Page 57 of Claimed By Brothers

But one of the mercenaries bumps into Amber from behind. She drops her knife as she stumbles forward, and it’s the one mistake Umok needed to coil his arm around her neck and pull her close as he raises his sword. The blade presses against her belly through the white dress as horror flows through my veins. That’s our child he’s looking to kill. Our woman. Our future.

“Don’t do this,” I try to reason with him.

Around us, the fighting continues to the death, but even I can tell how weary and unconvinced the Sky Tribe fighters have become. Their blows are weaker than they should be. Their moves are sluggish and hesitant. Some still choose to raise their swords against us, while others abandon their weapons and yield before my brothers in arms. They’re not going to win this.

Tonight, they are outnumbered.

“Do what? Kill your children? That is precisely what you deserve,” Umok hisses, pressing the blade harder against Amber’s belly. My heart nearly stops beating altogether.

“It’s over,” I say. “Look around you. Your own men do not want this.”

“It doesn’t matter. They’re weak!” he says. “Feeble! Unworthy of bringing our children into the world. I’ll father them myself. All of them, if I must. But first, I need to cut yours out of this one!”

All it takes is a second.

A second of misplaced attention. A second for the sword to slice through skin and flesh to kill. To destroy my dreams with a single movement. Amber stills in Umok’s grip, her eyes wide with horror and her parted lips trembling as beads of sweat trickle down her tanned face. Even in the enemy’s grip, she remains as beautiful and as resilient as she was when we first met.

I cannot lose her.

Not tonight.

Not ever.

27

Izzo

It didn’t take long for me to find Valen. To my delight and surprise, Alicia and Cynthia got to him first. They were quick and bright-minded when they approached the soldier holding my son. By the time I reached them, the man had already relinquished the child and was running in the opposite direction, unwilling to join the fight.

“I’m done with this madness! I’m not killing a child!” he shouted as he fled.

With Valen safely in Alicia and Cynthia’s capable care, I’m able to return to the battle outside the fort’s gates. Once I fight my way through the Sky Tribe ranks, bodies dropping in my wake, I find Umok with his arm around my woman’s neck and a blade threatening to slice her belly open. That’s my child he’s looking to kill. Our child. A miracle of nature and evolution, a gift from fate herself.

Binzen is close but not close enough.

Men fight to the death around them, and our Fire Tribe warriors do their level best to keep a wide circle open around my brother and Umok. One wrong move could push the fucker into doing the unthinkable, so I need to move fast.

“You don’t have to do this,” I hear Binzen tell Umok.

But I’m distracted by a Sky Tribe lieutenant. A mountain of a man with three horns—he must’ve lost one in a previous battle, judging by the protruding stump on the back of his head where the fourth horn should be. He comes at me with two broad swords made of steel but with obsidian shards mounted all over the blade. Once one of these slices through me, the shards will do additional and irreparable damage.

I duck one blow and drive my shorter sword through his knee. He screams in agony as I listen to the tendons and ligaments crunching against the blade. He drops, and I slice his head off with my long sword. It tumbles onto the ground, his glassy eyes staring at the sky in fading disbelief.

Amber cries out in pain.

My instincts kick into motion, and I spot a Sky Tribe fighter struggling to reload his crossbow in the middle of the fight. I rush over and stab him, blood gushing and glazing me in a bright shade of warm red. I retrieve the crossbow and one arrow from his quiver, then turn around and load it. I aim it at Umok, trying to figure out a good spot to hit.

Binzen looks desperate. He can’t approach the fucker. Not like this.

Amber is still standing, but I don’t know for how much longer.

I have to do something. I can’t risk hitting her, though, if I go straight for Umok’s head. So I aim for the shoulder instead.

“You will never inherit this planet!” the madman shouts.

I cannot falter nor fear what comes next. This is it. My last chance to save my dream and our future.

I press the trigger on the crossbow and release the obsidian-tipped arrow. I watch the projectile dart through the crowd and past a few wandering and swinging heads before it shoots through Umok’s shoulder, drawing flesh and blood out with it on the other side.

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