Page 29 of Torpid Dagger

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Later on, I’d have to ponder how all this nudity made me feel. While I grew up learning that covering oneself was important, it was a stark contrast to the women walking around Cian’s palace. Even the green women before us now, not afraid to attack us in nothing but their bare skin and feathers. Some had feathers dotting along the top of their chest as though they were a higher rank or older than the ones who were fully naked. All of them had black feathers covering their crotches in the same way my pubic hair did.

Playing the whore had been hard because only Philip had seen me fully naked. I thought I was safe with Cullen, but I was mistaking him for a gentleman. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that there were none of those left in this world, spiraling into utter chaos in their last days. Though, he had been diligently trying to prove himself since, and I needed to give him that credit.

Working out my blade, the dagger rested between me and Alasdair. With my right arm still holding around his neck, my left was the one to reach for it. He knew the idea I had as we all took in how many were flying our way.

“Next time, we go through,” Cullen bitterly snapped at Cian. None of us had time to argue as the first round of females dove toward us. They took to the skies higher in a way to have the advantage against us, pitting us between them and the thorned vines.

Everyone had to fend for themselves because they had enough in their ranks to take us all on. With my dagger in hand, I readied for Alasdair to take us forward more. He charged forward with his wings as I held my blade steady.

A sense of dread found me as I took in the men fighting for their lives. I might not love them from all that they had done, but they were still my mates. My soul yearned to make sure they were okay in ways that were indescribable. It made me wonder if they felt it toward me from how they all kept treating me.

Doing this in our awkward position, I took on the two that came for us because they saw me in Alasdair’s arms. Our blades scraped against each other in a way that grated against our ears, but we weren’t able to stop from the sound. Lurching forward, I was able to stab one in the shoulder as she wailed and wept as though she could not speak. I wondered what the harpies were before they turned into these creatures, but violence was the only thing behind their stares now.

Retrieving my dagger, I ripped it from the woman as it pulled against the grain of her muscles. Having to shake the handle, it was harder to pull out than I thought. Just like the birds from before, she fell to the ground, knocking into the vines below. Unlike the winter mountains we were once in that ate the birds to hide them, this land had no magic to do so. My only hope would be the vines protected her from below, and that she wouldn’t take on too much damage in the process of her fall.

A roaring cry unlike any other I had heard snapped my attention back to her friend. This one had the most feathers around her neck as though it was the clasp of her cloaking wings. Knowing I was up against someone who’d be better than the others, I braced myself for what might come. Alasdair’s grip held me tighter to ensure I wasn’t lost against him.

Breathing in the fermented smell of the land, I tried not to make a face from inhaling so much of it. It was as though the sun had spoiled and molded it in ways that were inhumanly possible. There was a slight tremble in my hold because being in true action did scare me some. There was a difference in learning self-defense in a forest with someone you trusted versus this, facing creatures bred for war.

Just like Philip taught me, I waited for the strike of their leader. She was angry from watching two more of her sisters fall to the ground. Her beady eyes never dropped my stare as she lunged towards us with her wings. Right before she got to us, she backtracked and pushed wind against us. This made it harder for Alasdair to hold on to me. Once she saw the weakness forming in his hold, she dove at us then.

Countering her every attack, I violently tried to save us. This woman was a lot stronger than the last, so I had to take my arm from around Alasdair’s neck to help me support the blade. Having two hands steadied me for the fight against her every blow, but it made Alasdair’s hold on me even worse.

The monstrous woman didn’t ease up as she kept coming for me, raising her blade above her head and hacking at me as though she wanted me in little pieces. On her seventh swing, I readied myself to take another, but that wasn’t her plan. She reached forward and gripped my hair, pulling me from the arms of my mate. As I began to fall, I heard him scream my name. Sadly, I knew he had to take her on in my absence.

As I fell, I heard all the men roaring my name in terror. Even though this wasn’t the way I wanted confirmation of their loyalty to me, it was still nice to gain it. Part of my mind wanted to warp that happy thought into believing they needed me alive to kill Morrigan, but I shut it down from knowing how my own heart began to feel fondly toward them. With the first hit of my back against the hardened vine below, it was the last thing I remembered before everything went black.

