Ground Zero

by Melony Paradise

  “You summoned us by force,” the voices boomed angrily. “You have taken us from our homes… our families. Use of this forbidden magic is punishable by banishment. Should you use it again—” the voices deepened until it sounded like it came from the throat of a dragon “—the punishment will be death.”

  As that last word bounced around the dome and in our ears, the witch’s council turned their backs on Cassandra and faded away. She let out an ear-piercing scream, and her light dome disappeared with a pop, like a soap bubble. The air pressure returned to normal, and I could breath again.

  I rolled my shoulders to ease the tension I’d been holding. The pain had diminished to that of a fresh bruise. I started to smile but frowned when I felt Kat’s rage along our bond.

  “I’m going to kill the bitch!” She shoved through our line of witches and began to march towards Cassandra.

  Before she could reach the witch, a gunshot rang out and Cassandra dropped to the ground next to Bull’s body. Kat stood stock still, searching for the shooter.

  Shadows emerged from the trees carrying rifles and wearing tactical gear. Another shot echoed through the camp, and I looked back at Cassandra to see Michael Anderle standing over her body with his rifle aimed at her bloody head.

  “Michael!” Kat growled.

  “Looks like we missed the party.” He swept his arm out to indicate the field of bodies, mostly corpses. If anyone was still alive out there, they smartly stayed still and silent.

  Kat ran toward him, her anger zapping along our connection painfully. I dashed after her, Edgar only a pace or two ahead of me.

  Michael widened his stance and aimed for my sire, squeezing off several rounds. I threw up a shield in front of Kat, blocking the bullets. She slapped the rifle from his hands, knocked him to the ground, and peeled his protective gear from his head and neck.

  Edgar yelled, but he was too late. Kat plunged her fingers into his throat and pulled. She bellowed as Michael pulled a handgun from his belt and blasted her in the chest. As Kat fell backward, Michael shot Edgar while he held his hand to his gory throat. Edgar slid to the ground, the side of his head blown out.

  A bullet whizzed passed my face. I spun and thrust several air-spears into the unprotected crevices of the hunter’s body. Nick and Elena had the limp form of a hunter in a toothy tug-of-war. Killian crunched the arm of a hunter that tried to attack Tabi.

  All around me the battle had resumed, but we fought a new enemy. After the beating we’d already taken, I worried we wouldn’t survive this one. Glancing back at Kat, I saw her struggling to sit up and reach for Michael.

  To my horror, Michael snatched Kat’s hand and sunk his teeth into it. Unbalanced and shocked, Kat yanked her hand away and fell back again, missing a chunk of flesh. Edgar struggled to get up and yelled something.

  Kat’s hand erupted in flames, and she tried to throw the fireball at Michael, but her aim was off. It flew past him as he thrust himself upon Kat and biting into her neck. With a roar, Kat pushed Michael off with all her might and sent him flying into the dark forest.

  “Mercy!” Mandy’s scream cut through the night, stopping me before I could run to help Kat and Edgar.

  Benjamin was down. Mandy cowered at his side with a hunter quickly approaching.

  “No!” I bellowed and tossed the hunter into the woods with enough force to break him when his body met earth or tree.

  In a blink, I was at her side. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. He was fine one second… It hurts, Mercy.” Mandy held her side.

  “Are you injured?” I asked frantically.

  “No,” Benjamin croaked. “She’s feeling my pain. I was shot, but it’s healing now.” He pushed himself into a sitting position.

  “We have to go. Now.” I grabbed his hand and tried to pull him up. “There’s too many hunters.”

  “Go get Edgar and Kat.” He nodded, flinching as he stood, holding his side. “We’ll get the witches.”

  Benjamin and Mandy disappeared as he zipped them away with vampire speed. Michael’s voice sounded from the communications ear-piece of a nearby fallen hunter. “Capture as many of the fuckers as you can. The trucks are on the way.”

  “Shit!” I dashed over to Kat and Edgar.

  Kat hovered over Edgar who sat a little wobbly. Her neck and hand had healed. Edgar’s skull had regrown where it had been shattered, but the skin hadn’t covered it yet. Ick!

  “We have to get our people out of here. The hunters are trying to capture us. They’ve got trucks coming, and who knows what else!”

  “Fine. Tell everyone to run. Edgar needs another minute or two.”

  I nodded, then with all my speed, zipped around to each of our people. With only enough volume for a supernatural creature to hear, I told each one to run. My heart wrenched with every body I spotted from our people. When I couldn’t find Nick, I almost lost my mind to panic.

  “Mercy.” Elena.

