Storm and Fury

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  The same one Clay had been wearing.

  “What the Hell?” I whispered.

  My gaze dropped. He was holding something, and my body reacted before my brain caught up with what I saw.

  Swinging the stone sword as hard I could, I brought it down on his arm, knocking the thing—the rifle—from his hands. There was a yelp of pain that briefly reminded me of a noise an animal would make. I didn’t stop there. I brought the arm back up, catching the masked man under the chin, knocking his head back. He dropped to the ground, twitching.

  Letting go of the stone sword, I snapped forward and straddled the attacker. I didn’t think as I gripped the creature’s head and twisted sharply. It shuddered under me before going still. Folding my fingers under the mask, I pulled until the strap that held it in place snapped free. I found myself staring down into the face of a...

  “Human.” I rocked back, stunned. This man... He was a human. I slowly shook my head as I rose to my feet and backed away.

  Realization rose. I sensed demons, but this man wasn’t a demon, and it suddenly made sense. I could feel demons sometimes minutes before Wardens could. I hadn’t felt the men in the garden, or heard them like Zayne had. Demons weren’t here.

  Yet.

  A hand landed on my shoulder, and I gasped. Spinning around, I came face-to-face with Zayne in his Warden form.

  It was his face, but it wasn’t. The cheekbones were still high, but the forehead was broader, the nose flatter and jaw wider.

  He was beautiful in the most primitive way possible.

  “What did I tell you?” Zayne demanded in a deeper, rougher voice. I saw two white fangs. “I know you can fight, but they have guns. I told you to stay down.”

  “They’re human,” I said, taking deep breaths. “They’re human and I...I killed one of them.”

  The line of his jaw appeared to soften, but his voice was gruff as his gaze flickered to the man behind me, on the ground. “It’s okay. You did what you had to do.”

  I opened my mouth to agree, to say that yes, he deserved it if he was part of what was happening here, but I’d killed a human, and I’d never killed a human before.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, those odd eyes searching my face and then, as he stepped back, looking over the rest of me. “Are you hurt? Trinity?”

  I pulled it together. “I’m fine. You?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Are...?” I looked around, beyond the dead man to the doors I’d walked out of earlier. There were... There were shapes on the floor, on the ground. “Are they—?”

  “Don’t.” His other hand curled around the back of my head, turning my gaze back to his. “Don’t look.”

  My heart lodged in my throat. “They’re more humans, aren’t they? There’s more of them—”

  “Trinity! Are you out here? Trinity!”

  Recognizing the sound of Misha’s voice, I tore free from Zayne’s grasp. I searched the fading smoke desperately, needing to see him, to know that he was okay even though I already knew, because I would’ve felt it through the bond if something horrific had happened, but I still needed that reassurance.

  I saw him. Finally. He was striding through the hole in the side of the building, shoving the wires aside.

  “Misha!” I shouted, starting toward him. He was too far for me to see if he was hurt. “Misha!”

  Zayne hooked me with his arm before I made it a foot. I grabbed his arm, his skin hard and hot under my fingers.

  “Let go,” I said, and he tugged me back. “Let go of me!”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “What?” I shrieked, pulling against his hold. “I need to go—”

  Zayne’s wings swept in from the side, folding over me and blocking out Misha, the garden—the entire world.

  “Holy crap,” I gasped, falling back against his chest. I couldn’t see anything. I was in complete darkness, like...like I was blind. A knot of bitter, raw panic formed in the back of my throat.

  “Listen to me.” Zayne’s breath stirred the hair around my ear. “It’s not safe for you to go charging across the garden. There could be more humans with guns.”

  “I can’t see,” I whispered, trying to get air, but the knot was expanding in my throat.

  “There could be more bombs,” Zayne continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “I can’t have you running off.”

  “I can’t see,” I repeated, chest rising and falling heavily.

  “You’re fine. You’re—”

  “I can’t see!” I shrieked, scratching my throat.

  His wings flew open so suddenly that my vision didn’t have time to adjust. I winced as the bright light hit my eyes. I blinked several times, my vision focusing just as Misha scrambled over a stone sitting wall.

  “Trin,” he exclaimed. His face was covered with soot. There was a red smudge under his nose. “Are you okay?”

  “She is,” Zayne answered, dropping his arm from my waist.

  I pulled free and met Misha halfway. “How’s Jada? Ty? Thierry and Matthew—”

  “They’re okay.” His gaze shot to Zayne. “What happened out here?”

  “They came in—humans,” I told him, looking over my shoulder. “They came in with guns, firing, and I killed one of them.”

  Misha cupped my face, his gaze searching mine. “Did you...?”

  I knew what he was asking. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Good.” He dropped his hands, turning to Zayne. “She shouldn’t have been out here.”

  That statement caught me off guard. “He didn’t make me come out here. I was out here by myself and we ran into each other.”

  Misha glared at Zayne like all of this was his fault, which was ridiculous, and right now, his misplaced anger wasn’t important.

  “What in the Hell just happened? They were humans,” I said, pointing out the obvious. “But I felt—” I stopped myself before I blurted out that I’d felt a demon. As a human, that was impossible.

