Devour, A Paranormal Romance (Warm Delicacy Series, Book 3) (36 page)

The trio ran out of the room, and I turned my lethal gaze on Ronon. I was so sick and tired of people being afraid of the stones. It was the wielder of the stone that was evil, not the stone itself and if he wanted to stay here and throw a tantrum then that was his problem. I was going to save my friends, my family and my city.

I brushed past him as I barreled my way out of the room, looking back to make sure they had securely closed it behind me. The sounds of fighting had grown louder in the hallway and I knew the battle was raging. Smoke was beginning to fill the air, and I held my breath as I raced down the hallway to the back stairwell. A small detachment from Titan’s army was attending to an injured vampire at the far end of the hallway, near the stairs. A pool of blood was growing beneath them. I recognized the man’s face from some of my father’s meetings but I couldn’t place his name. His eyes were frozen and for a brief moment I thought our eyes locked together as I turned to head down the stairs.

Shock struck me like a two ton rock, but I didn’t let it make me falter. A lone member of Titan’s army was brawling with one of Baal’s dark vampires. The beast had the upper hand, and would surely win if someone didn’t step in. The solider buckled under a lethal blow to his head, blood splattering on the wall as it flew from his shattered jaw. The sound of bones cracking made me explode into action.

I was still a good twenty steps above them, but I launched myself from the stairs and descended on the dark vampire. I landed on his back, tucking my arm under his throat like a crazed spider monkey. He was momentarily surprised by my attack, but not long enough. He pitched backward, ramming me into a wall. I thought every bone in my back had shattered with the impact and I screamed in pain, baring my fangs as I cried.

The dark vampire stepped forward, ready to slam me back into the wall again. I tightened my grip around his throat hoping I could suffocate him, but I couldn’t get myself into the right angle. Luckily, none of that mattered.

The fallen soldier hoisted himself off the ground. Blood was streaming from his mouth like an open faucet. It all seemed to happen in slow motion as he reached for the throwing knives strapped to his wrist and launched them at the dark vampire’s face, which was right in front of my own. I ducked my head behind his, using it as a shield as the blades thudded into his skull.

Five blades later the dark vampire was lying at my feet looking like a porcupine. “Are you okay?” I asked the solider as he yanked the blades free, returning them to his wrist. He could only grunt as his visibly broken jaw hung awkwardly. I patted his back and took off down the next flight of stairs; two more and I’d be on the next level. I cursed the architect who designed this building. Who the hell needed such tall ceilings that there had to be four flights of stairs for each level? It didn’t help that the steps were shallow; taking thirty of them to descend what should have only taken fifteen.

I finally rounded the corner of the stairway on the second floor and found myself in utter chaos. It was a total warzone. The twenty foot wide hallway was wall to wall brutality. There were dark vampires, Titan’s soldiers, Naos vampires and Blood Guard everywhere. Every ounce of me wanted to join in the fight, but I needed to get to the heart of the battle.

That’s where I would find Baal.

That’s where I would end this once and for all.

A headless dark vampire skidded to my feet as the battle before me continued to swarm like warring bees. Blood pooled under me, making me feet stick to the ground. I ignored the queasy flip-flop my stomach made and pried the scimitar from its lifeless grip.

Brandishing my new weapon, I jumped over bodies, dodged lethal swings and deadly blows as I made my way down the hallway. I knew exactly where to go. The throne room. It was always the throne room, like it had some invisible target on it saying,
“Come on all you evil doers; attack here!”

I hacked, stabbed and sliced my way through the chaotic brutality, helping where I could. Blood was covering nearly every inch of me by the time I skidded to a stop in a gruesome mass of mutilated guts. My arms fanned out keeping my balance as I slid through the wide double doors of the throne room.

The war raging in the hallway was a friendly picnic compared to the macabre scene that exploded before me. The massive chandeliers that had miraculously survived Baal’s first attack had plummeted to the floor in a mountain of broken glass and crystal. Several of them were stained in crimson while others were found to be perfect weapons. Lifeless limbs peeked out from under the once beautiful fixture.

My body was screaming to join the fray, but I picked through the clashing bodies, trying to find just one. Baal.

