A Tangle of Hearts (A Shade of Vampire #44)(59)

The realization crashed into us like a devastating wave. My throat burned, and my inner-wolf growled beneath my skin. Anger flowed through me, incandescent and unforgiving.

“They…they warned us to leave before the Destroyers returned to their camp,” Riga continued, struggling to speak. “But we tried to convince them to meet with you…”

“They refused,” Hansa concluded and cursed under her breath.

“The Destroyers returned and…and shot their arrows… They said you’re next,” Riga managed to say. She started choking on her own silver blood.

Bijarki pulled me away as the succubus nurse and Anjani rolled Riga on her side, trying to ease her breathing. Hansa sighed and stood up, rubbing her face with her palms.

“It’s too late,” she said to the nurse. “Those are Destroyer arrows. She will die.”

Anjani looked down at Riga as her body started convulsing. White foam spewed out of her mouth.

“No, no, there must be something we can do!” Anjani shouted, watching helplessly as Riga choked and writhed in pain.

“There’s nothing we can do!” Hansa shouted back. “End it!”

Anjani froze, her eyes wide open. The succubus nurse pulled out a knife and slit Riga’s throat in one swift move and immediately covered her head with a cloth so none of us could see the end of it.

I groaned, and Bijarki hissed next to me. I then remembered he’d seen this before. He’d done what the nurse had done too, to his friend Kristos, whose father had betrayed him and betrayed us all.

Hansa left our side, fury emanating from her like a blazing fire. Anjani fell backward and swallowed her tears as she looked at her hands, covered in silver blood. She seemed hazy, as if in a state of shock. I reached out to her. I wanted to comfort her and take her away from there, but Bijarki pulled me in the opposite direction. We went after Hansa.

I looked over my shoulder and saw Serena and Draven following us, their faces stern and dark.





Serena





[Hazel and Tejus’s daughter]





Everything was happening too fast. Our hopes of forging an alliance with Kristos’s father had come crashing down in flames, instead giving us three dead bodies and the promise that we would be next.

I held Draven’s hand as we walked away from the scouts. My stomach threatened to expel everything I had eaten the previous night at the sight of their dead bodies. I couldn’t be there for another second.

We followed Bijarki, Jovi, and Hansa as they rushed toward the bonfire.

“We have to do something!” the incubus shouted after Hansa, who turned to face him, her nostrils flaring and teeth bared.

“You’re damn right we’ll do something! We’re going to war!” Hansa roared so that the entire tribe could hear.

“That’s not what I had in mind,” Bijarki muttered.

“No one cares what you’ve got in mind! We are going to war!”

One by one, the succubi gathered around us, grumbling and hissing.

They were all furious, clutching their weapons and moving their weight from one leg to another like the restless warriors they all were.

The fire licked at the clear sky next to us. The wood crackled and spit out black smoke and sparks.

“That would be foolish,” Draven said, his hand over mine.

“That was a declaration of war,” Hansa pointed at the bridge behind us. “We do not cower in front of these snakes! We kill snakes!”

“Five thousand incubi just joined Azazel’s ranks. Don’t let rage get the better of you, Hansa. You still have your weapons, and we still have the Oracles.” Draven raised his voice enough to temper the groans and hisses oozing from the crowd.

“They killed our sisters!” Hansa shouted back. She swallowed back tears.

That was a rare sight. I hadn’t known Hansa for long, but she struck me as a ruthless warrior. It turned out that she, too, was capable of grief, and I felt sympathy for her and for Anjani, who silently joined me as we watched the increasingly heated exchange between her sister and Draven.

“You’ll just get yourselves killed if you go after the Destroyers now, with or without your dragon tears. They will rip you to shreds, and deep down, you know it!” The Druid held his ground, unwilling to let our newfound allies march into certain death.

Hansa paced back and forth for a few moments, her jaw clenched and a vein throbbing against her forehead. Her left hand gripped the hilt of her sword, knuckles white.

Jovi stood between Draven and Bijarki to my left. He occasionally threw glances at Anjani to my right. Concern drew a frown on his face, and he took a step forward.

“My sister is one of the Oracles, Hansa. I don’t want to diminish her chances of survival in this world by losing you and your tribe to Azazel,” he said, his voice firm and his chin high.

Hansa stilled and stared at him. The seconds stretched long. Then she took a deep breath and dropped her shoulders.

“What do you suggest we do then, Druid?” she hissed.

“We use a strategic approach,” he replied. “We collect intelligence on Azazel and the movements of his Destroyers through our Oracles. You send out scouts to reach out to all the other remaining factions still standing in the jungles of Eritopia.”

“Most of the incubi have already joined Azazel,” Bijarki interjected, running a hand through his hair. He’d seen all this before. He’d been through all this before. The pain of betrayal still marred his otherwise beautiful features.