Page 29 of Frost and Fate
“Woah! Woah!” Peyton jumped up. “This apartment is full of electronics! Chill with the ice.” Nova turned to him, her anger threatening to boil over. Suddenly, a shimmer appeared in the air. Peyton looked around. “What the fu—”
Romani appeared an instant later. His tan face and hazel eyes were pulled into a mask of concern.
“Damn, bro!” Peyton jumped back. “Don’t you knock?”
Romani ignored the lycan’s remark. Instead he turned to Nova and uttered two words, “They’re coming.”
Chills ran down Nova’s spine. Darren was on the move, grabbing Nova and heading for the door. The others, including Peyton, quickly followed. “When?” Darren demanded. They had nearly reached the elevators. Romani walked purposefully beside them.
“I was only a few seconds ahead. They could be here any—” The air crackled. Darren turned to Nova, his golden eyes glowing brightly. An instant later a group of Collectors appeared out of thin air. There must have been more than a dozen of them. All eyes fell on Nova. The next few seconds were a blur as the Collectors descended upon the lycans.
“Protect Nova!” Darren roared. The group quickly formed a circle with Nova in the center. Nova’s heart beat so hard she thought it would break through her ribcage.
The Collectors surged forward, apparently undeterred by the group of lycans standing between them and their target. The wind whipped through the hallway as Nova called on her powers. There was commotion coming from the other apartments. Leah was just finishing snapping a Collector’s neck when she looked up, alarm in her eyes. “Nova, the doors!”
Realizing the humans could end up out in the hallway and become part of the dangerous fray, Nova quickly came up with a plan to keep them in. She slammed her palm down on the ground. Two sheets of ice shot out to either side, moving quickly along the walls until every door was frozen shut. As soon as the apartments had been sealed Nova heard a tearing of bone and flesh. Two wolves emerged, one black, and one blond.Leah and Lance.
The wolves had completely different fighting styles than their human counterparts. They lunged for the Collectors. Leah’s terrifying black wolf went straight for the throat of a particularly large Collector. He was a darker-skinned man with matted brown hair. His eyes were filled with that swirling white vacancy all Collectors possessed. The entire right side of his face had rotted away, revealing damaged teeth and a dingy grey skull. Leah’s wolf clamped its jaws around the large man’s neck. There was an audible pop as his throat shut in on itself. He let out a gurgled cry. The wolf shook its dark muzzle until the head was hanging on by the thinnest layer of skin. Only then did it look up and move straight for the throat of a second figure. Lance’s wolf had a different ferocity to it. The blond wolf went for the limbs, tossing its victim to disorient it, then dismembering the Collector before closing its mouth around the back of the head.
Those in human form were fighting tooth and nail as well. Gideon was truly a magnificent sight. Even in his perfectly tailored suit, the Alpha was dominating each Collector with brute force. He picked up a man with a rotted stomach and revealed ribs, turned him upside down, and shoved the upper half of his torso into the wall. The force caused the man’s body to bend backward nearly in half, and made a sickening crunch as his spine snapped.
An unusual metallic sound drew Nova’s attention to Peyton. The edgy, tattooed lycan seemed to have turned his metal-studded belt into a whip of sorts. He flung the weapon with so much force that when the studs made contact with an overweight Collector, they buried themselves nearly three inches into his face and neck. The man dropped, fluids oozing from the massive gash that had nearly split his head in two.
Nova suddenly remembered Romani and panicked. The Veil Walker was no lycan, and closer to a human than any other being present. To Nova’s surprise she found him expertly holding his own. He was somehow shimmering in and out of focus, appearing and reappearing. The Collectors roared in frustration as he would appear behind one, grabbing it by the arm and head. He pulled the left limb high and jerked hard on the small man’s neck. The small man fell to the floor and twitched once more before falling still. As a second Collector grabbed him, they both shimmered out of view.
