Page 21

I couldn't revel in my first upír kill, even if I was a little distracted from the lack of substance that consisted of more than just a low-calorie dessert.

Viggo needed me.

It was my job as a Sentinel-in-training to protect a Prince!

Before I could comprehend what I was doing, and as if my body had a mind of its own, I was already running up the stairs before I took a moment to appraise the threat and situation.

As I rounded the landing, I found Viggo fighting two Upír at once, and they had him pinned against the wall in the corner leading to the fourth floor.

There were so many training scenarios I had done at the Academy for just this type of situation.

So many times, I had done situational training of two or three-on-one scenarios, but none of them were coming to mind at the moment.

I couldn't remember, for the life of me, what I was supposed to do in this type of situation.

"Screw it," I said and ran as fast as I could, lowered my shoulder, and barreled into the closest Upír that was two heads taller than me.

"Ariadne, no!" Viggo yelled, reaching for us.

It could have been my imagination, but I think the Upír that Viggo was fighting with reached for us as well, trying to catch me.

That was concerning.

The force sent me and the upír I slammed into flipping over the handrail.

Inadvertently, I cried out as the concrete floor rushed towards us.

The fall was quick, four stories, gravity is a predetermined rate of fall unless you possess some type of magical ability that can alter it, which I didn't, but the fall seemed to have taken so much longer when you're fighting for your life.

The pale lips of the upír pulled up over his glistening fangs, and his flailing arms and legs tangled with mine, and for the longest second of my life, it was as if we were suddenly suspended in midair, and his black eyes were wide in surprise and reflected mine at me.

I could clearly see myself in his eyes, the mirrors they seemingly turned into, and the look on my face should have terrified me, but it didn't.

I was there but I wasn't.

It was like an out-of-body experience.

Something was pulling my soul protectively away from my body, my vessel, self-preservation was separating the two as I continued to scream.

It was most likely the surge of adrenaline and all the Jell-O I consumed that was reacting with whatever medications they had been pumping me full of, but something was wrong.

My long hair fluttered away from us and then stilled, I stopped screaming and my teeth clenched and my jaw was hard set, eyes narrowed and focused on the upír, and my right hand tightened on my makeshift stake.

My soul was slammed back into my body, and the force spun us around, maneuvering the snarling upír under me before everything seemingly resumed in real-time and we hit the bottom of the stairwell, and hard.

The force of the impact was jarring, and it felt as if my consciousness was being slammed back into my body when we collided with the unrelenting concrete.

My body landed on top of the upír, cushioning the fall for the most part, and the force slammed my makeshift stake deep into his chest where I wouldn't have been able to get it without the fall.

The upír cried out in protest before he jerked and convulsed under me, his clawed hands pulled down my back, ripping through my scrub top and flesh in the process, but I didn't cry out.

I fought back.

I pulled my stake out of his chest and slammed it into his face, over and over and over again, until he stopped moving...

Okay, I didn't stop assaulting him when he stopped moving, I kept stabbing the shit out of him until there was nothing but an unrecognizable lump of broken bones, a caved-in skull, smooshed brain, and ripped flesh and muscle in a black tactical suit and a huge puddle of darkened blood covering the bottom of the stairwell.

All of my anger, fear, frustration, desperation, and confusion exploded from my body.

My fist and stake were my only means to get the building raw energy out of my system before I completely lost it.

I had no idea how many died, if more upír were waiting to attack, or if Viggo and my friends were okay, of if my parents were really here or not, and if they were, are they okay?

I didn't know anything other than something was seriously wrong with me.

I vaguely heard the soft landing of whoever joined me; their scent was the only thing that kept me from attacking them next.

Strong warm arms wrapped around me and pulled me away from the now unrecognizable Upír.

Viggo carefully pulled me into his arms and carried me out of the stairwell towards the lobby and into the middle of a full regiment of Sentinels that made up the Imperial Guard.

"There were six in the stairwell," Viggo said, hurrying past them, cradling me to his chest, ignoring the blood staining his clothing from the gashes in my back.

We ran into Jolyn, Harper, and Slevin in the front reception area.

They were relieved to see me, and all appeared safe and in one piece.

That relief caused my stomach to flip.

"Put me down," I begged. "I'm going to be sick."

Viggo didn't question it; he put me down next to the garbage can and I violently threw up into it.

Slevin hurried over and held my hair back, not so discreetly inspecting the claw marks on my back and the wounds on my neck. "And to think that Harper is always teasing me about pissing rainbows and yet you're puking one up," he said.

"Shut up," I groaned. "It's blue, not rainbow. I only like blue Jell-O," I reminded him.

Leave it to Slevin to make a joke in the current situation.

"This will require some extensive healing," Slevin said, looking at the others. "Something more than I can do in the kitchen. Do we have a Healer capable of handling this kind of damage?" he asked.

"I'll be fine," I assured him, and the others before my knees gave out.

Slevin was barely able to catch me. "Yes, you'll be totally fine. Missing a few pints of blood and all. Jo, get over here."

Jolyn stood there looking dazed and in shock, her attention on my hand and the broken, blood-caked homemade stake in it.

I wanted to hug her, to assure her that everything was going to be okay, but I couldn't feel my body and I was losing a lot of blood.

Viggo rubbed his hands together. "Hold her up," he instructed.

Harper and Slevin hoisted me up, and I fought to keep from crying out in pain when he touched my back.

Yes, I was in worse shape than I realized.

Viggo shook his head. "Ariadne needs medical attention now!" he said. "They have to close the wounds to stop the bleeding otherwise it will be a full-blooded Necromancer you will need instead of a Healer."

Oh, that's not good.

I'm dying.

Awesome.

Slevin nodded then took off to find help.

"Can't you bloody do something?!" Harper demanded.

Viggo snarled. "Seventeen, remember?" he sneered through clenched teeth. "They are too deep. Every time they mend, they pull open again with each breath she takes. Seventeen, you need to remember that. Even a trip to a Healing Pool would require advanced medical attention first. Upír claws and fangs are toxic if their venom gets into the bloodstream. There is no spidering suggesting such has occurred, I do not smell it in her blood, but the wounds are deeper than your wizard's potions can reach and deeper than I can touch."

"I'm fine," I assured them, my words slurred.

"Stubborn girl," they said in unison before glaring at each other.

Of course, that would be the only thing they would agree on.