Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 159487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
There were too many, she thought again. But this time she knew it in her bones with a cold, horrible certainty.
Ravik and Severin were magnificent fighters. They were huge and strong and terrifying, and if there had been ten or even twenty Infected, maybe they could have done it. But there were dozens climbing now. Maybe hundreds below—the whole tower was crawling with them.
They were going to be overwhelmed, it was just a matter of time.
“Severin,” she said, and hated the way her voice shook. “Can the signal work faster?”
“It is already broadcasting,” he said. “If the Mother Ship received my earlier pulse, they may already be looking for us.”
“May?” Cassie demanded. “May is doing a lot of work in that sentence!”
Before he could answer, an Infected launched itself over Ravik’s shoulder straight at her.
Cassie screamed and swung the baton with both hands.
The crackle of electricity met gray-green flesh and the creature jerked violently, its lipless mouth snapping inches from her face. For one sickening second, she could see its teeth—thin, wet, black at the roots—and smell the rot pouring from its open throat.
Then Ravik grabbed it from behind and ripped it away from her.
The creature flew off the platform and vanished into the writhing mass below.
Ravik turned, his golden eyes wild with fear.
“Cassie? You okay, baby?” he demanded roughly.
“I’m okay,” she gasped, though her knees were shaking. “I’m okay. Still not eaten. Very proud of that.”
His mouth twitched despite the horror around them. Then another Infected climbed over the rail and he turned back to the fight.
Cassie looked past him and saw more white eyes rising from the mist—so many more. Too many to count.
This was it, she realized. There was no way out…no place to run…no place to hide.
The tower was too high to jump from—the platform too exposed to defend for long, and the Infected were coming from every direction. Ravik and Severin were still standing, but both were breathing hard now. Severin had blood on his mouth and bruising along his jaw where Ravik had hit him. Ravik had black Infected blood streaked across his chest and arms, and the fresh bite wound on his upper arm was still raw and oozing, even though the cure had driven back the milky haze in his eyes.
They were beautiful and brave and hopelessly outnumbered.
Cassie’s throat tightened.
She didn’t want to die here. She didn’t want Ravik and Severin to die here either. Not after everything the three of them had been through together. Not after the bunker and the cure and the awful, wonderful, impossible thing that had started forming between them. Not while Ravik was still angry and Severin was still hurt and none of them had said the things that needed saying.
“Goddess,” she whispered, though she had never been sure if the Kindred Goddess listened to humans or was even real. “Goddess, please.”
And then a blast of red light split the sky.
49
CASSIE
The beam of red light hit the Infected nearest Ravik with a sound like thunder and vaporized its head.
The headless body staggered for half a second, then toppled backward off the platform, taking three other Infected with it.
Cassie screamed, but it was more from shock than fear.
Another red beam lanced down from above, striking the ladder, and a cluster of Infected burst apart in a spray of black blood and gray-green limbs.
Ravik grabbed Cassie and shoved her down behind him.
Severin dropped beside her at the same time, throwing one arm over her shoulders as another blast hit the platform rail where an Infected had been climbing. The air filled with the stink of burned flesh and superheated metal.
“What is that?” Cassie shouted.
Severin looked up and pure relief broke across his face.
“The Mother Ship,” he said. “They sent someone for us.”
Cassie looked up too.
At first, all she saw were the bruise-colored clouds and the red flashes cutting through them. Then something silver emerged from the mist—a sleek Kindred shuttle descending through the filthy sky like a blade of light. Its hull gleamed despite the gloom—smooth and shining and utterly beautiful. Red targeting beams swept over the tower, and every time one locked on, another Infected was blasted away.
It was the most gorgeous thing Cassie had ever seen—a beacon of hope—a silver spaceship coming to their rescue.
“Thank you, Goddess,” she breathed.
Ravik looked up too, still holding his shock blade in one hand and Cassie’s shoulder with the other. His face was tight, but for the first time since the fight with Severin, some of the hopelessness had eased from his eyes.
Severin’s long pulse had worked—he had saved them again.
An amplified voice boomed from the shuttle, distorted but clear.
“Survivors, get down! We need to clear the structure before extraction!”
“Down!” Ravik barked.
He and Severin moved at the same time. Ravik threw his body over Cassie from one side, Severin from the other, and between one breath and the next she was pinned beneath two huge Kindred warriors while the sky exploded above them.