Page 90 of Empire of Dark

Ada by the bar.

Arms and blades swung in between us, but a crack appeared in the crowd and there she was.

Blood splattered across her face, she yanked her dagger out of the neck of a man nearly double her size. Her eyes lifted and she spotted me through the brawl.

She paused.

Shepaused—with swords swinging next to her head—and she smiled at me.

Was she actually enjoying this?

In the next instant, she ducked a blade coming at her neck and swept out the feet of the man attacking her.

The bodies between us shifted, closing the crack of a sightline I had to her.

I shifted the angle of my rampage in her general direction, cutting down body after body in an effort to get to her, the red haze surging through my veins and around me, turning me into the vicious killer everyone knew I was. Nothing but the fucking cautionary tale mothers told their children to scare them into bed at night.

The red haze blinded me from everything except the silver aimed at my body and my own blade sinking into flesh. Arms, stomach, necks, legs, ear—every drop of blood splattering onto my blade driving me onto the next strike.

Time passed—much too slowly, even if it was only a few minutes—and I landed at the exact spot I’d seen her.

No Ada.

Shit. In the red fucking haze that had swallowed me, I’d lost her.

Sound. Deep in my ear. Ada’s voice.

“Back do—” Her words cut out with a crunch.

Back door.

I tore through the main part of the club and down the dark hallway that led to the rear of the building, my sword slicing through everyone I didn’t recognize. Blood splattered everywhere, slippery under my shoes. If you were in my way, you were dead.

My shoulder rammed into the back door and I stumbled out into the night, clashing steel ringing in my ears. One, two, three bodies lying on the ground.

There.

Ada on the loading dock, falling onto her back, though she kept her grip on her blade. Eustice above her. The edge of hissword blasting into her arm cuff and sending it flying through the air, slamming into a brick wall.

His blow flipped her onto her side and he lifted his sword for the next strike.

She threw her right arm up—always her damn instinct, to let a blade crash into the titanium clamp on her arm to take the blow. The motion diverted attention—hiding her power, what her skin could do.

Except the cuff was no longer in place. Just vulnerable skin.

Her instinct a downfall I’d always noticed when training with her but I’d never mentioned.

Why in the hell hadn’t I told her? People never saw their own tells, their own vulnerabilities. Never.

Eustice roared, his entire body lifting onto his toes as he swung.

There was no coming back from this. Not now.

Not when his blade was swinging through the air at Ada. Aimed directly at the one vulnerable spot on her.

I launched myself through the air, my foot hammering into his chest before his blade could meet her skin.

My blow kicked him off the platform and sent him to the ground below, his sword clattering far away from his hand. I jumped down to his level, staring down at him.

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