Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
But he was not alone.
Like wraiths in the night, his brothers and fellow fighters arrived on scene, Phury, V, and Rhage right next to him, Xcor, Qhuinn, and Blay off to the left, Payne and Tohr flanking right. Everyone else had followed protocol and stayed back to protect Wrath.
“We’ll draw their firepower,” Phury said in a hard, low voice. “You take care of Nalla.”
“Roger that.”
His twin grabbed his arm in a stiff grip. “We got this. Okay? You worry about her. That’s your only priority.”
Their eyes met. And Zsadist nodded once. “Kill them, kill them all.”
Just as he said the words, Nate burst out of the front door of the cabin. For a split second, Z had to give the male a little respect. The fury on that face was epic, and that huge body was strung with so many weapons, the fucker was like a walking armory.
Gone was the laconic resister who was fucking with shit because he was bored and unconnected and hateful: The vengeance that was clearly threading through every molecule in that body… was exactly what was going through Z’s own veins—and it wasn’t because the guy was protecting two buildings and his rights as a fucking landowner.
Not even close. He was protecting his female.
Zsadist glanced at the barn he knew his daughter was in.
Indeed, something had changed inside of that fighter, something fundamental, and it had woken Nate up to the world. And wasn’t that a path Z himself had walked once, a lifetime ago—
With a war cry, Nate threw himself from his porch, pumping off rounds not in a willy-nilly, but like he was picking cans from a fence rail, not a single bullet wasted as he seemed to be able to shoot in both directions and hit targets at the same time.
The lesser response was exactly what it always was. Swift and coordinated.
Even as slayers were hit, they returned fire, and Nate was struck, his torso jerking back, not that it slowed him down.
But the kid didn’t have to fight alone.
The brothers and fighters advanced out of the tree line immediately, and they focused on pressing outward from the barn to give Z some time to get Nalla off the property.
Prepared to act fast, he turned to the—
The roar that started up was so loud, he wondered what the hell it was. And then came a screeching sound that rattled the roof of the outbuilding.
After that, there was a tremendous explosion out in front, and Zsadist ducked for cover—
Only to see a gigantic truck with tires the size of boulders blast through the double doors.
“Fuck!” He fucking knew who was behind that wheel. “Nalla! You’re going to get yourself killed!”
Sure enough, instead of heading out for the country road and trying to get away to safety—not that that fucking thing was going to fit on anything narrower than a soccer stadium—she bore down on the fighting, bullets pinging off the front panels and the windshield.
Nalla mowed down those lessers like she was bowling for bitches, and as she came back around for another pass, kicking up snow and throwing up slayer bodies like confetti, he caught a very clear visual of her fury behind the wheel.
“Motherfucker,” he yelled. “What are you doing!”
But come on, she got that shit from him.
And Zsadist’s only response, like hers, was the reason he’d been born: He got his black daggers out and ran to join the fight.
He engaged with the first lesser he came to, a female who already had a horrible head wound. She still had the strength of ten human men, and the pair of them traded gunshots—hers—and stabs—his. Which was a deadly dance being repeated all around the landscape—
The bullet went through his side, spinning him around.
Goddamn it, he hadn’t controlled the barrel of her weapon—
A sudden uncontrollable loginess overtook him, and the next thing he knew, the lesser had him flat on his back—and his own black dagger in her hand. Looking up, he told his arms and legs to move.
They didn’t listen all that well—and it was as he tried to lift his left hand that he saw the problem was not the bullet wound in his side.
He’d somehow been stabbed in the forearm.
And he’d sustained a critical venous puncture.
Red blood was flowing out of him at an alarming rate.
At which point he saw that the lesser had knives in both her hands. So she’d pulled out a second one from somewhere, the silver blade marking it as hers.
The expression on her face was rapt, her eyes wide with an aggression that bordered on absolute mania.
She put her own blade away.
And double-fisted his black dagger, lifting it over her head.
* * *
Nate had started the fight as he meant to go on with it: As soon as Nalla had gone into his escape tunnel, he’d strapped on his weapons and gone up his set of stairs. He’d been standing on his own threshold as the lessers started coming out of the fucking trees, and he’d had a moment of pause only because he hadn’t been sure that Nalla was off the property yet.