  Zayne stared down at me, his hard, brutal face calculating. “Felt what?”

  “I felt scared,” I lied, whipping back toward Misha. “Were there demons?”

  “No, just humans,” he growled, turning to Zayne. “Were there any demons out here?”

  “No.” Zayne was still staring at me, his heavy wings twitching and stirring the air around us. “Just humans.”

  “But there could still be demons,” I said, clutching Misha’s arms.

  Misha got what I couldn’t say. I could feel them. They were near. He nodded, and I let go of his arm. “I don’t understand what happened here.” I shook my head, stunned as I turned back to the Great Hall. I didn’t even want to think about how the humans got past the walls. They were always guarded, and that meant...

  That meant there were dead Wardens.

  17

  Misha had taken me back to the main house, and it was just us. I was pacing the length of the foyer, still in the stupid gown, but I had rushed upstairs to grab my blades just in case.

  “Where is Jada?” I asked, stomach churning.

  “I think she went with Ty to his place to lock down,” he said, standing sentry by the front windows. “I know she’s safe, Trin. As soon as the guns started firing, she shifted, as did Ty, and then he made her leave with him.”

  A little bit of relief seeped into my tight muscles. “And you’re sure Thierry and Matthew were okay?”

  “Yes. The only injuries I saw were very minor.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes. Just scratches.” I passed him, the skirt swishing along my calves. “I can’t believe they were humans working with demons. I thought at first they might be those Church of God’s Children people, but if they hate Wardens, why would they work with demons?”

  Misha’s back was rigid. �
�Because those idiots don’t realize demons are real. They’d be easily manipulated by demons or by anyone who provided them a chance to dole out violence against us.”

  That was true, but...

  “But they were wearing the masks, Misha.” I shuddered. “The same masks Clay was wearing and...and Wayne was killed by a demon nearby. The scouting party said there were no signs, but they were obviously wrong. And I can still sense demons.”

  “I told Thierry. They’re looking.” Misha turned from the window. “Something is definitely going on.”

  Understatement of the year.

  “Where do you think Thierry and Matthew are?” I asked, stressing like a...like a human.

  “They’re probably at the walls.”

  The walls were less than a mile from here, and the Great Hall was in between. There were several football-field lengths separating the main house from the community and the other, much smaller wall, but if the demons or wayward, idiotic humans made it here, to this house, they’d run through this community like a blade through tissue.

  Most of the Wardens here, besides those who guarded the walls and trained the classes, weren’t skilled warriors. There were more women and children than men, and due to the ridiculous, sexist as Hell structure, female Wardens weren’t trained.

  Not even Jada.

  I turned, pivoted on my heel and then stopped as the siren went off again. Misha and I stopped moving, stopped breathing, as we listened. If it went off twice, it was the all clear. Three times meant bad, bad news.

  The siren blared once, twice, as the familiar oppressive feeling settled on my shoulders...and then a third time before casting the large, rambling house into eerie silence.

  A chill swept down my spine as I turned to Misha. In the bright light of the foyer, his reddish curls looked like autumn flames. “The demons are here.”

  “They are.” The pupils of his bright blue eyes began to stretch vertically. His jaw was hard as he turned to the large iron-cast doors.

  In all the years I’d lived among the Wardens in the Potomac Highlands, there’d never been a breach, let alone something like this.

  A tremor coursed through my arms as I walked toward the door, finding it unlocked.

  “Trin, don’t—”

  I opened the door and dark night air rushed in, sweeping over my bare arms. “Do you really think a door is going to stop them if they make it this far?”

  “It would at least slow them down.”

  The cold cement of the porch chilled my feet as I stepped outside. I could hear nothing. Not even a bird or the chirp of an insect, as if they could sense the unnaturalness in the air.

  It was quiet—too quiet as I stared over the driveway lit by the powerful floodlights and beyond, into the darkness no light could penetrate.

  “Can you see anything?” I asked.

  Misha came to stand beside me at the top of the steps. Even if my eyes weren’t crap, his vision would still be a million times better than mine.

  “I don’t see anything,” Misha reported, glancing down at me. “Except that dress. You could’ve changed. All a demon is going to see is your—”

  “Shut up,” I grumbled.

  “You know, maybe you should go to the wall,” he went on. “Pretty sure if any demon saw you in that dress, they’d think twice before trying to lay siege.”

  I shoved him. “You’re stupid. Zayne said I looked like a goddess.”

  He snorted. “Really?”

  “And he said I looked beautiful.” I elbowed him this time.

  “The same guy who didn’t kiss you back? The same guy I warned you to stay away from?” Misha shoved me back and I bumped into the railing. “You think I wasn’t going to bring that back up?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Now really isn’t time to lecture me about that. Why don’t you wait until we’re not under siege by humans and demons?”

  He sighed. “You should go back inside, Trin.”

  I ignored what he said, as I did most of the things he ordered or bellowed at me. “Do you think Jada is okay?” I asked for what had to be the fifth time.

