Battle With Fire (Demon Days & Vampire Nights)

One centaur reared up in shock and got an arrow in his underside. Another arrow, nocked and shot inhumanly fast, blossomed in the neck of the second.

Charity sprinted and ducked, running under a third centaur while stabbing upward. Hot liquid spilled down on top of her, and she dove and rolled as the creature screamed and stomped her hooves. She’d rather not be trampled by a horse-woman, thanks.

Back up in a flash, she sliced off a foot and dodged a kick, seeing Devon in trouble with another centaur. The bastards were big, and given that Cahal still hadn’t taken his two down despite peppering them with arrows, they were obviously tough to kill. She dodged another flailing kick, pushed in, and stabbed again, tearing the underside out. That had to do it.

Devon yelped as a hoof took him in the hindquarters, and molten fear cut through her. Dodging an elf, ducking around Cahal, she dropped her sword and slammed her hands together. Hellfire shot out, blistering in its intensity, and struck Devon’s attacker on the right shoulder. She ripped it down and across, cutting the thing in half.

Cole the yeti roared, lumbering over to protect his alpha, but it was done. The top half of the bare-chested woman slid off the bottom, ruining a pair of very nice breasts. Sorry, lady. You chose the wrong side.

Charity picked up her sword, and Steve joined the yeti, targeting the final centaur on this side of the battle. They didn’t need her help, so she looked for the next elf to strike.

Bodies littered the ground. Her dad stood among them across the way, Halvor at his back, bloody and disheveled. Roger was up near the natural dual-mages, his sides heaving as he caught his breath, and Emery and Penny seemed to be doing what she was: looking for another fight. Reagan and the monster version of Darius stood in the middle of a group of downed centaurs, both smeared with blood. The two of them were a helluva force to be reckoned with.

Silence descended on the battlefield as the dragons flew overhead.

They’d won their victory, but it was only the first in what would surely be a long, grueling fight.

Eleven

“I swear, I cannot take one more second with that woman,” Karen said, sitting across from Penny at the long table in the mess hall at the shifter compound.

I sat on the other side of Emery from Penny, leaving enough of a gap that it looked like I was giving him space, when really I was politely getting as far away from Karen as I could. She was in a mood, and if she talked to me, I would be in a mood. That grudge I felt was still going strong.

Cahal sat across from me, leaving a sizeable gap between himself and Ms. Bristol. He didn’t care about being polite.

“I don’t get it,” I said, looking at his plate filled with vegetables. “I don’t get it. You don’t eat meat anymore? A guy your size?”

“She is intentionally trying to jam up the works,” Karen continued. “I just know it.”

“Centaurs are vegetarian,” Cahal replied.

I held out my fork and lifted my eyebrows. “Yeah, and they suck. And the ones who attacked us are dead. Terrible point.”

“They’re big, was my point,” he replied as Karen continued to unload on Penny. “Death weighs on me after a number of years. I cycle through various eating styles. Currently, I don’t wish to kill another living being if I don’t have to.”

I leaned on an elbow as I surveyed him. “You’re kidding, right?”

His eyes were flat as he popped a buttered carrot into his mouth.

“You just cut down a whole bunch of living things.” I finished chewing and sawed off another portion of steak. “Eating horse is taboo, and eating man is taboo, but if they weren’t, you could’ve had your fill out there from your killings.” I paused. “Is eating elf taboo?”

“Over the line,” Emery said, chuckling. “That’s just wrong. And probably not helping your argument.”

“I don’t need help making my argument,” I replied. I poked at my steak, a little too rare for my taste, but I didn’t plan on mentioning it. If you complained about the food in the shifter commune, you had to get into the kitchen and help cook. Given Darius was busy checking out the vampire quarters and probably wouldn’t bail me out even if he wasn’t, I didn’t intend to raise a fuss. “This delicious steak is making my argument.”

“It would be more prudent to eat centaur,” Cahal said, cutting his potato, skin and all. He didn’t scoop out the middle like normal people. “They are hard to kill. They are not raised to be food, like the useless animal you are eating.”

“Well, that’s just offensive to cows.” I shook my head and sighed, tired but still going strong. The flight to the portal had thankfully been uneventful, and the help of the friendlies at the end a surprise bit of awesome. That might’ve been a tough battle, but it had ended up being manageable.