Page 37 of Hateful Prince
“I killed him,” she whispered.
“It’s not your fault,” Cain said, shifting so he could place a hand on her shoulder.
“What’s the plan here, folks?” I asked, my attention bouncing between the monster and the conversation taking place behind me.
“Kill him,” Tor said.
“Technically, he’s already dead,” Caspian pointed out.
“How is that helpful?” I snapped.
“I was just proving that I was listening to my sweet girl.”
Cain and I both glared at him.
“Neutralize the ghost.” Dahlia’s voice was a soft wobble.
The snapping, snarling zombie was closing in, and no one was doing a damned thing about it. At Joffrey and Swift’s urging, the rest of the residents had already fled. It wasn’t the nature of most supernaturals to be selfless, so they did so without hesitation. Only Sorcha and Oz had shown any hesitation when they realized the zombie was coming for Dahlia, but even their friendship with her hadn’t been enough to keep them here.
Not that they were needed. Tor and I were more than capable enough to handle a single creature on our own.
I quickly thought through possible moves. Anything that would help me slow him down so Tor could rip his head from his body. Short of fire, it was the only way to ensure he was well and truly neutralized.
I could bash his brains in with a chair leg. Perhaps break apart the coffee table in the corner and shove the wood through his eye until I destroyed his brain stem? But if he bit any of us, we’d become infected.
“So, we kill him then?” I asked. “Lass?”
Dahlia took a few steps back, along with Tor, as the creature continued toward us. My urgency mounted until I could no longer keep it from my voice.
“Gem? I’d much rather ye tell me it’s okay, but I willnae hesitate to kill him if he tries to harm you.”
The walking corpse was now close enough I could see the pinprick of its pupils through milky white eyes.
“Freya’s tits, this is ridiculous,” Tor snarled, shoving past me and making a beeline for the zombie.
It happened so fast that Dahlia’s protest hadn’t finished echoing off the walls before the man’s head was nothing more than bloody pulp between Tor’s hands.
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Caspian drawled.
“I suppose you think you could have done better?” Tor asked, entirely unfazed as he let the pulpy mass drop to the floor with a distinctive splatter. He didn’t bother to wipe his hands clean as he leveled the pirate with the full force of his battle-crazed stare.
“Uh... um... n-no, I wasn’t implying that at all, mate. Brilliant work. Stellar. Never seen better.”
Tor smirked before closing the distance between himself and the pirate. The smaller man backed up until he hit a table and couldn’t go farther. Then Tor took his time as he wiped both his hands clean on Hook’s billowy shirt.
“Good.”
Even my dragon was impressed with the sheer size of the Berserker’s balls.
Point made, he turned to Dahlia. “I’m not going to apologize for putting your safety and life above all others. If it comes to saving you or anyone else, it’s you. Every time.”
Dahlia was about to reply when her eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Shit. It’s loose.”
“What?” I asked, my gaze whipping around the room. I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Until she took a sharp breath. Cain had stepped up next to her, his fingers linked with hers as they both stared at an empty space in front of them.
While the rest of us watched, the air seemed to shimmer before darkening into something ominous and sinister. Nothing in my life prepared me for the malevolence of the spirit that was now visible to all of us. I’d seen evil many times, usually in the eyes of desperate men or women, but this was something else. Something perverted and twisted. A complete lack of anything good or pure. Without knowing why, the word rotten floated through my mind.
“I’ve never seen one that looked like this before,” Caspian murmured.