  “She’s with Ty. I’m sure she is,” he reassured me yet again. “Besides, all the homes have panic rooms just in case something like this happens, and that’s where you should be, but that’s not happening. They’ll be fine. All of them will be.”

  Unless the demons breached the walls and laid waste to the community, burning the homes like I’d heard had happened to a community west of us several months ago, and those panic rooms hadn’t saved them all. Some of the panic rooms hadn’t withstood the abnormal fire the demons had wielded.

  “And if that happened here?”

  I closed my eyes as a shudder rolled through me. “This is my fault.”

  “What? No, it’s not.” Misha’s response was quick, almost too quick. “This is not your fault.”

  Feeling the burn travel up my throat, I shook my head. “But it is. I got caught off guard by Clay and bled all over the place, Misha. I used my grace when I should’ve just run—”

  “If you hadn’t used your grace, you could’ve died.” Misha’s warm fingers touched my cheeks. “I could’ve died. You protected yourself. You did everything you could do.”

  Opening my eyes, I met his gaze. Under the porch light, his eyes were pools of midnight blue. “Why do you always have to sound so logical?”

  Misha lowered his head so we were eye level as his thumbs slid over my cheekbones. “Because you’re always so illogical.”

  A ragged laugh parted my laugh. “That’s a fair point.”

  “A fair point is—”

  The sudden eruption of tingles along the nape of my neck and between my shoulder blades stole my breath. Squeezing the blades until the handles imprinted on my flesh, I whispered, “They’re coming.”

  Misha lowered his hands and faced the driveway. “Get back.”

  This time I listened, taking a few steps away to give him space. Misha was about to shift into his true form, and I couldn’t take my eyes away from him when he did. I’d never been able to, and I wished I’d seen the actual moment Zayne had shifted.

  Misha’s pale, pinkish skin was the first thing to change. It deepened in hue as his skin hardened, becoming a deep slate gray. His hands bent into claws sharp enough to cut through stone. Bold horns sprouted between the mess of reddish-brown curls. The bones of his shoulders shifted under the skin and the blades protruded out. Wings formed, spreading out behind him on either side.

  I’d be right. Misha was huge, but Zayne was even bigger.

  He looked over his shoulder at me, and I saw that his face had changed. Nostrils had flattened into thin slits. His mouth had widened, giving room to fangs that could tear through flesh and metal. Only those eyes remained the same: Warden blue.

  “You going to listen to me for once and go into the house?” he asked, his voice thicker, richer, now.

  I snorted. “And let you have all the fun of killing demons alone? Ha. No.”

  “There’s something wrong with you, something terribly wrong.” He turned back to the driveway, and I grinned despite all of this. “What if there are more humans?”

  My skin chilled as my grin faded. “I can do it.”

  “Just try to keep it under control, Trin.”

  I knew what he was referencing. “Sure thing, boss.”

  The sound of pounding feet echoed up the driveway and Misha jumped, landing in a crouch several feet from the steps. My breath caught as something bulky raced under the floodlight, and I saw it.

  Dear God, it was a Nightcrawler.

  I was stunned as I recognized the moonstone-colored skin. I’d never seen one in person. Only in the texts we read in school, alongside normal things like English and calculus. Like Ravers, Nightcrawlers weren’t supposed to be topside, on Earth, because they coul
dn’t remotely blend in with humans. Their venom was toxic, paralyzing its victims within minutes, sometimes even less. This one was too far away for me to see the details of its face, even with the bright lights, but I was thinking that was a blessing.

  They were notoriously ugly.

  Misha lifted off the ground, but I could be faster. Cocking back my arm, I focused and the world around me fell away. I let the blade fly.

  It struck true, driving deep into the Nightcrawler’s chest before Misha could even take flight.

  The Nightcrawler’s steps faltered as it let out a roar of pain and fury, a sound so horrific it rattled my insides. Flames erupted from its chest, encompassing its body within seconds.

  Iron was deadly to a demon and striking one in a vital place, like the chest, rendered them pretty damn useless immediately.

  My iron blade clattered onto the driveway, settling in a pile of demon dust.

  Landing a foot from where the Nightcrawler had been, Misha looked back at me. “You can’t see me if I step one foot to the left, but you nailed that bastard in the blink of an eye.”

  Another Nightcrawler appeared at the edge of the floodlight.

  “This one is mine.” Misha took off, his wings cutting wide through the air. A second later, he crashed into the Nightcrawler, knocking it several feet back, into the darkness and the void I couldn’t see through.

  I hurried to my blade and snatched it up, ignoring how warm the metal was. I became very still, scanning the darkness as I heard the grunts echoing from where Misha was fighting the Nightcrawler. How many more might there be that made it past the Wardens on the walls? A trickle of fear invaded my blood, but I ignored it, pushing it down so I didn’t give in. Fear could be useful. It could hone the senses, but it could also overwhelm. It was a dangerous, fine line to walk, and I wasn’t willing to walk it at the moment.

  Something shifted to my right, moving too fast in my peripheral vision for me to focus. I spun just in time as a tall, lithe form rushed me. It looked human. Beautiful like an angel, a gorgeous woman whose beauty surely had lured many a man and woman to some terrible fate.