from the holster in her boot and rushed toward Minh.
Now that Nadya’s bait had disappeared, Minh didn’t have to struggle to maintain her focus amid the swirling storm of predators. She turned her back on the reservoir and crouched in preparation for a leap that would carry her into the trees when a stabbing pain lanced all the way through her lower right side. She howled and tried to take a step, which only aggravated the wound created by the sickle blade now wedged into her thigh.
“You wanna run?” Paige asked as she raced to Minh’s side so she could grab the weapon she’d thrown and turn it like a crank within the meaty portion of the Full Blood’s leg. “Too late!”
Minh’s growl rose into a wailing howl as the metal-encrusted blade rotated within her. After pulling the weapon out, Paige dropped her other fist like a hammer to drive the pointed end of her wooden stake into the bloody gash she’d created. Minh’s flesh pinched together around the weapon, healing from what should have been a crippling injury. As the Full Blood straightened its back and looked down at her with fierce, crystalline eyes, Paige willed the stake to stretch deep within Minh’s thigh, where it branched into a sharp network of thorns.
Charmed wooden needles burrowed inside Minh’s lower body. When her knee hit the dirt, wooden points sprang from beneath her flesh, while others ripped her from within. The howl that she offered to the Breaking Moon was matched only by Paige’s war cry as she swung her sickle toward the Full Blood’s chest. Moving with a speed impressive even for a Full Blood, Minh blocked the sickle using her own forearm. But though she prevented that strike from landing, the wooden lattice still burrowed inside her leg.
The chatter of Nadya’s FAMAS remained on the outer edge of Paige’s awareness. Even the screaming gargoyles were demoted to background noise as one of the most powerful creatures in existence was held prone by the stake in her hand. Locking eyes with the Skinner, Minh planted her other foot and began to pull the sickle away from her. Unwilling to let the weapon go, Paige could only grit her teeth as her elbow strained to the point of popping out of joint.
Her ears were filled with the rush of blood pulsing through her body. Desperate thoughts raced through her mind, most of which were in expectation of losing a limb that she’d become very fond of throughout the years. The werewolf grinned widely, lifting her off the ground until the thorns snaking through Minh’s leg were twisted at a sharp angle. Paige willed as much of the weapon as she could to stretch into the Full Blood’s thigh and expand in every direction until more of the thorns emerged from her flesh. Minh narrowed her eyes into slits, bared her teeth and pulled Paige’s arms in opposite directions.
The Amriany were shouting and firing wildly behind her, but Paige was fading. When her elbows and shoulders crunched before snapping out of joint, she was hard-pressed to remember anything but the single face that had driven her this far.
Paige’s fist remained locked around the handle of her weapon. Coppery blood washed over her hands and shrieking cries mixed with the deafening chatter of assault rifle fire as she stared into the face of death itself. The glow of the moon that had played across Minh’s fur was suddenly splayed over the leathery back of a gargoyle that wrapped around the Full Blood’s face. It was followed by another and another, all of which sank their talons into Minh’s body to draw themselves tightly against her in a desperate, suffocating embrace. The only part of the Full Blood protected from the gargoyles was the section of her thigh where Paige’s stake protruded.
Abruptly, Paige fell to the ground. Not only had Minh released her to try and fight off the gargoyles, but Paige had somehow maintained her grip on the sickle. The Full Blood was unable to move quickly enough to shred all of the gargoyles that descended upon her, and the more of them she ripped apart, the more creatures showed up to take their place. A pair of hands grabbed Paige by the shoulder and dragged her away. She screamed as her dislocated arm was tugged with a crack that reverberated inside her head. When she was set down again, the pain from that shoulder had lessened significantly.
Now that the remaining gargoyles