A red fireball hit her chest, and Valarus’s body vanished in a burst of flame. We whipped our attention to MJ, a flaming orb highlighting her heavy gaze and a truth that squeezed my chest. MJ had given her mercy. She saved her from more pain.
A silent conversation passed between the three of us, then Aspen and I rose and joined the others. He swept his flames around our faces again, giving us clear visuals for a moment. He paused them near my mouth. It hurt. But it was worth it to breathe.
“Circle Aspen. Stay close. Our target is Ridigar. Be careful of the Dreads,” I ordered, keeping the pain from my voice. Not just from the flames, but from the wound in my side that had quieted. It should’ve concerned me. But what could be done? Nothing.
They had to be the reason we weren’t swarmed. That, and the fact that I doubted Ridigar’s infected minions could see through his smoke.
“And Aspen,” I said, meeting his serious, flaming gaze through the smoke, “don’t move from thecircle.”
He nodded.
We all took long, deep breaths. Then attacked.
MJ notched and released her flaming arrows. Someone hissed. Another cried out. Hellfire formed in my palms, and I hurled it. One struck a dark form gliding through the fog; the other went wide and disappeared. My gut churned at the possibility of hitting a Dread, but we had no choice.
Matt and Dusty rattled the earth, disrupting dark forms in the distance and burying others in holes. Blue orbs shot through the air around our heads, giving us air while piercing the swirling white haze and providing glimpses of the charging infected Damned.
Where the hell was Ridigar?
Zera and Ichi used their water and air to shift the thickest parts of the smoke. It didn’t disperse it, but it gave us a little more visibility of each other—and them. My Hellfire sank into charging infected without the fear of hitting our Dreads. Oliver stood near me, his green eyes flaming as he tasted everyone’s fear. He tracked something through the smoke.
Red flashed in my peripheral. We both twisted sharply to the side. I stumbled, my feet tingling. I released my Hellfire.
“MJ, shoot left!” Oliver barked before I said, “Right?—”
The word at the end of my tongue dropped off and stuck to the thick film coating my thoughts.
MJ released, luckily hearing Oliver’s directive before my mangled words.
What was wrong with me?
Slowly, I peered down at the wound on my side. The blood… it pulsed. It didn’t seep. It bled a deep, dark red, the kind of blood found within organs and other important tissues.
What really tipped me off that something was severely wrong was that the guardian bond’s claws had eased, like I’d nearly completed my servitude and could end the way I wanted.
A wet pop and thunk sounded. The smoke around us dissipated, giving back our air without the need for Aspen. MJ must’ve hit Ridigar. It should’ve relieved me. But then the smoke fully cleared.
Half of Ridigar’s minions dragged his unconscious body into aSpinewalker; the other half stayed and fought Ronen’s Dreads. And another infected stepped out. One without sleeves on his uniform and razor wire shooting from his hands, flying toward us.
Someone shouted. Actually, many people did. I should’ve moved. But all I could think about was how the blood beneath my feet couldn’t be all mine.
And where was Ronen?
I was leading my squad, and he was missing it.
Chapter
Forty-Two
Ronen
No. No. Just fucking no.
We luscelered to the barn, and Alexei whistled for his Hellcats. Their white-speckled forms blinked into existence at the back of the barn near the wide-open door. Alexei snapped his fingers—a gesture he’d picked up from me—and the cats eagerly ran to him. He harnessed them while my jaw ticked and my hands flexed. I paced across the mud, restraining my wings from bursting from my back.
“Faster!” I snapped.
But nothing would be fast enough. Her heart slowed. Her emotions were hazy, lacking their usual clarity and spark. Darkness oozed from me, a cloud of menace and desperation with no outlet.
