Page 7 of Kiss of Death
Devastation racked me when I realized I’d lost my greatest ability, the ability to raise an army from the dead—by land or sea. I couldn’t protect my own soldiers with the fallen. I couldn’t raise the kraken to sink the ships that attacked the cliffs.
I was powerless.
“He wouldn’t abandon me…”
Hawk looked away, and his throat shifted when he gave a painful swallow. He watched the battle before him, the dragons scooping down to attack the vampires and break their ranks, but there were so few of them and so many of the Barbarians.
I wanted to break down in grief. Icy cold terror flooded through me when I realized my greatest power had been stripped from me. I wanted to cry because I hadn’t realized how much I needed it until I didn’t have it. But the battle raged on, and I didn’t have the luxury of mourning. “Have the soldiers finish off those wounded by the dragons. I’ll move to the front of the line and cut down as many as I can.”
“You’ll get yourself killed, Lily.”
I reached for the heavy blade that sat across my back, feeling how weightless it was in my grasp. “I still have it…” I stared at my steel gloves as I turned the hilt, seeing the blade reflect the light of the torches. “His strength…” I didn’t understand how I possessed one gift but not the other, but the supernatural strength was undeniable. “And I also have Zehemoth’s.”
“Why do you have one and not the other?—”
“I don’t know.” But he was still there with me…at least a part of him. “Let me handle what I can, reduce the number of men who make it through to the rest of you.”
His eyes flicked back and forth in hesitation, almost as if he wanted to beg me to stay, but he quickly conceded. “Please don’t get yourself killed.”
“Same to you.” I turned away from my brother before he could say more and moved through the next wave of men as I made myway toward the front. The dragons still dropped from the sky as they ripped apart our enemies.
When I made it to the very front, it really was a massacre. Piles of bodies of my men were everywhere, the blood spilling so profusely that the dirt had turned into red mud. With golden arrows sticking out of their necks or their chest plates cracked into pieces, the men lay there with eyes that were open and lidless, staring up at the night sky but unable to see it.
There wasn’t time to mourn them because the vampires turned their attention to me the second I was on the scene. One of them wore the smuggest look I’d ever seen. He had a soldier by the throat and was about to slice his head off when he shoved him back instead.
The soldier immediately crawled away.
I gripped my sword made of Khazmuda’s scales and spun it around my wrist, just the way my father always did when we sparred together. I was painfully aware of the fact that Callum wasn’t with me, that he wouldn’t be able to warn me about an attack from behind.
I was entirely on my own.
“Pretty girl wants to dance?” One slice from his golden blade could be the death of me. He stepped through the mud as he came for me, his smile growing in intensity, more of the vampires beginning to converge.
It’d be a dozen on one, and I’d never done that before.
Then the vampire pounced for me and struck his blade down with both hands like he wanted to split me in two.
My strength was the same, the strength of a six-and-a-half-foot-tall behemoth king of the dead. But now, I also possessed an unparalleled level of focus, the ability to react before I could think or even breathe. As if I’d just woken up from the deepest sleep of my life, I was faster, stronger, and more aware than I’d ever been.
I sidestepped the blade that came for me then punched him in the face with my gloves made of steel. Stuck him so hard that he collapsed in the mud, either dead or knocked out cold, wasn’t sure which.
The other vampires hesitated when they saw their comrade fall from a single hit.
“Who’s next?” I yelled, the battle going on around me.
That was when the rest rushed me, at least a dozen of them with lethal blades. A simple slice to the cheek would leave me to bleed forever until there was nothing left of me. But the first one barreled down on me, and I parried his blade before I slammed my shoulder into his chest and sent him to the mud.
I stabbed my blade clean through his stomach before I sliced off the head of the next foe. They were all around me now, slipping when they lost their balance in the mud, and I felt like I had eyes in the back of my head with Zehemoth’s clarity. I caught blades in my vambraces and flung them away, headbutted others until they dropped, stabbed my blade clean through throats before I moved on to the next opponent.
But I never tired.
The bodies quickly piled up around me, and the dragons continued to demolish ranks. More of the vampires began torealize I was the biggest threat to this battle and converged on me instead of the others.
I handled the next wave of vampires, using the strength of a god who never tired and the mental clarity of a mystical being. Those two properties made me feel like both a dragon and a god…a dragon god.
The anxiety left my body as I continued to demolish my foes, my superior abilities making them seem like novices with wooden blades. Blood from my opponents splattered on my face and my armor, and I continued to build the pile of dead around me.
My brother’s voice sounded in my head.We’re behind you. We’re catching the ones who make it past you.
