Page 84 of Blood Bearon
Others jumped higher, using those swords as stepping stones to propel them to the top. Swords rose and fell. Axes hacked and dropped. The mighty creature shook itself violently, sending shifters sailing away, but it was too late. A tide of bears rose up and took the beast down, crushing it under sheer weight.
Nearby, Klaue reached out and snapped off the tusk that was inside of him. Clumsily, due to a lack of thumbs, the bear pulled the tusk free. The elephant clearly knew what was about to happen and tried to back away, but it was too late. Klaue slammed the tusk down on its head, driving it deep into the creature’s skull and killing it.
Khove grabbed his queen and his men darted backward out of the way of the falling beast, buying themselves a short reprieve. Nearby, the giant bear slumped down, weak from loss of blood, and started to revert to its normal size.
“This fight will unite us as one,” the Queen growled, sucking in air.
“Aye,” he said quietly. “If it doesn’t break us first.”
As if summoned by his words, a fiery thunderbolt of blue lightning struck nearby, wiping out half a dozen shifters in the blink of an eye.
Khove’s head whipped around to see Korred headed their way. In the sky behind him, he could barely make out a figure toppling from the sky, a second one plunging downward in pursuit, hair whipping behind her. Khove could only hope Amber reached her mate in time.
“It’s time to end this,” Korred said as he landed on the ground, arms spread wide, eyes fixated upon the Queen.
Khove stepped in between them, sword held at a guard position. His gray eyes burned with malice as he faced the worst Traitor High House Ursa had ever seen.
“Agreed,” he snarled, and advanced.
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“You’re to stay here!”
She turned at the guards’ snarled warning and brought her light assault rifle to her shoulder. “Are you going to stop me?” she snarled, thumbing the selector to full auto.
The bear shifter licked his lips nervously, obviously not having expected Rachel to threaten him. “Ummm.”
“My mate is out there, and they need my help more than you do here,” she said, motioning to the medical station.
The underground garage was mostly abandoned. It was clear the fight for the House was taking place on the north lines, and the Captain had long ago taken everyone who could fight and headed that way, except for four guards he’d detailed to stay behind and protect the medics.
Four guards, and Rachel. But she was tired of that. Tired of being protected, when she was fully capable of helping.
“No? I thought not,” she said fiercely, backing away several steps before turning and running up the sloping curved ramp.
What she saw at the top was a scene enough to give her nightmares. Here and there, the human mates of many of the shifters whizzed by on ATV’s, the women hauling mangled shifters to the medical station below. Bodies of Fae and occasional shifters lay where they had fallen. Fires burned everywhere, providing the only light besides the flashes from the fight in the sky.
She swallowed in sudden fear as the realization of what awaited her truly hit home. This wasn’t just a gunfight. There was magic and more being unleashed.
That point was struck home by an explosion of golden light to the north. Rachel watched as a bear larger than a dump truck took on four oversized elephants. Her eyes kept trying to deny what she was seeing, but the shockwave of sound that battered her ears convinced her otherwise.
“Ahhh!” she screamed in pain, dropping her gun and clamping her hands over her ears until it was over.
A shape came near and she snatched up the rifle, calmly selecting a single shot and pulling the trigger twice. The satyr rocked backward, two bullet holes appearing in its skull. A second later, it collapsed and died.
Rachel pulled her lips back. The Fae weren’t human, she decided. Human laws didn’t apply to them.
Stalking forward, she prowled the shattered battlefield. Fae that had gotten in behind the lines spotted her, and they came at her in ones and twos, spotting an easy kill. Or so they thought.
Her rifle barked again and again. Holes opened in foreheads, chests, and occasionally a stomach when she missed. Rachel’s hair flashed as she whipped around and unloaded the rest of the magazine into a charging centaur, the uranium dust spilling from the bullets upon impact, eating away its entire torso until it fell apart in two pieces at her feet.
“Anyone else?!” she snarled, tossing the empty assault rifle over her shoulder and pulling two pistols from her belt.
More Fae, alerted by her voice, moved to block her as she headed for the northern lines, where she knew she would find Khove. They came at her screaming wildly, eerie high-pitched noises that sent shivers down her spine.
Rachel’s arms came up.
Fae went down.
