Page 386 of Shadowblood Souls
My latent senses know exactly how to break and rend each victim for maximum pain. My scream rips through one body and another, shattering bones, splitting sinews and organs.
The agony ripples back into me, flooding me with an exhilarating strength.
For a long time, the pleasure that came with the pain I deal out has horrified me. But in this moment, knowing how many lives are at stake, I give myself over to it.
I need the strength. I need every bit of might I can get to ensure the larger massacre never happens.
These men would have murdered little kids. They were willing to kill every person in this village to get their demands met.
They don’t deserve the life I’m tearing out of them.
My fingers dig into the dry earth, claws jutting out. Body after body crumples in their ring around the hostages.
I’m distantly aware of cries and shouts, but I can’t even decipher where they’re coming from while my focus is trained on my targets. I have to trust that my friends and colleagues are holding their own.
Then there’s only one left. The man that first hauled the little boy out of the crowd, the one who stumbled at Lindsay’s shove.
I propel a sharper scream from my lungs, snapping his feet, then severing the tendons at the backs of his knees. Raking destruction up through his body swiftly but methodically.
Drinking down the last swell of agony before his life blinks out.
Then I sway forward, my own body caught in the rush of power. The sound fades from my throat.
Griffin touches my back, helping to ground me. His voice spills out in a rush of relief. “We got all of them. Jake and Zee and the others caught the sentries before they could hurt anyone—Sully helped divert them with his illusions. We?—”
“Someone’s coming!” Zian’s frantic holler splits through the air from farther away. “I can hear it.”
The words have barely left his lips when I hear it too—the roar of what sounds like a dozen engines. I leap to my feet, thinking that if we can just hurry the villagers to safety in time, it won’t matter.
But I don’t know where we could take them thatissafe. And as I straighten up, a barrage of brown armored trucks careen into view over the top of a nearby ridge.
Did the insurgents here realize something was wrong in time to summon reinforcements, or were these men already on their way? Are they even with the original terrorists, or are they some new hostile group?
It doesn’t matter. A hail of machine-gun fire blares across the landscape, and all I can do is yank Lindsay down with me as we flatten ourselves to the ground.
Our battle isn’t over. It looks like it’s barely even begun.
Thirty-Two
Riva
Ihug the earth through another thunder of bullets, grit prickling into my mouth.
Tires are grating against the hard-packed dirt as the trucks grind to a halt. Voices holler unfamiliar words.
And a sliver of pain jabs me right through one of my marks.
Jacob’s mark.
The chill of fear prickles through me. He’s a few hundred feet away, farther down by the buildings and the courtyard—closer to the incoming attackers.
Griffin puts words to my fear where he’s sprawled behind me. “Jake’s hit. Zian too. They’re still conscious. Jake’s more pissed off than worried, but Zee’s panicking a bit.”
Shit. My own worry constricts my insides from my throat down to my gut.
I dare to lift my head to get a look at what’s going on. I only manage to make out a couple dozen figures with massive gunsmarching toward the courtyard before a few of them aim their weapons at the hillside again.
Bullets batter the soil and the twisted shrubs. Chunks of twig and leaf spray around us—and Lindsay lets out a pained gasp.
