It was the perfect place for the Daemons to call home.
A group of Shikars carried a large horn, several feet long onto the ground and curved like the tusk of a mammoth. One of the warriors blew into it and it sounded long and loud, its echo reached to the farthest corners of the Gates. A clarion call to the Daemons who no doubt lay in wait for their chance to strike.
“Get ready, love,” Edge warned her.
And none too soon, for it was then that a hundred—no, perhaps five times that to Emily’s thinking—Traveled into their midst with no warning. The war had begun at last.
The ring of battle was loud and echoing as a drumbeat in the still air. Daemon after Daemon fell, only to be replaced by more. Still more. Countless more. Until the Shikars were grossly outnumbered. Who could have guessed, who could have dreamed, that so many of the beasts existed? It was chaos and it was hell, but the Shikars fought with the skill of the centuries in their every move, and their losses were blessedly few as the Daemons were cut down before their might and strength.
Shaking herself from the shock of seeing it all, Emily moved and engaged the nearest Daemon. Unprepared for the strength she now had at her disposal, the punch she intended to throw went straight through the chest cavity of the beast. Gritting her teeth she shoved the monster back, taking its heart in her fist as her hand passed back through its center. Crushing it to a pulp effortlessly, she moved on, reveling in her newfound strength.
Out of the corner of her eye, Emily saw Edge twirl, blades winking like a propeller of razor-sharp knives as he spun. Daemons fell in pieces at his feet. Throwing out his hands, blades shot from his wrists and flew into the air, traveling through the fray of battle, dodging Shikars but slicing with deadly intent through any Daemons that chanced stepping in their way. They had a mind of their own, or Edge commanded their flight, Emily didn’t know which, but it was an impressive sight.
They came back to him, slipping back into the flesh of his wrists. All without causing him or any Shikar the slightest harm.
A Daemon’s hand slammed down onto her shoulder, and she jerked. So strong was she now, that her reflexive move tore the beast’s arm from its body. Wasting precious little time for surprise, she punched out its heart and turned to engage another. And another. She lost count of just how many, but was thankful that it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Her Shikar body had yet to slow or tire.
Whatever had made the Daemons show her mercy as a human was gone now that she had changed. They fought her with as much deadly intent as they did any other Shikar. It was puzzling, but then she’d never understood why they had spared her the brunt of their brutality in the first place. Perhaps it was a secret she would never know.
A group of a dozen or so monsters moved to flank her. Her steps faltered and she was forced to retreat as they stalked forward, moving as one unit. Emily kicked out at the nearest one, satisfied to hear the crunch of bone as her opponent fell. She knew it would be seconds and no more before the beast regained its feet, but it felt good to at least injure it all the same.
They were upon her and closing in fast. She had nowhere to go but backwards, and then even that was lost to her as she backed straight into an outcropping of stalagmite. With a mighty cry the group jumped her en masse. Emily steeled herself for the impact of a dozen bodies, each intent on ripping her apart in a rage.
Before her wide eyes, the Daemons halted in mid lunge. Their skin bubbled and blistered. They screamed in fear and pain. Shuddering, even as they died they reached for her, every pore of their flesh opened and wept. Blood and muck separated from the beasts’ forms—the very liquids of their bodies separating from the solids—leaving only dried husks that held their empty shape behind. Round droplets of those fluids hovered and glistened in the air, then fell to the ground. The Daemon husks shivered then they, too, fell and shattered to dust on the ground.
“Be more careful, young Traveler,” Tryton warned her, for it had been he who had saved her with such ease. Even after such a raw display of power he was unruffled and calm as always.
Barely given the time to thank him, he was gone, back into the thick of the battle. And Emily was moved to do the same, despite her close call. Her new family and friends needed her. She would fight at their side until this business was done, come what may. Having made it this far, she was determined to see it through to the end.
But suddenly, all Daemon movement stopped.
Frozen, unmoving, the Daemons appeared trapped by some unseen force. All of them, over the far plains of the battlefield, ceased to move completely.
