Page 37 of Claim the Twilight
The ghouls and Sangualex attacked the cold ones with a rage-filled roar.
I exchanged glances with Ezekiel and Ordell. “Time to get back into the fight.”
I ran into the fray, sword held aloft. We couldn’t kill the cold ones, but now that we had the numbers, we could maim them and force them to retreat.
The cold ones twisted and snarled, snapping and clawing at the ghouls as they attacked in groups.
I sliced and stabbed with my sword, waiting for the heat of flame to light it up, but it didn’t come. I caught sight of the young female ghoul whose boyfriend Lomax had gone missing months ago. She fought beside Charlie, the vampire she’d held hostage, desperate for someone to look into her boyfriend’s disappearance.
I needed to tell her he was gone, that?—
A blood-curdling scream drifted out of a house to my left.
“Mommy, help!”
I sprinted up the path and into the house, coming to a halt in the hallway. The banister on the staircase was splintered and broken, the doorway to my left smashed, and there were huge holes in the walls and plasterboard covering the passageway. I came to a halt, gut twisting in warning. Heat bloomed in my chest, a second warning that something here wasn’t right.
“Hello?”
Silence pressed in on me, the battle sounds from the streets growing distant. The conviction that I needed to leave—right now—coursed through me.
I took a step back and froze as a figure materialized in the hallway in front of me.
Tall, slender, regal, dark hair flowing down her back and over her shoulders, Loviator drifted toward me, coming to a standstill several feet away.
She smirked. “Well, look at you. Not so dead after all.”
“Why are you doing this? Why are you breaking your deal with the white wings?”
“I’m not breaking the deal; I’m simply taking advantage of a loophole. The deal stated that I could not voluntarily set foot in this world until seven hundred years passed. And I adhered to that. When the curse broke…” She raked me over. “Whenyoubroke it, I was preparing to be locked away, but then I was summoned.” She smiled, and it lit up her beautiful face. “A goddess cannot ignore a summons. The summons shattered the deal, and now…Now I will have my freedom.”
“At the expense of hundreds of innocent lives? What kind of goddess are you?”
“You think I take the lives of innocents?” She canted her head. “Is that what you’ve been told?”
“What are you talking about? I’ve seen it, out there in the street. At the academy when you sent your cold ones after the children. ”
“Evildoers, all of them. Even the children, although they had yet to commit their crimes. They were still evil.” She lifted her chin. “There is much evil in this world. I can smell it. Potent and cloying.” Her mouth turned down. “I will cleanse it. The pure, the good, will survive.”
This made no sense. “You’re the goddess of pain.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Yes. I am. For now.” She glanced over my shoulder. “Once this is over, you’ll understand.” She looked me in the eyes, her gaze intense. “Once this is over, then I’ll explain it all to you.” Her tone softened. “I promise…”
The air crackled and fizzed against my skin, and her head jerked up, her eyes widening. “They’re here.” She stepped back, her form rippling. “Till next time.”
She vanished.
Bootsteps echoed behind me. “Orina, the white wings are here.”
I turned to face Ordell, my insides quivering.
He stopped, his gaze raking me over. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
I swallowed past the dryness in my mouth. “Loviator. I just spoke to Loviator, and I think there’s a lot that the white wings aren’t telling us.”
“What do you mean?” He lightly touched my cheek. “What did she do to you?”
A flare of irritation flickered in my chest. I pulled away from his touch. “She didn’tdoanything. We just…talked. And now I need to talk to Kaster.”
