Dark Slayer

For a few minutes it was worse than any hell he could have ever imagined. Every instinct urged him to take Ivory and surface, but the fire was moving upward, ahead of them, purging every cranny and nook, every single hole and tunnel the creatures had constructed. It felt interminable, as if they were trapped in the center of a volcano. He fought the urge to take a breath while his body was still molecules.

Hovering protectively, he tried to surround her body with his to shield her from the worst of the heat, although the temperatures were so hot he doubted it mattered. The rock still glowed but the flames died down before Ivory began her rise to the surface.

Emerge as close to the others as possible. I will warn them and we will attack the creatures on the surface. It would not have done any good to kill them first without taking out the lair.

He had never admired someone so much in his life. She did what had to be done with no thought for her own safety. She was matter-of-fact about emerging into another storm of flesh-eating bats after her body had been torn up by the creatures. He couldn't feel the least reluctance in her, and something inside him opened and embraced his true destiny. He was meant for this woman. He was a match for her-her other half. He was born Dragonseeker, a warrior, not the evil monster Xavier had tried to shape.

Elation burst through him as he tore through the blackened ring of dirt, emerging into the midst of snapping teeth and fire raining from the sky. He had never felt so alive or free. He caught a bat in each hand and knocked their heads together, flinging them aside, and he was attacked from all sides, the sheer weight of bodies trying to knock him over as they did their best to eat him alive.

«Cover Gary. Cocoon yourselves in an airtight, heat-resistant bubble,» Ivory said, then flipped a grenade to Razvan.

There was something very satisfying in being her partner. She hadn't included the other hunters or the prince in her fight. He was her lifemate, her partner, and although he didn't have their experience, she trusted him far more than she did the others, and it was the first time since he had been apart from his sister that anyone had ever given him trust.

«Warn any coming to your aid to stay away. This is the only way I know to kill a colony.» She knew they had seen the plume of fire bursting from the ground and probably even felt the heat. «This will be like nothing ever felt.» Her gaze leapt to Gary in the midst of the melee. Gary was valiantly fighting. It was obvious he had been around the Carpathians, and even the wicked creatures did little to shake his faith in his friends.

«She is getting torn apart,» Razvan snapped. «Do as she says now.»

The sight of her with the bats slicing through her arms and legs was more painful than he expected. He fought his way to her side and faced her. «Pull the pin and count.»

«Cover them, Gregori,» Ivory reiterated. «No one breathe. You will have to do that for Gary. If you can, get any wildlife away from here.»

«Do it,» Mikhail commanded.

They pulled the pins and the gas hissed into the air. Razvan didn't look at the others, only at Ivory with her brave, calm face and the wolves fighting from her back. He didn't even feel the teeth slicing deep or see the bloody carnage the bats were leaving on the snow, he only saw and felt her. She gave him a half-smile, her eyes soft as they counted and lobbed the grenades into the center of the writhing mass and both dissolved.

He knew what to expect, but still, the explosion seemed worse now that it wasn't contained in a hole in the ground. A mushroom cloud of orange rocketed into the sky. The blast rocked both of them, the force blowing them back and away. The pressure raced through their bodies, feeling like great stones weighing on their chests.

There was a feel of power to shifting, an enormous rush to battle when one was in control of one's own body. Nothing dimmed that elation, not even the exploding trees or the masses of incinerated bats raining from the sky or the stench of foul flesh burning. For the first time in his life, he really felt as if he had done something that made a difference. Because of her-Ivory. He waited while the heat streamed around them, cooking everything in its path, his mind occupied with the woman who knew so much about Xavier.

Was it possible that she might be the key to ridding the world of such a monster? Was there actually a chance? The world around him was on fire, and yet for the first time in centuries, he felt hope. The roar of the flames and the snapping and crackling of the inferno mingled with the last gasping shrieks of the hideous creatures, and he could only hear her soft whisper in his head.

Life can have unexpected high moments.