Eli and his daughter, Kyri, crossed my gaze first. They fought together, doing a dance of death as they savagely sliced at the enemies circling them. The amount of bodies around them made it apparent they could handle themselves.

Next I saw Rennek, fighting valiantly against a dark vampire and one of Baal’s hooded minions. Pain was etched in every feature of his face, and I knew without a doubt that they were using a dark stone to bring him down. He was battling against its power, but he wouldn’t last forever and I couldn’t stand by and watch him fall victim to it.

A dark vampire lashed out at me as I began my sprint to defend Rennek. I whipped my scimitar in a wide arc, dragging a deep gash across the dark vampire’s chest. It shrieked in pain, but I didn’t give it another look. I kept my sights locked onto Rennek, not even glancing toward Eli and his daughter as I ran past them. I swung my blade back and forth as I ran, feeling like I was battling my way through a dense forest made up of monsters. There was hardly any room to move at full speed, so I had to hack and slash my way through.

I shouldered my way past several blood guards who were desperately trying to keep several more dark vampires from crashing down on Rennek. It had obviously been Baal’s plan to take out as many of our bravest defenders as possible.

Their eyes registered recognition, and renewed hope as I flew past them to save Rennek. He’d fallen to his knees, crumbling under the power of the stone. The hooded figure was drawing close. Close enough that he could have skewered it with his great sword, but his will was breaking.

Behind the hooded minion stood the dark vampire, its eyes were gleaming at the sight of victory and its mass of jagged teeth were peeking through a sinister grin. My legs carried me over the bodies on the floor as I watched the dark vampire raise its blade high above his head. Rennek remained on his knees, looking up in horror and not being able to do anything about it.

I hadn’t realized I was doing it until my throat began to burn and the scream of rage that had exploded within me released itself. But they couldn’t hear me, not over the roar of battle.

The blade began its descent, and I knew I only had seconds before Rennek would be dead. I jumped over a fallen blood guard who was crying uncontrollably as he desperately attempted to hold in the vital organs that were falling out of his severed middle. Bile rose up in my throat, and pain thrashed wildly inside me. The agony in his eyes almost stopped me, but I couldn’t let it. It was painful to realize, but nothing could save this poor fallen vampire now. He didn’t deserve to go out like this, and I wished I could comfort him in his final moments, but those final moments could mean the lives of so many others.

They were only steps in front of me now as I circled around to attack from behind. Their backs were facing me, and Rennek’s figure was revealed in the space between the two of them. I willed for him to just look at me, to see that I was coming for him. That I was trying to save him, but all he did was stare up at the blade that was flying toward him. A lone tear ran down his blood stained face, and he closed his eyes.

With one, powerful swing I severed the heads of the hooded minion and dark vampire. My chest was thundering with heavy breaths as the bodies dropped to the floor to lay beside their severed parts. For what felt like an hour I was too afraid to see if I’d saved him. I just stared, wild-eyed at the gory mess at me feet until I heard my name.

“Claire?” Rennek was blinking at me, using his sword as a crutch to lift him from his knees.

I jumped into his arms, almost knocking him over in my excitement. I couldn’t have been happier if he were my mother. Rennek and I had never been close, but to know that I’d saved him gave me hope. It replaced the doubt I had about whether or not I could save anyone at all.

“Where is he?” I asked, pulling away from him.

He shook away the last of the haunting effects of the stone and pointed at the far end of the room. He knew exactly who I was asking about.

I kneeled down, flipping over the body of the headless minion. My fingers searched through the pool of blood until I found what I was looking for. The stone was dripping with blood, and I lifted it up as I faced Rennek.

“Put this on,” I ordered. He lurched back, but the expression on my face kept him from moving again as I looped it around his head. The stone clanged again his armored chest.

“What?” He lifted the chain with the edge of his knife.

“I don’t have time to explain. Just listen, and trust me.” He nodded. “It might not be much, but this stone could help protect you against any other dark stone. I want you to seek out and kill anyone wearing them.”

