HECTOR BAYESThe silence, as I stood, hunched on the gritty stone balustrade of the mountain city’s front gates was deafening.”Hector! Do you see them?” Kalden’s voice shouted from the front line of the armored foot soldiers positioned inside the gates below me as I squinted at the dark cluster of trees until my eyes had all but turned to razor-sharp slits.Nothing. Fucking crickets!“No, eyes peeled soldiers! Something fishy is going on here.” I murmured, realizing that the green of the trees had stopped shifting, as though more of whatever was on the other side of the wall was squeezing through the rift between to pound through the forest, waiting in the dark as their numbers grew.“Gonna be a fucking mud shower, your highness! What do we do?” Kalden yelled again, and I craned my neck to look at the pale-faced man that looked smaller far below me, only seconds before the boom of the barriers finally breaking exploded through the space.“Shit! It's happening! En guard soldiers! Defe
NOLA REYNOLDSThe gritty foyer of the stone castle was silent after the troops had left, with the gates coming down on the dust of soldiers horsing less dramatically than I had imagined it would.”I hope nothing bad happens to the King, the lowlanders are a dreadful lot!” Sarah’s loud whine off to my right was enough to send the balls of my eyes into a game of tug with the back of my head.“The good king is perfectly fine taking care of himself Sarah, enough with the faux concern,” I spat caustic ally, faster than I could think to reign in my tongue, and regretted it immediately I saw the spark of satisfaction in the maiden’s eyes.I heaved a sigh as the rest of the small crowd turned to me, realizing I had just fallen into Sarah Oliver’s trap when she clapped her hands, stepping up to me and speaking while looking at the open-mouthed rubberneckers.Here we fucking go! The sun wasn't even high enough in the sky and I could already feel the press of irritation and worry burning a hole
HECTOR BAYESThe pump of the horse bucking under me was all the adrenaline I needed as I shot out the stone castle gates with half the royal army hot on my heels like a bat straight out of hell.“Faster soldiers! Taste their blood! Avenge your pound of flesh!” I screamed, pumping one raised claw in the air as the riot of soldiers chanting back echoed in the space between my ears.”For your wives! For your children!” I commanded, the image of Nola’s porcelain face rising unbidden under my eyelids and the soldiers heaved in response, howling as we breached the village center.I allowed a gasp to fall from my lips as the soldiers behind me jumped down to run to the horde of rogues that were tearing across the buildings almost faster than my eyes could follow.Who in the hell planned this attack? They must have been waiting for years! Centuries even! For me to find my mate, and strike when I was at my weakest!It was a mistake I knew not to make again.”Soldiers of the first formation! As
NOLA REYNOLDSThe Lycan King leaving had opened a wound in my heart that stayed sore until the weight of his crown in my hands distracted me.“Come on, this way! Into the lower levels!” A red-faced guard who had opened the tin cage of his helmet was yelling so loudly beside me that I jolted.I turned to see that he was herding the crowd of sobbing residents in a neat line through the underground gates I hadn't noticed before, a different procession of somber-faced men with tightened jaws and the nettled garb of newly appointed infantry shining against their pale and coffee-colored skins.What the hell was going on? Were they recruiting new soldiers? Just how many of those lowlanders were crawling outside the reinforced gates of the castle?“Saints!” I gasped, jolting and slamming head-first into a woman’s ample bosom as I turned in the direction of the ear-splitting war cries in the distance that wrenched my heart from the cage of my ribs.The line of newly appointed soldiers scattere
JAPHTAR I was going to see him soon, sooner than I had anticipated.I’d been watching the silver-eyed man for a while. Decades. Behind the film of the barrier that had been broken today. Watched as he fell in love with the fierce woman who was sitting pretty in his castle. MY castle.He didn't know it yet, my father, the dreaded Lycan King of the Highlands and Mountain City, but I had plans for his snow white. I swiped at the drool that was leaking from the corners of my bared lips, raking the oily sludge through my hair as my army shifted restlessly behind me.”Easy disciples,” I drawled, clucking my tongue thickly in my mouth as we pressed tighter against the walls of the castle, and I peered to where the Lycan was killing off more of my men, tossing them away like they didn't mean a single thing in the world to anyone.The way he'd tossed me away.I gritted my teeth, feeling my unusually long canines sink into the hollowed pits of my gum.It was almost time, but I needed it to be
HECTOR BAYESIf I hadn't been seconds from closing the space between where my best friend lay pinned under the grinning wolf, I would not have believed the monster could move that quickly.It was uncanny, the teeth of my jaws snapping together as what looked to be thousands of the creatures swarmed in, falling over each other, some getting crushed in the angry stampede as they struggled to fit through the gates.“Holy mother of God!” I heard Gordon murmur as he pulled up on a horse beside me, before shifting into the beige fur of his wolf and charging at the werewolves who had begun to fall from the top of the stone fence, slashing his way through the front lines before I called him back, away from those things.They looked different, the wolves, hungry. But it was more than that. It was almost as though they had been reinforced, in a way that was even worse than what the Hybrids had been. Killing machines. They must have been climbing over each other to get to the top.“Soldiers Asse
NOLA REYNOLDS“Don't make a single sound.” Layla’s hollowed voice rattled oddly in the spaces between the asphalt shingle roof of the cottage house where we were lying flat. Hidden.I gulped reflexively, willing my breathing to steady as a pack of gangly rogue werewolves sauntered past, their heads so close to the roof I was teary-eyed with the stench that oozed from their hides.“Sheesh!” Layla gasped after the coast had cleared as the rogues moved about the perimeter on their guard rotations.Sheesh was right! The size of those things! And the smell of rot and rusted metal that hung about them like a cloak. It was enough to send any sensible changeling running for the hills and not looking back. We had made the right call, sticking to the skylines, jumping from roof to roof, and scouting for survivors.”Help us! Down here! Somebody help us!” The harried voices of men and women of the mountain city rose from the chute before they were silenced to whispers as the barking of the rogu
NOLAI pressed my hands to my temples as the munching and sucking noises grew louder under me, the shouts of battle still echoing faintly in the distance as I let my eyelids fall closed, the weight of exhaustion settling over me.I must have been crouched for hours, sobbing, sleeping, crying, only jerking awake when the noise of bloodthirsty werewolves killing more innocents in the open streets had me squeezing by eyes shut.Whatever happened here now, I couldn’t go back to the stone castle, It was already too late for that.I had to find a way to save the residents. I owed it to Lycan, to Layla, who had followed me out.She’d trusted me, and I’d let her down. I felt the rack of whimpers shake my shoulders so hard that my hands shook on the arrow as I released it from the quiver, pausing with the bow secured in my hand as I trailed the triangle of the sinewy wolf’s head.“This is for Layla bitch!” I spat, releasing the arrow with a whistle and watching it with bated breaths as it fork