  I ran toward her voice. Elena was holding Nick up near the edge of the woods. His body was riddled with wounds, and she wasn’t much better off.

  “I’m so happy you’re alive!” I wanted to hug them both but didn’t want to cause anymore pain.

  “Are we retreating?” Nick asked in a pained voice, his blue eyes shiny and squinting.

  “Yes. Can you get out of here on your own?”

  “We can shift back.” Elena nodded. “It will help with the healing, and we can move faster on four feet.”

  “Good. Go.” I turned away before I could break down in tears. I didn’t want to leave Nick, but I had to finish this.

  Chapter 16

  Back at Kat’s side, I’d gotten everyone I could find to run. Those still engaged in a fight with a hunter left when they could, if they could. I didn’t see any of our witches, so I assumed Benjamin and Mandy had done their job.

  “We can’t stay here any longer,” I whispered, looking around at all the hunters in search of targets who had yet to find us. “As soon as they see us, the whole lot of them will come down on us.”

  “He’s almost ready. Are you?” Kat squinted at me, worry lining her blood splotched face.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.” I knew it wouldn’t be as powerful, but it would be effective.

  Edgar grabbed my hand and squeezed. “We have faith in you, my dear.” He’d never called me that, and I tried not to choke up. I felt their faith in me through our bonds and hoped I didn’t let them down.

  A red dot swept over us, and I knew our time was up. “Hold on!”

  Forming a disc under Kat and Edgar, I lifted them into the air a thousand, two thousand feet. Their energy, freely given, flowed along our blood bonds. Edgar’s filtered through our fainter bond and through Kat’s bond, giving everything he had to spare.

  “Come and get me,” I hollered as my body swelled with power.

  I dug into every painful memory I had, building my rage. Images of Mandy, sick and dying, the worry I’d had that she wouldn’t survive the transformation that I begged her to undergo. The memory of Nick and Elena huddled together, riddled in bloody wounds, pain in their eyes that looked back at me with love and faith.

  I remembered how it felt to kill so many Kin when I had only meant to stun them. And lastly, I thought about how my life had been turned upside down because hunters had cornered Kat, forcing her to take refuge in my home, so hungry that she’d lost control and taken my life.

  These hunters wanted to use us. These idiots that had no idea what they were creeping up on in the dark, in the middle of this campground littered with so many corpses.

  “Don’t move!” A black-clad hunter ordered, secure in his man-made armor that might or might not protect him from my wrath.

  “Oh, don’t you worry,” I cooed. “I’m not going anywhere just yet.”

  I let him see the blaze of my eyes. My rage ate away the beautiful color of my pupils, and a hunger to kill filled them until everything I saw was tinted the hue of fresh blood.
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  I spun in a slow circle, watching the armed shadows surround me.

  “Now!” Kat’s voice hissed through our bond and caressed my mind.

  I thrust my arms out, threw my head back with a toothy grin, and released every bit of energy inside me.

  It felt like my very cells scattered with the sizzling white wave that flowed from my core. Heat roared through me like a gasoline fueled fire. The force of the explosive wave lifted me. I hovered and watched the wide circle of deadly light spread out around me, slicing through the hunters like a hot knife through butter.

  The cabins fell as the wave cut through their foundations and walls. The surrounding forest flattened as if a volcano had erupted, which was likely the closest thing to describe the power I had released.

  “Mercy!” Kat and Edgar’s voices combined pulled me from my revelry. “Pull it back!”

  Shit! It felt so good to let go that I forgot the strength of that wave could travel much farther than the campgrounds.

  Still connected to the energy as it chewed its way through the forest, I coaxed it to slow down, then reverse its forward motion. Without the initial explosive force to propel it, the wave crept back to me, almost refusing to obey.

  Lacking the energy to feed it, the destructive wave began to fade as it contracted, until it was barely thicker than a hula hoop. As it closed in to within a few yards, I let it drop to the damp earth where it sizzled out.

  I dropped to my knees, drained and exhausted, and using what little control I had left, brought Kat and Edgar down out of the sky. As they landed, Edgar stood and brushed himself off.

  “That was quite impressive, Mercy dear.” He put a hand on my slumped shoulder. “I’ve not seen such power since my sire was alive.”

  “That was something,” Kat murmured.

  “It’s terrifying,” I whispered. “Every time I use that power it gets stronger. I shouldn’t have been able to do that. Not after the battles, and not while holding you two up above the wave. It’s too much power.” I couldn’t summon the energy to stand, but Kat and Edgar lifted me as if I were light as a feather. I felt empty, that’s for sure.

  “You’re still young,” Kat said in a soothing tone. “You’ll learn to control it and use it without burning yourself out. And hey, look on the bright side.”

