Soon the day will finally come.
The monster is going to have so much fun.
“I’ll kill them for you,” Thad whispers, kissing me a little harder as I fade away from the rest of the sounds, barely hearing the screams in the distance as something crashes to the ground. The other distant voices sound panicked, but I tune them out as Thad whispers, “I’ll kill them all.”
Time for death. Time for fear.
The monster is finally here.
Chapter 39
THAD
Gage peels back a hole in the sand with one wave of his hand, and I slam my fist into the hatch below, breaking through it without any effort.
“No protection spell?” Dice asks as we hop through the hole.
Landing on my feet, I catch a guy by the neck, snapping it with a twist of my wrist before he can drive a sword through my side.
“Protection spells don’t work anywhere but on the breathing plane,” Kimber tells him.
“But seals work. Why didn’t it have a seal?”
“It did,” I answer just as two more men with hoods over their faces appear, lashing out hardcore power that Gage stifles easily enough, killing them with very little effort.
So much for their badass army.
“Why didn’t we feel it?” the ever-annoying, inquisitive incubus asks.
“Their seals are weaker now since we destroyed the rings,” Kimber answers. “Thad and I have more power in the planes than the seals.”
Ella streaks out her own power, leaving several rushing soldiers to drown on their own blood as they crumple to the floor.
“Try not to lose it in here,” Dice says to her uneasily. “I’d rather not get hit by friendly fire.”
Battle cries fill our ears, and the hallway we turn down has at least twenty men rushing toward us. I pick up two of the abandoned anointed swords, and I grin as I take a step up.
“My turn. Pick off the strays.”
Spinning, I dodge the first five, but my arms move out, stabbing two in the chest as my feet lift and slam into the face of the one in front of me. From there, blood flies from the wounds, and I work my way through the masses, dodging anything with a sharp point and ducking the fucking orbs flying at my head.
It’s natural, feeling the slide of metal slicing through the bodies as they rush me from every angle. With each spin, I get more aggressive. With each stab, I can feel myself getting closer to her. Every step I take through the horde of them is one step nearer to my girl.
In a series of twists and slashes, I obliterate the remaining five, and I stand, ignoring the spray of blood that has found my body, and ignoring the taste of blood in my mouth.
Clapping draws my attention, and I look back as Dice cocks an eyebrow. “You really were a hashtag—gladiator, eh?”
“This way,” I tell them, ignoring Dice’s coping mechanism as I gesture with my head toward the direction where I sense her presence getting stronger.
Just as we round another corner, I barely dodge a streak of blue energy, but a crushing pain sends me to my knees. “Kill them. Except for the princess, of course,” a voice says just as all hell breaks loose.
Dice crumples beside me, yelping in pain as the invisible force crushes us harder. Ella throws out punch after punch of power, seeming unaffected by the force that has taken us down, and I claw my way up to my hands and knees.
Too many dark users with way too much juice are pushing against us with more power than Ella can handle alone without losing it.
Just as more arrive, there are suddenly blue streaks and orbs crashing into the party, and several of the other dark users cry out in pain as they crumple just as forcefully as we did.
The pressure on my chest eases, and I look back just as Slade and three masked people walk up with their own firing line.