Page 27

Marinah

Chills raced down my spine as the sound of scraping claws grew louder. It wasn’t just a few hellhounds. It was a horde and they had us trapped.

“We’re heading toward where they’re holding Labyrinth!” King shouted. “Form a chain. Marinah and I can see in the dark.”

King moved past us. He placed Mila’s hand firmly against his side until she clenched one of the leather straps. Skylar was next, her hand going to Mila’s shoulder, followed by Landan, who adjusted the dead weight he was holding so Harris’ body brushed against Skylar.

“Landan, stay close to Skylar,” I instructed. “She’s following Mila, who’s holding onto King. Don’t lose contact.” I ignored Ms. Beast’s grumble at a woman touching King.

King picked up his pace, charging ahead. I brought up the rear.

The attack was coming from both sides, and this was the best way to protect the others.

Suddenly, King peeled Mila’s hand from the strap and burst into a full sprint. He tackled the first hellhound that came out of the shadows.

“Get them through, Marinah!” he bellowed, his claws ripping into a hound’s throat.

“Not on your life,” I shot back. “Landan, when you hear hellhounds coming from behind us, yell.”

The hallway was too damn tight. The walls closed in like a vise, barely enough space for King and me to maneuver. Our massive forms didn’t give us the advantage here.

Another snarl echoed ahead, followed by more claws scraping stone. Their glowing eyes pierced the dark, moving low to the ground, their bodies sleek and oily black. Their breath was thick with rot, and their fangs dripped with poisonous venom we had to avoid.

The first lunged.

I twisted, feeling the scrape of stone on my back, and slashed out with my claws. My strike landed, raking deep across its shoulder, but the hound barely flinched. It snapped at my throat, and I ducked, driving my knee into its ribs.

The narrow space forced us into brutal, close quarters combat with no room for retreat and no space to breathe.

King was a force of destruction beside me, his claws flashing in my peripheral vision. He caught one of the hellhounds mid-leap, twisting its body violently and sent it crashing into the wall. Before it recovered, his massive jaws clamped around its throat.

A sickening crunch, but it wasn’t dead. Decapitation was the only way. The hellhound thrashed, claws groping for King, then another slammed into him from behind. He staggered, growling, barely keeping his balance in the cramped space.

My attention on King allowed claws to rake my side, sinking into flesh before I could pull away. Pain ignited like fire, burning into my veins. I snarled and ripped free, leaving skin behind. The wound sizzled, the heat spreading from the wound, but I didn’t have time to deal with it.

The beast came at me again.

I pivoted, slammed its head against the stone wall with a sickening thud, and drove my claws into the back of its neck.

My muscles bunched as I twisted.

The resistance lasted for a heartbeat, then snap, the head came free, black ichor spraying across the walls.

One more down.

King had another by the throat, his jaws locked in a death grip as he wrenched his head violently to the side. A wet pop, and another head tumbled to the floor.

Two down.

More moved toward us in the darkness. My arm throbbed, the wound burning hotter, but I ignored it. I bared my fangs, my claws flexing.

The fight wasn’t over.

And neither were we.

King swung his claws and decapitated the hellhound in his grip. “I’m in charge,” he grunted, “and that means you do as I say.”

I slashed at the nearest hellhound, slicing deep into its neck. Its head flew through the air and thudded against the wall, spraying more blood across my face.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You really think you’re in charge?” I called out sassily.

The head of King’s latest kill sailed past me. Blood sprayed across his chest as he spun to face the next one.

“Any bites, baby?” I yelled, slicing through another hellhound that lunged at me. I’d been on my best behavior for far too long and both me and Ms. Beast needed this bloodshed.

“If you get so much as a nick,” he roared back, “I’ll tan your hide!”

We held the line.

There was no way he could have faced this alone.

I grabbed the next hellhound by the leg and swung it into the one charging behind it.

They collided midair, limbs tangling as they skidded across the cement floor. For a brief moment, they floundered against each other, snarling and snapping, before untangling and charging again.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw King take down another.

“They’re coming from this way!” Landan yelled from behind us.

King leapt over me, his massive form a blur, and took out the hellhound I’d been fighting.

“Not fair!” I shouted.

The last hound came in low, its jaws snapping, teeth dripping with foul saliva.

“Sorry, buddy, I don’t have time to play.”

I mirrored King’s earlier move, vaulting over the creature to slash its throat. I severed its head cleanly with one strike. More blood rained down.

I turned and sprinted toward the others. Skylar was on the floor, one hand pressed against Harris’s chest, the other clutching his fingers as if her grip alone would keep him tethered to life. She cried softly in the darkness, and my stomach twisted as I tuned my ears to Harris, trying to hear around the infernal humming.

He wasn’t breathing.

Skylar knew it too. Her tears told me everything.

“Come on, Skylar. He wanted you to live,” I said gently, taking her hand in mine.

“No, we can’t leave him,” she choked out, her voice breaking.

“We won’t,” I promised.

I scooped Harris into my arms and nodded to King, who placed Landan’s hand on his back. Landan reached out and found Mila. Skylar clutched Harris’s hand as she sobbed quietly. My heart broke for her. I couldn’t imagine losing King.

