Bedeviled - Sable Grace Page 0,3

there with you.”

Before she could ask where the hell he thought he was going, he was gone. She caught a flash of blond hair from the corner of her eye, and watched its trail swing through the tree branches to the opposite side of the clearing.

Tarzan. Me likey.

The branch crackled again. She sucked in her breath and focused on the chanting, waiting for the hum Ryker seemed to think she’d recognize. But then the bottom fell out from under her feet. Instinct brought her hands straight up, and she clawed at the branch hanging overhead just before the broken limb beneath her tumbled into darkness, crashing smack in the center of the coven.

“Shit shit shit.”

She swung herself up to a sturdier branch and swore she heard Ryker mimic her curses. There was no more waiting. She dropped, catching another branch in her hands, and swung out and over the coven, swooping down upon their group to land gracefully on her feet. They closed in just as Ryker landed behind her.

Kyana was pissed. Not that her branch had given way, but that they were going to have to kill these traitors before they could force any useful information out of them.

“Can’t leave you for a minute,” he muttered, pressing his back to hers.

Furious that their ceremony had been interrupted, all eleven Dark Breed drooled and sputtered, practically frothing at the mouth in outrage. Two human-looking cowards fled, disappearing into the darkness, but the other nine stayed put. She tried to take them all in, to see what breeds they were to better prepare for their strengths and weaknesses, but other than the Dark Seer and the Hatchling, they all wore hoods that covered their features.

She hated fighting blind, but she had no choice.

A few of them flew backward as Ryker tapped into his telekinesis. She hadn’t had time to learn such a thing and didn’t even know if she ever could. It was going to have to be all sweat and fists for her.

She kicked out, catching one under the chin. Its hood fell off, revealing the face of another Hatchling. Black blood spewed from his mouth and his jaw to make a horrific crunching noise before falling open at a disjointed angle. He came at her, his orangey wings open and his claws outstretched like an eagle dipping in for its prey.

She ducked. The Hatchling tumbled over her and as it landed on its back, she slid her dagger from her boot and shoved it between the beast’s ribs. It released a long, soft sigh before it stopped breathing altogether.

Ryker sent two more crashing into each other, bashing them together so hard, one’s skull split in two before it crumpled to the ground. She glanced at it long enough to see it had been a Lychen, killed mid-transformation with its wolf’s muzzle protruding from a human face.

She turned back to her own fight as a dark, Mediterranean-looking man lunged at her. Instinctively, she brought her fist up and it lodged inside the man’s throat. As he slumped to the ground, she jerked her hand free and stared in fascination at the sparkling orangish blood coating her hand.

“I think I just killed a Genie!”

Her momentary shock was broken as, from the corner of her eye, she saw the Dark Seer slip around one of his companions.

“Grab him!” she screamed. If they were going to let any of this coven live, the Dark Seer was their best choice. If they were lucky, he’d peek into the future and point them toward Haven, and if nothing else, he had the capacity to answer questions.

The Seer was smart, however, and braver than she’d given him credit for. As Ryker lunged to carry out her request, the Seer whipped a long sword from the pile of cloaks at his feet.

“I will die before betraying my god!” And with that, he shoved the blade into his heart and fell onto the dead Hatchling beside him.

Great.

They were down to three survivors. All of them looked nasty and incapable of speech, let alone conversation. One morphed into a human-looking male, naked and hairy from head to toe. A Shyfter.

Kyana grabbed his nape and shoved him to his knees. He smiled up at her, his yellow teeth bared, then shifted into an adder and slithered from her hold. He disappeared into the forest before she could react.

Two Dark Breed left: another Hatchling and an impure demon. A Half-Breed of some kind that didn’t look as though he even possessed