Page 47 of Dark Shaman: Love Found (The Children Of The Gods #99)

NAVUH

A s the alarm pierced through the war room, Navuh's head snapped up from the tactical display, his eyes immediately finding the monitor that showed the perimeter. What he saw there made his blood turn to ice and then boil.

How dare they?

"Breach!" Hakum called, though it was unnecessary.

They could all see it.

A team of eight enhanced soldiers had punched through the defensive line.

Bodies littered the ground in their wake, some still twitching, others motionless, but hopefully, the soldiers would resurrect soon.

The enhanced ones didn't stop to finish the job and remove the heart or the head, so most of the immortal warriors would heal from their injuries.

Those who had sustained more serious wounds might enter stasis, but they were also salvageable .

The intent was obvious. The enhanced and their cohorts were not interested in killing off their brethren. They were interested in Navuh.

He watched their trajectory on the monitors, calculating angles and distances with the part of his mind that always remained coldly analytical even in crisis.

"They know where I am," he said. "They want me."

Their compeller had probably gotten the information about the bunker and its entrance from one of the commanders who had seen it during military exercises.

"How did they get through?" Tharon asked, pulling up footage from the past few minutes and rewinding it. "We had three defensive rings?—"

They all leaned in as the scene played out. The enhanced soldiers had approached from the east, using the smoke from the burning buildings as cover. When they reached the first defensive position, one of them had stepped forward with his hands raised as if in surrender.

"Should I play the audio?" Tharon asked.

"No," Navuh barked. "That's the compeller. You don't want to be within hearing range."

It didn't matter what he had told the defending soldiers. It wasn't about convincing them that he was their savior and Navuh was their oppressor. All that mattered was the special resonance in his voice.

The defending soldiers had hesitated for a brief moment, but then some of them lowered their weapons and stepped aside. Those who resisted were cut down by their brothers.

"My lord," Hakum said, "they've reached the inner courtyard. The elite guard is moving to intercept."

Twenty of his best warriors, men who'd served him for centuries, who'd proven their loyalty through countless battles. If anyone could resist the compeller, it would be them.

"Put it on the main screen," he ordered.

The massive monitor flickered to life, showing the mansion's rear courtyard in crystal clarity.

His elite guard had taken defensive positions behind concrete barriers and ornamental sculptures that now served as cover.

Their weapons were trained on the approaching enhanced soldiers, who emerged from the breach in the wall.

The courtyard erupted in gunfire. Bullets tore through the air, striking the enhanced soldiers with enough force to make them stagger. Navuh saw blood spray, saw them jerk with the impacts. But they kept coming.

One enhanced soldier took three shots to the chest, blood soaking through his uniform. He stumbled, fell to one knee, then pushed himself back up and continued forward, moving faster now, as if the pain had only made him angry.

The enhanced soldiers were fast and moved in an unpredictable manner. They zigzagged across the courtyard, using fallen bodies and debris as springboards. One of them leaped an impossible distance, landing among the defenders and grabbing a guard by the throat .

The guard fired point-blank into the enhanced soldier's chest. Blood and worse splattered across the courtyard stones, but the enhanced one didn't let go. With a casual motion, he snapped the guard's neck and tossed the body aside like a broken doll.

It would have been glorious if they had been fighting for him rather than against him.

"Monsters," Hakum murmured. "Zhao created monsters."

Navuh had to agree, but he wouldn't have minded having an army of monsters if he could control them.

The battle in the courtyard had devolved into brutal close combat.

His elite guards were skilled and experienced, but they were fighting males who seemed to feel no pain and no fear.

An enhanced soldier took a knife to the kidney and responded by tearing his attacker's arm off at the shoulder.

Another had half his face blown away by a shotgun blast at close range, but continued fighting with his remaining eye, his movements just as coordinated as before.

"They're healing," Tharon said, pointing at the screen. "Look at their healing rate."

He was right. The wound of the one who'd been shot in the stomach was already closing, fast enough to see. Blood still flowed, but less with each passing second.

All immortals healed fast, but this was on another level, especially for that type of wound.

"Zhao didn't just make them stronger." Navuh was awed. "He made them more resilient, too. They are magnificent. Why did the idiot have to kill himself? We could have improved the design, made them easier to control."

Hakum regarded him with horrified eyes but said nothing.

Obviously he wasn't right for the job, and Navuh made a mental note to replace him after this was over.

On the screen, Karon, one of Navuh's oldest and most trusted guards, was locked in combat with two enhanced soldiers.

He moved with the fluid grace of centuries of training, his blade singing through the air.

He managed to hamstring one attacker, sending him to his knees, but the other caught his sword arm and crushed it with casual strength.

Karon screamed but didn't drop his blade, transferring it to his other hand. The enhanced soldier seemed almost amused, allowing the transfer before backhanding Karon with enough force to send him flying across the courtyard. Karon hit the wall with a wet crack and didn't get up.

"They're toying with the elite guard," Navuh realized. "They could have killed them all by now, but they are making a point."

"What point?" Hakum asked.

"That the old order is dead." The compeller had stopped fighting entirely. He stood in the center of the carnage, watching his brothers tear through Navuh's elite guard with obvious satisfaction.

"My lord," Vakon said, "should we seal the bunker? "

"No." Sealing the bunker would trap him and turn this room into a tomb.

He had a better plan, but for it to work, he needed the compeller to take the bait.