Page 110 of The Monsters We Are

Xavier and Wynter took turns tossing orbs of magick at the approaching men, managing to take out two. Hattie and Delilah returned to their human forms and joined in, their magick more feral in nature—it bit and clawed, scoring and puncturing flesh.

Wynter looked to where the forest lay behind them. It looked so small from here, but she knew the army hiding there could get to them fast if necessary. Itwouldn’tbe necessary, though. She and her coven had this.

“Do you think Cain will definitely hold back untilallthe keepers are close?” asked Anabel, using the sword she’d conjured to deflect bullets and orbs.

“Yes,” replied Wynter. “He’s protective, but he knows better than to let the army’s presence be noticed too soon.”

After all, if the keepers saw a small cluster of enemies, they wouldn’t bother to sound an alarm; they’d come to help their fellow keepers handle the situation. But if they spotted an army, well, things would go differently. No one wanted the Aeons to yet know just how close their home was to being invaded.

“These shitheads are almost on us,” said Xavier even as he blasted them with more magick. “And I can see more in the distance now heading our way.”

“Then it’s time,” said Anabel. “Call her.”

Wynter leaned forward and sang into her ear, “Mary, Mary, please come out.”

A glimmer of madness sprung to life in the blonde’s eyes. The sounds of magick crackling, bullets firing, and men shouting out challenges made her face light up. She looked fondly at her sword. “We fight?”

“In about, oh, ten seconds,” replied Wynter, calling to her own blade. She hurled a few more blasts of magick while counting down in her head. “Okay, now!”

Delilah and Hattie shifted into their animal forms once more as they all broke cover and attacked. A few keepers skidded to a halt, clearly not expecting the bold charge. They recovered fast, aiming their weapons.

Wynter concentrated on the one directly in front of her. She blasted his gun with a ball of hot, toxic magick, heating up the metal until he was forced to drop it with a hiss of pain. He charged at her, shifting into a coyote, moving too fast for her to impale him on her sword.

She hit the ground hard, her breath whooshing out of her, inwardly wincing as a rock dug into her spine.Well, ow.Looming over her, the coyote snapped his teeth but didn’t move to kill.

Not that he would have managed it in time, because she was already moving.

His head whipped to the side as she punched him with a ball of dark, rotting magick. She would have repeated the move, but then a blur of black fur barreled into his side, knocking him off Wynter.

She leaped to her feet, lifting her sword to take out the coyote. Anabel/Mary beat her to the punch, slicing off his head, singing “Everybody Walk the Dinosaur”. As you do.

A hard impact slammed into Wynter’s shoulder, sending white-hot pain lancing through her.Bullet. Heat grazed her upper arm as another skimmed her flesh.

“Just come with us, Wynter,” said the shooter—a lycan who was something of a bully. “I don’t know what your plan is, but you don’t have a prayer of taking on all of Aeon. Come quietly. Don’t make us kill you.”

She smirked. “Ah, don’t forget, Adam would killyouif you did.”

A crow swooped down on the lycan’s head and flapped her wings, obscuring his view and clawing the motherfucking shit out of his face. Wynter all but flew at him, burying her sword in his gut.

The fight raged on. Bullets fired. Animals lunged. Magick blazed through the air. Bodies fell, but more keepers came. Which was totally fine, because it meant that plan A was a raging success.

The keepers never tried to kill Wynter, but they tried to disable her. They failed. With her blade, she sliced, stabbed, and impaled. With her magick, she burned, infected, and destroyed.

Even though the keepers knew her blade was enchanted and that insects weren’t really crawling all over their bodies, the illusion nonetheless distracted them—something she pounced on. Again and again, actually.

Wynter braced herself as yet another keeper rushed her. A severed head came out of left-field and hit his skull hard, causing him to stagger to a surprised halt. Anabel/Mary was then there, hacking his own head clean off.

Hot pain punched Wynter’s leg, and her knee buckled. Hissing in agony, she tracked the shooter with her gaze. Before she had the chance to retaliate, a surge of Xavier’s magick crashed into the asshole’s arm, causing him to drop his weapon with a loud cry. Ha.

Wynter hobbled over to the piece of shit. “He’s mine,” she told the large cat who went to charge him. Wynter swiped out with her sword, disemboweling the prick in one smooth, cruel motion . . . and he dropped to the ground like a stone. Dead. Just like every other keeper.

She heard the gunning of engines coming from behind her. She didn’t need to look to know that the army that had been hiding in the woods had nowpouredout of it.

Skirting the corpses and dismembered body parts that littered the ground, Wynter looked at each of her coven. “Everyone okay?”

“Fabulous,” sang Anabel/Mary, even as blood poured out of a wound on her thigh.

Wynter didn’t panic for two reasons—the injury wouldn’t be fatal for an immortal, and it was already closing over much like Wynter’s own bullet wounds.

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