“What do you want me to do with the stones of those I kill?” He asked, sounding like the warrior I’d always known. He had the experience to know that in a battle like this you didn’t ask why. If someone told you something was going to save you, then you just went with it. Wasting time asking for explanations would just get you killed.

“Give them to someone and have them do what I have asked you.”

“Yes, princess.”

He grasped my forearm tightly, and then darted back into the fray, fighting his way to the next hooded minion. I wasn’t sure if the stones would really work for him or not, but I hoped that my belief that they’d cancel each other out was true. I kept saying it was the wielder of the stone that mattered, maybe knowing we were in the midst of battle would make a difference. It would make them fight for us. If we could take down all of Baal’s minions, we could turn the tides of war.

Bennett found me as I fought my way toward the back of the room. He looked absolutely ghastly. He was shirtless, and his ivory skin was dripping was scarlet. But, what surprised me most were the two stones that dangled from his neck, resting in the crevice of his pec muscles.

“Claire!” he called my name as he slashed at a dark vampire who darted past him. I ran to join him, fighting my way to his side. “I’m up by twenty-four. You’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” he boasted, pressing his back to mine as he swung his fist into the face of a dark vampire. It staggered back only a step, before twirling to backhand him across the face.

With our backs pressed against each other, I leaned forward, allowing Bennett to lean awkwardly back and miss the attack with hardly an inch to spare. We locked arms and I anchored him as he rammed his feet into the dark vampire’s chest. Our strength added to the force he had put into his kick, sending it tumbling backward. The beast landed in a heap on one of the chandeliers. Before it could get up, a solider in Titan’s army landed on its chest, sinking a dagger into its head.

The guard whirled around and I recognized her as the ruby-haired fighter who had awed me with her skills. Our eyes met briefly and then she was swallowed up by the battle around her.

“Have you seen my parents?” I asked Bennett, as we both fended off blows from our own attackers.

“I saw Arrick and a bunch of big dudes fleeing with your mom,” he answered with a grunt, as a punch landed in his gut. He recovered quickly, kneeing the dark vampire in the abdomen, before finishing it off with an uppercut.

Relief washed through me with the knowledge that my mother was okay, but it was short lived. A fist colliding with the side of my skull brought me back to reality. The fight wasn’t over yet. I blocked the next swing then backhanded the dark vampire with enough force to knock a few teeth out. Sadly they weren’t the fangs.

Spitting at me, the dark vampire threw another swing. I blocked it, but it used that as an opportunity to latch onto me and spin me into a deadly embrace. Thick arms snaked around my throat. I thrashed around, feeling my windpipe buckle under its crushing strength. If I didn’t get out soon, I’d suffocate. Bennett was scrapping with a rather nasty dark vampire. Its arms were much longer, making its reach hard for him to avoid. He was trying to get to me, but I knew I’d have to save myself.

I continued to struggle, though I knew there was no way to wiggle my way out of this. I parted my legs to brace myself and attempted to launch the dark vampire over me and send him crashing to the floor. I heaved forward, but nothing happened. Despite my strength, the dark vampire was too big and too strong. Baal had sent much more formidable opponents this time around. Were we stronger than he thought, or was the first attack just a test of our strength?

Bennett managed to snag the bladed shield of a fallen Titan soldier, ramming it into the gut of his attacker. The dark vampire grunted, swaying back and forth before yanking the shield out of its stomach. It clattered noisily as blood gushed from the wound, but the dark vampire pushed forward, swinging its blade in wide arcs.

The arm around my throat tightened, and the world around me started to fade. I thrashed around harder, clawing at his arms. I even tried reaching for my scimitar that had dropped from my grasp, but I couldn’t grasp it. Not seeing any other options, I reached my thumb back as far as I could and shoved it into the dark vampire’s eye, doing my best to gouge it out.

I ignored the ooze as my thumb squished through his eyelid, smooshing it into a gooey mess. His hold on me released as he gripped his face. I crumbled to the ground, gasping for breath. I wanted to rub the throbbing ache at my throat, but it would have to wait till later. I needed to take out this beast while I had the chance. The shield that Bennett had tried to use to kill who he was fighting was still lying on the floor. I stretched, reaching for it with the tips of my fingers.