Page 104 of Heart of the Deep

Gunshots and alarms drowned out all other sounds. Two crimson beasts hurled themselves through the projectiles, surging past Dracchus, dragging themselves forward over their fallen comrades. He spun to pursue them. Arkon and Kronus were already battling opponents of their own, and Larkin and Aymee had fallen back slightly, guns to their shoulders, still firing.

The acrid tang of gunfire and blood overpowered all other scents.

Kronus twisted, thrusting his spear upward as one of the attackers swung along the wall. The head of the spear punched through the kraken’s abdomen and burst out the back, embedding itself into the metal plating. The kraken halted abruptly, body folding around the weapon.

The kraken’s shocked, agonized face was suddenly familiar — Orphus.

The maneuver left Kronus undefended; his original foe stabbed him in the side. Pain tightened Kronus’s features as he swung backhand. His fist caught the other kraken’s jaw. The crimson-skinned attacker reeled, and Kronus threw himself at his opponent, taking him down in a mass of writhing tentacles.

The other charging attacker leapt off the wall and grabbed the ceiling rails, hurling himself toward the humans.

Larkin pivoted, dropped to a knee, and fired twice at the oncoming kraken. She rolled aside as the attacker crashed to the floor, but the injured kraken scrambled back up.

Someone hooked an arm around Dracchus’s from behind. Dracchus leaned forward; he needed to protect Larkin, to reach her, but his foe dragged him back and used Dracchus as an anchor to lift himself off the floor. Tentacles caught Dracchus’s other arm. The attacker threw all his body weight into pulling Dracchus’s arms backward and apart, threatening to topple the big kraken over.

Shoulders wailing in protest, Dracchus remained upright, dragging himself forward.

Ahead, Larkin raised her pistol to shoot the kraken who’d charged her. Seemingly unaffected by the bullet wounds already bleeding on his torso, the kraken caught her leg with a tentacle and pulled her feet out from beneath her. Aymee hammered the butt of her gun into the back of the attacker’s head as Larkin hit the floor.

Beyond Aymee and Larkin, Randall, Rhea, and Jax — both kraken bloody — battled more of the exiles, who’d come from the other corridor.

Two more attackers hurtled past Dracchus.

He roared. The sound burst from his chest and ripped out of his throat, vibrating back into him as it reverberated off the walls.

Arkon stabbed his opponent in the face and turned, skin flashing red. He tackled the closest of the two charging kraken, knocking them into one another. All three hit the floor.

Dracchus clenched his fists and bent his arm as much as he could before slamming his shoulder — and his foe’s head — into the wall. The grip on his arms loosened.

Arkon loomed over the kraken he’d tackled, straining as he battled the tentacles wrapped around his arms to bury his claws in the other kraken’s neck. His arms were covered in blood and gore, but his foe continued struggling.

Kronus was still down, wrestling with his original opponent; his tentacles encircled the attacker’s neck, slowly squeezing the life out of the crimson-skinned kraken.

The beast who’d charged Larkin had Aymee pinned against the wall.

Arkon roared Aymee’s name, but he couldn’t disengage from his foe.

Dracchus slammed the kraken on his back into the wall again, and again. Something crunched in Dracchus’s arm, but he didn’t relent until the hold loosened enough for him to break free. He shrugged the other kraken off his back.

Larkin jumped atop the kraken holding Aymee. She slammed her knife into his neck four times, twisting the blade on the final stab. The kraken swayed backward and released Aymee, who dropped to her knees. Larkin hopped away from the dying kraken, allowing him to collapse, and bent to collect her rifle.

Rhea had another female against the wall. Keeping the female pinned with a forearm on her throat, Rhea sliced open the female’s abdomen with her claws.

The female’s skin reverted to its normal shade as her life faded; she’d been Leda, once.

The second kraken Arkon had knocked down pulled himself to his feet. He turned to look at Arkon and Kronus, both of whom remained occupied, and met Dracchus’s gaze. The hatred in his eyes was unmistakable.

Neo.

Dracchus lunged forward.

Neo turned and leapt toward Larkin. Dracchus’s hands closed around two tentacles, halting Neo in midair. The crimson-skinned exile hit the floor hard, clawing for purchase as Dracchus dragged him closer.

A distantthump, and dull pain bloomed in Dracchus’s lower back. He didn’t relinquish his hold on his foe, hisenemy, the monstrous creature who sought to do his family harm. Who sought to doLarkinharm.

Turning onto his back, Neo twisted his tentacles around Dracchus’s arms. His abdomen flexed as he bent to lift his torso, swiping his claws wildly. Fresh gouges opened on Dracchus’s chest; he didn’t feel the sting of his wounds, only the warmth of his own blood as it flowed from them.

Larkin and Aymee fired over his head at targets down the hall; more of Neo’s followers were behind him. Past the human females, Jax was tearing out the throat of another kraken. Rhea and Randall turned in Dracchus’s direction. They were flanked by several more kraken.

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