Page 51

Alexiares

“ I ’m not one to speak on the cruelty of methods,” I said, pulling us down to the ground in order to avoid an out of control burst of fire that was bound to weaken our shield. “But releasing Pansies at a time like this is a bit excessive, no?”

“Those aren’t mine.” Her eyes shifted with trained efficiency. Fear had been replaced by raw fury.

I cleared my throat, shuffling us toward higher ground. “Pardon.”

“Where the fuck would I get Covert Uniforms from, Alexiares?”

I glanced toward her with the jerk of my head. The realization of her statement overshadowed her annoying habit of using sarcasm to communicate when all she needed to do was explain what the— Never mind. Now’s not the time. “Fuck.”

“Fuck is right.” She dropped our shield with an exaggerated sigh, like this entire nightmare was a personal inconvenience—which, I supposed it was. “Pros and cons … Pro, this is extremely realistic to what we’re likely to face. Con, I promised them no one would die unless it was a tragic accident.”

I snorted despite the gore-feast happening around us. “Is this an ‘act of God’ insurance claim type of qualification for an accident or …”

She glared at me, magic simmering in the cusp of one hand, her knife in the other.

I gestured toward the carnage behind her. “I see at least ten dead bodies, and I’m being generous with the math.”

The perimeter had collapsed. If the Pansies were swarming us, our units on the edges of Royal Oaks were either dead, incapacitated, or regretting every life choice that got them here.

“They’ll have my head for this,” she said, already moving.

“I dare them to try.” I followed, knife ready, because if this was how the day was going, I wasn’t about to let her take all the glory—or the blame.

The Pansies poured in—fast, jagged, monstrous. Their twisted bodies jerked unnaturally. Earsplitting sounds of joints cracking sent a chill down my spine as they moved with a speed that defied logic. They weren’t human anymore. Not even fucking close. Which made things worse, because they were smart . They organized themselves. The strong lead their attack, breaking through our lines, testing weak points.

Amaia didn’t hesitate. Her knife was a blur of movement, her wrathful red-hot fire burned through the swarm with ruthless precision. I kept pace, blades cutting through the closest threats. It was an exhaustive effort with us all spread out. Every one we took down, five more clawed their way forward.

“This isn’t a drill! Move your ass or you’re all dead!” I shouted over the chaos, slashing through a Pansie’s chest. Its ribcage splintered under my blade, its insides spilled out with an oddly satisfying stench of the finality of death.

Amaia echoed the warning. Her voice was sharp, slicing through the panic. Soldiers scrambled to regroup. They rallied around her, using her as their goddamn North Star, but without the lethal weapons they were accustomed to arming themselves with in the face of Pansies, it was a losing effort.

Steamfire. I caught her eye in a brief moment of still between stabbing. The unspoken solution hung between us. Her hesitation mirrored in my own movements. We’d been saving it, building up our power together in order to create a brutally deadly force, conserving every drop for the real war. But this? Fuck it. It wouldn’t matter if we never made it out of this. This , it was close enough.

“Use it carefully,” she said, her voice tight.

“Sparingly.”

We joined hands, her calloused thumb brushing over the space where our bodies connected. I love you too . The words remained unsaid, but innately, so deeply understood. Flames roared from our hands, cutting a blazing, blinding blue path through the swarm. The Pansies screeched, their bodies bursting into ash, but the relief was temporary. They just kept coming.

Wave.

After wave.

After wave.

We kept at it. Every single soldier on the battlefield worked as a unit until the ground was littered with the remnants of Pansies twisted forms. The swarm thinned as the battlefield settled into an uneasy rhythm of stale victory.

The wreckage was staggering. They would hang Amaia for this. It would not be her fault, yet she would still burn. Blood soaked the earth. Human, not Pansie. Bodies heaped in unnatural angles, and the acrid stench of mortality clung to the air. My muscles burned, every gasp of air a struggle. Through the haze of exhaustion, a scream tore through the eerie quiet. Raw. Piercing.

“Reina.”

I didn’t think, just ran. The ground was slick with gore. I found her in a clearing, pinned beneath a Pansie, its teeth buried deep in her calf. Blood gushed in sickening pulses.

My blade sliced, carving a clean path through its neck up into its brain. Its jaws snapped one final time as it hit the ground.

Reina sat crumpled, pale as death, her hands clamped over her calf as blood seeped through her fingers in rhythmic pulses. “I’m fine,” she hissed.

“Right. Because fine usually comes with arterial spray.” I crouched down and ripped a strip from my shirt and wrapped it around her leg, yanking it tight.

“Aw,” she chuckled weakly, eyes rolling to the back of her head. “Ya actually listen to me when I try to teach you things. How sweet. I’m fine. Just get my healing herbs from my pack. I’m low on magic.”

“Shut up, press your hand to stall for a minute. Where’s Hunter?”

Before she could respond, I hauled her into my arms. She was dead weight. My gaze swept the battlefield, still a writhing mess. Her fight was not over. Not today.

Reina pointed weakly toward a partially collapsed building at the edge of the chaos. Through the haze of smoke and carnage, I spotted Hunter, dragging the wounded toward the makeshift shelter. Amaia sprinted toward us. Her fury was palpable, her movements sharp and violent as she carved a path through the remnants of the herd.

