Page 83 of Heart of Dawn
What a pleasant gentleman.
There were no more keys in the remaining motorbikes, and I didn’t know how to hotwire a vehicle.
Stars!
The horde mowed down fae after fae, dangerously close to me now. There was no way to bypass them, no gap to dart through. They just kept on coming, skeletons still crawling from the sand to join them.
What about our blood? Would it resist them? Would it?—
“Get on.”
I spun in panic to face a fae woman. She straddled a bike, her cropped white hair stained by blood, her rich, dark brown skin glistening with sweat.
“Get on,” she repeated.
“What—”
She started the engine. “I’ll take you to Earth. I know what you’re carrying.”
Wow. “You do? How?”
She rolled her eyes. “Do you want to be eaten? Get on!”
Her irritation spurred me on to the back of the bike.
“Thank you,” I breathed, wrapping my arms around her waist.
She grunted and accelerated, the speed making my stomach lurch. I wanted to close my eyes, but they wouldn’t obey and stayed wide open as if held by cocktail sticks.
Zombies ripped people apart, their dying screams a familiar song. The pristine white sands of Crystal Beach were now tainted by blood and death.
There was a pause, zombies frozen by the fae blood triggering memories of the humans’ past.
“Did you put the bins out?” I heard someone say.
“Can you call your dad?” said another.
Mama. Papa. They were in the line of fire now. No longer safe.
They couldn’t die. I wouldn’t let them. I really wanted to see them again, introduce them to Miko despite my mama’s resistance to my sexuality. All she had to do was meet my mate and she would fall in love, understand me better, see that?—
Ugh. An issue for another day, for a future where we were both alive.
The zombies continued with their destruction, some of them screaming with the voice of Dawn as the fae blood fought back. They collapsed, vomiting the black goo of rejection. But it wasn’t enough, the horde too vast and intense.
Fire broke out in the market, quickly spreading, a body in flames running down the sand. I wasn’t sure if they were fae or undead-human, and it didn’t matter.
I held down bubbling vomit, the stench of death and burning flesh overwhelming. This biker woman knew her stuff, weaving in and out of the horde, expertly dodging speedie charges and grabby hands. I held my breath, my heart pounding like a parade of drums.
“Hold on!” the woman cried, suddenly making a hard left turn to avoid a wall of zombies.
I held on for dear life, now closing my eyes. I endured the bumps and the sharp turns as if I was a cocktail shaker in the hands of a vigorous barman.
“Brace yourself!” the woman bellowed.
Maybe I should have kept my eyes closed because, well, I’m not one for thrill rides. I hate fairgrounds, theme parks, anything with roller coasters and spinning crap. Like Pleasure Realm on the far eastern side of the Blonde Coast, boasting the biggest loop-the-loop ever built.
No. Thank. You.
