Page 77 of Aria's Ascension

Blinking, she glanced at him and nodded.

Moving to stand beside him, she murmured, “Kix, go left. Rellik, right. I’ll go down the middle. Move fast, and don’t leave an enemy at your back.”

Chapter 42

The second the door hissed open, Tirox’s enraged, pain-filled roars reverberated into the hallway.

Forcing herself not to look at him, she scanned the room as they ran inside. There were six Godzilla guards, two ants… and Zhrovni, all spread throughout the large room.

They all whipped around at the door opening, the ants immediately darting to huddle against the back wall, the guards reaching for their weapons, and Zhrovni freezing with shock, the blood-soaked blade in his hand clattering to the floor.

Tirox boomed a laugh, the sound wet, like he was choking on blood.

“You will die now, fools. You should not have made her angry,” he rasped thickly, still laughing.

At that, she glanced at him. It was only for a split second before she looked away, half a heartbeat, but the impression of blood and twisted limbs was enough.

Something in her mind snapped.

Thatotherpart—the dark, animal part, forged during her years in the arena—surged upward, but this time, Aria didn’t fight it. She welcomed it, embraced it, let it rid her of the mercy she might have otherwise tried to employ.

The guards weren’t the ones responsible for what had been done, but they’d stood by and let Zhrovni do…thatto her Red. They’d let him maim her playful, gentle barbarian.

So they would die, horribly.

That other part flowed through her limbs, offering strength and speed the likes of which she hadn’t known she possessed. Her senses sharpened until she could hear the heartbeat of the guard ahead of her, could see his pupils swell with fear from fifteen feet away.

Sprinting toward him, she ducked to avoid the shot he fired, then pushed off the ground, springing into the air. She flew over his head, landed in a crouch behind him, then spun around and leapt onto his back.

Having fought his kind before, she knew their weaknesses. She anchored herself by gripping his waist with her knees, pinned his head to her chest with one hand, then reached around and dug her fingers into the soft spot in his throat.

The thin skin split with a wet pop. Lips curled in a snarl, she shoved her hand past the meat and tendons until she felt his windpipe. Seizing it in her fist, she ripped it free.

The guard clawed at his throat, bubbling sounds wheezing out as his lungs tried to draw breath through the gaping hole in his neck, and slowly collapsed to his knees.

Aria used his dying body to push herself up and was already lunging for the next guard by the time he hit the floor.

The scent of burning flesh from Kix’s acid, blood, and fear was thick in the air by the time the last guard fell.

Zeroing in on Zhrovni, huddled and shaking against the side wall, Aria smiled.

As though that was the most monstrous thing he’d ever seen, he keened and tried to shove himself backward through the wall, scrambling at the surface as though a door would magically appear to save him from his fate.

“Your turn,” she whispered, slowly prowling toward him, savoring the terror on his hideous face.

Crouching, she picked up one of the guard’s guns, never taking her eyes from Zhrovni, then strolled forward until they were standing less than a foot apart.

For a second, she considered not killing him. She could imprison him in the cave below, leave him down there to rot like he had Thrasin. She could let him experience just a hint of the torture he’d inflicted on so many others.

But, this wasn’t Earth, with its prisons and laws, and she was no longer Aria Taylor, Special Agent for the FBI.

She was Vhraress.

And he needed to die.

Raising the gun, she clicked the setting up to high with her thumb, and set the barrel against his forehead.

“Youreallyshouldn’t have hurt my mate.”

---