  “What’s that?” I asked as she slung my arm over her shoulder and grabbed Edgar’s hand.

  “You didn’t pass out this time,” she said with a laugh, and faded us away from my “Ground Zero.”

  Chapter 17

  Back at the ranch, the mood was somber. We’d lost a significant number of our people. Those losses just added to the pile of misery I heaped upon myself for the innumerable deaths I’d caused.

  With Cassandra eliminated, the remaining witches of the Bellingham Coven retreated to their covenstead to be with their families and mourn those they’d lost. They had no bodies to bury, and neither did we. Kat had lit the entire place aflame, allowing it to burn hotter than the flames of Hell while she’d faded us to the bottom of the mountain, snuffing it out before it could become a full-on forest fire.

  As soon as we returned to the ranch, I’d retreated to my room that I normally shared with Tabi, Nick, and Elena. Nick slid into bed with me, holding me as I cried until I ran out of tears. He pulled me against him, arms tight around me, as weariness claimed me, and I dozed in a fitful sleep.

  We stayed like that for two full nights and days. Not even hunger could force me out of my melancholy. The third day though, Kat used the sire bond to pull me out of my miasma of despair, and I grumpily stomped into the dining room, chugged down my glass of blood, and huffed into the TV room to plop down on the sofa with a cloud of angst hanging over me.

  “You’re going to have to get over this eventually,” Kat growled, sitting beside me. “The war isn’t over, you know.”

  “I killed everyone.” I huffed and jammed my arms around my waist. Childish, I know, but I didn’t care. “Who’s left on the opposing side?”

  “Michael, for one, and his boss, Rowena. You know she’ll never give up.”

  “Hmph.” I turned my head away, blinking back tears. “Well, the enemy will just have to wait a few more days. I’m too tired to fight.”

  “I’m pretty sure you crippled them enough that they will be out of the fight for a bit yet.” Kat giggle softly. “But, with her money, she could probably have another army in no time. It’s Michael she’s going to have a problem with.”

  “Why’s that?” I looked at her, curiosity clearing the fog just a bit.

  “He was near death when he bit me—twice!”

  “So…” I scrunched my face and failed to work out what she was telling me.

  “So, he drank my blood. He turned himself.”

  “What?” I squeaked in disbelief. “He’s going to be a vampire like us? He’s going to be the thing he hates the most?”

  “Not exactly, no.” She sighed. “He believes we are monsters, but what he will become is truly a monster. He didn’t die properly, and he stole my blood from me in a rage.”

  I blinked at her, still trying to comprehend.

  “Michael will become a creature of violence without a conscience. Michael will be a revenant.”

  The End

  (For now…)

  Also written by Melony Paradise:

  The Discordant Earth Series

  Broken

  First in the series

  A baby is precious, even a half-alien one, and Alyssa Rose will do anything to protect hers.

  Twenty-two-year-old Alyssa had an idyllic childhood, growing up among the aliens that saved Earth from a third world war. As assistant to Kayn, Commander of the Szu’Kara, she dreams of a long, fulfilling career and a future of eternal bliss. Dating the gorgeous commander is just the cherry on top of her perfect life.

  But a visit to the clinic has Alyssa’s world spinning when she finds out she’s pregnant, which shouldn’t be possible—they’re different species. Commander Kayn couldn’t be prouder, but Alyssa has her doubts, especially when things between them start to change.

  When tragedy strikes her family, Alyssa realizes things aren’t what they seem, and her dreams are slipping through her fingers. Torn between what’s real and what’s not, she struggles to understand the secrets that lie beneath the surface. She just never imagined she would find her only chance to uncover the truth through Sebastian, an intensely attractive rebel leader.

  Alyssa must make her choice: cling to the remnants of her life with Kayn, or side with the rebels… and Sebastian.

  Get Broken!

  Other Books by Melony Paradise

  The Discordant Earth Series:

  The Interview

  Broken

  New Enemies

  Unchained

  Vamp Tales Series:

  Along for the Ride

  Meet the Clan

  Moving Day

  Witch Slap

  Ground Zero

  Connect with the Author

  A tidbit about the author:

  Just a laid-back chick with eccentric tastes who loves writing, reading, music, horror flicks, crafting, and unusual things.

  A few words:

  As always, a huge thank you to my fantastic sister, Danielle, for being there for me, not just as a sister, but as my go-to girl with all my writing and cover art. When my eyes and brain are so fried that I can’t tell if my art is crap or passable, it helps beyond measure to have someone I can turn to with fresh, intelligent, and passionate vision.

  Main Website: www.melonyparadise.com

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