Page 129 of Creatures that Breathe

Luke’s nose scrunches. “Motherfucker” comes out as a low whimper. He rubs his cheek. “Really?”

“I should kill you myself,” Cross snarls.

Luke shoves the spymaster back. “Assumed you guys were about to drop the L-bomb, sue a guy for playing dead.”

I move instinctively, lunging forward, throwing my arms around the mortal’s massive shoulders. He’s too big to hold, corded with muscle, wide as a tree. Yet so fragile in his mortality.

My calm collected strategic Cross looks ready to kill the both of us as he hauls me to my feet again. “Precious time wasted,” he snarls at Luke.

“Yeah, well …” Luke sighs, almost bored. “Shit. Incoming.”

Grappling hooks claw into the windowsill, shred the last of the glass and pull taut.

A siege. My stomach drops.

The worst is yet to come.

Run.

Cross remains eerily calm, forcefully pushing Luke and me into the hall like naughty children, casting a “fuck” behind him as bodies scale the walls.

The hall, politely put, is a degenerative clusterfuck.

Rocket launchers and near-death experiences are opening moves.

This is check, with mate circling.

Sweaty, and snarling, Sin breaks past us in an all-out sprint, freeing short knives from a band on his waist. “Queensguard’s here,” he greets jovially, hurling his blades with deadly accuracy, bringing down several bodies before he’s tackled to the ground by a creature in head to toe dark green, hood and cowl obscuring their features.

“Stay with Luke,” Cross commands, grasping the mortal’s hand and physically wrapping it around my biceps. He retrieves the gun from Luke’s holster. “She’s everything,” he tells Luke, urgent and intense, as he hands me the oily black weapon. “Everything. Do you read me?”

A stern confirmation from Luke and Cross’s gaze shoots over to me. Those black star eyes are colorless. A hot ache crawls up my throat.

“Eleven, sixteen, forty-five,” he recites, studying me one last time. “Do not die.”

Then he joins the chaos, launching at the body grappling with Sin, protecting his family.

Luke pulls me along, racing through a ransacked gym and a filthy, burnt toast kitchen until we land in an empty bonus room. Without hesitation, he retracts a ladder from the ceiling and practically throws me onto it. “Go.”

I plant my feet, glare up at the mortal three times my size. “We’re not abandoning them. I’m not running or hiding.”

“Of course we’re not,” Luke assures me, hazel eyes dancing. “But they’ve got nine lives and enough fucking ichor to punch through a skull. I want a fair fight.”

“I’ve never been in a fair fight.”

Luke grins. “Then let today be the start of the rest of your life.”

I hurry up the ladder, hands slipping on the aluminum steps, bare feet aching, and reel at the sight above.

The attic is not dusty, cobwebbed, or haunted like it ought to be in a house this old and grand.

It’s a fully stocked armory with weapons lining the walls from floor to ceiling. Guns. Ammunition. Knives. Bows. My eyes must take up half my face as I spot a second rocket launcher among the arsenal. “Sweet Hera.”

“Don’t just stare. Load up.” Luke removes a pair of black harnesses from the wall and fastens them onto his thighs, adds more across his chest, around his biceps. This isn’t his first time gearing up in a rush. Gleaming knives disappear on his person, clips bulge his pockets, he keeps twin handguns in his palms.

I take a shotgun, because it comes with a strap and swing it over my shoulder, grab a holster that matches Cross’s and stuff Luke’s stolen gun into it.

“Is that all?” Luke asks, more metal than man.

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