Pure Destiny (PureDark Ones #12) - Aja James Page 0,96
could not see for himself.
He almost wished that they’d brought Inanna, instead, for her Gift of laser vision. She could easily zoom in and out of objects with microscopic and macroscopic precision. Surely she would have spotted them by now.
“Bank slightly west,” Tal said, closing his blind eyes and focusing his newly developed Gift.
Perhaps he could sense them, anticipate where they were going instead of where they were presently.
The copter veered to follow his direction.
“They’re close,” he confirmed. “I can feel it.”
“There,” Valerius pointed out. “A flash of steel amidst the trees.”
But just as the helicopter dove lower to get close to the action, a blinding light mushroomed from the treetops like a physical force, sending the helo staggering off course as it caught the edge of the shockwave.
As their pilot struggled to regain control, the panels and alarms in the flight vehicle going haywire, Tal heard and sensed the second helicopter groaning and screeching through the same plight.
The rolling and spinning of the helicopter completely disoriented an already blind man. Tal no longer knew which direction was up or down. Strapped into one of the two rear seats, he could only grit his teeth as his internal organs tumbled through the tailspin. Overwhelming nausea threatened to cripple him even further.
Were they going to crash?
How far away were the treetops?
The ground?
Out of nowhere, something heavy pounded into the belly of the aircraft, accompanied by the shriek of tearing steel. Then, the downward descent halted with stomach-flipping suddenness.
As Tal’s dizziness subsided somewhat, he could feel that they were upright and stabilizing in the air.
“Sweet baby Jesus,” the pilot muttered in a strange twang Tal had not heard before. “That’s the biggest fucking eagle I’ve ever seen! I know y’all aren’t regular folk, but that there’s somethin’ else!”
The Dark eagle warrior had come to their rescue, it seemed. Jade had assembled the team of Chosen wisely.
“Can you land in the clearing amongst the trees?” Cloud asked.
Tal rather envied the warrior’s ever calm, smooth tone. He himself was still getting his bearings and catching his breath. As an ancient Akkadian warrior who’d spent many millennia imprisoned and only the past couple of years learning modern ingenuity, to say that he was not used to flying was to put it mildly.
Within a minute, they maneuvered to a patch of open ground close to the nexus of the blast. The second helicopter landed nearby, and the six warriors emerged from within while the pilots stayed put.
In concert, they moved swiftly across the clearing and into the woods toward the action. Except, when they got there, all was silent and still.
Only one individual remained standing in a ring of scattered bodies lying immobile upon the ground.
Tal could almost see it with his other senses, forming a mental picture of the scene. He stumbled across one of those bodies in the outer ring and bent down quickly to assess.
The fallen soldier was breathing, his chest rising and falling as if in slumber. Tal felt no tension in his body. He was not forcibly paralyzed; he was simply unconscious.
“Dalair,” Cloud greeted, his voice edged with wariness.
“She is here,” the Pure Ones’ Paladin answered.
Tal could feel the tension immediately ease out of the other warriors. It sounded as if Dalair, whom he was meeting for the first time as one of the Elite, was “back.” Somehow, his turning had been reversed.
They moved to where the Paladin indicated as the warrior crouched down, holding Sophia’s body in his arms.
“She’s unharmed,” he said quietly, though his voice vibrated with emotion.
Tal could viscerally feel his connection to the young queen. His worry and fear for her well-being. Most of all, his devotion and unconditional love.
They all felt it. It was the connection between Destined Mates.
“What happened?” one of the Dark warriors asked.
“I dispatched the first wave of enemy soldiers in the woods towards the east,” Dalair reported in a clipped, efficient speech.
“Here, we encountered the next wave. I estimated two dozen, but before I was halfway through, more arrived, surrounding us from three sides. There were too many, coming at us all at once. I couldn’t keep the line of defense.”
He paused; Tal could almost hear the pounding of his heart and the buzz of adrenaline.
“One moment I was locked in battle with two enemy soldiers with two more approaching from either side—I was braced for a severe wound; there was no way I could have extricated myself without sustaining injuries in that tangle—and the next moment, everything froze.”