As if beckoned, Emily shifted her gaze upward to the horizon. There, in the distance, two lone men stood, their cloaks billowing on a breeze that was not there. One of the men, the taller of the two, raised his hand as if in greeting…but it proved not so innocent a gesture.
Every Daemon cried out in pain and terror…then was silenced just as swiftly as they’d been frozen. With a wave of his hand the man smote the army, rendering it to dust upon the barren, rocky ground. From half a mile away, without putting a finger on the beasts, he managed to do what a hundred Shikar could not, and in mere seconds. This mighty army of the Horde was decimated, the fighting was ended.
As quickly as they had appeared, the men turned and were gone, leaving no trace of their identity behind. It was as if they had never been.
The battle was over.
Epilogue
One week later…
“I love you, mate. I love everything about you. I love the way you smell, the way you taste, the way you feel.” Edge growled against the crook of her shoulder and neck. “I could eat you all up.”
Emily giggled happily, and was unashamed at the sound.
“Promises, promises,” she goaded in husky invitation.
“I’ll show you I’m a man of my word, woman!” He pounced upon her, spreading her legs wide with his hand and covering her pussy with his mouth.
She squealed in surprise…then moaned.
And he did indeed eat her all up.
* * * * *
Cinder’s skin burned into Steffy’s. His clenching fists left scorch marks in the bedding beside her head.
“Levine is gonna be pissed when we order new sheets. That’s the third time this month she’s had to make us new ones.” Steffy moaned as her husband thrust his wide, long cock into the depths of her warm, willing body.
“Then we’ll go to the surface and buy a decent supply there instead,” he groaned. His tongue laved the shell of her ear, his breath as hot as the rest of him.
His hips rocked on hers, bearing her down into the mattress.
She came with a scream
* * * * *
Cady gasped at the feel of Sid’s cock as it slid deep into her ass.
“I love you, Cady. So much,” he whispered into her ear.
“I love you too,” she moaned, riding wave after wave of pleasure. “Now shut up and do me.” She laughed.
“As my lady wishes,” Obsidian promised before increasing the tempo and strength of his thrusting hips.
From a dark corner of the room, Grimm’s eyes burned as he witnessed their loving. His hand stroked the powerful jut of his cock as he timed his pleasure’s peak to theirs. Though the lovers entwined on the bed performed for his benefit as much as their own, it was a golden-haired angel he saw in his mind’s eye as he came in a heated flood onto his hand.
The room reeked of sex. It smelled of love, an eternity’s worth and more.
It gave him solace, where before there had been only sadness and regret.
* * * * *
Far away from the loving couples, far away even from the land of the Shikar, and Daemons, Tryton sat upon the Louvre’s rooftop in Paris, France.
His thoughts were somewhat bleak with the pain of best-forgotten memories and the longing of an immortal’s loneliness. Though the battle was done, the war was far from over. The Horde had lost the bulk of their numbers, but they would rise again. They always did, like a plague.
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br /> Before it was done many would die, on both sides. Tryton knew it. All the Shikar knew and accepted it. But the Shikar Alliance had stood for many centuries against their foe and they would continue to do so until the last warrior was standing.
Though who would win remained uncertain, Tryton was beginning to have some hope that it was the Alliance who would triumph over the threat of evil.
More than anything the two figures on the horizon, in the bleak land of the Gates, had given him that hope. He wanted his suspicions about them to be true, despite the odds that were stacked against such an impossibility. They had helped the Shikars, after all, so was it total folly to see them as possible allies?
He hoped not.
Tryton put on a pair of dark black sunglasses and leapt off of the building’s rooftop, soaring in the wind like a bird. And as the rays of a new dawn streaked out over the horizon, he struck out for the nearest shore. The sun warmed his face and skin…but it did not burn. Its golden glow felt like an old friend welcoming him home after too long an absence. This was the world the Shikar had left so long ago. This was the world he wanted to save.
This was the world he vowed one day to return to.
In the warmth of the sun, in the air and finally in the sea, Tryton found hope and was glad.
Also at Ellora's Cave
Rayven’s Awakening
Moon Lust
Midnight Desires
Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.
www.ellorascave.com
Razor's Edge, Book 3, The Horde Wars Page 15