“By good,” she lilted sweetly, “I mean one who can keep it up long enough for a girl to get some relief. You think you’re good enough for the job?”
“Aye.” His hands found her hips, lust making him sloppy. “Let me get just a taste of you, then I’ll take you on inside.”
“Come on, then,” she took his hand and dragged him toward the shadow of the trees.
His eyes were locked on her. He smelled and heard the danger too late. Before he could even draw his blade, Riker was behind him, one hand on his forehead, snapping his head back, and slicing through his jugular with the other. Vietka leaped back as Riker cut the rest of the way with a serrated blade, completely taking the sergeant’s head off before he dropped it next to his crumpled headless body without a whisper of exertion.
“Now,” said Mikhail, noting the gate slightly ajar as Brontus had left it.
As one, they shot in a blur through the gate and set upon the lingering guards. Vietka’s women didn’t make a sound, as she’d ordered them not to. No cries or screams to alert more guards as, one by one, Mikhail and his men put them down and dragged their bodies into the shadows near the castle wall. All within seconds.
Wiping his bloody blade on his pants, Mikhail turned to the group of silent, wide-eyed women. “Best get back to town, ladies.”
They didn’t wait, slinking out the gate and down the road where Vietka waited for them. All except Sienna, who stood silent as the grave with her red cloak and hood shrouded around her. Nikolai stood protectively behind her, scanning the area for signs of other guards.
Yuri was at Mikhail’s shoulder, pointing to the right. “South battlement entrance.”
They strategically planned to take down the guards on each battlement overlooking the four corners of the Izeling grounds. If all seemed well from the battlements, then no reinforcements would be alerted. They could get in, get Mina and Izzy, and get out much swifter. The longer this took, the slimmer their chances were of getting back out alive. Speed was crucial.
With Mikhail at the helm, they entered the south turret door and wound in vampire speed up to the first landing. Yuri, Gregoravich, and Dane nodded with ten other guardsmen behind them, taking the first-tier battlement. Izeling Tower had a lower and upper tier of battlements. Mikhail swept up to the highest landing and pushed out into the night. Three guards swiveled from the parapet overlook, but they were no match for the fury riding Mikhail.
Before Nikolai, Riker, or the other guardsmen could even fall out fully onto the square, Mikhail had gutted one and slit the throat of a second. He turned on the third, but Nikolai swept in behind him and cracked his neck, dropping his body soundlessly to the ground. Riker finished off the gutted guard before his moans could be heard.
An upper passage led to the next battlement. Mikhail strode on swift feet, hearing the scuffling below and someone gasping for breath as the others were making quick work of the Legionnaires. Soundlessly, they sped through the shadows, finding five Legionnaires guarding the next tower. Dane kept back near Sienna while Nikolai fought alongside Riker, sweeping wide and dispatching the Legionnaires with little to no effort at all. They met back on the next passage leading to the north battlement.
“Either these men have seen few battles or they’ve never been trained properly,” said Nikolai, ten-inch blades in both hands.
“I’d say a little of both.” Mikhail glanced behind them at the crumpled bodies they left in their wake. “Dominik has spent his time raiding human villages and taking them prisoner. It will be the vampires infected with sanguine furorem and his compulsion elixir who will be the true challenge.”
“Seems he’s keeping them all at Dragon’s Eye,” said Riker.
“He didn’t expect an invasion this quickly,” added Mikhail. “We just need to—”
A harrowing scream pierced the clear night, raising goose flesh on his neck.
“Mina.”
Without thought, he fled like a madman toward the sound, the north battlement. Spilling out onto the large square, his heart plummeted. Two Legionnaires were cuffing Mina onto her back onto some sort of table. Mina’s expression—half horror, half fear—ripped him open. Dominik stood behind her, unbuckling his sword belt. In a flash, Mikhail took in the priest, the matrimonial cloth on the ground, and the queen’s determined expression as she stepped toward a stone table, where little Izzy was chained. Good God. He’d been right. She was going to kill Izzy and use her blood with black magic. And Dominik was about to consummate his forced marriage to Mina on the battlement.
“Over my fucking dead body.”
A new kind of hatred expanded in his chest. The kind that razed villages to nothing but blood and ash. The kind that overwhelmed all else within its vicinity, sucking the enemy into a gaping maw of black, black death. The kind that made him uncage his beast and push aside the man. His claws pricked, his fangs sharpened, and he knew his eyes rolled black with the beast.
Mikhail bounded across the space, unsheathing his double sword, throwing the scabbard into the air, but was tumbled to the ground mid-leap by Radomir.
Chapter Thirty-One
Mina was trapped, her hands still cuffed to the barbaric consummation altar as Dominik unlaced his trousers and edged closer. Her heart was full of fear and relief at the sight of Mikhail, storming toward Dominik like a demon come to collect his soul, but he’d been catapulted aside by Radomir. And this crazed animal was still intent on raping her right here and now.
She recognized Nikolai and some of the guardsmen who’d pledged their loyalty to her now engaged in fierce combat with the Legionnaires. And another grave warrior with an eye patch, whom she didn’t recognize. More of the king’s men flooded onto the battlement, having heard the fighting upon the towers. There were more men on the second tier of battlements for she could hear the cries of the wounded and the clang of steel.
A distant thudding sound vibrated from the ground through the stone castle. Queen Morgrid hissed as she swept away toward the parapet. While the Bloodguard were entangled in battle, the sound grew louder. Then a horn bellowed up into the crisp, clear night.
“Hurry, my son,” commanded the queen, rushing back to the altar where Izzy was bound, her black mantle whipping behind her. “It must happen at the same time.” The queen assessed the scene below. “Get to Dragon’s Eye. Summon them all,” she snapped at an officer standing at her side.
“Yes, my queen.” His dark voice was a whisper on the wind as he sped away.
A fireball burst upon the queen’s cloak. In a whirl of icy wind she summoned out of the air, it snuffed out. Crossing the battlement between men in fierce combat strode Sienna. She raised her hands, palms up, and flicked her wrists. Tendrils of ropelike fire snaked down and coiled on the ground, the ends of the fire whip gripped in her hands. She raised her arms and snapped the fiery ends with a loud crack in the air.