A Shade of Vampire 90: A Ruler of Clones - Bella Forrest Page 0,75
for a moment. Hrista brought the sword down in a bid to hit me, but Myst found the strength to shield me with her forearm. The steel of Hrista’s rapier clashed against the steel of Myst’s armored cuff, sparks flying around us in a shower of light.
I heard Jericho’s spine-tingling growl. The screams of people burning. Brandon’s gasps. The sharp kisses of swords meeting in violent combat. And Hrista was about to bring her sword down once more, aiming straight for my head.
My mind went blank.
Thayen
“No one is going to ruin this for me.”
Her voice cut clearly through my head like a red-hot knife going through a stick of cold butter. The words sizzled and stuck to my brain, echoing with their deliberate cruelty as I tried to figure out what to do next. I’d pushed myself too far.
I knew I’d made a mistake, but Regine had needed me.
My pulverizer weapons didn’t work against Berserkers. I only had my glamoring ability. What else could I have done, besides leave her at the mercy of her foes? I’d made a choice, and it had cost me. But at least Regine had managed to pull through. That much I was certain of. Everything else was a blur. A wretched blur I couldn’t navigate. My body was out. My limbs limp.
The flesh had surrendered, but the mind persisted. The ears… they listened.
“You’re not going to break us!” Astra’s voice made my soul tremble. She grunted, and the sound of steel on steel told me there was trouble afoot.
It was Hrista I’d heard earlier, and she said it again. “No one is going to ruin this for me! No one!” I heard metal meeting flesh, followed by Astra’s sharp whimper. She’d been hurt.
How had I gotten here?
That was a stupid question. I knew exactly how I had gotten here, and this was absolutely not the time for any kind of introspection. My friends needed me. Astra was facing Hrista. Jericho and Dafne were overwhelmed. Myst needed me—did she, though? Or was I fooling myself? Her scream had pierced through the veil of my subconscious, rattling my bones. She was in trouble. I’d made it this far. I’d learned who the enemy really was.
I might have had no way of beating Hrista, but I could not let her kill us. My parents deserved a better son than that.
My eyes peeled open, as if my body had finally responded to my soul’s ardent pleas. I’d been struggling to return to the real world for so long, and it angered me to see it all again. I was late. I knew I was late. Astra’s labored breathing made my head turn slowly. I found her in the grass, lying on her side and bleeding profusely from her thigh. The blood was strange, though. It wasn’t the usual crimson but an incandescent dark pink. She’d scraped her knees before. She’d had cuts. None had bled like this. “Astra… what…” I murmured, my lips dry.
A glowing sword came down, its pointy end shooting straight for Astra’s head. Myst’s fist swung out, and the steel and gold cuff blocked the sword with a rain of sparks. White sparks. Thousands of them. For a second, I was hypnotized. I lost track of things.
I’d come back to the world after falling midway through the battle. I had sworn to myself that I would not be killed. “No. Stop.” That was me talking, I was pretty sure.
A pair of sapphires filled with hate found me. “You. How are you not dead?”
“I’m more resilient than you think,” I said, finding focus in that glare.
“You are no more resilient than a bug, and I will crush you under my boot,” Hrista replied, and her glowing rapier came for my throat. I raised my hand almost as a reflex. I found her soul in the span of seconds. It was right there, open, almost waiting for me. She didn’t even see it coming.
I had her. I felt her spirit in my bare hand, its luminescent tendrils twitching nervously in my presence. I’d caught Hrista in a glamoring bond, though I had no idea where the strength had come from… or where this might end. She terrified me. I knew that. She was worse than the Berserkers we’d fought. She’d put all of this together. Hrista was the mastermind, and I’d just tried my glamoring on her, even though the blood from my previous attempt was still drying on my upper lip.