When Romani returned to the hallway, he was alone. Darren was fighting closest to Nova. A growl tore from his lungs as he used his hands to rip through the chest of a massive creature. When his hands withdrew from the chest cavity, Nova saw that his fingers had partially shifted into his wolf’s form. Black fur and razor-sharp claws protruded from the place where his human hands had been. Darren pressed on, digging into another Collector’s face and skull.
A quick movement prompted Nova to turn around. While Romani had shimmered out, a greasy Collector with a shaved head had pushed into the circle. He lunged for Nova, wrapping his hands around her small, pale throat. Her air supply was cut off in an instant.
With barely a thought, Nova’s arms came up. She placed her hands on his mutilated face and quickly produced a thick layer of ice that covered his nose, eyes, and mouth, and the man released her. He clawed at his face, jerking violently around as the last of his oxygen dwindled beneath the frozen layer. Nova took the opportunity to create a large shard of ice, and plunged it into his heart. He dropped to his knees before falling limp.
Nova did another quick sweep of the room. The odds were back in their favor. The floor was littered with corpses while the lycans and Romani fought on. A flicker of hope began to bloom in Nova’s chest. The sound of an elevator dinging nearby caught everyone’s attention. Just as quickly as her hope had come, it was brutally snuffed out. Collectors began to pour from the open elevator. They swallowed the small group, forcing everyone quickly to the ground. Arms and legs surrounded Nova. The stench of rotting flesh filled her nostrils. Pure panic flooded her veins. Nova felt a tingling sensation spreading across her body. When she opened her eyes again, she was standing face to face with Romani. A cloud of grey fog surrounded them.The Veil!
Romani grabbed her shoulders. He spoke urgently. “I need you to buy me a few seconds, and then I can get everyone out.”
“But I can’t fully control it!” Nova felt fear grip her chest.
“You have to try. This may be our only chance of getting everyone out of here alive.”
She gave a quick nod and the tingling took her under once more. They reappeared in the hallway, just at the edge of the now-mound of bodies. Several of the lycans were on their feet, fighting fruitlessly as Collectors clung to their shoulders, necks, and legs. A cold wind blew down the corridor and Nova lifted her hands in the air. As she called upon her icy gift, every single Collector turned in her direction. They must have been drawn to her power.
“Get ready!” she shouted as loudly as she could. The lycans who were on their feet seemed to comprehend her meaning as they dropped quickly to the ground. A massive wave of small knife-like ice shards sped across the room. Nova tried to control the direction they went, but in her panic she lost control. Ice went everywhere. She cringed as several small, jagged ice shards pierced the limbs and torsos of her companions as well as the Collectors. She had to pray their lycan healing would protect them from the worst of it. While the ice hit its mark on several creatures, it only temporarily knocked back many.
The second the ice finished tearing through the mass, Nova heard Romani yell, “Grab onto me! Now!” Nova grabbed hold, along with Gideon, Peyton, and Leah’s wolf. Darren was dragging Lance’s wolf back, and as Gideon reached out to connect them to Romani, everything went black. It took Nova’s eyes a moment to adjust to their new location. They had just reappeared in the conference room of the Ulric complex. Someone screamed from within the room. Laurie and Brona had been sitting on the far end of the table. The frantic blonde ran to Lance, grabbing onto his unconscious form.
“What happened?” she asked, as she pressed her hands over the gash on Lance’s chest.
“Collectors,” Gideon answered grimly. The Alpha was on the move. “We’ve got to get him to Dr. Sawyer.”
Darren roared as he whirled on Romani. “You can fucking teleport?” His eyes shone gold as they burned into the Veil Walker.
Romani stared back at Darren. “Yes.”
The lycan slammed his hand down on the table. “And you were just going to keep that information to yourself?”
“Why would I tell you? So that you could exploit my abilities at your every whim?”
Nova peered around the room, scanning each member of the group. As she counted heads it became clear that someone was missing. “Peyton!”
