Capture the Crown (Gargoyle Queen #1) -Jennifer Estep Page 0,136
kept up his chanting, hammering Gems with his words over and over again. He also clutched his stomach, and sick misery pulsed off him, as though he didn’t like what he was doing. I frowned. I had never noticed that back when this had been actually happening.
“No!” Gems screamed again.
One emotion after another blasted off her and punched into my own chest. Fear. Dread. Pain. Shame. Frustration. Rage. They all mixed and mingled together, swelling into this one feeling, this one singular energy that bubbled up in my—her—heart. Gems couldn’t hold it back—she didn’t want to hold it back—and it all erupted out of her mouth in one loud, violent scream.
The sound and the emotions and the power poured out of her, and I found myself screaming right along with her. We screamed because Uncle Frederich was dead. And Lord Hans. And everyone else on the Seven Spire lawn. We were alive, and they were dead, and we screamed because it wasn’t bloody fair.
“Shut up!” the guard yelled.
He tried to clamp his hand over Gems’s mouth, but she snapped out and sank her teeth deep into the web of flesh between his thumb and index finger.
The guard yelped, tore his hand out of her mouth, and staggered back. Gems whirled around to face him. The guard growled and charged at her, but she lifted her hand, instinctively pulling on all the invisible strings attached to his body.
Gems clearly didn’t know what she was doing, but somehow, she managed to toss the man through the air. His back cracked into a nearby tree trunk, and he dropped to the ground. His head lolled to the side, and his sightless eyes fixed on her in a shocked accusation.
Gems’s eyes widened. She had killed him. She—I—had never killed anyone before. Her stomach rumbled ominously, and I clenched my own stomach, trying to quell the nausea roiling there.
A hand clamped down on Gems’s shoulder and spun her around. Captain Hanlon drew back his fist to punch her—
Suddenly, the captain flew backward through the clearing. He too slammed into a tree and tumbled to the ground—dead.
Gems whirled around.
Across the clearing, Leo lowered his hand to his side, although magic kept pouring off him. Not so soft and weak after all. Good. You just might live through this.
Why did you save me from your own captain? Gems asked.
Leo’s eyes glittered, and a faint, resigned smile tugged at his lips. Because I know what it’s like to be hunted.
Another guard rushed toward Gems, drawing her attention. She raised her hand, pulled on those strings of energy, and tossed him into a tree as well. He too was dead before he hit the ground.
Yet another guard rushed at her, his speed magic making him impossibly fast. Gems scrambled back, but she wasn’t going to be able to get out of the way before he hit her—
The guard screamed and arched back. Xenia yanked her talons out of his side, then reached around and tore his throat open. Blood sprayed all over Gems, making her shriek in surprise, and that man pitched forward and hit the dirt.
Alvis limped up beside Xenia, clutching a sword. Despite being outnumbered, he and Xenia had killed all the guards, and the men’s bodies littered the ground like bloody, tattered leaves.
“Are you okay?” Alvis asked. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” Gems replied.
Xenia stepped over the guard whose throat she’d torn open, slapped her hands on her hips, and glared down at the girl with her bright amber eyes. She was still in her larger, stronger morph form, and blood covered her face and teeth and dripped off her long black talons.
“I told you to run,” she growled.
“I did run—straight into trouble,” Gems replied.
I grinned. Even back then, my mouth had had a mind of its own.
Xenia’s stern face softened at the girl’s black humor. “This was only one patrol. We need to leave before more of them come pouring out of the woods.”
Alvis hurried over, scooped three knapsacks up off the ground, and slung them over his shoulder, while Xenia went from one guard to the next, rifling through their pockets and taking all the coins and anything else she found interesting.
A flicker of movement caught Gems’s eye, and she whirled to her right.
Leo was still standing at the edge of the clearing.
Gems’s hands clenched into fists. You didn’t even stand and fight with your own people. That makes you even more of a coward than I am—and a traitor.