Bloodfire (Blood Destiny 1) - Helen Harper Page 0,100
Iabartu didn’t need to know that though.
The sound of whatever she’d summoned was getting almost unbearably loud. With half an eye on Iabartu, who was now floating at the edge of the valley, I turned slightly to meet whatever was coming. Whatever it was, it was huge. And it looked disturbingly familiar.
Iabartu let out a silvery giggle that made shivers run down my spine. “You have already met, I believe? I think that my little friend is anxious for a re-match. After all, you attacked him entirely without provocation the last time.”
The ispolin’s shape drew closer. “He invaded our territory,” I growled.
“For all you know he was popping round to borrow a cup of sugar before you so mercilessly and viciously pounced on him.”
I felt an irritating twinge of guilt. She did actually have a point – not about the sugar of course, but about fighting first and asking questions later. But he’d killed that Brethren guy and maimed Lucy. And if he’d reached Trevathorn, god only knows what might have happened. It was the pack’s job to keep Cornwall safe from the big bad. The ispolin was certainly both of those.
Iabartu laughed at me again. “That, my dear, is why you’ll never be as powerful as me. Why that blood is wasted on you. You’d actually feel bad for giving him a booboo.”
I scowled, annoyed that I was so transparent, and struggling to keep my fire in check for at least the time being. “On the contrary, it’s what makes me better than you. But if that thing gets in my way, then I’ll mow him down. It’s you I’m here for.”
I’d barely finished my sentence when the ispolin howled in rage and began to charge. Iabartu leapt up into the sky. “Lucky me, I get a ringside seat,” she called down. “Don’t kill her just yet though, I need her heart pumping when I drain her blood.”
I ignored her pointed order to the beast and tensed. It was clearly still bearing the scars and wounds from our encounter on the beach and was looking for a little payback. I understood that, but there was no way I was going to let it prevent me from doing all I could to get my own payback from Iabartu. An image of Lucy’s limping form flashed into my head, along with Thomson’s broken body. I might not have liked the guy but he was a shifter which made him part of me and mine. This wouldn’t be so hard on my conscience after all. I released some of the heat I’d been keeping such a tight hold onto and looked straight into its one great eye. Bring it on.
The ispolin came close enough to me that I could see its hairy nostrils flaring. A trickle of dark green snot made its way down its face, making me wonder if the slime that Nick had found had Perkins had just been the remnants of a giant monster sneeze. The heaving nostrils did remind me of a Spanish bull, however, which gave an idea. I watched it carefully, waiting for it to make the first move. Its muscles rippled and its whole body shifted almost imperceptibly to the left. I sprang right, just in time to miss its barreling shape, and turned to face it again. Without pausing, it rammed its way towards me again, head down and lethal horns leading. For the second time, I managed to jump out of the way. I could sense Iabartu watching impatiently from the air and I took a moment to sketch a bow in the air, almost imagining myself as a bullfighter on a sandy ring. The ispolin pawed the ground and blinked furiously then rushed me again. I skipped out of the way but this time it was expecting it and threw out a fist to cuff me. It connected – barely – but the force was enough to send me spinning to the ground. I jumped up quickly, not before I felt a thousand blades of glass sharp grass cut into my skin all over again, whilst trying to ignore the sudden sensation of vertigo that the ispolin’s blow had created in my skull.
My gaze fell on the black cloth that was lying on the ground behind it. Well, in the absence of red, I supposed that black would be just as good. This time, when it lunged at me again, I ran at it too, then dove headfirst between its legs, noting