Blood Past - By Samantha Young Page 0,74

Horus…

The Eye…

She gasped, glancing up at Teagan with a gleam of triumph in her gaze. Darius! Darius was coming. She didn’t know when or how or what but somehow she knew that Darius could save them.

The power she had felt from him…

Suddenly it didn’t matter when he was going to make his appearance; simply knowing he was out there ready to help forced Eden into action. With a roar of rage she lunged towards Teagan, propelling all her power into knocking him to his feet. Hands wrapped around her cousin’s throat, Eden felt that overwhelming familiar power surge into the house even through the blaze of her hate.

It seeped through the walls and shimmered in the air, it clung to her skin and frightened her with its otherworldliness. A streak of colour shot by her and Eden jerked her head around to see the dark blur slice its way through the men. The yells of agony, grunts, flesh tearing, grew in crescendo as blood splatter sprayed against the wall, filling the foyer with the breath-stealing scent of copper.

Pain ricocheted through Eden’s jaw, tearing her eye as she fell backwards.

Damn! she screamed inwardly in rage as Teagan punched her and flipped her onto her back. She shot her leg up between his legs but he expected the move and sidestepped. It was enough to give Eden the space to roll away from and to her feet. She ignored the crazy massacre in the background, her entire focus on bringing her cousin down once and for all. She thought of the men and women he’d killed. The torture. The rape. The sadism that was beyond humane thinking. She thought of how he’d made her endure his crimes. How she hadn’t been strong enough to stop him.

Well… now she was.

Trying to remember all she’d learned over the last few weeks, Eden began to pace around him, waiting, with a patience she never knew she was capable of, for him to attack first. When the powerful punch came Eden reacted fluidly, sidestepping, grabbing his wrist, twisting it, pounding her knee into the weak part of his upper thigh, pushing him down, pulling his arm up. Snap.

His harsh scream didn’t fill Eden with the satisfaction she’d thought she’d feel.

A strange mix of desolation and relief crashed over her as she realised she wasn’t going to enjoy her cousin’s death as she had assumed she would. That part of her no longer existed, that part that could find some pleasure out of the darkest pieces of her heart. Yes, she wanted Teagan dead, but that’s all she wanted. She just wanted him gone. There was no joy in that. The darkness existed inside her, as it did in all things with a soul, but she no longer belonged to it. She belonged to light, a light that made her duty necessary but ugly, not something to revel in. And there was no way this piece of scum was returning to her to the dark.

Her cousin’s elbow came up and connected with her face, snapping her head back with a powerful blow. Eden staggered, hot pain blazing across her nose and down the muscles in her neck. She shook herself and readied her stance as Teagan jumped to his feet, locking his broken arm back into place.

“You’ve learned a few tricks while you’ve been gone but I could do this all day. Without a sword, you have no way of taking me down.”

As a particularly harsh scream sounded behind them, they both turned. Eden’s eyes widened in relief and… truly… fear and horror as she took in the sight of Darius standing in amongst a litter of decapitated bodies.

“What the…?” her cousin breathed behind her and for once she heard actual dread in his voice.

Darius’ face was expressionless, covered in streaks of blood, his black eyes dark and unreachable.

“Here,” he said to her and Eden blinked fast as a sword suddenly soared through the air towards her.

But just as she reached for it, a familiar arm darted out in front of her and caught it.

Noah.

Eyes wide, she took in his haggered appeared, the exhaustion from the drug still dragging in his eyes. There was blood and gore splattered over his chest and face, and a sadness in his eyes that made her heart stop.

“Mhairi’s gone,” he whispered, stepping past her and pointing the sword at Teagan. “She got me out but one of his thugs killed her.” He slanted a gaze at her. “You don’t have to