Page 75 of Crossing Fire

I was standing nearly on top of the mangled shape that was the shadow-man when I realized the spells weren’t for me. They were to keep everyone else out of the fight.

Not my cleverest moment.

That was when he cast a spell at me and as my feet seemed glued to the ground, a hand grabbed my ankle.

I looked down. The shadow-man was conscious. He was in bad shape, but as I watched he found the strength to stand, his slayer weapon shaped into a small dagger and held loosely in his hand.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

DADDY DEAREST

I met the shadow-man’s eyes and there was no one home with even a shred of sanity left. Ragnar was delusional, but even he was nowhere near this far gone.

“Can I finish her?” the shadow-man asked my cousin, grinning madly at me.

“Cut her up and take her out of the fight, but don’t finish her,” Ragnar said.

My back was to him now and a loud noise accompanied his words, but I couldn’t see what it was. One thing was clear though, someone had managed to move beyond his spell.

I was taken effectively out of wondering who it was as the shadow-man brought the dagger close to my throat.

The spell loosened on me due to whoever had attacked Ragnar behind me, I surmised, and I grabbed the slayer’s wrist, pushing the dagger away an inch, then another.

With a laugh, he drew a second glowing blue dagger and slashed at my stomach with it.

Just great, I thought. He could dual-wield.

I moved back and he missed me by a hair, only lightly shredding my tactical vest but not touching my skin.

I dropped Torst, he was useless in a fight this close, and drew a dagger out of a thigh sheath, bringing it to the madman’s neck. I was pushing it in right as he left my reach and my sight in a quick, furious rush.

I blinked briefly at the sight of Monster Dom ripping his intestines out but made myself turn and pick up Torst, heading determinedly back to Ragnar, who was now in a four-way fight with Caleb, Cam (a bear now) and Sloan (a tiger). At least I thought that was the order of their beast-calls.

Harvey and Christian and the whole second team were still MIA, but we had no time to worry about it. Ragnar was fending off three of the deadliest fighters I’d ever met with one long sword and a few spells. We had our hands full.

I tried to flank him and was about to sink Torst into him when the air grew hot.

“Take cover!” I screamed as I buried the axe into my cousin’s thick back. He went to his knees, and I didn’t have to think about it, Torst took over, hacking at him like a tree trunk.

A torrent of white flame bombarded us, and Cam and Sloan had to dive for shelter as my father lit the world around us on fire.

I looked up, still hacking away, and took in his glorious visage. He was beautiful and terrible, all glamour gone, his true form revealed. He was silver and glorious, the size of a large barge, his massive wings spread wide as he roared out more fire.

I took inventory of the others. Caleb was still there, hammering at Ragnar’s front, a wicked little dagger in his second hand, whittling at the dragon’s stomach between hammer pounds.

We were making good progress against Ragnar considering all of our slayer weapons were otherwise occupied but, ah fuck, Caleb was on fire.

“Caleb, you’re on fire!” I shouted at him. He didn’t seem to hear, and I raised my voice. “You need to stop, drop, and roll!”

He ignored me, still hammering and stabbing with gusto, totally on fire now.

Okay, then.

The heat receded, Daddy dearest taking to the air again.

“Where the fuck is the other team?” Caleb asked no one in particular, batting the flames out of his clothes rather casually.

To be fair, I was doing the same, but I was immune to fire.