Page 8

Chapter 7

MONSTERS, MAYHEM, AND EYE CANDY

T he beast’s roar was a physical vibration that shook the air. Its thighs bunched, ready to pounce, but a bloodcurdling battle cry drew its attention from us. It turned toward the sound, toward Umbra running at it, hair flying like a dark flag behind her.

Spectral forms erupted from the tip of her staff and clashed with the beast, rolling over its body and clawing at it. Silver sparks of power spat at the air, and the creature screamed.

Ghosts.

Ghosts were attacking the beast.

“Run!” Umbra yelled at us.

She was small. So fucking small, and that thing was?—

“Leela!” Dharma grabbed my hand, and we ran for the carriage. She flung the door open, and we ushered everyone in while Umbra kept the thing busy.

“Hurry!” Dharma shoved me toward the door, but movement to my right caught my eye.

Another monster was coming at us.

My instinct should have been to throw myself into the carriage, but instead I shoved Dharma inside and slammed the door.

The air pricked my skin as a ripple passed over the structure.

Someone screamed my name, jolting me to my senses.

Wait, what the fuck was I do?—

The thing grabbed me by the waist and shook me so hard my teeth rattled, clamping down on my tongue hard enough for me to taste blood.

The shaking stopped, but it took a moment for my eyes to focus on its horrific face, too close to mine. Its putrid, hot breath filled my nostrils.

It inhaled me, then reared back and screeched in my face. The shock of rancid breath threw my hair back and made my face ripple, and oh god I could see down its throat, past its rows of piranha teeth to the vibrating uvula between the flaps of pulsating flesh on either side of it.

It was going to eat me.

I was about to die.

Every iota of my being revolted at that idea. I could not, would not die here like this. Nani had given her life to protect me. I wouldn’t let it be in vain. The certainty was a flood of heat shooting through my body and rushing down my arms. A red haze of wrath dug claws into my mind.

“NO!” my voice boomed—a shockwave of its own that shook me free of the beast and sent me flying off the road and into the treeline.

I hit the ground on my ass, jarring my tailbone hard enough to knock me out of my sudden rage and replace the heat in my limbs with ice.

The creature advanced on me with purpose.

“Leave her alone!” Dharma, out of the carriage now, rushed at the beast, hitting it with a cane.

I couldn’t move because my muscles were locked in pain. Oh shit. Oh, fucking shit.

The creature backhanded Dharma and continued toward me.

She hit the ground by the carriage and didn’t get back up.

“Dharma!” I tried to drag myself to my feet, but pain shot down my leg and up my back, pulling me to the ground. “Help her!”

Remi and Priti dropped out of the carriage to help Dharma, but there would be no assistance for me. We were overrun, and everyone was battling to survive.

I was on my own.

I faced the beast, an eerie calm settling over me as it leaned in and wrapped its hand around my neck .

Its throat vibrated in a clicking sound that my primal instincts recognized as the precursor to attack.

My bowels grew liquid, but I lifted my chin and forced out my final words. “I hope I give you chronic diarrhea, you bastard.”

Its mouth yawned wide, and I closed my eyes, waiting for the bite of agony.

Thunder filled my head, and the sharp scent of ozone stung my nose.

Whoosh. Thunk.

The grip on my throat fell away, and my eyes snapped open to a blood-oozing stump where the creature’s head had been a moment ago. Beyond that stood a male with eyes like fire and a face that was so beautiful it sent my stuttering heart into a gallop, even though he was looking at me like he wanted to kill me.

The beast’s body disintegrated into ash, leaving me to stare up at the monolith who’d just saved me from getting my head bitten off.

He was huge, almost the same height as the creature, his body a mass of muscle and power, encased in black and silver fabric that molded to his frame. And he was glaring at me as if I was shit on his shoe.

“Get to the carriage, aadha rakht .” He growled out the words, deep and resonant like thunder, rising over the cacophony of chaos around us. “Now!” The command was like the strike of lightning, forcing me to my feet.

Electric pain shot up my thigh and clamped itself on my hip. My leg buckled, but I was saved from hitting the ground by his arm around my waist.

“ Laanat hai .” He bit out the words that sounded like a curse, carrying me like I weighed nothing, his sword arm free, his grip steel and security. I clung to him as the ground rushed by beneath my boots.

Fuck, he was as hard as stone. A beast in human skin.

The world grew darker, not just the setting sun, but frothy angry storm clouds hanging low.

Another rumble of thunder, this time right over our heads, and more large males like this one, dressed in black and silver, danced around us, fighting the beasts with swords that gleamed with ethereal fire.

We reached the carriage, and Dharma flung the door open, wide-eyed as she reached for me.

My savior practically threw me inside, then barked, “Stay!” His topaz eyes blazed with command, slitted pupils flaring.

All I could do was stare at his angry face and at the dark tresses laced with golden strands that had escaped from the knot of hair on his head to lovingly brush his high cheekbones and drift across the strange markings on his temple.

I leaned toward him, driven by some weird instinct that I didn’t understand. “Thanks for saving me.”

His top lip lifted as if he’d smelled something bad. “It is my duty,” he sneered, making it clear that if he’d had a choice, he’d have let me get my head chewed off .

He slammed the door and ran into the fray, sword already mid swing at the perfect angle to take the head off the beast attacking Umbra.

The heavens opened with a boom, weeping in sheets that drowned out the sounds of battle, so it looked like it was happening on mute.

Growly dude was instantly soaked, his dark hair plastered to his perfectly shaped head, droplets flying off his sword in a pretty arc as he spun on his toes, slicing at a beast to eviscerate it.

He was much too agile and light on his feet for someone so inhumanly large.

Inhuman.

Yeah, that’s what he was. But what was he?

The other women crowded around me, all eager to see out of the window.

“What are those monsters?” Remi asked.

“Who are the sexy guys killing them?” one of the women from Lomis’s ship said.

But I was entranced by my savior. He moved like silk and struck like steel, cleaving the beasts’ heads from their bodies and turning them into ash. Droplets of water danced around his feet like eager companions, and fire flickered in his topaz eyes.

Power.

Raw fucking power.

The goosebumps nettling my arms had nothing to do with the chill .

“You almost died,” Dharma said softly. “That could have been me.”

I tore my attention from the fight to find her staring at me with misty eyes.

“You saved my life.” She pulled me into a tight hug, and guilt sprouted roots in my chest, because even though I’d saved her, I hadn’t done so intentionally.

I’d acted on a twisted instinct that had almost killed me.

“Leela, how did you do that thing?” Priti asked in a small voice.

I pulled away from Dharma. “What thing?”

“When it had you by the throat, you said no , but your voice…the power in it. It let you go.”

The carriage was suddenly deathly silent. “I…I don’t know.” Because it hadn’t let me go. I’d somehow forced it away from me.

Maybe there was magic in my blood after all. Maybe it was only now awakening. And if that was the case, then maybe I wasn’t helpless. Something monstrous had killed my grandmother. Something I now had no doubt was from this fucked-up world. And even though I had a kazillion questions about this whole situation, there was one thing I was certain of.

I was going to find the thing that murdered Nani and murder it right back.