Page 47 of Wicked Enemy
Metal shot through the temperate afternoon air as I alternated between hurling sharp sheets and long spikes. My heart was hammering in my chest, and the buildings on both sides swam in my vision.
“Pull back!” Aaron Reyes at last yelled to his people.
I kept pelting them with metal while they beat a hasty retreat, just so that they wouldn’t know how close they had been to winning.
Once they were gone, my five inexperienced fighters collapsed to the ground while sucking in desperate breaths. And by all hell, all I wanted to do was to join them. I just wanted to sit down in the middle of the fucking street and breathe for a while.
But I was the King of Metal, and perception was everything in our world, so I stopped my trembling legs from buckling by sheer force of will as I turned towards my people.
“Let’s go,” I said. “We need to get back to the Court before someone else decides to try their luck.”
“Yes, sir,” the guys on the ground gasped out while struggling back to their feet.
Shinji nodded, his dark eyes scanning me for an extra second, but he thankfully didn’t say anything.
It had barely been more than a few hours since I came back to the city with Eve and found eight of my people slaughtered, and I was already under attack again. It was starting to take a toll on me. And not just physically.
Lately, the insanity that I normally kept a tight leash on had begun to surface more often. It wasn’t a surprise, given that everything around me was a gigantic fucking mess right now. And whenever strong emotions like that, strong emotions that I didn’t want to feel, washed over me, the beast always stirred.
Relief crashed into me as the red and gray doors to my Court at last became visible. Just a few more steps. Then I could disappear into an empty room and collapse where no one could see.
“Sir,” Shinji said when we had almost reached the doors. “I was thinking about—”
A wet gurgling noise erupted from behind us.
Whipping around, I slapped my palms together and summoned my magic only to be met by an impossible sight. Two of my people, Tess and Harold, stared at me with wide eyes while they desperately tried to press their hands against their necks. Blood ran down from identical puncture wounds on the side of their necks.
Something flashed in the corner of my eye.
I threw a spear of metal straight towards it, but in the time it had taken me to turn and loose the attack, it was too late.
A massive man with blue eyes so pale that they almost looked white, and blond hair of almost the same color, appeared behind Mei and slit her throat with a knife before disappearing into thin air.
Full-blown panic mixed with the rage inside me as Mei, Tess, and Harold all crashed down on the ground. Their bodies spasmed while their life leaked out of them and turned the stones red.
The worldwalker was here.
Fuck.
Turning in a circle, I snapped my gaze from side to side, trying to figure out where he would appear next.
Movement appeared on my left. I whipped around and threw a sheet of metal in that direction.
For a second, Christian White stood there in the middle of the road, watching as my attack barreled towards him. Then he disappeared again.
Dread curled around my spine.
A tutting sound came from my other side. I whirled towards it to find White standing there, shaking his head as if he was admonishing a child.
“None of that,” he said.
“You,” I growled.
“Yes, me.” He gave me a mocking once-over before flashing me a cold smile. “After everything I’d heard about you, King of Metal, I expected the undisputed dark mage ruler of Malgrave to be a bit… taller.”
Surprise flickered through me. He thought that I was the sole ruler of this side of Malgrave? But since I didn’t want him to know that I was in the middle of a gang war that I was currently losing, I decided not to correct him.
“You killed my people,” I said instead, my voice low and dark.