Page 81 of Captured By the Monsters
I had underestimated him, but I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Fluidly, I raised the gun I was still holding. Without aiming or pausing, I leveled it at the leader’s chest and fired without second-guessing. There was no time for me to doubt my movements. Any extra second could have resulted in my own death.
The kickback from the gun shocked me, and my ears rang fiercely from the sound.
Surprise froze the leader’s features as red began to bloom around his heart, and he collapsed to his knees before face-planting into the ground. A large pool of his blood began to seep out around him as he gasped and choked on his own blood.
My eyes didn’t leave him until his struggling stopped and his eyes glazed over.
Dead.
Barely acknowledging my victory, I turned to the two remaining soldiers. Silence filled the room that now seemed like a vacuum in time.
Or maybe that was the ringing in my ears from the gunshots, making it seem like it was quiet.
But then my thought was proved wrong by a shrieking wail that was so loud, I dropped the gun to clap my hands over my ears.
Fuck, not more piercing noises. I had the fucking migraine from hell forming.
From the paneled walls where the soldiers had been hiding came three Specters. The sight of them startled me while I tried to piece together why they were here.
It wasn’t until they attacked my Trifecta in tandem with the remaining two soldiers that I pieced it together. The leader of The Above had been in cahoots with the usurpers all along. Of course they had. They had a similar goal.
I had seen my mates fight Specters—they were no match for another Rumilus when their kind was corporeal—but my monsters were so weak from fighting. Like me, their bodies bore evidence of where bullets had hit them.
They couldn’t keep going—and the Specter Trifecta knew this.
An indescribable rage started to brew in the pit of my stomach. It grew and grew, rising within me until it was a fiery bile I needed to expel. My heart beat began to thrum loudly in my ears, just as it had when I’d touched the large crystal and had felt connected.
Opening my mouth, I howled in anger, surprised that flames didn’t erupt from my lips like a dragon. What happened instead was even more miraculous.
A bright, sharp light exploded from my mouth, the glow so intense I had to shut my eyes. Cracking one eyelid slightly, I couldn’t see anything for all the light that was coming out of me, bathing myself and the entire room in its glow.
After what felt like an eternity, my mouth closed, swallowing the beam of luminosity. My eyes struggled to make sense of my surroundings. No one besides my mates remained, and I had to wonder if my light had just…zapped them away?
I really didn’t have the least bit of a clue on how to wrap my brain around what was happening in front of my very eyes, but I couldn’t deny that our attackers were done. And by the looks of it, my light had healed my monsters.
Blood still stained their clothes, but all of the bullet holes were closed. I jerked my head down to look at my thigh and found it was the same. Bringing my hand up to my shoulder, my fingers trailed over smooth skin beneath the lingering blood.
“Holy shit.”
