fact that she held no weapon. The woman’s thundering shouts were making her a massive target. At the same moment, Perizada suddenly appeared beside her. She looked at Nissa and then in the direction of Nissa’s gaze.
“By all that is holy,” Peri snapped as she took off after Cindy.
Peri had known they were flashing into a damn war zone, but Cindy Morgan running through it like the hounds of hell were on her heels had not been anywhere in the realm of possibility. Something caught her attention, and she momentarily glanced up and saw the suspended arrows. Now that just pissed her off even more. Alston had been willing to kill his own, blindly shooting arrows into a battlefield in hopes of taking them out. She swung her arm up, and a huge burst of power shot out of her hand. A second later, the arrows turned to dust. As soon as her eyes dropped back down to Cindy running, she saw a vampire headed right for Cindy, and Peri shot out her hand, hitting the bloodsucker with a powerful bolt of magic. On the other side of Cindy, an elf who obviously didn’t belong on team Vasile, because he was looking at Cindy like a predator looking at prey, was heading in her direction. Peri saw Elle was just to the right of the elf who had set his sights on Cindy. “Elle!” Peri yelled.
The fae’s head snapped around, and Peri pointed at the dark elf. Elle threw a dagger and it hit its mark, straight into the heart. The dark elf dropped, and Cindy Morgan’s life was once again saved without her even realizing it had been at risk. Or perhaps she did know but just didn’t give a damn. Maybe she was just like Jen, Jacque, and Sally and had absolutely no sense when it came to not doing stupid things that would lead to them getting killed.
As Peri made it past Elle, the other fae ran beside her. “Why is she here, and where is she running to? And how the hell is she so fast?”
Peri answered all three with the only answer she could, “I have no freaking idea.”
Cindy disappeared around a huge tree, and she’d only been there a second before Peri and Elle reached her, but it was a second too late. Peri felt as if the world was suddenly tilting, slipping off of its axis. But instead of feeling like they were going to whirl off into oblivion, everything was happening in slow motion. All the sound around her was muffled except for Cindy’s voice. She’d ground to a halt, her voice growing louder with the shrill screams of a woman possessed, and then her knees buckled, and down she went until her legs slammed into the ground with jarring force.
Peri’s head snapped up to where Cindy was staring with one hand covering her mouth and her other hand pointing. The high fae’s eyes saw something that she knew she would see for the rest of her life every time she closed them. Alina, her friend, brave and strong, stood with her chin raised. The strands of hair that had escaped her braid were stuck to her blood-and-sweat stained face and neck. Her clothes were covered in blood and torn in places, yet she stood as regal as a queen dressed in the finest silk. Alina was held by a huge warlock, her arms pinned behind her. In front of her, a vampire stood with a hideous grin, blood dripping from his mouth and his hand embedded in the alpha female's chest.
Alina’s head turned, her grey eyes meeting Peri’s. A single tear fell down the alpha female’s cheek, and then she yelled with all the strength that must have been left in her, “FOR THE PACK.” Her voice died a second later, replaced by the sound of wet suction as the vampire pulled his hand from Alina, her heart in his clawed grasp. He held it up in the air and released a victory cry. Abruptly, everything stopped, and their enemies suddenly disappeared as the fae loyal to Ludcarab and Alston flashed the vampires, warlocks, and elves from the forest. There was a loud roar and then an ear-piercing scream.
Peri’s head whipped around. Though she didn’t want to take her eyes off of Alina, the scream had been so horrific that she couldn’t help but look. She wished she hadn’t. Lilly was running, her hair wild behind her and her face filled