Ruthless Fae - Ingrid Seymour Page 0,14
hips and smiled. “I know you’re there, fae bitch. I’m going to enjoy it when your friend rips you to pieces. I’d love it more if I could see the look on your face as he does, but I’ll settle for what I can get.”
Bael stomped forward, his nostrils flaring and his new claws ready to tear me to pieces and Karen wanted to see it?!
See it? See me. Maybe if he could see me…
I dropped my glamour and turned to Bael as my body materialized. His eyelids fluttered as he took in my face. Something in his expression twitched. It gave me hope.
I hovered over the ground with my hands up in a symbol of peace. I didn’t want to fight him, and I wanted him to remember me as I’d been, an ally, someone just like him.
“Bael, it’s me, Tally. You remember me, right? I’m your friend.”
He blinked twice, still scenting the air, but he didn’t charge.
It was working as it had with Sinasre!
“Clever trick,” Karen said slyly. “But it isn’t going to help this time.”
I glanced over my shoulder in time to see her adjusting something on her helmet. A whining sound came from the device, and Bael winced, gripping his head as if the noise was reverberating around in his skull. Then, he dropped his hands as his gaze shot back to me.
With murder in his eyes, he charged.
While his big, lumbering body raced toward me, I ran through scenarios in my brain in the split seconds before he crossed the space between us.
He launched into the air, claws extended.
I squeezed my eyes shut as he crashed into me.
It was like being hit by a Jeep.
The collision of his body into mine jarred my every sense and sent me flying backward. I soared back and crashed into something solid. A mangled scream echoed close to my ear.
Karen. It was her body I’d hit. She and I crashed to the floor, then tumbled in a pile of arms and legs and wings.
Pain blared from many parts of my body, but my instincts remained intact. I lay on top of Karen, her prone form beneath me. I knew instantly I needed to get away. Bael would kill me if Karen didn’t get to me first.
As I pushed up, trying to untangle myself from the groaning human, I expected claws down my back, but no attack came. Turning, I found Bael standing in the hallway. His expression was blank and his body lifeless. He looked as if someone had turned him off like a child’s toy. But how?
When I glanced back at Karen, I had my answer.
The crash had knocked off her helmet. The device now lay on the floor beside her, a metal circle of wires and dials that seemed harmless now that it had been dislodged from her vile head.
She couldn’t get it back. I had to have it.
But she was stirring. Even now, she sat up and felt around her skull.
I darted forward on unsteady legs, tripping and stumbling, but my hand reached out, and I felt it close over the cool metal ring.
It was mine.
“Stop her!” Karen yelled as I took to the air again.
But her creature did nothing. Without the helmet, he was as harmless as a Tupi rabbit.
My hope soaring, I spurred my wings on as I jammed the helmet down my collar and into my suit to keep it safe. The cool metal against my hot skin reminded me what we’d come here for, and I thought that, with this new item, I’d found at least one of the two things we needed. I only had to hope Charlie had found the other.
Relief surged through me as I spotted an exit sign.
Then I heard the gun go off.
Something slammed into my back, throwing me sideways. I bumped into the wall and corrected course, realizing, slowly, that I’d been hit. Warm wetness slid down my spine. Still, flying toward the exit, I reached around to my back. When I brought my hand forward, blood covered it.
My blood.
I’d been shot.
Shock washed over me like a wave, but I kept flying, pushing through the exit doors and across a large gymnasium with a high ceiling and polished floors. I sped across it, hoping this might lead me out of this massive building. How far could I fly? How much blood would I lose before my wings wouldn’t work? I didn’t know, but I knew if I stopped, I would certainly die here. I was leaving