Dark Redemption: Shadowsend Vampire Clan: 3 by L.A. McGinnis

Author:L.A. McGinnis [McGinnis, L.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fools Journey Press
Published: 2023-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

29

AISLING

We had no warning our world was ending.

Nothing except a flash of light that yanked me straight out of sleep and straight into a world disintegrating into choking smoke and tearing pain. My flesh was being vaporized by the heat…the air was pure fire.

I fought to escape the crushing weight on top of me, fought to shove air into my lungs as I suffocated, slowly but surely from the smothering smoke, before I remembered I had magic.

I yanked the ring off my finger and tossed it onto the floor, where it rolled, then disappeared beneath a pile of rubble. Fucking great.

A wave of my hand sent my shadows spinning away, pushing the black smoke and choking dust away with them. I lay flat on my stomach, on…Rowan’s floor, the wool rug burning all around me, my ribs aching so badly, I prayed they weren’t broken.

Ozone stung my eyes, so much spent magic staining the air, I realized the blast was magical, not chemical. Acheron was here. I had to get up. Had to get moving. Had to fight.

At first, I couldn’t hear anything over the dull buzzing in my ears, but slowly, small sounds trickled in, the dry crackling of flames, the roaring crash of something big collapsing outside.

“Rowan…” The weight disappeared, and I lifted my head, took in what was left of my mate’s ruined bedroom. The windows and outer wall were all gone, along with half the ceiling. Through the gaping hole I heard far off screaming, guttural shouting, the sounds of panic and fear.

I pushed up. “Rowan?”

A deep groan sent me spinning, even before I registered the sound came from my mate, then I crawled on all fours, across the still-burning floor, the broken glass, shards of metal and wood tearing my knees and palms open.

I didn’t feel a thing.

Not as I took in my mate, my chest heaving in silent sobs.

No, no, no. Rowan had thrown himself over me. Somehow, he’d sensed the explosion soon enough to protect me. His back was shredded, flesh in tatters, but was he even breathing? I cupped his head and turned him over, careful of his arm, which was certainly broken.

“Rowan?” I pressed my fingers to his neck, found his pulse.

Faint, but there.

“Can you hear me?” Outside, the frightened screams got higher, and then then stopped, like they’d been cut off. The shouting was…not our Knightsguard. “Rowan, can you open your eyes? Can you hear me?” His eyes flickered, nose flaring from the acrid smoke and the thick odor of ozone, but nothing more. I pulled his head into my lap, measured the distance between those shouts and this room.

A few minutes, at most, before our attackers found us.

“We have to get moving.” I climbed to my feet, looped my hands beneath his armpits and dragged him across the floor towards the cracked baroque mirror that marked the entrance to the secret passageway, side aching. Finn told me they’d sealed the doorway up, but maybe, maybe we could hide in there while the invaders searched the castle for survivors.

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