“Our Warriors just killed the hounds headed toward us that Landan heard,” King said a few seconds later.

Labyrinth and his men appeared, their shadows blending into the darkened tunnel. “Hellhounds are everywhere,” he said in greeting.

“We killed a dozen,” King replied, glancing back down the tunnel where we’d come from.

Labyrinth’s sharp eyes narrowed. “Our kill count was closer to fifty, but there were two times that further ahead. We had to turn back and come in behind you. You’ll run into them if you keep going in your current direction.”

“Get the humans between us, and we’ll head back the way we came,” King commanded. “Nokita should be coming from that direction with reinforcements.”

The Warriors moved into formation, which only allowed them to go two by two in the hallway. At King’s signal, one of them stepped forward and took Harris from my arms.

“No!” Skylar cried, her grip on her husband’s hand desperate.

“It’s okay,” I said gently, crouching down to meet her tear-filled eyes. “We’re not leaving him. I need my hands free to fight and keep everyone safe.” I turned to the Warrior holding Harris, a soldier I didn’t recognize. My voice dropped. “Leave him only if her life is in danger.”

The Warrior nodded; his eyes fixed on me, but I didn’t have time to decipher his stare. Skylar’s sobs continued, but she didn’t let go of Harris’s hand.

The thought of so many hellhounds would have terrified me before my transformation, but now, a wild, exhilarating sense of purpose coursed through me. This was what I was made for.

I leaped and came in high at the first hellhound that lunged at me. It met its end in a single swipe of my claws. Now that I’d mastered the technique, it wasn’t going to waste. Hot, metallic blood sprayed across my face, igniting my instincts as the next hellhound charged. Another quick strike ended it, and I roared as the Warriors around me raised their voices in our battle cry.

“Forward or die!”

I was one of them now. Fully and completely. I’d never felt more alive.

Blood slicked my claws, and its tang filled my mouth as hellhounds disintegrated into ash beneath our onslaught. Two came at me at once. I slashed one down and caught the other with a raking strike across its stomach. It twisted out of reach before I could land the killing blow. The hellhound turned for another attack, but this time I was ready. A quick, decisive strike ended it.

Around me, the sounds of tearing flesh and gurgling death filled the enclosed space. More hellhounds poured into the hall; their numbers seemed overwhelming. They snarled and fought each other to get to the front, creating a momentary bottleneck that worked to our advantage.

It took everything we had to hold the line.

Kill, Ms. Beast purred darkly. Kill.

The hum in my ears was relentless, blending with the ragged breathing of the Warriors around me. Thick, sticky blood coated us all, filling the air with the warped scent of hellhound death.

“Marinah!” King’s voice rang out. I shoved past the blood-splattered Warriors, skidding to a stop beside him. Instinct took over as we immediately started checking each other for injuries. My gaze swept over his body. I turned just enough to ensure he didn’t notice the scratch on my side that was now a slow, steady burn.

When I glanced up, I caught sight of the men nearest us, staring with wide, slack-jawed expressions, like the other Warrior had a few minutes before. Their bloodied mouths gaped like gruesome caricatures of disbelief.

King slid an arm around my waist, pulling me close to his side. “She’s a Warrior. Get over it,” he growled. His tone left no room for argument. “We’ve got bigger problems. The Federation isn’t planning to let us out of here alive.”

The incessant hum was suddenly drowned out by the blaring wail of an emergency horn.

It was a sharp, agonizing sound that stabbed through my skull. I clamped my hands over my ears, gritting my teeth to keep from screaming. Around me, the Warriors flinched and growled, their own enhanced senses overwhelmed.

Thirty excruciating seconds crawled by before my hearing adjusted, and dread settled like ice in my chest.

I knew exactly what that horn meant.

“They’re blowing the tunnels!” Landan’s voice cut through the hallway, echoing my worst nightmare.

“We need a way out!” King bellowed over the deafening sound.

“Up ahead!” I shouted, pointing. “There’s a door we can try.”

King sprinted toward it, slamming his massive body against the metal with a thunderous crash. It didn’t budge. He tried again. Nothing. His shoulders heaved with frustration.

I bolted toward another door, twenty yards away. Blocked.

“There’s an escape hatch in the lab!” Landan yelled.

He was right. The hatch had been installed after a hellhound breached the tunnels years ago. It was meant as an emergency exit for workers, a last resort escape.

Before I could respond, the blaring horn cut off abruptly, leaving a chilling silence in its wake. My heart hammered as the full weight of what that silence meant sank in.

Landan’s shout carried like a death knell. “Time’s up. We’ve got sixty seconds before the tunnels blow.”

Protocol. Every worker in the tunnels knew what the silence after the horn signified. Sixty seconds to survive.

“Move!” King roared. “Get to the lab!”

The sound of grinding metal and crumbling cement filled the tunnel behind us. Light flooded in as the heavy door slid open. Beck, with his signature scowl, stuck his head inside.

“She’s gonna blow,” he said like this was just another day in paradise. “You thought you’d have all this fun without me,” he bellowed.

