Page 19 of Lost and Stolen Gods
We reached the carriage, and Dharma flung the door open, wide-eyed as she reached for me.
My savior practically threw me inside, then barked, “Stay!” His topaz eyes blazed with command, slitted pupils flaring.
All I could do was stare at his angry face and at the dark tresses laced with golden strands that had escaped from the knot of hair on his head to lovingly brush his high cheekbones and drift across the strange markings on his temple.
I leaned toward him, driven by some weird instinct that I didn’t understand. “Thanks for saving me.”
His top lip lifted as if he’d smelled something bad. “It is my duty,” he sneered, making it clear that if he’d had a choice, he’d have let me get my head chewed off.
He slammed the door and ran into the fray, sword already mid swing at the perfect angle to take the head off the beast attacking Umbra.
The heavens opened with a boom, weeping in sheets that drowned out the sounds of battle, so it looked like it was happening on mute.
Growly dude was instantly soaked, his dark hair plastered to his perfectly shaped head, droplets flying off his sword in a pretty arc as he spun on his toes, slicing at a beast to eviscerate it.
He was much too agile and light on his feet for someone so inhumanly large.
Inhuman.
Yeah, that’s what he was. Butwhatwas he?
The other women crowded around me, all eager to see out of the window.
“What are those monsters?” Remi asked.
“Who are the sexy guys killing them?” one of the women from Lomis’s ship said.
But I was entranced by my savior. He moved like silk and struck like steel, cleaving the beasts’ heads from their bodies and turning them into ash. Droplets of water danced around his feet like eager companions, and fire flickered in his topaz eyes.
Power.
Raw fucking power.
The goosebumps nettling my arms had nothing to do with the chill.
“You almost died,” Dharma said softly. “That could have been me.”
I tore my attention from the fight to find her staring at me with misty eyes.
“You saved my life.” She pulled me into a tight hug, and guilt sprouted roots in my chest, because even though I’d saved her, I hadn’t done so intentionally.
I’d acted on a twisted instinct that had almost killed me.
“Leela, how did you do that thing?” Priti asked in a small voice.
I pulled away from Dharma. “What thing?”
“When it had you by the throat, you saidno, but your voice…the power in it. It let you go.”
The carriage was suddenly deathly silent. “I…I don’t know.” Because it hadn’t let me go. I’d somehowforcedit away from me.
Maybe there was magic in my blood after all. Maybe it was only now awakening. And if that was the case, then maybe I wasn’t helpless. Something monstrous had killed my grandmother. Something I now had no doubt was from this fucked-up world. And even though I had a kazillion questions about this whole situation, there was one thing I was certain of.
I was going to find the thing that murdered Nani and murder it right back.
Chapter 8
WHY ARE THE HOT ONES ALWAYS ARROGANT ASSHOLES?
