Torrent of Tears (Scourge Survivor Series Book 3)(54)

My skin rose in goosebumps as I neared the rendezvous point. The evening breeze crept over my skin, leaving the faintest sticky feeling of salt and sweat on my flesh.

“Princess,” Ydorus whispered.

I shifted my gaze to the dark void between two buildings and found him.

“Everything all right, Princess?”

I nodded and joined him. Drawing a deep breath, I fought the ache that had been growing in my chest for days. It felt wrong not having Bruin and Jade watching my back and Julian orchestrating the attack over comms. But they weren’t there and I was. I bit back the pain that I was now on my own.

“Everything is perfect. Let’s do this.”

As Ydorus led me the rest of the way, I tried to shake the feeling that I’d missed something, something just beyond my mind’s eye. I scanned the streets again as he tucked us into a nook at the edge of the courtyard. Tasso, the pompous bastard, stood opposite us, standing against the guardhouse chatting with two men.

Ydorus leaned close. “Besides Tasso and his friends, there are two guards inside the guardhouse, four watching from buildings surrounding the courtyard, two dressed as citizens in the gated patio of the restaurant across the way and there might be one hiding behind the bronze sculpture at the center of the fountain.”

Did they really think I would tromp right into an ambush? Yes. Obviously, they did. They’d probably even laughed about it, me being an emotional female and all. Well, their underestimation of me was to my advantage. Thankful once again for Reign raising me, I drew on my years as a Talon warrior and as a teacher of battle strategy.

Shifting my feet, I stretched my neck from side to side. The moon was almost directly over the main square and when it was, these men would see just what kind of strategist I was. I ran a hand down my newly mended leathers and smiled. Rowan was a handy little sewer. He had many talents, actually. I patted down the front of my vest, glad for the weight of weapons.

I loved all my new knives, but the best for this battle was the handheld compound bow with orichalcum bolts. I slid my fingers over the butt of the weapon and stroked the polished wood. Now all I needed was to get close enough to shoot one of these nasty little fuckers right through Tasso’s eye socket.

That was going to be damn satisfying. Truth.

Ydorus and I sat tight, waiting for the working parts of our plan to sync up. It was Tasso and his men who began the shift and fidget. Maybe they figured I’d get sick of waiting and just go for it. Yeah, think again.

One of Ydorus’s cousins from this morning, dressed as a male server, came out from under the awning of the restaurant with a dessert tray. As planned, he set the tray on the table between the two soldiers trying to blend in and the courtyard beyond. I rolled on the balls of my feet, watching as he busied himself, screening those two sipping at their doped drinks.

“They’re starting to waver,” Ydorus whispered, drawing his pain-stick baton. “Won’t be long.”

We watched as first one, and then the other, slumped in his chair. Two down.

Taking out a lighter, Ydorus’s cousin pointed it toward the tray and I drew my dagger. The whoosh of blue flame was massive, the patio bursting alight. He must have used a stein of booze to ignite the thing because the awning caught fire and in seconds, flames leapt in every direction.

Chaos ensued: the scrape of chairs, the scream of patrons and the rush of two more hidden soldiers to investigate.

The whistle that rent the air was Eury’s signal that he was on the move to secure the guardhouse. That was my cue.

As the waiter and his brother faced off with two very surprised fellow soldiers, I darted from shadow to shadow, edging closer. Despite being close enough to see the feral grin on Tasso’s face, I couldn’t get a clean shot. I ducked low and rolled to the side, coming up against the trunk of one of the metal sculptured trees. Holding up the bow up, I sighted Tasso. Shit, almost there.

I needed him to step out from behind the streetlamp.

The restaurant commotion was still in full riot when a merchant woman burst from her shop and started screeching at the two Strati hiding on her balcony. Waving a broom and a flashlight, she screamed about privacy and the perversion of men watching from the shadows.

Eury rammed a metal bar through the door latch of the gatehouse and blocked the exit for the Strati inside. Whether it was a flash of movement or the Fates deciding to screw me, Tasso turned exactly the wrong way, at exactly the wrong moment and chased after him.

Shit. Tasso was headed out of the courtyard.

Abandoning plan A, I launched into the alley nearest me and gunned it in the same direction. My thighs ate the distance as my heart raced inside my chest. Tasso was mine and no way was he taking Eury down for helping me.

As the commotion of the courtyard grew faint behind me, I cut through a side street. The rhythmic sound of heavy footsteps connecting with stone echoed hollow somewhere on my right. Male voices grumbled and shouted. Something clattered loud behind the candle shop. I raced on.

The moon slid behind the clouds and the luminescence of the field was gone. The sudden loss of light had me blinking to adjust my vision. Footsteps resumed to my right and I pushed into the darkness by sound alone. Eury and Tasso were coming down the next street, had to be.

Adrenaline pumped the thunder of my pulse into my ears. They would be intersecting just about—

The rollercoaster drop had me flailing mid-air.

Water scrambled my mind as I splashed and sank. My muscles tightened as icy darkness enveloped my body.