Embrace Me at Dawn (Doomsday Brethren #5)

But if she left them now, they’d be down one warrior. She might not have much training, but she and Sabelle alone could use their magic around Felicia. Time to start saving the others before it was too late.

“Go help Caden.” She shoved him toward his brother. “Sabelle and I will manage.”

Lucan sent her a hard stare, torn and worried and furious all at once. “Anka…”

“Trust me.” She looked him right in the eyes. “I know I haven’t always given you reason to, but please. I can do this and stay alive.”

He stared, so obviously torn.

“Brother!” Caden’s voice sounded weaker, even more desperate.

“Go,” she urged Lucan.

“I love you.” He darted off into the fray, pulling some nasty firearm from the small of his back.

“Brave,” Mathias commented with a sickening smile. “But stupid. You can’t fight me. I scare you too much.”

“Sabelle!” Lucan called out to the lovely half-siren as he joined the battle. “The spell. Use it now!”

Sabelle hesitated a moment, then nodded, her pale hair shining in the moonlight.

What spell? Anka had no time to wonder before Lucan punched one hooded monster, then shot another right between the eyes. Black blood spurted everywhere.

“Let me hear your voice, Anka. Unleash it,” Lucan commanded.

She gaped. He wanted her to wail? “I’ll kill everyone!”

“Trust me. I’ve worked it out. Do it!”

As Mathias lunged at her, one hand reaching for Bram’s knife, the other trying to cover her mouth, she didn’t have time to question Lucan. She simply had to take a leap of faith and believe he could save her, the same way he had to trust her to stay alive.

She opened her mouth and began to shriek, her wail high and sharp and loud. Instantly, Mathias crouched down and slapped his palms over his ears. The rest of the Doomsday Brethren looked blessedly unaffected.

“How are you bloody doing this with an Untouchable here?”

“Wailing isn’t magic,” Bram gloated. “And my sister can use hers to shield us even with Felicia nearby. Enjoy your slow, painful death.”

Sabelle was sheltering everyone else with a spell? That Lucan had prearranged? Hope filled her.

Black blood from Anarki carcasses began to ooze down the grassy banks and seep into the river. The sound of gunshots echoed in the night. Blades clashed. The desperate sounds of combat and pain surrounded them. There were still too many Anarki for all the wizards to fight. Sabelle cast an anxious glance at Ice, who fought off three hooded monsters at once, determination tightening his face into something battle-hard and raging. How long could that last when he and the others were outnumbered fifty to one?

Anka jerked farther away from Mathias. She had to kill him quickly. Besides Sabelle, she was the only other person thus far who could use her magic with Felicia present. Neither of them had the skills to fight one person in hand-to-hand combat, much less a flipping army. And Sabelle couldn’t stop protecting the others from the washerwoman’s wail to pull out some warrior-like magic, or all their loved ones would die.

Ending Mathias for good was their only hope.

How the devil was she going to do that? Her mind raced as she watched Bram curse, then grab Mathias’s hair at the back of the head, slamming the incapacitated wizard’s face into a nearby boulder. Anka heard a sickening crack of bone. Mathias screamed in pain, but Anka kept wailing, high and clear, her voice ringing in the night. Mathias crumpled into the freezing water, his ears bleeding. Before the splashing had even subsided, Bram leapt to the banks, pulling some nasty gun from his pocket and pointing it at the Anarki. Seconds later, a shot rang out, and another Anarki fell.

Anka risked a glance over her shoulder at the battle on the banks. The odds were better with seven trained warriors—but it was still hopeless—bullets whizzing, blades resounding, and shouts echoing. Mayhem ruled. Unless she killed Mathias, she might lose everyone she held dear, especially the father of her unborn youngling, the wizard she loved.

She’d been Mathias’s victim once. She refused to be one again.

Sharpening her wail, she prowled closer to him. He tried to crawl away, and looked in Felicia’s direction, but Duke stood sentry over his fair mate. He seemed to be torn between protecting her and helping his brothers in arms.

