me into the jaws of a waiting Torrez. He rips him apart, and we all press even closer toward the group of guards. I spot Aydin’s giant body holding off any more lamia from getting into the room through a set of doors, and I’m surprised to see Silva and Evrin doing the same thing at a different entrance.
A silver blade slices out at me, and I just barely jump back and avoid getting stabbed. The guard arcs his katana back up toward me, but a blue-bladed short sword comes down on his arm, severing the lamia’s limb from his body. Ryker follows through with the blade in his other hand, and the guard screams as his body crumbles into nothing.
“You good, Squeaks?” Ryker asks, his sky-blue eyes jumping from me to the battle around us, on guard.
“I am now,” I tell him, and we exchange smiles before Ryker spins and ashes a lamia sneaking up behind him.
I quickly snatch up the katana from the ground and brush the ash off from the handle. I spend a couple seconds getting a feel for the weapon, and I’m stoked when it has good balance and feels like a natural extension of my hand. It’s lighter than my short swords, but after a clean swipe through the neck of a lamia that’s trying to join a three on one fight against Sabin, I decide this katana is the shit.
Sword in hand, I start doing my part to cut our way to Adriel. I hoot with excitement after a few fancy twirls get me a clean two-for-one beheading, and I’m reveling in the fact that I’m not as useless in this fight as I feared I would be. I hear the words show off being shouted at me, and I look over to see a smiling Enoch. I cringe and then chuckle when a wolf shifter accidentally slams into him, almost taking Enoch to the ground before the wolf scrambles to get his footing. The shifter turns around and gives Enoch a slobbery lick and bounds away to join another fight.
Red-gold eyes peek out at me between a row of guards, and when my eyes fix on Adriel’s, all the lightness and levity I was feeling at once again being with my Chosen and dominating in a fight, bleeds out of me. I see fucking red, and all I can focus on is getting to him. I want him to hurt, feel a fraction of the pain his actions have caused others. I want to wipe that fucking smirk he’s always wearing right off his fucking face when I remove his head. And I want this fucking collar off.
I fix my gaze on Adriel’s exact location and move straight for him. I veer to the left to avoid claws and bring my katana up to block a guard’s sword aimed at my chest. I get separated from Torrez and the others as each of us battle our own sets of guards. I focus on the three katana wielding guards all doing their best to separate my head from my shoulders. It seems that Adriel is no longer interested in trying to keep me alive. He’s apparently abandoned all hopes of being marked and just wants to get the fuck out of his throne room alive.
All the doors are covered by supes here to kill him, and he’s managed to get himself boxed into a corner at some point during the fighting. I want to scream at the lamia still locked in battle not to lay down their lives for this asshole—it’s not like he would do the same for them—but there’s no point. They all seem hellbent on protecting the psycho at all costs. One of the guards attacking me turns to ash as I slice through his neck, and I press the two guards still left fighting, closer to Adriel.
I grunt with the exertion it’s taking me to fight off their blows. The metal of all of our swords clang and screech as they meet each other and slide apart. I lean back as far as I can go to avoid a team effort by the guards to scissor their blades at me, and I take the opportunity to cut the backs of one of the guard’s knees. He cries out in pain and collapses, and I attack the last guard ruthlessly. His blade sneaks out and kisses mine ever so softly, and quick as lightning, it moves, searching for skin to