Page 24 of Kiss the Dawn
I hurried to look out of the windshield in time to see him round the front of our vehicle and approach the two men stepping out of the four-by-four.
They were big, muscular guys, Crush-size guys with hands like spades and blocky heads. They had to be ogre bloods or half-blood fae. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but their body language spoke of impending attack a moment before they launched themselves at Lorenzo.
He didn’t flinch, he didn’t even raise a hand, but the hunters flew back and slammed into their vehicles.
They shook it off and attacked again, only to be made airborne once more. Lorenzo stood with his hands in his pockets looking like he was posing for a shoot. Surely this was enough of a show of power to get them to leave us alone?
Nope, they were regrouping, rolling their necks and…grinning? What the?—
A loud horn blast shook the road. It was coming from one of the hunters. From his mouth. How the?—
Movement by the bridge caught my eye.
Oh…Oh God.
Several large figures emerged from the shadows. Huge hulking men like the hunters.
“Shit,” Rodney said. “They have backup.”
“No, no, no, this is bad.”
“Yep,” Rodney said. “Mr Crescent is powerful, but there are ten of them and one of him.”
“I need a weapon.”
“Boss wants you to stay put.”
“Dammit, Rodney, you know he can’t take them alone.”
Out on the road, Lorenzo was surrounded. Wait, there were eight around him, where were the other?—
The vehicle rocked, and a static boom tore at my ears.
“They’re attacking the wards,” Rodney said.
Lorenzo knocked the hunters back with sweeping motions that sent some kind of sonic wave outward, but they kept coming for him. He did a twist with his hand, and one of them dropped, his neck at an odd angle, but the focus it took disrupted the sonic wave he was manning, and two hunters broke through and slammed into him.
Lorenzo went down, buried beneath the huge bodies.
“Weapons! Now!”
“Under the sink,” Rodney said.
I yanked open the drawer and released a rack holding several blades set around a short sword. I grabbed the sword and ran for the door.
The vehicle rocked again.
“There’s a hunter by the door,” Rodney warned.
“Good!” I shoved it open, slamming it into thehunter on the other side, then leapt out and stabbed him in the gut as he lunged at me.
He went down, and I spun and sliced a path across the other one’s torso.
He bellowed in rage and rushed me. My sword found a home in his neck.
I yanked it free, kicked him out of the way, and ran toward Lorenzo.
Lorenzo was back on his feet, a shimmering dome of power surrounding him as the hunters attempted to break through, but then they spotted me.