“What happened?” she snapped.

“What do you think happened?” I bit back, hoisting Reina higher in my arms. Her blood was soaked through my shirt, warm and sticky, and her breathing was shallow. It was an effort to keep myself calm—Reina usually did that for me.

Amaia spared a glance at Reina’s mangled calf, her muscles tensing. “Keep behind me.”

I followed, staying close as she cleared the path ahead. Hunter was already rushing toward us as we reached the building, his face having aged ten years in the last few minutes.

“Reina …” His voice cracked as he took her from me. “I’ve got her.”

Amaia’s eyes flicked to mine, rage bleeding into every movement. I pulled my knife back free, the weight familiar in my hand, and nodded.

“Let’s end this.”

We didn’t fight like a storm—we fought like predators. Every move was calculated to kill. No wasted effort. By the time the last Pansie fell, the battlefield was an open graveyard, thick with ash and blood. Grabbing injured soldiers, we dragged them toward the triage area without a word.

Inside, it was a hellscape of its own. Healers scrambled, their hands slick with blood, trying to hold lives together with spit, grit and magic. Surgeries were happening in dim corners, the screams raw enough to scrape nerves. No anesthetic. No respite—only survival.

Amaia rushed to Reina’s side. Tomoe was already there. Her tawny hands shook as she tried to channel. She resembled someone who’d been dragged through a war zone—and she had.

“I … I can’t see. I can’t see ,” Moe muttered through clenched teeth. “I need time to recharge.”

Another Seer at the bedside across the aisle shook their head, just as battered. “We barely had enough strength to warn them in time?—”

Tomoe shot them a glare. “Doesn’t matter. We did all that we could.”

Hunter stumbled over, his face lined with exhaustion but holding steady.

“Serenity? Caleb?” Amaia asked, sharp and direct.

“They’re fine,” he said, his voice ragged but firm. “Out gathering supplies. Painkillers, herbs—whatever’s left out there. They’ll be back soon.”

For half a second, it seemed like the worst had passed.

The soldier across the room convulsed, foam frothing at his lips, his back arching unnaturally.

“Seizing!” a clearly battered combat medic yelled.

Hunter was already moving, but before he reached the first, another soldier stumbled off the table now turned cot. Then another. They fell like dominos.

“If I have to say what the fuck one more time today …” I growled. My grip tightened on my blade, ready for whatever fresh hell was about to hit us.

My heart pounded in my skull as my eyes locked with Amaia’s. The dread in hers mirrored what was clawing at my chest. She glanced at Reina’s leg, then up to her face, pale and barely conscious, before flicking her gaze back to me.

“Shit,” she hissed.

“If you two could clue me in to what the hell is happening right now, that would be great.”

“Pansies,” I answered Tomoe.

That single word was enough. Moe’s hand instinctively went to Wrath. Time slowed. Across the room, Hunter froze mid-step, his eyes widening in realization.

People around us were already panicking, and they didn’t even understand just how fucked we were. The ripple of fear spread faster than the seizures.

Amaia didn’t hesitate. “If they’re stable and not bit, get them behind closed doors. Barricade yourselves in and don’t you dare open them without my command.”

The screams from inside that room would haunt any survivors forever. One by one, soldiers fell as they turned—cut down by General Clayton Harper, Hunter, Tomoe, Amaia, and me. Without pause. No hesitation.

Each kill was clean, but that didn’t make it any easier. These were our people once—soldiers, comrades, humans. Now they were nothing more than husks driven by the infection, their eyes vacant, their bodies moving on instinct. Finley had warned us all, yet we had remained woefully unprepared.

The silence was suffocating when the last one dropped. Blood soaked the floor, pooling around our boots as the weight of what we’d done pressed down like lead.

Amaia’s voice cut through the oppressive quiet. “Have the medics check for anyone else bitten, keep an eye on them all, even the ones that show no sign of turning. As for these two”—She pointed toward a pair of turned soldiers previously strapped down for amputation, one from Monterey and the other from Duluth, their bodies twitching faintly as the infection worked through them—”We need … data, even if they can’t give it willingly.”

General Bennett didn’t flinch, didn’t falter. That was her strength.

With all that I’d seen since arriving at their gates, our people wouldn’t question the call—they knew it wasn’t malice. It was war. Brutal, unrelenting, where hesitation got you killed and mercy was a luxury none of us could afford. They didn’t need reminding of that. Didn’t need a speech about the weight of their choices. They already knew the score.

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and I turned toward Reina. She was awake now, her storm blue eyes wide with fear.

“Am I gonna die?” Reina asked, the fear widening her eyes, lips trembling.

I held her stare and reached for her hand. Her fear was palpable. Reina and I had come to understand one another. I’d never let her know, but she was kind of my favorite. An annoying little sister of sorts. I couldn’t lie to her, not with the gifts she possessed. I wouldn’t even if I could. “I hope not.”

Reina searched my face for something she knew was there—from what she understood of my past. All she wanted at this moment was a promise I couldn’t make out loud: if she turned, I’d be the one to end it. Not her brother. Not Tomoe. Not ever Amaia. I nodded slowly in agreement.