Page 95 of Court of Wolves

Watch out!she tried to warn him, but not quickly enough. Scylla sank her fingernails into his tail, like it was nothing to get past scales and natural armour. Maia sensed the magic shift in the air, flowing towards her, and a choked sound tore free as her own power responded, eager to rush to feed Scylla.

With a scream of frustration, Maia released Azrail. She couldn’t hold onto them and fight Scylla at the same time, and likefuckwas she about to let this saint steal her magic—or any of her mates’ power. She couldfeelScylla, like she could sense every living soul, and she focused on that, the sickness and greed bleeding from her, touching everyone in the hallway, draining Maia, her mates, even Samlyn and… and the dead soldiers.

Maia suppressed a shudder—this was going to be foul—and threw herself into the dead soldier closest to Samlyn. It wassurprisingly easy to urge those rotten, slimy hands to snap Samlyn’s neck.

The crack was louder than it had any right to be, and for a moment silence reigned—but then the drake roared and snapped his massive head around to lunge at Scylla. Maia felt all of it: the rage making the drake’s soul flare, the pain dimming Kheir’s, the defiance growling through Bryon’s, the determination rampaging through Jaro’s, the waning strength of Azrail’s, the resigned hopelessness of Vawn’s, and Ark—he was still unconscious and that scared her more than anything. And beyond them all, the Eversky was waking.

Maia didn’t have time to deal with Karmen right now. She leapt into another dead soldier when Samlyn grabbed the first, his head at a right-angle on his neck, face twisted with rage. Maia’s stomach knotted inside her own body but this soldier felt nothing but hunger. Weak willed and easy to overpower. She used him to throw Samlyn onto one of the drake’s spikes and leapt into another, feeling the same mindless hunger. Whoever these things were, they’d been hungry for so long, denied sustenance for so long it was all they cared about.

They were dead bodies with living souls trapped inside them.

Vessels.

She couldn’t let that thought connect, had to focus on Samlyn as he wrenched himself off the drake’s spike with a twisted, annoyed expression. Not pain, not even anger. Irritation. Like having a broken neck and a hole through his middle was an inconvenience.

“Stop playing and end them!” Scylla hissed, appearing in a rush of power, her soul fat with stolen magic like a mosquito gorged on blood. Maia hated her, wanted to rip all that power from her until she was powerless and weak.

A plant pot to Scylla’s left exploded, Maia’s rage striking out. A vine ripped from the wall and whipped Scylla’s face, gouging achannel of blood in her smooth cheek. She turned, exceptionally slowly, to face the ranks of dead soldiers, not flinching even when shards of Jaro’s magic struck her back. Shit. She knew Maia was in here.

Maia jumped into another, her heart quickening in her own body. She grabbed Samlyn’s arm with the corpse’s hands, not letting herself think about the fact her soul touched all this gooey, decaying ooze. She ripped his shoulder from its socket, leaping into another soldier before his arm had even gone limp.

Samlyn was the weak point now; if they took him down, they could get on the drake’s back and get the hell out of here. If Scylla didn’t use all that bloated power first to stop them, that was.

“Call…for backup,” Samlyn croaked, his mouth obscene as it moved on his broken neck. Maia jumped out of the dead soldier—and plunged back into her own body with a scream when pain tore through her hand. It was instinct to cradle it to her chest, but the sight of it hanging unnaturally from her wrist made her stomach lurch. Tears spilled as the pain grew unbearable. She’d survived saints and manipulation and massacres. She refused to be taken out by a broken wrist. But the person who’d given it to her…

She stared up, a rasping sob in her throat, whenAzrailreached for her again, his expression devoid of feeling. His eyes were hollow, utterly flat.

“Stop,” she breathed, trying and failing to fill her voice with magic. “Azrail,” she snapped, her voice harder, stronger, but her magic responded toanger, and pain it seemed was its antithesis.

If bright, crystal power hadn’t shattered between them, driving into Az’s bare chest, his shoulders, his arms, she didn’t know what he’d have done next. But Jaro was there, leaping between them with a low snarl of warning. Through the bond shefelt his heart break as badly as hers. It went against nature to attack someone you loved, to turn yourself upon family.

The sharp fragment’s of Jaro’s magic erupted further, sinking viciously into Scylla, into Samlyn, into—

“Oh fuck,” she rasped, teeth gritted against the pain. “There’s more of them.”

Maia knew with a single glance that the two men who strode towards them, the ranks of dead soldiers parting to allow them through, were both saints. Power wrapped their auras like a second skin, both the same dark, corrupt grey as Scylla. Not quite as black as Karmen, but close.

“Time to go, princess,” Bryon growled, grabbing her good arm and pulling her into his body, wrapping an arm around her back to support her. Where did he even come from? Maia shook her head, panting through spikes of pain. Her heart jumped into her ribs at the sight of Kheir holding up hands wreathed in pure black flames, Vawn propping up Ark as—as Ark blinked his eyes open. Maia tried to go to him but Bryon tightened his grip. “Later,” he rumbled. He glanced to Kheir. “We ready to go?”

Kheir nodded, his gold-bronze face paler than normal, pain carving unfamiliar lines into his face. “He’s ready, just—”

His attention whipped around to the drake when he roared and ploughed into the dead soldiers lined up like toys, massive jaws opening on rows of teeth and—

“Oh, that’s nice,” Vawn remarked, wrinkling his nose. “And the crunching noise really adds to the ambiance of the dismemberment and digestion of body parts happening here.”

As if triggered by the sound of his voice, Azrail lunged towards Vawn with his shadows out in full force. Maia’s heart tripped, but the drake roared, power throbbed around Scylla, the Eversky awoke with a scream of rage, and there was too much happening, too many threats from every direction.

Maia’s head spun, her chest full of Kheir’s pain and Ark’s agony and Azrail’s turmoil. Her Sapphire Knight was in so much pain, fighting every command given to him, and Maia didn’t know how to fix it. The world spun and dimmed around her, and she didn’t know how to fix it.

“Jaro,” Maia rasped when he drove Azrail back another step. She needed her soul magic, needed to jump into Az to stop him attacking Jaro, to unleash the full force of spring upon the saints, but she’d drained too much power, too fast. And it had done nothing. Samlyn was injured but strong, still in control of Azrail. Scylla wassmiling,bursting into laughter when the drake closed his jaws around her—and she reappeared a safe distance away.

“Such an ancient, powerful beast,” she taunted, “but you’re still weak, aren’t you? How long did you sleep, drake?”

The drake roared loudly enough that the ground shook and Maia fell into Bryon, jostling her broken wrist.Azrailhad broken her wrist. Jaro had stabbed her in the saints' circle. How many more times would these saints make her mates harm her?

Samlyn stumbled back with a grunt that drew her attention even with the drake between them, and Maia choked on a rush of hope when she saw a piece of glasslike magic as big as a sword driven through his chest.

“That’s your own fault,” Scylla sighed, angling her head towards the two newcomers—both male, one with skin like reflective gold with perfect curls and clothes from an ancient era draped across a youthful body, one much older with hard eyes, a square jaw, and ice-white hair slicked back from a clever face.

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