Page 66 of Psycho Gods

Unrelenting.

Exacting.

When there were less than a hundred infected left, we’d chased them through the halls and they’d fled into an expansive room.

The last stronghold.

It appeared to be the compound’s living space because there were four stone fireplaces and excessive furniture.

Now smoke filled the windowless space. Velvet chairs and sofas were broken into pieces and scattered about.

Bodies were everywhere, discarded swords lying beside their ripped corpses.

Weapons clashed.

A hair-raising roar echoed. Jax was partially shifted; he had a bear’s head and razor-sharp claws. Infected dropped around him as he swiped.

Cobra was covered in writhing shadow snakes, and they were all over the room, biting infected and sending them to their knees, screaming.

Otherworldly wings clattered as the angels hovered on the ceiling and stabbed downward into the fray. They’d ditched their ice swords in favor of the lighter, easier-to-wield enchanted swords.

The room was chaos.

Pieces from the paintings that had once filled every inch of wall space smoldered as they fell like rain.

The dying screamed.

Our plan had been going perfectly until someone had detonated an incendiary device. When the dust had cleared, Arabella was missing.

She had to be nearby, but for some reason, we couldn’t find her.

It was maddening.

Our Revered had disappeared.

The tether on my control was fraying precariously, and I couldn’t remember why I held myself back from unleashing my voice and slaughtering the world.

Why did I care?

My vocal cords ached to be used.

I chucked a dagger at an ungodly as I dropped to my knees, and Scorpius swung an enchanted sword where I’d stood. Blood splattered. He sliced two infected clean in half.

Ungodly ripped from their flesh, but Corvus tore their heads off before they could stand tall. Scarlet flames poured off him as he threw the severed heads down onto the red-and-green rug and stomped.

At one point, the rug had been white.

Corvus tipped his head back and growled like a beast. He’d dropped his weapons when we’d realized Arabella had disappeared, and he’d been fighting with his bare hands ever since.

He was no longer a soldier.

He was an Ignis whose Revered was missing—a feral creature.

Arabella had to be nearby because the bond sickness hadn’t incapacitated any of us, but we’d searched every corner of the large living space where the fighting was concentrated.

She wasn’t beneath the piles of corpses.

We’d checked.

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