Two vicious stab wounds on his side pour blood onto the ground below him, saturating the grass. The guard writhes and gurgles in pain, his trembling hands failing to stem the flow of blood until he eventually falls still.
My entire body aches, my head throbs, and my throat is on fire. All I want to do is curl up into a ball and cry, but I force myself to move. I grab my bow, wipe the knife on the dead man’s clothes and shove it back into its sheathe. As I push myself onto my feet, I look for my horse.
Bean stands in the corner of the field, tense and watchful, but not spooking. Thank fuck. Last thing I need is to have to chase a bolting horse in the middle of a fight. I stumble over to her and rub the mare’s neck soothingly before grabbing the reins and heaving myself onto her back.
Glancing around, I realise the fight is almost over, with only two guards and Alex remaining. Harlow is still at his side, snarling as the guards turn towards Alex. Alex doesn’t hesitate. He puts both guards down with two well-placed bullets before his eyes seek mine.
“You okay?” he asks as he strides toward me.
I swallow hard and nod, wincing at the rawness of my throat.
His eyes drop to my throat and harden. “What the fuck happened?” he demands as he closes the distance between us to glare at my neck.
“A guard caught me off-guard and yanked me out of the saddle.”
“The fucker better be dead,” he growls as he reaches up to brush his fingers over my bruised throat.
“He is.” My eyes dart over to where he lies dead in the grass.
Alex follows my gaze to the dead body and nods. “Good, he deserved it.”
I move my gaze from the corpse and grimace at the sight of all the dead bodies. Yet more people to add to my kill count. Even though the guards tonight were eager to kill me and those I cared about, there’s still a sliver of guilt in my gut from my lack of regret. Sleeping tonight is going to suck, but that’s another future Ollie problem.
“We should get moving,” I say, desperate to see Rhys and Theo and make sure they’re still alive.
I wheel Bean around and urge her into an easy canter down the road. The fight is still going strong in the camp, with screams, gunshots and inhuman moans echoing in the freezing night air. At the bottom of the road, I spot more zombies spilling into the camp from the forest. Their inhuman eyes glow in the darkness as they relentlessly hunt for their prey.
I slow Bean to a trot and take out a few before they can clear the trees, but more dart out and race behind cover before I can take a shot. Behind me, gunshots ring out and glancing over my shoulder, I see Alex striding down the road after me. He looks badass as fuck as he fires shots at anything that gets close to him while a snarling Harlow protects his back. On his other side, Ketchup dive bombs anything that moves and claws at them with her talons.
Apparently, Alex has replaced me as the resident Disney Princess.
Shots to my left catch my attention and I turn, almost falling off the saddle as relief rushes over me. Rhys and Theo are firing at guards and zombies alike, both looking uninjured. Although in the low light, I can see a dark stain on Rhys’s shoulder. He must have ripped out some of his stitches. But that doesn’t seem to slow him at all as he fires several shots from his rifle at two zombies who were rushing toward them.
I ride over toward them. “Thank fuck you guys are okay,” I shout as I slow Bean to a halt. During the chaos of the fight at the gate, I couldn’t afford to worry about Theo and Rhys. But seeing them mostly unharmed is a massive weight off my shoulders.
Theo gives me a wide smile. “Good to see you’re okay too, baby.” His smile dims and turns into concern when she sees the side of my face and the state of my clothes. “What the fuck happened to your face? Is any of that blood yours?”
Rhys is marching up to me in seconds. “Answer him, princess,” he demands, his amber eyes scanning over me as if trying to find more injuries.
“It’s, uh, a long story,” I say with a grimace as I shift in the saddle.
I justknowthat once they hear my idiotic plan to encourage the guards to shoot at me, they’re going to bepissed. “But long story short, a guard shot at me and it hit a nearby tree. Nothing to worry about.” Thank fuck it’s dark and they can’t see the bruising around my neck from being strangled.
Rhys practically growls at my explanation. “We’re discussing this later.” He shoots me a look that promises pain if I don’t obey before turning his attention to the surrounding chaos.
The camp looks like a bomb went off; blood, body parts, and corpses are strewn across the fields and concrete. Most of the guards are dead, leaving only zombies running around as more emerge from the forest. Although their numbers are rapidly dwindling thanks to the captives that joined our side.
Rhys shakes his head. “What the fuck did you do to causethis?”
“Uh, another long story, but it’s mostly thezombies’ fault.”
“Fucking hell,” Theo mutters with a groan. “We leave you with Alex for a few hours and you somehow create a war zone.” He looks annoyed, but I can see the amusement twinkling in his silver eyes.
Rhys sighs heavily and rakes a hand through his short brown hair. “I suppose this could have gone worse,” he says after a moment. “Alright, we need to finish the rest of the zombies before the cart comes in the morning.” He eyes my bow. “Keep doing what you’re doing, princess, while Theo and I meet up with Alex.”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I wheel Bean around, nudge her back into an easy canter and take out more targets with my arrows. Every now and again, I’ll look back and check on the guys before focusing back on my targets.
I don’t know how long it takes before the gunshots and screams finally stop. Bean is covered in thick, frothy sweat and I’m not much better. We’re both breathing hard and my arms feel like lead weights as I take out the final zombie. As it falls to the ground, I glance around to see that the only people standing now are the captives and the guys.