There was no time to process his unexpected reappearance or celebrate the fact that he was alive. King shoved me toward the opening, and I stumbled forward, growling in protest. Typical. He didn’t follow. I made a mental note to punch him in the eye later.

As soon as Landan and Mila scrambled through, we sprinted toward safety. We were halfway to the outer wall when the first explosion rocked the earth beneath us, throwing us to the ground. I hauled Mila up as Landan gained his feet, and we continued running. More explosions followed, the thunderous booms shaking everything around us. Dust and debris rained down. The Federation wasn’t just collapsing sections of the tunnels. They were taking out the entire network.

We didn’t go over the wall. Instead, we slipped through a massive hole that I assumed Beck and his men had created. Beyond it, hundreds of Warriors stood ready, their huge bodies outlined by smoke. I glanced back, scanning the perimeter for King.

And there he was, bloody, battered, and every bit the terrifying force I’d come to love. He carried Harris’s body to the wall and gently laid him on the ground. Skylar raced from behind him and dropped to her knees beside her husband. Tears streamed down her face as she rested her head on his chest.

Beck walked up to King and slammed a clawed hand against his back. “Miss me?” he asked, his tone lighter than I’d ever heard it. There was something different about him. Something undeniably happy. Maybe it was the adrenaline.

King took a brief moment and clasped Beck’s arm in a quick, rough man-hug. “Explain later. Have you seen Nokita?”

Beck smirked. “Federation soldiers had his Warriors pinned down. Naturally, I had to save his ass.” He threw in an exaggerated eye roll, followed by another grin. “Left him to finish off the easy part so I could rescue your sorry ass.”

I moved closer to King, and his hand immediately found mine. The warmth of his touch was exactly what I craved.

“We need to get back to the planes,” King said. “The Federation will be scrambling right now, but that won’t last.”

“We’re leaving?” I asked in disbelief.

King’s eyes darkened, his fury barely contained. “They lured the hellhounds into the tunnels to kill as many of us as possible, then blew the tunnels to seal the deal. The hellhounds that survived will dig their way out. We need to return home and regroup.”

Adrenaline still pumped through my veins, and all I could see was red. I wanted General Smyth’s blood on my hands. I needed to play in it. I wanted the president’s life to end after hours of suffering. The urge to kill them was overwhelming. My vision blurred, and the world started to spin.

“Marinah?” King whispered, gripping my hand tighter.

I raised my free arm, exposing the hellhound scratch on my side. I knew he wouldn’t be happy.

“My syringe with the antidote is still in my room. I could use one of yours,” I muttered, my knees threatening to buckle.

King cursed and caught me before I fell. The sting of the needle came and went, but the process of cutting away my poisoned flesh was another story entirely. By the time he finished, I wasn’t back to normal, but the fog had lifted, and I felt steady enough to stand.

“Can you run?” he asked, sliding the bloodied knife back into its sheath.

“No one could stop me,” I said, though I winced as I got back to my feet.

“It was only a small scratch, baby.”

He was going to pay for that one.

“Remind me to give you a black eye when we get out of here,” I shot back.

He just laughed, the sound oddly soothing in the midst of all the blood and gore.

I walked over to Landan and Mila, who stood a few feet away. “We have a one-way ticket to Cuba with your names on it,” I told them.

“Do we have a choice?” Landan asked, then quickly added, “Wait, I didn’t mean it like that. Yes, we’ll take the tickets.” He glanced down at Mila, a softness in his eyes. “We were planning an extended vacation on the beach anyway.”

Mila laughed, and Landan wrapped an arm around her. Despite the twelve-year age difference, the warmth between them was unmistakable. Love didn’t follow rules.

Next, I approached Skylar, hesitating for a moment before kneeling beside her. She sat on the ground, cradling Harris’s lifeless hand in her own, her head bowed. I hated that I had to interrupt.

“We’re leaving shortly,” I said softly. “We want you to come with us. It’s not safe here.”

She didn’t look up, her eyes fixed on Harris. I already knew what her answer would be before she whispered, “I can’t leave him.”

I swallowed hard and softened my tone further. “We’ll take Harris to the island and bury him there,” I said.

Her shoulders trembled, and I knew my offer had reached her. Whether or not her heart was ready to accept it, I couldn’t say. But I would make sure she didn’t stay behind.

She ran her hands over her grief-stricken face, wiping her eyes before looking up at me. With a quiet nod, she agreed. The Warrior who had carried Harris earlier stepped forward, gently lifting his body while Skylar clung to his hand again. Mila moved beside her, wrapping a supportive arm around her waist, with Landan on her other side.

It took an hour to ensure the Warriors who needed tending were stabilized and able to walk. Twenty-two had been killed, and their bodies were carried like Harris’s. The air felt incredibly heavy.

With Labyrinth’s and Beck’s Warriors, our numbers swelled to nearly three hundred. Nokita had another hundred with him, and they knew where to rendezvous.

I prayed we would cross paths with the president and his soldiers. The rage burning inside me needed an outlet, and I was ready for more death.