Page 95 of House of Mages and Raven

Speed was our strong suit, and we had an evil blade that outshone any sword forged in Heaven.

Of course you can count on me, mistress.Deathsong giggled, emitting a cloud of smoke from its dark blade while it was still in the flesh of that female Shrieker.

Barbie yanked out Deathsong and leapt toward another female Shrieker, kicking her boots in the air, thrusting her blade into a male Shrieker that got in the way, before she landed in a crouch on the head of our target. The female Shrieker clawed at her.

Watch out!I shouted.

Tentacles flung toward Barbie from every direction. She brought up the blade in an arc, slicing the attacking tentacles, but they kept coming. Shrieks filled the battlefield, and I winced as they hurt my eardrums.

Barbie was drenched in oily black blood.

Ruin watched the battle from a distance, directing his soldiers of abomination to attack us more effectively. While Barbie had to fend off the tentacles, it was impossible to find purchase and sink Deathsong into the female Shrieker she perched on.

Claws!I called.Use my claws.

I desperately wanted to surface and take over the fight. Barbie might have more magic, but I was stronger and faster. But during a battle, we almost never shifted back and forth. When I shifted, it took three long seconds for me to finish the transition, and we’d be at our most vulnerable.

Barbie shifted partially, and our claws slashed through the tentacles. She tossed Deathsong in the air, and the blade buried itself between the eyes of a Shrieker. Barbie stretched out her clawed hand and summoned Deathsong back, then tossed it at another Shrieker. Her other claws kept fending off the assaulting tentacles.

Rinse and repeat.

I gagged at the stench of the Shriekers’ acid blood as Barbie slaughtered them left and right. Her arms started to grow heavier, yet the abominations kept rushing toward us, swarming us, a single purpose defining their existence—capture us for their master.

The Shrieker that Barbie used as a footstool tumbled to the ground, killed by another Shrieker. It was a countermove against our battle plan. The enemies were changing strategies, directed by Ruin, who could mind-talk to all his creatures like a hive king.

Barbie leapt, but hundreds of tentacles had formed a net over her head and all around her, sealing our escape route, and there was no way could she cut them all at once. As the walls of the tentacles crashed down on her, she went down with the slaughtered Shrieker. She rolled away to avoid being squashed beneath that dead beast. The floor rumbled and rocked like an earthquake had broken out as the Shriekers stomped the ground. The land tilted. Barbie lost her balance.

The Shriekers pinned us down. Scorpion claws pierced Barbie’s left leg. Pain bloomed in her, and I lunged to take it into me, gasping as the pain sank into my insides. I had highertolerance for pain than Barbie, but it was never easy to absorb so much. The abominations’ claws had impaled her flesh and scraped her bones. They didn’t care if they maimed her, as they wouldn’t be punished. Even if they cut us to pieces, they could still scoop up our bits and bring them to Ruin, and he’d patch us up with his foul magic and revive us for the next torture. The sweet release of a real, final death had always been denied us.

Enraged, Barbie bellowed. She struggled to free a hand, and Deathsong slashed wildly at the abominations, but they pinned us down again by falling on her in heaps, burying her. The tentacles she’d sliced off also dropped on her, splashing black blood all over her face and hair.

I roared with her, pumping strength into her, yet it wasn’t enough. The enemies were too many. They were just too many.

Deathsong fell from her grasp. More claws sank into her, bleeding her. Pain lanced through her, and then it was in me. I snarled and snarled, but it’d be a terrible idea for me to take over and leave us even more vulnerable. I wailed helplessly, then roared in rage, then wailed again.

We have to let out the darkest flame,Barbie said.

And burn his commander first and see how our father likes the pain while he’s in it.

32

Barbie

Just as I called for my darkest flame, thunder boomed across the sky with lightning, though I couldn’t see shit as the Shriekers buried me far beneath them.

My roar was drowned out by my enemies’ blood-curdling shrieking. I clenched my teeth, awaiting the arrival of my darkest flame, only to find the unbearable weight on me lifted, and the stink of burned flesh and machine parts filled my nostrils.

With a burst of strength, I was keen to push away the remaining two Shriekers on top of me and then stab them a hundred times. But they flew across the plain on their own, lightning frying their grotesque bodies.

A gorgeous face that I hadn’t expected to see so soon came into view as Killian loomed over me, lightning still flashing at his fingertips. Rage and terror burned in his eyes that had turned to the darkest blue. It dawned on me that he’d feared that he was too late and that something had happened to me.

He’d come for me. He’d been the guy who saved the day again.

Only half an hour ago, I’d fucked him, using him to expel the mating fever. I’d kicked him out of the bed to prevent him from getting relief. I’d called him Satan. Yet he’d still come for me.

Something loosened in me, need, longing, and gratitude ready to surface, but I snapped at myself from going soft. So I clenched my jaw instead.

Killian stretched his hand toward me and asked urgently, “Are you hurt, Barbie?”

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