“What did you do to him?” she yelled. A tear slid down her face. Clumsily she wiped at her nose with the back of her hand, smearing blood across her cheek.
The creature made a strange clacking sound, presumably a laugh, as four very ugly men filed into the room. From the look of their jaws, their eyes, she suspected they were all Darkoor. Like Bhaosz wasn’t bad enough? Now there were more?
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, gathered what strength she had left, which wasn’t much. The room was spinning, her nausea had not abated after watching Bhaosz’s feast, and the flickers at the edges of her vision were getting bigger. Darker. Like shadows growing in her mind.
“You will escort me and the boy to the entrance and let us go.” Her voice shimmered across the air, power behind every word.
The horror in charge chuckled. “No. We won’t.”
Blood ran freely down her neck, and a steady trickle leaked from her nose. She wiped it away once more. Damn. What was wrong with her? Why wasn’t her voice working on them? She tried again.
“You will escort me and the boy to the entrance and hand us over to the Caldorians.” She squinted, tried to see the shimmering waves of her voice envelop the Darkoor guards surrounding her. Nothing.
White-hot fire speared her spine from skull to hips, and she whimpered, dropping over Matthew’s body to try to protect him. Her headache exploded like a mushroom cloud inside her skull, and the pain made her scream.
“Someone’s been using maju paste.” The booming voice of the monster filtered through her senses like an echo in a dark canyon. “Bring her and the boy to the first floor. And find out who she belongs to. I want them both alive.”
“Yes, boss.”
The last thing Isabella saw before the world went dark was four men coming toward her, their faces melting into something gross. Inhuman. Darkoor.
Chapter Eleven
Falden, Gareth, Cassiel and Vander, silent and unseen to all but each other, ran through the fighting that had already begun. King Dagan’s Caldorians had arrived to find the two guards who had accompanied Isabella trapped behind her car as the occupants of the building fired from both the front door and the roof. The fighting was intense. Their enemy had come fully prepared.
Direct Energy Cannons blasted from within the fortified walls of the nightclub, the impact shaking the ground. Glass from nearby windows shattered. Laser pistols fired short blasts, the smell of singed skin and blood heavy in the air as dozens of Caldorians clashed with the creatures pouring out of the broken door, the sound deafening. Falden barely registered the commotion.
How did this happen? He’d gone to a human bar, met a human woman. He’d been on mission. No distractions. No weakness. No fear.
For thousands of years he’d mastered fear.
The ice-cold terror running through his veins jumbled his thoughts and made tactics difficult. Planning? Impossible. All he could feel was helpless terror that Isabella could be hurt. Rage that anyone on this planet, or any other, would dare touch her. Regret that he’d let her slip through his fingers.
“You with us, Falden?” Gareth spoke directly to his commander, not allowing Vander or Cassiel to hear his concerns. Thousands of years of combat, of friendship, of loyalty kept him from assuming command of the mission despite the fact that Falden was clearly distracted. Falden was never distracted. In fact, the others often joked that their leader had no emotions at all. But the swirls in Falden’s skin and the fury in his normally cool gaze made liars of them all. Falden not only felt, he felt deeply. Possibly even more intense emotions than the rest of the younger Knights. They’d all looked to him for guidance. Counsel. He made the hard decisions. He was the oldest. Invincible. Until now.
“If they hurt her, they all die.” The absolute conviction in Falden’s voice was broadcast to all three of his team.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get to her in time. She was only a few minutes ahead of us,” Gareth assured him.
“Perhaps.” Falden was not prepared to offer himself false hope. If she had infiltrated a group of Darkoor, she may have been killed immediately upon her arrival. If they traded in humans as well as tech, they’d keep her alive. At least for a while.
In his hand, Furon glowed brightly, electric sparks arcing up and down the blade like it was alive.
“What’s with the light show, old-timer? Get ahold of yourself or they’ll know we’re coming,” Cassiel joked, as he often did. And he got away with it because of age.
However, he was not wrong. Falden looked above them and saw clouds swirling at an alarming rate. Lightning split the sky into tiny pieces that made the area look like a broken mirror with dozens of uneven and jagged pieces above their heads.
“Storm Caller is doing his thing.” Referring to Falden’s sword, Vander tapped his own weapon where he kept it strapped to his back. “Let’s do ours.”
Falden lifted his chin to indicate the roof. “Cassiel, Vander. You two hit the roof. Gareth and I will go in the front.”
Vander grinned. “No prisoners? We’re cleaning ’em out?”
Falden’s dark scowl made Vander tilt his head.
“Just making sure, Commander. It’s not the usual order.”
Falden thought of Isabella. Her dark brown eyes. The soft silkiness of her hair. The way her lips melted against his. The gentle touch of her hands on his flesh, and the more demanding way those same fingers dug into his shoulders, his ass, demanding more. His. She was his.
“Kill them all.”
Cassiel
