Page 216 of A Soul to Steal

“Emerie!” Gideon shouted, knowing that long, wavy hair anywhere.

Just as he went to wave and Aleron started dropping to the ground, Emerie looked up at them.

The harrowing scream that came from her pierced the air as she tossed the basket. Emerie backed up, immediately fell on her arse, and covered her face with both arms.

Aleron, confused and shocked, clambered to halt his descent due to her reaction.

“Oh shit,” he muttered in disbelief.

A ferocious, beastly roar from the right tore a gasp out of Gideon’s throat, only for his eyes to widen when something with glowing red orbs leapt for them.

“Oh shit!”Gideon bellowed, just as they were tackled in mid-air.

It was too late.

Wings shielded Gideon and tightened their hold on him as all three went crashing to the ground. Aleron let loose a bellowing roar of pain and nearly crushed him to fucking death. His case creaked, his guitar jingling within it, then he was tossed to the ground when Aleron managed to wrangle himself free from their assailant.

On his hands and feet in his monstrous form, Aleron stood above Gideon protectively.

It wasn’t hard to guess who’d attacked them. Gideon knew it was likely Ingram, who had just acted on instinct to protectEmerie when she let out a scream. He didn’t need to see through Aleron’s bowed chest to know that.

He also didn’t need Ingram to curiously ask, “Aleron?”

But Gideon knew something was horribly wrong when liquid with a strong, coppery smell dripped onto his face. In the darkness that had fallen over them, he tried to wipe it away and inspect the purple blood on him.

Shit. He’s hurt pretty badly.

A shiver of dread traced down his back like a ghastly cold finger, when a menacing snarl radiated from Aleron’s drooling fangs. Hot breath puffed out like fog.

“Aleron, wa–” He didn’t even get to finish before Aleron lunged.

Within the span of a heartbeat, Aleron tackled Ingram to the ground with a hard thwack of their dense torsos colliding. Ingram let out a horrible yelp, right before their bodies writhed as they mindlessly fought.

Two sets of crimson orbs glowed against white skulls, but the rest of them were just dark shadows clawing and beating against each other.

“Oh shit!” Gideon repeated, rushing to his feet.

Backing away, he didn’t know what to do, how to help. He wasn’t dumb enough to get into the thick of two Duskwalkers raging.

His head whipped towards the house.Emerie.

Gideon sprinted over to it, hissing between his teeth as he pulled up short, forced to limp the last few metres due to some injury. He found her on the ground, sliding along her arse against the snow as she crawled towards the porch steps.

Her eyes were fixated on Ingram and Aleron as she subtly shook her head.

“Emerie,” Gideon rasped, heading straight for her.

He attempted to help her to her feet by grabbing her forearm, but she ripped it away from him. She turned a pale, fear-stricken face up at him, and he winced at the webbed burn scars marring the left side of it. With the whites of her eyes visible, her irises moving back and forth over his features, she looked... petrified.

Even her breaths were short, shallow, and panicked.

He knelt, trying to ignore the distressing sounds of two giant monsters fighting behind him. Fangs chomped, and a beak snapped as rabid, wet snarls radiated between them. Trees groaned after hard thuds, while leaves rustled. He occasionally heard a snap and just hoped they were branches breaking or shrubs being crushed.

“Emerie, I need you to get up. We need to stop them,” he told her, placing a hand on top of her head.

Tears instantly welled in her blue eyes as she choked out, “Wings.”

She didn’t need to say more.

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