Chapter 29

T he stairwell was blocked by a cold one. Massive in bulk, its silver-gray body ate up space, cutting us off from ascending. I’d have to take it down to get past.

Ezekiel let out a curse and grabbed my arm to haul me back, but I shrugged him off, my gaze locking with the beast, who had eyes only for me.

It knew I was the threat. It could feel the power in my sword.

“Ezekiel, don’t move. Do not interfere. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

The cold one raised its wolven head, reptilian tail whipping back and forth behind it, a sign that it was in hunt mode. Somewhere above it, children screamed and cried. I had no idea how many more of these fuckers were in here, but I had to get past this sentry to find out.

I let out a bloodcurdling bellow and ran up the stairs at it. It pounced, and I grabbed the far banister and swung my body over its head and onto its back, where I buried my sword in the space between the base of its skull and the top of its spine.

We called it the kill spot.

He dropped like a stone, and I launched myself off him, doing a neat back flip to land on the hallway above.

Ezekiel stared at the dead cold one, his eyes bright and threaded with crimson, then up at me, and there was hunger in that gaze, hunger and awe, that my body reacted to with a surge of heat.

“Help!” children screamed.

Fuck. I ran down the corridor toward the chaos, skidding through a door into a dorm room lined with beds and filled with terrified children and the hulking frames of three huge cold ones. And in the center of it all were the triplets waving wooden bats at the cold ones to keep them at bay.

The beasts snapped but kept rearing back as if afraid of the bats. What the?—

I rushed to join them, sword swinging to take out the nearest sentinel.

“Orina!” the triplets cried in unison.

“Go! Get out.”

“We can help!” Aaron said, waving his bat at a beast. It shrank back. I rushed it and stabbed it in the throat.

The third one retreated through another door into the next room.

“Ezekiel, get the kids out of here!”

“We’re not leaving you,” Ava said, her face scrunched up in determination.

I gripped her shoulders. “This is my job, okay? If you want to help me, then go with Ezekiel and help him get the others to safety.” They hesitated. “Go!” I shoved them toward Ezekiel, who was herding children out of the room.

“There are more,” Ava said. “In the other room. Be careful.”

“How many?” Ezekiel asked.

“I don’t know.”

“All right,” Ezekiel said. “We’ll get the children out, then come back to finish them off.”

And let the others get away? “Is there another exit out of that room?

“No,” Aaron said. “The corridor leads to the last dorm on this floor.”

“Then I need to stay here to make sure they don’t escape.”

Ezekiel looked like he wanted to argue.

“I want my mummy,” a little girl who couldn’t have been more than six sobbed.

“Fuck!” Ezekiel scooped her up. “Come on. All of you, this way.” He paused at the door to look back. “Wait for me. Do not go farther alone.”

“Okay.”

He vanished with the children, and I stood by the door to the next room, sword at the ready to block anything that came through. How long had it been since the Raven? Would I be able to clear the threat alone? With no clue how many were in the room beyond, I?—

“Help!” a child screamed. “Help me! No!”

There was a kid trapped in there!

I couldn’t wait any longer.

I burst through the door and down the corridor toward the sound of terrified screams, and then into the next dorm shrouded in gloom.

But there were no children in here.

Just masses of flesh dotted around the room, and smack bang in the center of it all was the largest cold one I’d ever seen.

An alpha female.

A breeder.

I could tell by the markings on her back. Oh God, had she laid any eggs? How had she gotten into the room? The door I’d just come through wouldn’t have accommodated her frame, and the windows were too small.

She was flanked by two sentinels—silent, lithe watchers waiting for their alpha’s orders.

I took a step back, and a low, menacing growl spilled from her throat, locking my limbs in place.

Shit.

She watched me with bright, intelligent eyes, and then she smiled.

Ice gripped my nape because this was crazy. Cold ones were beasts that acted on the primal instinct to procreate and grow in number. They didn’t smile, they couldn’t?—

Low-pitched laughter filled the room, and every hair on my body stood on end.

“What the fuck?”

“There you are,” the cold one said. “Trying to hide from me.”

My heart beat faster, harder, pulse thick in my throat. “This isn’t real.”

“Oh, it’s real,” the beast said. “You and I. We have history. So much history, but right now I’m hungry, and your soul will make the perfect dessert.”

Soul?

The sentinels slunk forward, pressing in to flank me. I rushed for the exit, but they were faster, moving to block me off.

Shit, shit, shit.

The alpha attacked, sudden and violent, and I barely had time to evade before she was on me again. I rolled across the floor, missing the crush of her paw by a mere hair’s breadth each time, then scrambled under a bed, flipping it back in her face.

But there was nowhere to run. Nowhere except the windows. I launched myself at the nearest one, arms coming up to shield my face in preparation for impact. The air behind me moved as the alpha leapt at me.

Fire cut across my back, and I was knocked off course, hitting the bedframe so hard the world rang.

“Orina!”

Ordell?

The scent of burning fur filled my head, followed by the ichor stench of cold one blood. Relief at their arrival was tempered by the knowledge that they wouldn’t be able to kill them.

Not without me.

Not without my sword.

I had to get up. Up, dammit! My insides screamed in protest as I hauled my ass up, sword hilt slick in my grip. The world was dark at the edges, bloody and fuzzy, but my markings flared down my arm, power circling my wrist like a guiding hand. I connected with a sentinel, burying my sword deep then yanking it free to decapitate its companion before swinging my body toward the alpha.

She was cornered by Ezekiel, Hemlock, and Ordell. Why wasn’t she attacking? She could easily knock them aside. They had no weapons aside from Hemlock’s fire, which seemed to have petered out now.

But she watched them with bright eyes filled with intelligence and a new kind of hunger, and then her gaze flicked over their heads to me, and she smiled—a smile filled with secrets.

The spark left her eyes a moment later, and her body shrank to a regular size.

“What the fuck?” Hemlock bellowed.

The cold one roared and attacked.

Ordell leapt forward, intending to grapple it, but I beat him to it, using the last of my blessed energy to vault over his head and shove my sword into the cold one’s eye. As my blade slid in, fire punched me in the gut, and blood filled my mouth.

I coughed, spraying red.

“NO!”

I wasn’t sure who screamed. But there were hands on me, lifting me, touching me, pressing down on my torso. Ordell hovered over me, his face a mask of horror, and then he was shoved aside, and Ezekiel took his place, pressing his wrist to my mouth and yelling soundlessly at me.

Warm, sweet nectar filled my mouth, teasing me to drink.

Drink.

“Drink, dammit! Drink!”

I closed my eyes and drank and drank and…