“I’ll get you out of here, Adelay! Just hold on!” His arms shook underneath him as he struggled to steady himself enough to move closer to me. He crawled a couple inches then collapsed back to the ground. He clearly wasn’t strong enough.
I stretched my arm out to him, lightly touching the ends of his fingertips. “At least we’re together, and not going to die in here alone. . . right?”
He closed his fingers tightly around mine. My cheek was moist with fresh tears. Xander stirred next to us. I had forgotten he was still inside the room.
Suddenly powerful arms closed in around me, scooping me up off of the ground. Xander flung me roughly over his broad shoulder and headed for the door; but not before grabbing a hold of Sully’s shirt and dragging him across the floor behind him.
A burst of cold wind whipped at my face but was refreshing to my airways that had been suffocating in the heavy smoke inside the tomb. Snow was coming down hard outside, completely devouring the cemetery in sparkling white powder.
Xander let go of Sully’s shirt, dropping him inelegantly onto the wet ground; then gently maneuvered his body in an attempt to set me down next to him, but was caught off guard when something tackled him full force from the side. He lost his flaccid hold on me, sending me rolling into a nearby gravestone.
Xander got to his feet, shaking off some excess snow from his body before quickly crouching down in a stance ready to pounce on his alleged attacker. A disheveled Dalton stood there with a familiar smirk, as though just waiting for Xander to attempt an assault on him. Suddenly Xander grabbed and wildly swatted at each side of his head, shrieking in agonizing torture from whatever was going on inside him. Something horrible was happening to him that I couldn’t hear, but I didn’t have to; for I knew that Dalton had control over his mind again.
Xander couldn’t fight back, but even if he could it wouldn’t have mattered now because Davin -with a fresh bloody gash splayed across his forehead- was right back on top of Dalton, which wouldn’t have given anyone else a chance to get a piece of him, even if they had wanted to. Dalton collided into a marble statue a few yards away from the strike of Davin’s body, smashing it into pieces. Whatever hold he had had on Xander, for that short moment, ceased.
Xander fell to his knees, breathing heavily, with his hands still cupping his head, in visible discomfort. For an impact that would normally kill a human, Dalton wasn’t affected at all; and instantly had Davin pinned to the ground while Davin struggled to get free from underneath him.
For the first time tonight, it appeared that Dalton had the upper hand on the Ashford’s, now that another blade was pulled from somewhere off of Dalton’s body. The knife came tearing down, heading straight for Davin’s heart, but only grazed his arm, and planted firmly in the ground next to him when he rolled his body quickly to the side.
Dalton started to lose his balance but recovered, keeping his body still straddled over Davin, his gnarled fingers wrapped around Davin’s throat.
I looked to Sully who was curled into a tight ball, clutching his side. “Sully you have to try to channel into Eli and let him know we need him! Dalton is stronger than you guys realized. After seeing what happened in there, and whatever those things were that possessed his body, proves he has some darker forces on his side than just any werewolf!”
I was referring to the creatures that came out of the black ocean of smoke in the wall. That was not a werewolf characteristic, or at least it wasn’t by any book or movie standard I’d ever seen.
He kept his eyes closed as he spoke still in his fetal like position. “I’ve already tried, but being on sacred cemetery grounds, and whatever shields he has up, I don’t know if I got through. If it had worked, I would think that he would’ve already been here by now. It’s quite obvious that he’s an elder, just like my father, so his power was underestimated by us all.” He sucked in a gasp of air. “Who would have thought that he was changed the exact same night my grandfather left him for dead? It goes to show that even we make mistakes like humans. I’m just sorry this mistake cost us our life. My father is the only one that has powers as strong as Dalton’s. Without him I don’t think we have a chance in hell.”
A strange wave of exhaustion consumed me. “Hey, Sully?” His glassed over eyes peeled open. “I don’t feel so good.”
“I know, sweetie…neither do I.”
CHAPTER FIVE
God must have been listening in on our pleas for help, and had found some sort of mercy left for us; for Dalton's fingers around Davin’s neck loosened, and his attention was directed solely on Eli who stood in front of him now, his posture stiff as a board without an ounce of fear moving through his hard angry expression.
His crystal hazel eyes were a few shades darker than I’d ever seen them before, but they still looked as gentle as ever. Yet I knew very well not to be deceived because behind those beautiful eyes was also a man that had centuries of deaths under his belt and was capable of slaughtering many men with barely a snap of his fingers. He’d done his fair share of killing throughout the past
