Page 65 of Claim the Twilight
I rushed at it. “Now!”
He released his hold as I stabbed the cold one in the eye, the squelch of eyeballs giving way to something tougher, forcing me to push harder to pierce it, until the beast sagged, and the light went out of its eyes.
But it would heal. They always healed.
The one I’d stabbed in the chest was already back on its feet. Dammit.
Holly skidded into the room and threw something at one of the cold ones. Green mist enveloped it, and it screamed and winked out. But the next moment, another tear opened and a fresh cold one materialized.
A blur shot across the room and punched a cold one in the jaw, knocking it into the wall with a crash.
Ezekiel stood bare-chested in the center of the foyer, wild gaze searching until he found me. His shoulders relaxed a fraction.
A blue aperture opened behind him, and a large, sleek cold one leapt out. Its toned muscular gray frame marked it as a sentinel. These bastards were vicious.
“Watch out!”
Lorenzo’s neon magic smashed into the sentinel, knocking it away from us. It landed on all fours, threw back its head, and let out a howl that froze the blood in my veins.
The air filled with the crackle and fizz of invasive energy that jabbed and burned my skin. The doors to the castle burst open with a crack to reveal the courtyard and five huge cold ones. Not sentinels, not the alpha breeder, but something in between. Something new. Their skin gleamed silver, dark spines decorating their shoulders and thick reptilian tails.
Ezekiel hissed and blurred up the stairs into the shadows away from the streaming sunlight.
I locked gazes with him, and he shook his head, eyes wide as they raked over me. I glanced down at myself, at the golden sunlight bathing my skin. Sunlight…oh…I wasn’t burning. It wasn’t hurting me.
The sentinel roared at us, the sound shaking my bones. Around us, the injured cold ones vanished, and a moment later, so did the sentinel.
The foyer was empty save for us, and outside the doors stood five massive beasts.
“We can’t let them get inside,” Ordell growled, running out into the courtyard.
Lorenzo and Holly went after him, but I dithered, gaze flicking from Ezekiel to the door.
“Go,” he said. “We can talk about it later. I’ll check on Hemlock.”
I dropped him a nod and rushed out to join the others fighting off these new creatures. Shadows washed over us from above, and a moment later, Godor and the batlings dropped from the sky, entering the fray to even out the numbers. A bubble of hope swelled in my chest, bursting just as quickly as tiny tears opened and closed around us in rapid succession, fizzing and popping to spit out four-foot-tall insectile creatures. The critters swarmed toward us, a nuisance to distract us from the larger threats.
I fell into a haze, fighting on instinct, but the beasts were relentless, healing almost instantly after every wound. Lorenzo and I fought back-to-back, and Holly and Ordell did the same—magic and muscle working together to beat back the threat.
The batlings attacked from above, raking the beasts with their lethal talons to slow them down. It was working until several critters spawned wings, flying up to attack the batlings.
A batling was brought to ground and instantly covered in critters. He shrieked, the sound gut-wrenchingly awful. Godor flew down to help, but the critters crawled away before he could get there, leaving nothing but a masticated mess of flesh over fractured bones.
Another batling fell a moment later.
Godor yelled instructions to his team to employ evasive maneuvers. But two more batlings were brought down in the next few minutes.
Our numbers were dwindling fast.
Where the fuck were the white wings when you needed them?
As if summoned by my thoughts, twin beams of light smashed into the ground, depositing several figures each. Kaster and two guys spilled out of the nearest beam. It took me a moment to recognize Bryce and Emmit, and when I did, myheart lifted. The other beam spat out a seven-foot horned male. If Sin was here, then?—
Nyx stepped out from behind Sin, a murderous glint in her eye and twin daggers in her hands.
Our gazes tangled, and a wicked smile curved her lips. “Been a while since we danced together, Orina!”
She ran toward me with a battle cry, slashing with her daggers like a demon to cut a path toward me, while Emmit and Bryce broke out of their human forms into their true form—epic Faoladh with wicked spines covering their backs and teeth and paws to rival Loviator’s monsters.