19

Bain

Once Briar began to fall, I knew this deadly match had to end fast. Usually, we all preferred not using our magic against the creatures of our land, but our mate being hurt changed the rules. Everything inside of me thrashed as I wanted to dive after her and hold her in my arms. We all felt it when she got hurt because it radiated into us as a warning that our mate was in peril.

Reaching forward, I took one out of the harpy’s handbook and grabbed the one in front of me by the hair before slicing off her head. The sharpness of my blade met the resistance of the bone within her neck, but it sliced through her skin easily enough. Dropping the head after the twitching body fell, I let her sister see what was going to be their fate if they kept antagonizing us. Cullen was fighting his way through three of them, so I whistled to gain his attention. With one look, he knew what I was telling him to do.

Gearing up my hands, I flung them forward, palms open for my fire to unleash. Cullen took the time to do the same thing with his wind. He used his magic to carry mine farther, creating tornadoes of fire that swirled around the rest of the harpies. We never intended to be this cruel to them, but we didn’t have the time to fight them one by one. Their cries were that of immense pain, different from the one they came to battle with.

Without a second thought, all of us began diving into the brush of thorns to seek out our mate. We all plunged into the depths of the hardened vines to find her. There was no doubt in my mind that we all had grown a liking to the woman, so we all hastened to make sure she was okay. None of us rightly deserved Briar from how innocent she was, but we’d all keep trying now that the bond had formed.

None of us liked the idea of her hating us forever, not now that we felt what it was like to have her essence inside of us. Briar wasn’t like most people, and we were learning more and more about her as we spent another day with her. In the short time of a week, I knew I couldn’t lose her as my mate. She was quite literally everything we ever dreamed of.

None of us knew what we’d be finding from how Briar fell, so we didn’t waste any time in our search for her, scouring the grounds in search of where she might be. We could all see Fergus trying to use his ability to seek her out, but it wouldn’t work in the area that had already lost its magic. Luckily, he had her essence and began going her direction like he did when we dug up Muir. That was also another secret Cullen finally told the rest of us right before the last part of the mating ritual.

My arms were getting scratched left and right by all the thorns that took over this area, but I never stopped trying to find Briar, following Fergus. We all tucked our wings right as we began to dive into the swirls of the vines. It was at this point that we all had to begin crawling through the tight loops that barely fit our forms. Morrigan knew how hard this would be for people to get through, and I bet she loved watching people get stuck in it.

“Over here!” Alasdair shouted for the rest of us to follow. Being the one to drop her, he had a better idea of where her body would be, and he followed Fergus’s earlier direction.

We all dashed to where he was calling from. Cian was the first to reach Briar as he immediately scooped her in his arms. For a man who loathed the rest of us for tricking him, he had taken quite a liking to his new mate. He’d never say it, but I could see his feelings came before Briar’s awakening.

Briar looked exquisite in her rest as she always did. Just like when we found her, she appeared like she was peacefully resting, but we could all see the little mark of blood coming from the back of her neck. Cian held her against his chest in a way to comfort her fallen form.

None of us were prepared to see her like this, so frail and injured. It was a bleak reminder that she was human. Even though we knew the mateship promised immortality to her, she still wasn’t used to having almighty power because she didn’t have power outside of her blade.

“Should we just set up camp here?” Fergus asked, knowing how dangerous it was. None of us answered him for a minute because we had to think it over. Briar needed to rest, but Morrigan’s lands were not safe for any of us to be in. She had eyes in her crows everywhere. They hung onto their queen like ravenous pigs, living off the sordid treatment from their queen as though it was pleasurable to them. Morrigan knew how to be cunning, and we were forced to witness it the more she took power.

“No,” I replied. With my eyes surveying the land around us, I knew we couldn’t stick in one spot too long. “Morrigan’s magic created beasts that we’re not even fully aware of in these parts. We need to get through this land as fast as possible.”

Cian shifted his eyes to be able to see in the dark. He was watching for something. In understanding, he nodded his head and turned back to me. “I cannot see faces of enemies, but I am seeing a lot of movement.”


Tags: Ashley Amy Paranormal