An aphid skittered close to a dark-skinned nymph. She hissed at it, hunching her knobby shoulders and throwing talon-tipped hands over her head to ward it off.
My heart leapt to my throat. If the nymph bit the aphid or got bitten, they would both die.
The aphid leapt away, its sights on a man with shaggy hair and a scary-looking blade.
Jesse’s arrows fired into the fray as I ran. I knew the guys would follow me, but I ran faster than them. If I could beat them there…fuck, I didn’t know. As usual, I didn’t have a goddamned plan.
Those final ten yards to impact lasted an eternity. I’d never seen so many arrows and blood flying through the air. There were so many men…strangers. Why were they here? What if they killed the nymphs before I reached them?
But they weren’t targeting them. In fact, they took cautious steps to avoid hitting them. From what I could tell, they weren’t shoot-em-up, rebel-flag-waving, living-the-apocalyptic-dream roughnecks. These guys were sophisticated. They knew how to fight, predicted each other’s movements, and flowed together like a highly-skilled army.
They would either join us. Or kill us.
As those last ten yards shortened to one, I found myself in the middle of the field, on the edge of the battlefield, surrounded by ten white-eyed nymphs. Roark’s chest pressed against my back. Jesse’s arm hooked across my stomach. Their weapons moved in my periphery, but the nymphs weren’t interested in them.
Ten pupil-less, slack-jawed expressions locked on me. I felt their purpose in the pit of my marrow. They’d come for me.
Taking in their assortment of dresses and adornments in their hair, my first assumption was that they hadn’t been traveling with the naked nymph back at the house. My next thought wandered to the multiple scratches I’d heard on the windows and door. Had they walked around the cabin on their way here?
But every conscious thought flickered out as a burst of agony wrung my insides, the pain so harrowing I wanted to vomit. Make it stop.
Instinctively, I dropped the bow and raised my arms in supplication, palms up and eyes closed.
The closest nymph wrapped jagged-sharp fingernails around my wrist. My eyes shot open, and my insides splintered into a thousand shards of agony. Its telepathic pain pushed those shards deeper, harder, slicing the air from my windpipe.
Roark pressed against my back, his breathing ragged. “This is your most idiotic idea yet.” There were a lot of i’s in that sentence, and the worry in his accent made them all sound like oi.
Jesse clenched his fingers against my hip, his arm barred across my belly. “Just keep your eyes open, Roark.”
Their anxiety was making me anxious, but I expected the same treatment from the nymphs that Shea had received. Just a quick bite on my arm. Not on Jesse’s or Roark’s.
The nymph watched me with overlarge eggshell eyes, its cheeks sunken beneath protruding cheekbones. Its complexion took on a grayish hue in the moonlight, but I knew it would look just as bruised in the glare of the sun.
Talons dragged over the delicate skin on my wrist, and the jaw stretched open.
It wasn’t until that insanely vulnerable moment that I realized I’d run out of the house without my arm sheathes. In two years, I’d never mindlessly shown up to a battle without my blades, carbine, and USP handgun.
But I had the bow. Which currently lay somewhere at my feet. Lot of good that did me with so many aphids engaged in battle just yards away.
The nymph’s weapon stretched toward me from the back of its throat in an intimidating display of squirming, tubelike mouthparts. One thrust of the vicious-looking spear at the center of those tentacles, and it would carve a huge ass hole in my chest. I’d never witnessed a nymph feeding, but I’d heard all about their gruesome attacks in the early days following the plague.
The tentacles curled around my arm, and I held my breath. Then, with the striking speed of a snake, it tapped the tip of the spear against my wrist. I hissed in surprise. It was just a pinch, hardly painful, as if the nymph knew how to be gentle with its prey. Then its body promptly dropped to the ground.
One after another, the vacant-eyed creatures stepped forward and poked their spears into the veins in my arms. Each pricked a new hole, sipping the smallest drop of blood. It was so orderly and civilized. Like the puff and pass of a joint. Or a wet kiss from grandma. So very fucking…friendly.
The tiny stabs felt like a flu shot, there and gone in the span of a heartbeat. Even better, with every poke, the harrowing pain inside me lessened.
Jesse and Roark didn’t move from their protective stances against me, but each time a new nymph moved in, their bodies turned to steel. When a speared mouth darted out, they flinched.