Page 31 of Bros Come Before Hordes
Her eyes went midnight black. She surged to her feet and dodged away from me, too fast and spry for someone who’d been in a wheelchair for as long as I’d known her. Before I could react, the wheelchair itself erupted in blinding white light. I threw my arm across my face to block it, but stabs of it had already pierced my skull. Tiny bright orbs floated behind my eyes while a bolt of pure panic ripped down my spine.
“Asa!” I shouted, already moving in the direction I thought the door was in. I crashed into the wheelchair which was still intact, ignoring the flashes of pain where the metal had hit bone.
Tavis, Vance, and Calhoun were shouting, too, and running.
Chaos. I couldn’t see shit and had no idea what was happening. Couldn’t hear over the rush of my heartbeat. Blinking hard, I shoved away from the wheelchair and zombie-walked toward the door with my arms out, repeatedly crashing into the heavy stone pillars with thousand-pound books on top.
“Guys!” I screamed, but their voices faded some, like they were chasing after Big Mama.
Where had she gone? She wasn’t who I thought she was. Hell, I didn’t even think she was human anymore. Or maybe never had been. Because a human couldn’t have done what I’d seen of the shifter pretzeled underneath the desk in the security office.
Fae. The word beat like a drum at the back of my mind as I scrambled for the door. I couldn’t let her—it—get anywhere near Asa.
My vision started to clear, the little white dots scooting to the edges, though much too slowly. My outstretched hands hit a wall, and then slapped toward what I hoped was the exit. Soon, I found it and stepped out into the hallway.
“Hello,” I called, but my voice broke on the second syllable. Probably wasn’t a good idea to announce my exact location while almost completely blind. If anyone wanted me dead—and let’s face it, most everyone did these days—now was the time to strike such an easy target.
But I needed to get to Asa to see if he was all right. Even though he was protected by my harem’s treasure trove magic, I had to make sure.
Blinking several times, I took a step forward—then froze. The hairs all over my body lifted. Awareness sifted over the senses I still had. I definitely wasn’t alone in this hallway.
“Yara!” a familiar voice called form the hallway to my right. Tavis.
I could just make out the faint shape of him, but this feeling that I wasn’t alone didn’t stem from him.
“We chased her out down this hallway, and then she vanished,” Calhoun said from the hallway to my left, his voice thick with rage.
“And Vance and Asa?” I asked. “Can you two see?”
“Vance went outside to search the grounds,” Calhoun said.
“Asa’s just fine,” Tavis promised. “I was only blinded for a little bit.”
Then he could see behind me, then. I had the distinct feeling that something was unfolding itself from the shadows and creeping up behind me. I started to move across the hall to draw it out into the open. Footsteps sounded behind me. A vicious chill raced between my shoulders.
“No!” Calhoun bellowed.
“Yara!” Tavis shouted.
Something cold and jagged pressed into the skin at my neck. Strong arms wrapped around me from behind and locked mine to my sides with bruising force. A whiff of smoker’s breath hit my cheek. Bad Mama.
She dug the blade into my neck hard enough to make me gasp. “Come any closer and she dies.” Her voice didn’t belong to her—it was cruel and sharp as a broken mirror.
“Let her go now,” Calhoun bellowed.
“Tell us what you want,” Tavis said, cool and calm like this kind of thing happened every day.
“I want your land,” she hissed. “Our little truce with the dragon shifters is through.”
“So youarefae,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Shut up,” she snapped and angled the blade as a warning so a drop of blood slid down my neck.
“Don’t you fucking hurt her,” Calhoun said, seething. “She had nothing to do with the truce or the war before that.”
“As queen, she’s got everything to do with it now, doesn’t she? Fuel to the fire for the Civil War that’s been brewing for years since your goddess refused to choose a queen before now. A good distraction while we’ve infiltrated your land all these years, and an even better distraction while we take it away.”
“You seem so confident that’ll work,” Tavis said, his usual casual self like they were discussing the weather instead of war. “Have you met Yara? She’s not exactly going to just let you take our land.”
