He should have freed her from every bit of metal when she’d asked. He hadn’t. He’d held on to his fears instead, for reasons he hadn’t wanted to admit or accept. Fear of her motives. Fear of what his men might think. Fear of what he would think. Now he and Taliyah would both pay a steep price.
As he well knew, a warrior’s unused strengths became their biggest weaknesses. His woman wasn’t used to fighting without her ability to disembody.
He told himself it didn’t matter. She had many other skills. She would survive this. More than being a deathless phantom, she was a centuries-old harpy-snake who had outlasted a multitude of wars, betrayals, tortures and ambushes. This was nothing.
This had better be nothing. She had better survive.
“Do you understand me?” At some point in the coming fray, Roc and Taliyah would be separated. She would be without his protection. She would be weakened without full use of her abilities.
“Not my...first rodeo...baby.” The newest round of hits jostled her as she spoke. “No worries. I got this.”
The ice that had spread over his skin had somehow spread to hers. The brand on her nape flecked with frozen crystals as his mind whirled with plans. “I’m going to count to three and release you. When I do—” A frigid wind slammed into him, tossing him across the garden, wrenching Taliyah from the shelter of his arms prematurely. A phantom clasped her wrist and yanked her in the other direction, ensuring they parted.
Air abandoned his lungs when he crash-landed a dozen feet away. With a roar, he sprang to his feet. Dizzy. Inhale, exhale. He took stock. Shattered ribs. A bone fragment had punctured his lung. Limbs had sliced his side. All insignificant. Where was Taliyah?
He scanned... Phantoms, phantoms, everywhere. No sign of his snarpy.
Racing forward, Roc slashed and clawed anyone in his path. He attempted to flash once more, desperate to reach Taliyah’s side. Nothing kept him from his wife. But again, he failed.
Where was she? Where, where? “Taya?” Raw panic engulfed him, anhilla snatching it up to use as fuel.
His next roar made a mockery of the first.
Going low, he crouched and spun on the balls of his feet, withdrawing two three-blades stashed in his boots. As he straightened, he slashed in a crisscross motion, killing two phantoms with ease.
Destroy them all. The words filled every corridor of his mind, every cell in his body, becoming an eternal battle cry. The beginning of the end.
Roc utterly unleashed, tearing through his enemy. He stabbed with new vigor. Slashed with crueler purpose. Clawed, punched and kicked. Black blood spurted over him. Each kill strengthened him and powered another. A stream of thought refused to die, even in the heat of battle. Protect my Taliyah. Must protect my Taliyah.
Heads toppled and limbs thudded to the ground. The plop of organs followed. More blood sprayed in continuous arcs. He killed with abandon, with joy. Bodies and their parts piled around him, soon to vaporize. Carnage littered the battlefield.
The Astra Planeta, creator of worlds, were often touted as the essence of life. Now Roc existed in a haze of death, the scent of it pungent. His limbs shook with exertion, but he didn’t slow until—
Had he just heard a woman’s pained grunt? Where was Taliyah? He needed to see her. He needed to see her right now.
“Taya?” He prepared himself for what was soon to occur. Finding her. Seeing injuries. Blood. He reminded himself she would heal, no matter the injuries she received. She must. That’s what phantoms did. They fed, and they healed.
How often had he lamented a phantom’s regenerative powers when struck with anything but trinite? Now he relied on the ability.
Get to her! He swung his arms faster, every strike true. Blood splattered his face and dripped into his eyes, blurring his vision. He suspected he looked like an animal. He felt like one, emotion beyond him.
In his world, you killed or you were killed. So he killed. Again and again and again. Phantoms screamed and phantoms died, but their numbers never dwindled. More arrived, each new group ignoring him completely. The entire horde swarmed in one direction—Taliyah’s.
To feed on one of their own or to kill? Either way, she would hurt.
Aggressive noises left him as he fought with new purpose. Slash, slash. Kick, slash. Different fiends and their various severed parts evaporated after death, a cloying fog coating the air.
New arrivals. Thicker layers of ice spread over his skin. His joints hardened, but he refused to slow.
Just get to Taliyah. The words were a mantra. More fuel for his anhilla.
If she died and failed to revive... “No!” More maddened by the second, Roc swung his arms in opposite directions: one descended at his left and one at his right, each stabbing a phantom in the top of the skull. Kick. Elbow. Hip-bump, slash. Claw. Rip. He utilized his entire body, felling opponent after opponent, steadily moving forward. A man obsessed, he remained in a constant state of motion.