkward with two short swords instead of the butterfly sword I’d practiced the move with. But the effect? It was devastating. When I landed, it was with the wet squelch of dead pixies under my feet.
I noticed twinkling silver anklets on all of them, and grief tried to choke me. Did these pixies evenwantto fight? I scanned the uniformed vampire as I took him on, leaving the less harriedwolf I’d come to rescue to keep leaping and dragging pixies out of the air. There was no silver on the vamp that I could see, and after I beheaded the fucker, I quickly patted his corpse down, searching the pockets of his ODL uniform.
No mind-control device that I could find, which meant he was here on orders from a higher up,notbecause of mind control.
Unfortunately for the pixies, it didn’t matter who was or wasn’t under a device’s control. As long as they were attacking, we had to defend ourselves, or they’d kill us. Although, if we could capture a few, Valens could try again to free them.
Ifwe ever got a long enough break in the attacks to try again.
As much as I hated to fight an unwilling enemy, within minutes of joining the battle, every exposed inch of my skin stung from their glitter, and my eyes and nose were running from so much of it hanging in the air. The only benefit was that the enforcers weren’t faring much better.
I wouldn’t consider themeasyto fight, because they were well trained and still had superior numbers. But they were making mistakes because of the discomfort, and that created opportunities to take them down.
I did, without hesitation. Enemy after enemy fell beneath my blades, until they began to blur together.
Someone had removed the injured from the field since last night, and someone had also dealt with the bodies. I didn’t know who, but as I leapt and rolled and dove and sang my battle songs as I wove through the field, I appreciated them.
Other maidens’ voices began to twine with mine as I stuck close by Valens, leaping and dodging together through the field to protect the pack in any way we could. There was also the boom of large-caliber weaponry firing from behind us, and the occasional satisfying impact as the line of defenders on the castle walls took aim at large clusters of our enemies. Some hits weremore effective than others, and it was clear they had magic wielders shielding some of their forces.
We still lost people.
I tried not to let myself check each face to see if I knew them. I didn’t feel pain in the pack bond, not that I was experienced in sussing that out since our connection was still so fresh. I could feel Valens in my chest, the bond between us bright and strong despite us not having bonding bites yet, and that drowned out pretty much everything else.
It was intense, getting flashes of his feelings in this battle, unlike the last one. I did my best to block them out, focus on the next enemy.
