Wings of the Wicked - By Courtney Allison Moulton Page 0,108

hit the floor. Kelaeno was above me suddenly, grabbing a fistful of my hair and yanking me to my feet.

“Time to come with us,” she hissed.

My sword appeared in my hand and blazed with angelfire as I swung it up at Kelaeno’s face. She ducked, but my blade cut across her cheek, drawing blood and sparking. She shrieked and lashed out with her talons, slicing gashes across my chest. My angelfire seared into her face in a flash of light, and her skin scarred over. She shook her head violently, hissing and snarling and gnashing her teeth. Then she lunged for my throat, swiping, slashing, clawing. I kicked her chest and she hit the floor but bounced right back to her feet. Her hand clamped around my throat, and she threw me to the ground, grinding my back into the floor. Her boot stomped on my sword arm, keeping me from striking her as she crouched over me. I clawed at her hand as it tightened around my throat.

“Such a wild thing! You’re like an angry kitten.” Kelaeno laughed down at me, and her fingers brushed down my cheek. “And you’re so pretty. I want your entrails for ribbons in my hair.” She slashed her talon across my skin, and I flinched at the sting and the smell of the blood that followed it, despite the cut healing right away. She laughed again and shoved me harder into the floor.

Suddenly a fist collided with her head, and she was thrown off of me and sent tumbling. Will leaped over me and charged at the demonic reaper as she struggled to her feet. He hit her again and she fell. He swung his fist a third time, but her power lashed out and struck him in the chest, and he landed a few yards away on his back with a grunt.

She stood and cursed at the top of her lungs as she spun around to the waiting reapers. “Rikken!” she roared at the drooling reaper. “Disable the Guardian!”

Rikken gave an eager shake of his spiked head like a dog baring his teeth, and he stomped toward Will. Kelaeno stepped in front of me, blocking my view of Will just as I heard him growl in pain. Fear for his life stabbed at every inch of me. We weren’t going to make it out of here alive. There were just too many of them.

I screamed in a rage and called my second sword and slashed it across Kelaeno’s chest, ripping her wide open. She roared and reared back, spreading her arms wide with clenched fists, thrashing her head from side to side in fury. I shot forward and swept my sword at her gut, but her hand knocked my arm away and she swung her body into me. A claw swiped my face and I hit the ground, blood seeping over my cheek and lips. I spat and wiped my arm across my face, feeling the numbness of my skin healing.

As I climbed to my feet, I saw two reapers racing toward me—a female with glossy black feathers in her hair and another male—with their claws spread open and teeth bared. I collided with them, spinning, ducking, kicking. I brought down my blade in a sweeping arc, splitting the female reaper’s body in two through her shoulder and below her left breast. She burst into flames, gone before any of her even hit the ground.

I wheeled to meet the second reaper directly behind me, but something large and glinting burst through his rib cage, cracking bone and tearing flesh. Blood flecked off silver metal as it halted for a brief moment, only inches from my own chest, and then the reaper’s body lifted into the air so that I could see it had been Will who had shoved his sword through the reaper’s heart. He flipped the reaper high over his head as the body turned to stone midair and shattered into a thousand pieces when it hit the floor.

Across the hall, Rikken clutched his throat and chest, which had been sliced wide open by Will’s sword moments ago, spilling red. He coughed and sputtered, but even from this distance I saw that his wound wasn’t fatal and was already healing.

A shadow passed behind Will, and I cried out his name. He turned and met Merodach, who charged through the darkness, driving his sword at Will’s chest, but Will spun to the side at the last instant. The blade ripped through his