“Sunshine,” Duke implored her, grabbing her shoulders. “Please, love. Trust them. All of them. Because you trust me. No one will let you down. They need their magic.”

Anka drew in a bracing breath, silently imploring Felicia to believe in all of them.

“I-I’ll try,” the Untouchable promised.

Suddenly, Mathias dove toward the opposite bank. Once on foot, he might be able to sprint away until, like Morganna, he teleported beyond their reach. It might alleviate their problem today, but he’d only come back again and again and again, like a pesky insect. She had to squash him now. Eventually, her wail would kill him, but it was a slow process. The more time she gave him to plot and scheme, the more likely he would find a way to escape.

Using her magic, Anka quickly teleported to the edge of the battle. Still screaming out the deathly howl, she searched for Ice. She found him defending the western side of the melee, parrying two Anarki with a blade in his right hand. In his left, he held a gun and popped off shots, hitting one black-blooded goon after another. The temperature among the dead beings was even colder than the river.

When she approached Ice from behind, the big warrior didn’t hesitate. He tossed a glance over his shoulder, and they made eye contact for a split second. She drew the blade from her pocket, holding it up. He frowned, then nodded, and she knew he recalled that when he’d battled Mathias for a seat on the magical Council, he’d discovered that his blood, pure of heart and intentions, was incorruptible—and poison to Mathias. Anka had to hope that held true today.

“It’s all right. Do what you need,” he shouted above the din.

Wincing as she wailed, she sliced the blade along his thigh, not too deeply, but he still froze for a moment as she dragged the blade through his flesh. She coated one side of the knife in his blood, then flipped it over and whisked the other side of the blade through the bleeding incision, until the knife dripped red.

Suddenly, Lucan managed to light up the riverbanks with blazing strips of flames, even as Mathias tried to crawl away. Anka had seen him use that power before. Lucan could light a blaze to set the world on fire when he must.

On the field across the river, Anka saw that Felicia had closed her eyes, focusing on heeding her mate and allowing the wizards to use their magic. She was letting people in, trusting them to use their powers for good. Thank God!

Smiling, Anka teleported back to Mathias. She hoped like hell that her little plan worked.

As she appeared again behind him, Mathias scrambled to find some way out of the river and away from her wailing. She couldn’t let that happen. But the sight of him crawling in fear satisfied her bruised soul deeply. After all, he’d made her swallow all pride, forced her to get on her hands and knees and come to him, despite her bleeding and humiliation. Now the tables were turned.

Mathias turned to avoid the fire barrier and tried to crawl back to the other bank, to disappear into the battle. Anka blocked his pitiful attempts at escape, trapping him between her unforgiving blade and Lucan’s fire at his back. Behind her, she heard a giant crack like thunder. Anka glanced behind her and saw a rain of bullets falling from the sky, each hitting an Anarki in the head. Then Caden quickly multiplied himself, using the power that only he possessed to create an army that rivaled the number of Anarki. The battle expanded, louder, more brutal—but much less one-sided.

Quickly, the Doomsday Brethren fought their way to the south edge of the fight and waged war until they forced the Anarki to retreat right against the river. Then Lucan set the grassy bank ablaze. Caden’s cloned soldiers controlled the east and west perimeters of the battle, immune to the flames. Soon, the soulless Anarki had nowhere to turn without stepping into a Doomsday Brethren blade or the funeral pyre Lucan had made. Then the slaughter began, Anarki gaping and howling as they flailed in the fatal trap and died.

But nothing could cover the sound of Anka’s wail.

Mathias scrambled to his feet, covering his ears again. “Stop it, you banshee bitch! Shock!”

Anka stared at Shock, mentally warning him not to interfere between her and Mathias. He stood impassively.

Satisfaction roiling thick and hot through her veins, she approached Mathias. The blade she clutched in her hand still dripped with Ice’s blood. Never before had she been a violent woman, but with deep satisfaction, she shoved that knife as deep into Mathias’s belly as she could.

