Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
He knew it was possible that earthquakes could be triggered by sound waves. Were these little demonlike creatures trying to create enough sound waves to produce a quake and distract Vasilisa? Undoubtedly, they feared her. The demons would simply keep producing the vibrations until the sound waves affected the finer grains of rock at the interface between the plates.
Siv had no time to answer the questions he had about the demons moving toward Vasilisa. The vampire pawns attacked her, rushing all at once, three taking to the air as hideous mutations of a harpy eagle with enormous talons and beaks. Vasilisa calmly reached into her open coat as she whirled in a circle and withdrew another sword, this one with a long gleaming blade. She tossed it easily so it flew end over end straight past him.
In the quiet of the snow-covered night, the sound of the sword windmilling through the air was unexpectedly loud—an ominous foreboding of coming mayhem. The sword reunited with its original wielder, landing solidly into Garald’s fist as he rose from the snow prison where he had been tied down with strands of magic and barbed cuffs on his hands, feet and wrists.
Siv was already in motion, rushing to meet the puppet first, needing to spare his lifemate and her brother the kill of a beloved friend. Still, out of the corner of his eye, he couldn’t help but see that Garald had grown in stature. He appeared regal and almost otherworldly, as if he had grown invisible armor around him. He leapt into the air to meet the first vampire, who dove toward Vasilisa with talons aimed at her face.
Siv moved so fast he was a blur, uncaring who actually saw the incredible speed he normally would have taken care to keep hidden. He slammed his fist deep into the rotting back of the puppet as he crawled toward his destination, seeking to reach Vasilisa. Even the hunter’s fist tearing through bone, muscle and organ didn’t stop him. He howled insanely, but he kept dragging himself toward his goal.
Pity moved through Siv. Pity he didn’t want or understand. He had closed himself off to all emotion, falling back on the ways of his life as a hunter of the undead for over two thousand years. Why would he feel pity? Ripping the shriveled and rotted heart from the hapless creature, he glanced up to see his lifemate looking, just for a moment, at her old friend. There were tears in her mind but not in her eyes.
She was surrounded by the undead. By demons. She took time to feel pain for a fallen friend. It was the space of a heartbeat or two, but it could get her killed. Before he could reprimand her, she was facing the first of the salamander demons as it approached, opening its wide mouth to show rows of sharpened, serrated teeth dripping with poisonous venom.
Siv severed the head of the puppet, tossed the heart into the air and called a lightning whip to incinerate both even as he whirled around to leap over the vampire closest to Vasilisa, putting his body between her and the pawn.
Garald smoothly drove his sword into the very heart of the mutation flying at his sister, twisting ruthlessly as if the blade were a skewer. As he landed in a crouch with both feet on the ground, he withdrew the blade, removing the heart. He spun in a circle as he half rose, a small device that appeared much like a mirror in his hand. Small blue flames licked at the snow everywhere his gaze touched, amplified by the strange mirror. He held the tip of the blade with the vampire’s heart in the flame.
The vampire screamed as he fell from the air, no longer able to hold the pose as a bird of prey. He landed heavily on the snow-covered ground and tried to crawl to Garald in an effort to retrieve his heart. Garald sliced through his neck with one wicked blow, severing the head from the body and allowing the blue flame to leap to the body and head of the undead.
Two of the lesser vampires flung themselves at Siv in an attempt to overpower him while a third came at him from above. A fourth vampire sent a command beneath his feet to thorny, venomous vines that erupted through the ground in an effort to stab through his leg and ankle to hold him immobile. More vines burst around Vasilisa, rising high to build a cage around her, cutting her off from the two men.
As the two vampires rushed straight at him, their greedy eyes fixed on the open wound on his head, Siv shook droplets of rich, ancient Carpathian blood into the air. All heads turned toward him, including that fourth pawn, the one commanding the vines caging Vasilisa. The vines wavered for just a moment, turning toward him as well, the cage faltering.