Page 92 of Veradel
He doesn’t have to finish that sentence. Ever since the Eleventh Guardian drank her blood and sent her to the Healing Center. My chest burns at the injustice, but Odette tilts her chin up.
“Which is why I want to kill him.” She balls her little hands into two tight fists, and I can’t help but feel like if we’re lucky, she’ll get to meet a young werewolf with her same temperament. Despite being different species, I’m sure Odette and Milo would be fast friends.
“Hey.” With Lucan watching me, I bend down until I’m at the same level as her and gently hand her one of my knives from my belt, watching her fingers wrap around the hilt. “I need you to go protect all the other children. Don’t let a Guardian get into those housing complexes. Okay?”
Odette stares at the knife with gleaming eyes that reflect the firelight. “This is forme?”
“For you,” I confirm with a nod, shooting a glance up at her parents, who sigh. “Because you’re a warrior. Brave and fearless. And they are going to need you.”
I don’t tell her that if we win this, I’ll do everything in my power to make more antivenom and give her a second chance at a full lifetime.
With a tightened jaw, Odette nods, finally turning to follow her mother and father back into the safety of the alleyways. But she casts one last look back at me and says, “The Wall might suffocate you in your dreams, but it looks like you’re bringing it down now.”
I follow her pointed finger to where smoke is swelling around the borders of the city, knowing she’s right. Then she disappears into the shadows after her parents.
Finally, Lucan and I face the line of people waiting for our say-so, Malcolm and Walter in the front. Part of me wants to scream at them to run, hide, take cover… but I know I’d be here, too, even if I’d never turned into a vampire. Defending my city. Defending the innocent and weak and young.
And there’s nothing else to say to them. They’ve decided this for themselves.
Unlike the Guardians, I will never take away their choice.
With a final nod at each other that fills my heart to the brim, stretching it beyond its perimeters, Lucan and I break into a run.
The housing complexes, Childcare Center, Educational Institution, and Sentries Station blur past us. Within seconds, we’re bounding and leaping over the courtyard where the Choosing takes place, whizzing beneath the shadows of all the empty balconies.
As we near the front double doors where two sentries usually stand guard, I can see the first signs of vampire venom stealing over the wood, like frost overtaking a leaf. Cowards. Trying to block us out by fossilizing the Blood Moon Palace itself.
But they’re too late.
With a final leap, Lucan shifts in midair, his form growing until he’s the Monster through and through, smashing through the parts of the door that are still wooden.
We both land in that long, glamourous hallway on the other side…
But it’s not empty like it was when Arad walked me in after the Choosing. Now, it’s crammed with hundreds and hundreds of sentries, all pointing their rapiers at us with shaking hands.
In the very front, Rosalyn has abandoned her mask of doe-eyed innocence, raising her blade with a heavily wrapped shoulder. Oops. I almost forgot I threw a knife at her the last time we met, but I’m unlikely to forget again any time soon. Two slits for eyes glare at me from within her helmet, sizzling with hatred.
Well, right back at her.
“Charge!” she screams.
They all storm toward us, a dozen swords slashing in my face, and not even my new shiny eyesight can keep track of all of them at once.
I duck. Whirl. Try to kick the sentries down or push them to the side without actually killing any of them. A slash of pain erupts against my arm, and I cry out, glancing down to find a blade against it, tiny fissures in my skin sprouting from the line of impact.
I send my foot through the sentry’s stomach, but two more blades crack against my back—not slicing all the way through me but landing against me like heavy blows that knock the wind from my lungs, splitting my skin just enough to send vicious stings zinging up my body.
Saskia!Lucan’s vicious snarl fills both my mind and the hallway. My peripheral vision catches him ripping a sword out of a sentry’s grip with his canines, clamping down on his neck, then swinging his body until three or four fall over at once, his fury exploding outward like a physical force.
I’m okay, I pant.They’re not strong enough to get to my heart.
Because that’s the only thing that really matters. The rest of me can crack and bleed all it wants as long as my heart is okay, but I can’t ignore the fact that these sentries are slowing us down significantly. Where the hell are the Guardians? The way they’re hiding behind an army of humans instead of coming out to meet us face to face… it fuels the rage pounding through each of my movements.
Again and again, I twirl and kick and jump and dance, trying to make any kind of headway against the horde of bodies and weapons that just keepcoming and coming, until—
CRACK.
My vision stumbles. As if from the end of a long tunnel, Lucan roars my name. I sway on my feet, my fingers drifting upward to touch the blade lodged halfway through my neck… and then my gaze slides upward to find Rosalyn panting in my face, a triumphant glimmer shining through the slit in her helmet as her hands grip the pommel of her sword that she used to kill Claudia.