He grunted, and his eyes bulged in pain. He hunched over and his skin faded to gray as the poison of Ice’s purity sank in. Straining for a breath of air, he groped around his torso for the handle of the knife. Anka merely twisted it deeper, vengeance thrumming through her.

The moment was so bloody sweet.

“That’s for Ice’s sister, Gailene,” Anka stopped wailing long enough to say.

“Shock!” Mathias demanded. “You’ve served me…”

He nodded, his dark head and sunglasses bobbing. “I know exactly what to do.”

Mathias collapsed onto his back, and the knife slid free. He clutched the open, bleeding wound in his stomach with one hand and tried to cover one ear with the other as he writhed on the ground in agony. “Good. Yes… Hurry!”

Shock was all stealth as he approached Mathias.

“Don’t!” Anka warned her former lover, her friend, raising her blade high. He’d better not try to save the fucking rapist who had nearly destroyed her, not after everything she and Shock had meant to one another.

“Calm down, Anka. This is for the best.”

“For you to save him? No!” She’d stopped wailing and she knew it. She couldn’t afford to argue with Shock now, but to believe that he would help Mathias after everything the monster had done to her… It bloody hurt.

“It’s all right,” he promised.

Shock lunged—but not to take Mathias away. Instead, he dove toward her and plucked the potion out of her pocket. Then he ran as if the hounds of hell chased him.

“Shock!” Anka screamed after him.

They needed that potion. Morganna would come after it again, no doubt. What would they do if Morganna’s demise wasn’t in their hands? How would they coax Shock into giving it to them so they could end Morganna for good?

Before she could even think about chasing Shock, Mathias grabbed her ankle in a surprisingly strong grip and pulled her roughly to the ground. She fell with a hard crash into the river, careful to keep the blade out of the water. She needed whatever was left of Ice’s blood to finish this bastard off for good.

And she needed to keep wailing.

She gathered a breath to begin her song again. With maniacal eyes, Mathias shoved her against his bleeding body. “Fucking shut up, banshee. No more!”

Shaking her head, Anka wailed louder, until he released her. She would not bow. She would not give in. She would not let him hurt her—or anyone else—ever again.

Mathias covered his ears and scrambled back. She got to her feed and advanced on him like an avenging angel, knife raised above her head.

“The first stab was for Gailene.” She stood over him, legs spread, and stared, putting the same fear into him that he’d once wielded over her with such merciless delight. “This one is for me.”

Mathias gaped at her with something Anka never thought she’d see in his eyes: genuine fear. Knowing that she’d served justice and struck a blow to all those who had been wronged by this monster—Ice, Tabitha, so many of the magical families he’d slaughtered—Anka didn’t hesitate.

She plunged the blade deep into his heart and wailed the sharpest notes yet of her banshee song. Within seconds, he fell limply to his back, icy eyes stark and wide and unseeing. Behind her there was a giant thud as the Anarki, powered only by Mathias’s life force, fell as one to the ground. Lucan raised his hands like an orchestra conductor to grow his fire. The Doomsday Brethren all scrambled away to watch the cold, hooded figures burn in one giant pyre.

The fire hissed and crackled, but a moment later, a violent tumble of air cycled directly beside Mathias. Then Rhea appeared, sprawled out, stabbed, and ears bleeding, every bit as lifeless as the evil bastard she’d adored.

Sabelle teleported over to her as Anka’s voice cracked into silence. Bram’s sister knelt to the pair and touched their skin. “Dead.”

Bram jogged over to check the bodies himself. His face broke out into a grin that widened into a full-bellied laugh. “Tying their life forces together worked. How bloody perfect!”

Ice patted him on the back. “Two for one. I’m impressed.”

Anka ignored them, looking for Lucan. Suddenly, he emerged from the middle of the snarling blaze and hit her at a dead run, wrapping his arms around her so tightly, she knew he would never let go. “You did it, love. You killed the notorious Mathias d’Arc with nothing more than a blade, a little blood, and your very special gift. I always knew you were incredible, but now…so will the world.”