Predatory

CONTENT WARNING: Violence and death. As is typical with battle scenes. Proceed at your own risk.

SASHA POV

The room is spinning, my chest tightening. All I can see are Berach’s awful menacing violet eyes. Can’t move, can’t breathe—

CRASH!

My lungs fill with air again as the painting behind Berach hits the floor, breaking his concentration and revealing an opening. A familiar gray wolf bursts out of it, heading straight for Berach. But the fae menace is ready, turning towards him—

“Not today,” I growl and launch myself towards Berach, as well.

“What in blazes?!” Ruadh bellows, brandishing his warhammer as more intruders, some wolves and some seeming human, pour through the doorway behind the painting. All around me yelling, movement.

“And who’s this?” Berach sneers, his eyes boring into Drake, who’s skidded to a halt in front of him, snarling and chest heaving but seemingly unable to move.

“Berach!” Anisha’s voice calls, and I whirl around to face her as she flies towards us, clawlike fingernails poised to tear out someone’s eyes or throat. I dive low, catch her in the stomach with a fist, dump her over me onto the floor.

Other doors open and more WASP loyalists pour in to defend the Ruling Council. Finally, a fight that’s a challenge. Firearms discharge all around me. People are screaming, gasping, dying. My limbs seem to move of their own accord, dodging bullets and knife thrusts and punches while delivering blows.

“Try to spare Anisha, Ruadh, and Najwa!” I call. They might be useful to us later.

“Foolish cat,” Berach sneers, and then his fingers are around my throat.

***~O~***

RIKA POV

I warned Zoe about pandemonium, but even that word fails to describe what’s happening in the Inner Sanctum. Howls and roars and shrieks abound, as well as gunfire and other myriad weapon sounds. The whole room is a flailing cesspool of bleeding bodies. But Logan’s shock troops seem to have the upper hand. They’ve created choke points at the doors where the WASP loyalists were coming in, and the special ops loyal to us are closing in. The loyalists will be caught between a rock and a hard place soon, if we can just hold on—

Berach has Sasha by the throat, Drake immobilized in front of him.

“NOT ON MY WATCH!” Xander shouts, opening fire on Berach at close range. The fae menace drops Sasha, who hits the ground hard; I think she’s taken a couple stray bullets. Goddamn it. Guess I’ll be patching her up again after all.

The bullets that should have hit Berach change course instead, flying back at Xander faster than they’d left his gun.

“Shit,” I gasp. I wish I could be there, could do something, but there’s no way…. Those bullets tore him up—

Drake howls, a sound of heart-wrenching agony, and lunges for Berach again, this time sinking his teeth into a leg. Sasha pulls herself across the floor and then tackles Anisha, who seemed to be angling to drink from Xander while the blood flows fresh. Logan has Najwa up against a wall, but his left arm hangs uselessly at his side, bent at an unnatural angle. Ruadh’s hammer has split multiple wolf skulls, but there’s too many of them on him now, only a matter of time before he’s down.

Drake flies across the room, hits a wall, then the floor—Berach flung him with some sort of spell. The fae menace surveys the chaos around him, looking for someone—Sasha. I’m having trouble finding her in the fray, too, but then a few of the shock troops move and I see her, tying Anisha up with garlic-laced cord she’s pulled from some lycan’s supply pack. Berach hisses and clutches his pocket-watch. Sasha freezes. Anisha struggles, but Sasha’s tying job is holding, so far.

“You. Will. CEASE,” Berach snarls. There’s a mechanical hissing in the background, but he’s fixated on Sasha, who’s trembling, resisting him despite blood leaking from wounds in her legs, her back, her shoulder. One of her hands makes it onto Anisha’s chest, holding the elder vampire down.

Like flashes of lightning, hundreds of pieces of metal fly through Berach from the main entrance to the Inner Sanctum, turning him into fae Swiss cheese.

Zoe. I switch the video source, and there she is, chest heaving, eyes glittering with fury. She’s flanked by more special operatives, who sweep into the room, weapons in hand.

Back to Berach. The holes Zoe made in him are turning necrotic. Incoherent shrieks tear from his throat, assaulting everyone around him, but he’s disintegrating even so. No coming back from that. Iron kills fae every time.

Holy fuck. We’ve done it.