Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,89
of my back, picked me up by the scruff of the neck, and broke my arm with one hand. He continued to twist it until I threw a small ball of flame into his face, which forced him to drop me as he scrambled back.
My armor was useless, my vision was fucked from the amount of blood in my eyes, my arm and ribs were broken, and I could barely breathe due to what I suspected was a punctured lung. My magic would heal me, but I didn’t know how long it would take.
I activated my blood magic. There had been a time when I was certain that my use of necromancy meant I wouldn’t have blood magic anymore, and while I couldn’t use it much and it was greatly depowered, I’d been wrong that it was impossible to use. It was nowhere near the level of power that Mordred had, but it was enough to heal my lungs so I could at least take a breath. It took ten seconds for my blood magic to heal my lungs and the cuts on my face and head, but it would take much longer to heal broken bones.
Images of Selene and Astrid came to the forefront of my mind. Astrid. My daughter was not going to grow up without a father. She was not going to grow up in a world of tyrants and death, and I was damned if I was going to let my best friend kill me in a shit heap of a realm and thus stop me from making the realms a better place for her.
I wiped my face with my good arm and pushed out a shield of air in front of me, but it was almost immediately destroyed when Tommy ran through it like it wasn’t even there, ignoring the pain it must have caused him. He raked his claws across my side as I dodged out of his way, and he kicked me in the knee. I drove a blade of fire into his side and twisted it.
Tommy screamed, grabbing me by the throat as I removed the blade and drove it back in under his armpit. I cut through the collar around his neck and tore it free, half expecting it to explode, but it did nothing. Even so, the moment of split concentration allowed Tommy to lift me off the ground, roaring in pain the whole time. He headbutted me, breaking my nose, and threw me into a tree.
“I’m not playing now,” I said, spitting blood out of my mouth, along with several teeth. Thankfully, they’d grow back.
Tommy winced as he took a step toward me, before the wounds I’d given him healed. Even the most powerful of creatures took a little bit longer than a few steps to heal like that.
“Fucking hell,” I said.
There was a blur in the forest to my left, and a werewolf sprinted past me, charged into Tommy, lifted him off his feet, and practically threw him away. The werewolf stood between me and Tommy and roared in defiance.
“Tommy,” I said softly. “Come on, man.”
Tommy turned and sprinted into the forest.
I crashed to the ground and breathed a sigh of relief as Kase changed back into her human form. “After the explosion in the city, I decided to track the forest for familiar scents.”
She looked after her father with tears in her eyes. “I don’t know how much of my dad was left in that creature,” she said. “I want to help him, but we need to get to the others.”
I knew it must have been a hard decision, but our friends needed us. We’d come back for Tommy—and no matter what, we’d save him. Even if it meant ending him.
Chapter Twenty-One
MORDRED
Realm of Atlantis
The group had followed the tunnel after the guard post outside had been blasted into splinters, which had in turn collapsed the first dozen feet of the tunnel.
“Do you think this actually goes anywhere?” Zamek asked.
“Personally, I’m hoping for a big pot of gold at the end,” Remy said. “I think we all deserve that.”
Mordred noted that no one asked if Nate was okay, because the very idea that he’d be killed by what had happened to him was laughable, but even so, Mordred was slightly concerned about Nate having to face off against an army of red-armored whatever they were.
“How long have we been down here?” Diana asked. “I’m beginning to get a little anxious about being underground.”