“Thanks, Gavin. I appreciate your candor.” Stone sounded sincere.
“Grace.” Gavin turned to look at me. “What do you want to do?” He asked as if he was now taking orders from me. The sounds from above and behind us grew louder.
“What do you mean, what do I want to do?” I knew exactly what he meant.
“Grace, we’re about twenty miles from Nod. We’re not going to make it. We have to fight,” Stone declared as if fighting was fun.
“We should make it,” Gavin replied with confidence, as if he had been part of the original planning.
Stone shot a disgusted look at Gavin. “Yeah, well, your little detour back there gave them all the time they needed to catch up with us. Leave it to a Fallen to sacrifice the lives of millions of humans because he can’t keep his lust in check.”
Millions of humans? Wasted efforts? We hadn’t stopped for that long. And, for his information, we did not stop because we wanted to make out. It just ended up happening that way.
“Sorry, Grace, that’s all it took. You were supposed to follow the plan, exactly to the letter,” Stone apologized as he rode Ambry harder. “We’re gonna have to fight now.”
“Nothing is going to stop me from helping Remi. Keep going, to the gate. We have to get to the gate. We need LJ, Caius, and Arcturus,” I insisted.
“Grace, we won’t make it!” Gavin shouted as he shot an arrow through a shapeshifter darting through the wood to his right in the form of a white tiger. Zion never even broke stride.
“This is gonna be fun,” Stone laughed as he raced ahead of Gavin, who jaunted beside us as if kicking Zion into over drive. “Sorry, Grace, I need my own wheels,” Stone said as he spread his wings and suspended himself in the air between Gavin and me while we continued to ride toward Nod.
I grabbed Ambry’s reins as a huge horse appeared out of nowhere, matching Zion’s exact physical features and dress, minus the crest. “A companion for Ambry, perhaps, when this is over?” Stone laughed, looking over his shoulder as he mounted the new horse.
“Nice, Aqua Man,” Gavin teased.
“Grace, look out,” Stone yelled.
A vampire jumped up onto Ambry’s back. Long nails clawed into Ambry’s skin as the vampire reached for me and attempted to pull me off. There were two others behind him.
I pulled a short knife from my right side, then turned to my left and shoved the ten-inch blade into his heart as he jumped up. It was so gross. Blood poured in spurts at first from the site of the wound, then from his rotten mouth in a spray all over me. The vampire fell forward onto Ambry, nearly lifeless, legs dangling as we rode. I reached under him to pull my knife out. Sticky, hot blood covered the handle, making it impossible to grip. I wiped my hands on my pants and grabbed the knife, pulled it out, sliced his head off Fruit Ninja style, and then watched as his head rolled behind us. Freaking vampire bled all over me and poor Ambry before I shoved the rest of him off.
Two other vampires were hot on my tail. I was surprised the Fallen had played their hand so early in the game. I guess they’d assumed getting me out of the way left them room to sweep in and take Jenny’s baby, since Gavin wouldn’t fight them and they didn’t know Stone was going to be there.
They were gaining on us pretty fast. Stone grabbed one of his knives and threw it into a gigantic black lion that had materialized to his far left, stopping it immediately. Stone jumped down off his horse, which had yet to be given a name, and in one fluid movement beheaded the beast he had just impaled with the same knife.
“Just in case!” he shouted.
That seemed to make the vampires mad, so the girl came after me with a vengeance. This girl could not have been older than me and was pretty short, petite. But boy was she quick. She took to the air without wings and punched me square in the face. I was not expecting that.
Out of the corner of my good eye, I saw Gavin take out a shapeshifting black bear and a werewolf. Sexy, I thought to myself as Gavin smiled, hearing my private thoughts again.
Stone successfully battled two Fallen, another black lion, and two demons in about three