Page 107 of A Hunt Bound in Blood

Energy sparked in the air, crept under my skin, invigorated muscles I’d believed too fatigued to move again. The mutts, driven by their animal instincts, tensed. Some whined, some cowered, some tried to flee but couldn’t, trapped by the sheer, wild number of them. Donal’s expression filled with alarm, and he held his hands at his sides to keep his balance as a tremor rumbled through the earth.

It was subtle at first, but quickly grew more intense, more erratic. Still on my knee, I curled my claws into the dirt to hold myself steady, while the mutts were tossed around, some trampled by those caging them, others tumbling into newly formed fissures as the ground opened. Something wet splashed across my cheek, and I looked up to find the rain had begun, evolving from droplets to a deluge so quickly I could have believed the sky had split apart. It fell so hard and so fast I could barely make out anything within a few metres of me.

But something compelled me to look towards the rock wall where I’d left Glory. Using my wings to guard my back, I found my feet to stand on trembling legs and squinted through the rain.

When the next bolt of lightning forked across the sky, I spotted her on top of the wall, magic limning her beautiful form where she stood with her hands wide at her sides. I felt her stare on me, knew the moment it left me and slid to the mutts. To Donal.

And then she wasn’t standing but levitating. Her hair, so often tamed in its tight, controlled bun, flew around her head, the weather shifting with her as she rose higher. She and nature readying their rebellion.

“What in the hells is that?” Donal demanded.

My lips pulled back in a feral smile. “A goddess.”

She was risking everything by coming back. Her life. Her country. My life if she lost control. Yet in this moment, I found I didn’t much care. My love for her poured through me as thickly as the falling rain, and the unfamiliar emotion spurred my heart like a second wind. It was magic itself. An untapped and untested strain of power that I refused to waste.

A bolt of lightning cut through the mutts, sending corpses, Donal, and mud flying into the horde. The shock was enough to remind my enemies why they were here, and as one, they turned towards me.

I bared my teeth and rose to my full height. I would not succumb under Glory’s furious gaze. If she was going to watch me fall, she would watch me fight first.

With another cry, I threw myself at Donal. In the distraction of Glory’s arrival, he didn’t notice me until it was too late, and I bore him to the ground with my claws deep in his neck.

“Don’t worry, brother,” I spat, covering his face in blood and spittle. “You won’t be alone in the hells for long. I’ll make sure Leto and Sabina join you soon.”

His eyes widened, but it was the only reaction he had time for before I tore his spine out through his throat.

Glory

LI

I hovered over the wall, watching the battle before me. Hardly a battle at all. A massacre. What should have been an easy win for the mutts had turned into a slaughter of their kind.

And in the centre of them was Cammon.

I’d found him on his knees, staring up at what looked like another demon, ready to accept his death. The sight had crushed whatever barriers had remained around my magic. My power crashed through me like the waves that slammed across the promontory and the ship, cresting higher, rolling in white-capped bursts across more and more land where the mutts had gathered.

Cammon tore the demon down and threw himself at the mutts. The earth rocked beneath them, sending him off balance again, but he caught himself and continued his fight while the mutts scrambled to keep up. Trees toppled. The rain came down in such a thick, heavy torrent that I barely made out the ship as it drifted away from the harbour and headed farther out to sea. The crew’s mages were hard at work protecting the vessel, being no stranger to magical storms, but they were leaving us behind, and I knew they wouldn’t be back. As far as they were concerned, our mission had failed.

I accepted it. Consumed as I was by magic and rage, I experienced no guilt that I had chosen the man I loved over my country. Over whatever future Evaniel had promised me. Because my future was right here, whatever came next.

Rain pelted my face, wind grabbed my hair and clothes, but I didn’t feel any of it. With my gaze fixed on Cammon, I floated over the army, bringing with me every last drop of fury against those who’d set out to hurt him. My power churned within me, as intense as the storm, and I embraced it for the first time in my life, aware of how much damage I could do and wanting to inflict it.

I sank my magic into the earth and tapped into the natural currents of the world, throwing the energy off balance. As I did, another tremor rocked the ground. I had no idea what I was doing, but that didn’t stop me. My magic had taken control; I was simply its medium. I grabbed hold of the raging wind and sent it spiralling towards the mutts on the outskirts of the battle, farthest from the coast. Some of them retreated into the forest, thinking the trees would save them, but I sent my magic into the roots and raised them from the earth to trip the mutts and bind their legs in place. The trees responded easily, as if used to shifting, and I acknowledged the stories, grateful the ancient sentinels chose to fight with me. There would be no mercy. Not for those who had hounded us across the country determined to destroy us.

Closer to the sea, the waves came harder, faster, foam-capped surges catching the outliers and sweeping them into the water.

Space opened around Cammon, and I landed behind him, my back to his. Mud squelched under my feet, the rising rainwater pooling at my ankles. Cammon’s poor, damaged wings hung loosely against his spine, and the golden notes of his skin were hidden under a thick layer of blood, which dripped black in the darkness. I smelled enough of it to know he was badly wounded, and as he continued to fight, his steps grew slower, more halting.

I bared my fangs and drew on my vampirism as much as my magic, winding the two together in a way I never had. The wind lifted me off the ground, allowing me to barrel into our enemies from above, and with tooth and talon, I sliced through one after another.

Sending my power deep into the world around me, I forced the trees closest to the water to move out of the way, shifted the dirt to create pathways towards us, and channelled the sea over the steep shores. The approaching roar warned the mutts of what I’d done, and they screeched and bellowed and howled with terror as the water swept around us and over them, washing them away with tree, brush, corpse.

I was destruction.

I was terror.

Cammon stumbled again, leaving him open to a coyote mutt that rose on canine legs. It punched him with one human hand and slashed across his chest with the claws on the other. I leapt over Cammon’s falling body and ripped out the coyote’s throat. Its tainted blood sprayed across my face.

I whirled around to face the next… to find none.