Page 157 of Halfblood Deceived

More gargoyles landed in front of them.

One blasted Sebastian with a foul spell, another gripped the blond by the neck before he could recover, taking flight. A gargoyle with double horns swooped in, shackling Sebastian’s arm, making him hiss in pain, and forcing him to release his blade. Another took flight and followed the tangle of growling males, readying his sword to cut Sebastian’s arm off.

“NO!” Aylana screamed.

Zeydan blasted his telekinesis at his closest gargoyle opponent and then launched his sword. It went right through the neck of the bastard who was about to dismember his cousin. The gargoyle let out a choking sound and fell to the ground like a boulder.

The other two dragged Sebastian higher into the air and away at an alarming speed.

Aylana growled and chased after them.

The second of distraction cost Zeydan the upper hand over his two opponents, but he didn’t regret it. Not even as a ball of red magic crashed against his chest and took him off his feet. His body shook for seconds that felt impossibly long. The pain was nauseating. A cursed chain wrapped around his neck and he was yanked off the ground and taken into the air.

He felt as if he were burning from the inside out. His sight was blurry, his limbs heavy and shaky, too slow to stop the gargoyle about to slice at him with his sword—

A blade went through the neck of the gargoyle.

Diana.

The gargoyle female decapitated the bastard, stone fangs flashing as she roared at the one choking Zeydan with the chain. The bastard roared back and twisted the chain harder in response.

So Zeydan called for the power he rarely used. One more skill he’d inherited from his psychopathic father.

His solar plexus burned with the crackling energy desperate to be unleashed. He let it flow with more despair than technique and saw the flash of blue electric power covering his frame. It fried the gargoyle holding him, forcing the beast to release him.

The chain fell from Zeydan’s neck, and he plummeted fast to the ground.

He managed to beat his wings and straighten mere feet from the rocky surface, just in time to see Diana slicing in two the gargoyle that he’d electrocuted. The chopped-off dead body fell to the barren, gray ground. Diana was surrounded by three more stony beasts in mere seconds.

A desperate scream drew his attention toward the two gargoyles keeping Sebastian trapped and flying further away.

His will was divided.

Sebastian was his cousin.

Diana wasn’t quite his friend yet, but he couldn’t abide letting her die.

Heart in his throat, Zeydan called for his mist and wrapped it around Diana’s opponents.

He decapitated one of the confused beasts in mere seconds.

Diana delivered a slice to one of her other two opponents, nearly disemboweling him. “I can handle these assholes! Go help Sebastian!”

Zeydan didn’t need to be told twice. He called off his mist and gave chase to the two gargoyles holding his cousin prisoner. Sebastian was fighting like a maniac—scratching, kicking, calling for weak flares of fire, but the gargoyle bastards were determined not to let him go. They dragged him away from his screaming soulmate, who was bolting toward him on the ground.

Zeydan summoned a dagger and launched it. It hit the gargoyle holding Sebastian’s chained arm right between the shoulder blades.

The gargoyle let out a roar and released Sebastian, plummeting to the ground, clawing at his back as he fell through the thatched roof of an abandoned Victorian-style house.

Sebastian wrapped the chain around the neck of the gargoyle who still held him prisoner, head-butting the bastard, and down they went as well. The gargoyle’s body hit the cobbled street with a cracking sound, breaking the concrete blocks. Sebastian landed right beside the gargoyle, still half trapped, his left wing bent at an unnatural angle under him.

Aylana’s desperate roar cut through the sounds of the fight still raging near the destroyed church. She ran at full speed toward Sebastian. The blond had a broken wing and a bleeding wound on his side. His chest heaved with labored breaths.

The gargoyle who landed next to Sebastian recovered faster than the weaponless vampire and was determined to kill him.

Zeydan flew as fast as his wings could take him. His heart hammered as he watched with horror as the gargoyle he’d stabbed with a dagger emerged from the debris and rushed to help his buddy. He yanked at the chain hanging from Sebastian’s wrist, forcing the blond down to one knee.

Each gargoyle gripped one of Sebastian’s arms, their blades flashing as they lifted them to cut him apart.

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