Thank the gods, he finally had some reinforcement.
It took Ruyn less than a minute to assess the situation.
And Urian’s stupidity that had caused it. With a sardonic grin, he shook his head. “Brother, it appears to me that you seriously picked the wrong day to carpe your diem.”
“Better than allowing my diem to get carped. So are you going to stand there, admiring my posterior, or lend us a hand with it?”
“Rather it should be a certain finger I lend you, mate.” Growling, Ruyn hefted the two axes off his back and angled them at the ready. “It’s a good thing I like you. Anyone else would be my first victim.”
Urian snorted. “Too bad you don’t like a few more. Am thinking some friends with you wouldn’t have been a bad thing.” He used a god-bolt to blast the Apollite closest to him and swung with a sword at the next. Times like this, he wished he had his father’s or Xyn’s ability to transform into a dragon. They could use the firepower right about now.
Sadly, those powers were beyond his scope.
Ruyn scoffed at his words. “Bah, friends. Who needs them? They just drink your beer and ruin a perfectly good rotten mood by trying to cheer it.” He took the heads off three Apollites with one stroke.
Urian was impressed. He had to slaughter his enemies the old-fashioned way. With his hands and magick.
The worst part was that he still didn’t know why this group was after him or what they wanted. What had he done? Normally, he only drove his brothers to homicide. And that was on purpose.
Ducking as he struck an artery and blood sprayed across his face, Urian licked his lips. At least he was getting fed. Ruyn was not so happy about that part of this. Unlike Urian, Ruyn wasn’t an Apollite. He and Sheba had shared a mother, not Apollo’s blood or the curse.
So Ruyn kicked and twisted his way through them. Urian held his own better than he’d have thought, given their number. Until a barrage of arrows flew at them.
Ruyn deflected the ones aimed at him with his axes.
Urian wasn’t so skilled. While he could catch a single one, he couldn’t catch more than that without dropping his sword. Had he been more experienced, he might have been able to use his telekinesis to deflect them or some other trick.
Sadly, he wasn’t his father.
And three of them embedded in his chest.
With a staggering amount of pain that brought back a fierce round of déjà vu, he fell to one knee.Get up, damn it!
He couldn’t. The best he could manage was to pant.
One of them kicked him to his back. Urian rolled toward him as he went to stab him, knocking the bastard off balance and tripping him. That only drove the arrows in deeper and caused more pain to rip through his body. Groaning out loud, he thought for a moment that he might pass out from the agony of it.
Somehow he managed to rise. The man in front of him was a Daimon who had the nerve to laugh at his pain.
Pain he knew wouldn’t last much longer. Any heartbeat and he’d black out.
Turning toward Ruyn, he saw his brother trying to make his way closer to help him.
But there was only one way to make it through this. And he wasn’t about to let some slimy, crappy Daimon get the better of him. Not like this.I won’t die on my knees …
With an evil grin, Urian turned back toward the Daimon. Then he sank his fangs into the bastard’s throat and ripped it open.
The moment he tasted that blood, he understood what his brothers had tried to tell him. The shot of adrenaline to his system was unnerving. It literally felt as if he’d gone to sleep and been jolted back awake by something fierce and frightening.
Only now he was more alive. More alert. In tune with the very universe itself.
He heard more. Saw more.
Felt more.
Including a whine in his skull that was deafening. For a moment, he thought he might go insane from the intensity of it. Like a high-pitched squeal embedded deep in the center of his brain that only he could hear.
“He’s a Daimon!”
