BOOK THREE - promised series
Espheros is inhabited by more than just the human species. Shifters and Immortals walk the earth amongst them, hiding in the shadows.
There are some humans, however, who are very much aware of what moves through the dar...
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Shouting broke out then, coming from every possible direction. We were ambushed, countless arrows shooting towards us from the crowns of the trees that stretched out on both sides of the gates. The archers, however, were barely visible behind all the leaves that hid them from sight. I caught a glimpse of one, stretching his bow, aiming directly at me. Jumping to the side purely by instincts, I missed it by half a centimeter. Someone in the crowd, however, wasn't as fortunate.
And as soon as the first arrow hit its target, an army of hooded humans emerged from the woodlands and came charging towards us.
With a shrill sound ringing in my ears, accompanied by the warning voices that my father had installed when I was little to warn me of danger, I shouted.
Attack!
And that was when the bloodbath began. It was a frenzy of emotions hurling towards me, along with countless bodies assaulting each other with raw, brutal force. Teeth tearing into flesh, claws scraping against metal, arrows whistling through the air. Blood sprayed across the battlefield in waves that made me sick. Everything I saw was drenched in the colour of red.
A wave of fury crashed into me when the enemy's emotions became tangible around me, making the atmosphere static with a vengeful tension. Their presence, however, also brought a sense of doom with them. They moved incredibly fast and those that didn't were up in the trees. I realised quickly that most of them were Immortals, and they were much harder to kill than normal humans were, regardless of their skill. It also worried me because I couldn't detect any Inniks, and they were even more dangerous than the Immortals.
It made me think that they too might have been working in waves.
I watched a lot of shifters fall and my heart sank. Sorrow drifted to me as friends watched their comrades die. A brother losing his sister. It was immeasurable amount of intensity that assaulted me, most of the emotions heavy with grief. It took me nearly all my strength not to let them completely consume me as they passed through my ocean, feeding the currents.
It made my eyes water in pain as I felt it invade me, rendering me nearly immobile as it all flushed into me with an overwhelming intensity. My eyes connected with a pair of ember-coloured ones, belonging to a golden cat with a dark red mane of hair framing his feral, cat-like face. The vibrance and strength which merely the embers transferred to me was enough to draw in my attention. Something about him screamed strength in an entirely different language. His teeth were massive, much more intimidating than those of a wolf. Even from a distance I felt small in comparison.
His eyes left mine as his canines' bit into a pale neck, detaching the Immortals head from its cold body that fell limply to the floor. I lost his stare, however, when I felt someone bringing something hard to my head, knocking me onto the floor.
I thrashed around me, snapping into air as I struggled to find the source of the hit, my head already pounding.
When I caught an arm, my instincts made me rip it with such force that whoever attacked me would only be able to act handicapped from now on.
Just when I registered a silver light flash in my peripheral, an entire body motionless fell to the side next to me, freeing me of the hold it had had on me.
The ember eyed lion stood right beside me, blood dripping from his mouth.
Thank you, I said through the link and felt his response without him needing to voice it.
Trying to refocus my attention to the chaos around us, I suddenly felt my gut push to one side of my body, making me turn instinctively, pushing the striped shifter out of the way as I moved us aside. With a sharp 'tic' sound, an arrowhead sank into the ground right where we had both stood.
Nice reflexes, the lion's voice purred and before I could have reacted, had I even been able to come up with something, we were already facing the next assault.
We fought together like that for what felt like hours, knocking on death's door dangerously often, but bypassing it with each breath we drew, even as it became labored and our energy began to wane. Bone cracking echoed through the forest, grunts coming from close by. Screams tore through the air, sounding and resounding until all I could hear was one long, painful scream.
The fight went on for an eternity. So long, that I wondered when the second wave would finally aid us, for our numbers began to dwindle. It was hard keeping count of how many of our kind lost their lives, especially since I barely had more than a second time to scan my surroundings before my attention was directed to defending either myself or anyone that was near me.
I also lost sight of my brothers and anyone else of my pack.
It wasn't until I felt a chill in my bones and heard the voices resounding in my head that I knew now was the time to find Reece and Emmet.
It was in that exact moment that wailing sounds pierced through the sky, loud cracks of lightning surging into the ground. I watched in horror as a lightning bolt hit the ground in the middle of a group of hooded Immortals, charging the ground with an electricity that made countless bodies shoot up into the sky, blackened by the lightning's heat.
As pieces of coal, they returned to the ground.
Daring to look up, I felt relief wash through me. The dragons were finally here!
But I realised with an incredible amount of dread that their presence was triggered because of that of another. It was the reason the voices had warned of danger again.
Kintar is here! I shouted, hoping that my brothers would hear me.
