Page 284

A demon surged from around a corner, taloned fingers gouging lines into the cobblestones. The rifle bit into her shoulder as she fired. The demon was still falling, sliding across the ground, when she angled the rifle and fired again. Another demon went down.

Four bullets left.

Behind her, humans screamed orders. Hurry! Into the shelter! Drop the bag and run!

Bryce fired at a demon soaring across the intersection, right for the shelter. The demon went down twenty feet from the entrance. The humans finished it off.

Inside the shelter’s open mouth, children shrieked, babies wailed.

Bryce fired again. Again. Again.

Another demon barreled around the corner, sprinting for her. The trigger clicked.

Out. Done. Empty.

The demon leapt, jaws opening wide to reveal twin rows of dagger-sharp teeth. Aiming for her throat. Bryce barely had time to lift the rifle and wedge it between those gaping jaws. Metal and wood groaned, and the world tilted with the impact.

She and the demon slammed into the cobblestones, her bones barking in pain. The demon clamped down on the rifle. It snapped in two.

Bryce managed to hurl herself backward from under the demon as it spat out the pieces of the rifle. Maw leaking saliva on the bloodied streets, it advanced on her. Seemed to savor each step.

With her sheathed sword pinned beneath her, Bryce reached for the knife at her thigh. As if it would do anything, as if it would stop this—

The demon sank onto its haunches, readying for the kill.

The ground shook behind her as Bryce angled her wrist, blade tilting upward—

A sword plunged through the demon’s gray head.

A massive sword, at least four feet long, borne by a towering, armored male figure. Blue lights glowed along the blade. More glared along sleek black body armor and a matching helmet. And across the male’s chest, an emblem of a striking cobra glowed.

One of the Viper Queen’s Fae bodyguards.

Six others raced past him, the cobblestones shaking beneath their feet, guns and swords drawn. No venom-addled stupor to be seen. Just lethal precision.

And with the Viper Queen’s Fae guards, wolves and foxes and canines of every breed flowed by, launching into the fray.

Bryce scrambled to her feet, nodding to the warrior who’d saved her. The Fae male only whirled, his metal-encased hands grabbing a demon by the shoulders and wrenching it apart with a mighty yell. He tore the demon in two.

But more of Hel’s worst thundered and soared for them. So Bryce freed Danika’s sword again from across her back.

She willed strength to her arm, bracing her feet as another demon galloped down the street for her. Canine shifters engaged demons all around, forming a barrier of fur and teeth and claws between the oncoming horde and the shelter behind them.

Bryce feinted left, swiping her sword up as the demon fell for her fake-out. But the blade didn’t break through bone and to the soft, vulnerable organs beneath. The creature roared, pivoting, and lunged again. She gritted her teeth, and lifted her sword in challenge, the demon too frenzied to notice that she’d let herself become the distraction.

While the massive gray wolf attacked from behind.

Ithan ripped into the demon in an explosion of teeth and claws, so fast and brutal it momentarily stunned her. She’d forgotten how enormous he was in this form—all the shifters were at least three times the size of normal animals, but Ithan had always been larger. Exactly like his brother.

Ithan spat out the demon’s throat and shifted, wolf becoming a tall male in a flash of light. Blood coated his navy T-shirt and jeans as much as it did her own clothes, but before they could speak, his brown eyes flared with alarm. Bryce twisted, met by the rancid breath of a demon as it dive-bombed her.

She ducked and thrust the sword upward, the demon’s shriek nearly bursting her ears as she let the beast drag its belly down the blade. Gutting it.

Gore splattered her sneakers, her torn leggings, but she made sure the demon’s head was rolling before whirling to Ithan. Just as he drew a sword from a sheath on his back and split another demon apart.

Their stares held, and all the words she’d needed to say hung there. She saw them in his eyes, too, as he realized whose jacket and sword she bore.

But she offered a grim smile. Later. If they somehow survived this, if they could last another few minutes and get into the shelter … They’d speak then.