Dragon's Storm (Legion Of Angels #4)(57)

“I will kill you with your own sword,” I warned him.

I held onto that sword and resisted the urge to cover the two puncture marks on my neck. When Nero bit me, it felt good. No, better than good. It felt…right. I could sense my blood inside of him, merging with his own. Like our souls were blending together. When the dark angel bit me, it didn’t feel good or right. It felt like an invasion, a violation, an unwelcome torture. It felt like he was ripping me open and tearing off a part of me. He wasn’t becoming one with my blood. He was stealing it.

“There’s no need for that,” the dark angel said. “This fight is over.”

Magic boomed like a cannon, and then he was gone. I looked up and found him flying above the battle, his dark silhouette growing smaller and smaller as he rose higher. An opening swirled at the top of the mountain. He flew through it, and it closed behind him.

I looked around. Dead soldiers were scattered across the icy floor. Harker was fighting what remained of the Dark Force. Up above, Nero wrestled with a second dark angel. I swung the dark angel’s sword at Colonel Starborn’s restraints, shattering the magic that bound her. The chains crumbled from her body, sprinkling to the ground like silver dust. I caught her as she fell. Holding to the angel with one hand, and a sword in the other, I slowly made my way across the battlefield. The second dark angel swooped in, raining down magic upon us. I pulled us to the side, narrowly escaping a lightning bolt.

The dark angel came around for a second pass. Colonel Starborn was in bad shape. She couldn’t even walk without assistance, let alone fight. I looked around for Nero. He’d been fighting the dark angel just a few moments ago. I found him blasting through a rocky cage on the other side of the cavern. The dark angel must have trapped him in there. Nero was too far away, and the dark angel was coming in fast. His comrade might have decided the battle was over, but he sure hadn’t gotten the message. A firestorm raged over his head, building up to a devastating release.

A spark ignited, signaling the opening of the floodgates—or, in this case, the fire gates. A fiery waterfall poured down on us. We might make it—if we ran at full speed. But Colonel Starborn couldn’t run, and I couldn’t carry her out of here fast enough.

Silver flashed past me. Harker stood beside us, holding up an enormous shield. He must have taken it from one of the fallen Dark Force soldiers. Its dark magic consumed the dark angel’s fire stream, but not without a price to pay. The shield had been made from dark magic, and Harker was a soldier of light magic. Blisters popped up across his hands, spreading down his arms every moment he held the shield. Pain cut across his face, but he gripped onto it with unyielding determination. He cared for Colonel Starborn, his former mentor. The look in his eyes told me he’d die for her too.

As upset as I was with him for betraying me, I wasn’t going to let that happen. He was a good person. He was just horribly misguided. I grabbed the shield from his hands, holding it against the fire falls. Above, Nero tackled the dark angel, shutting off the fire stream. Harker collapsed to his knees beside Colonel Starborn.

“Your arms look awful,” I told him.

“I’ll live.”

I sighed, tossing aside the shield. “How heroic, but now I have to carry both your asses across this cave.”

“I like her,” Colonel Starborn told Harker with a dry chuckle.

Harker glanced at me. “Yeah, so do I.”

I looked up. Nero and the dark angel tumbled through the air, magic and feathers flying in every direction. I grabbed the other dark angel’s flaming sword and drew a fiery figure-eight in front of me. The gate lifted, opening up the way out of this cursed mountain.

“How did you do that?” Harker asked in surprise.

“I just copied what the other dark angel did with this sword,” I said. “We have to hurry. The gate won’t stay open for long.”

Harker continued to stare at me, even as I threw down the sword and lifted him over my shoulder. I balanced Colonel Starborn over the other shoulder. My ribs screamed in protest, but I ignored the pain and kept moving toward the exit, one heavy step at a time. Before I’d joined the Legion and gained magic, carrying two soldiers would have been impossible. Half a year later, it was just painfully slow.

As we reached the gate, I glanced over my shoulder to check on Nero. He was running toward us, the unconscious dark angel swung over his shoulder. I didn’t want to imagine what he’d had to do to knock out a dark angel. While I helped Harker and Colonel Starborn into our truck, Nero chained his prisoner up in the trunk. The gate had closed behind us, but it was opening again. Dark Force soldiers sped out in slender trucks of their own, chasing us as we drove away.

“Shoot to kill,” Nero instructed Harker.

Harker aimed his gun out of the window. Twin shots of fire exploded out of the barrel. The magic bullets tore through the front wheels of the Dark Force truck behind us. The vehicle flipped over. Harker might not have been able to walk, but that hadn’t affected his aim. He shot down the enemy vehicles with flaming bullets—and cold efficiency.

“Nero, that was Seth Battlestorm back there,” Harker commented as our truck swerved around a hole the Dark Force had blown in the ice.

Nero’s eyes briefly darted back to the unconscious dark angel in our trunk. “And Razeel Silverwing.”

The way they spoke the dark angels’ names was foreboding.