"LIAM! STOP!" The voice knocked up against the red haze.
My movements didn’t halt. Now my opponents were running from me. I’d chase them down and feast on their corpses!
"LIAM! I WILL FUCKING STAB YOU IF YOU DON’T STOP!"
The command was punctuated by the sharp sting of a blade across my back. Yowling, I spun, reaching to grab the assailant.
“Put me down, asshole!”
My fingers dug into the torso I was holding and shook it.
“Do not kill your brother, Liam! Raina will be super pissed at you!”
This time the haze let the message through. Confusion. What …
A sharp sting landed across my face and I growled, dropping the body in my clutches.
I blinked, the red overlay in my vision thinning just enough to see the concern on my brother’s face.
Gunnar stood there, his hazel eyes wide with alarm. His handprint burned on my cheek, a brand of shameful clarity.
"Raina needs you," he panted, holding his ribs.
I didn’t understand. Raina was gone.
Gunnar's hand landed on my shoulder. The unexpected depth in his hazel eyes, usually so full of judgment, pierced through the last of the fog.
“She’s alive.”
I jerked, looking for her, only to realize I was standing over top of her body.
“You wouldn’t let anyone near her,” Mirrelle explained, circling us protectively, keeping an eye on the fighting still going on.
"Go. Get her to the healers," Gunnar urged, voice thick with an emotion I couldn't recall hearing from him before.
I nodded, barely registering my own movements as I stooped to gather Raina's slight form into my arms. The chill of her skin hastened my movements.
"Stay with me, Raina," I murmured, more a command than a plea.
I couldn’t open a portal here, not with the changes to the wards, so I took off running, mindful of every inch of her body and keeping her safe.
My boots slipped on the blood-slickened ground, but I kept my footing.
"Out of the way!" I barked at anyone who dared cross my path.
Friend or foe, it didn't matter. They were obstacles. I ducked under a wild swing, twisted past a thrusting spear, as I ran with grim determination.
"Almost there," I promised.
An explosion rocked the ground, and I shielded her body with mine, refusing to let even a stray pebble harm her further. Someone needed to kill that fucking witch.
“Liam! This way!” my father yelled.
He’d created a path into the forest, a battalion of berserkers at his back. As I ran through, they closed in ranks, their bodies a living barrier against danger.
"You should be able to portal now," Brahm reminded me.
We’d added extra wards to surround the area of the woods where all the stokrans had been built. Safely inside, I could travel by portal.