Page 25 of Wolf of Ashes
I’m immediately on the back foot, but the keeper is relaxed.
He throws me a reassuring smile before he extends his hand and dark light streams from his fingertips. At the same time, he says to the newcomer, “You will allow us to pass.”
I hold my breath as the light shoots across the ten paces between us and to the angel, hits her squarely at the base of her throat, and sinks into her skin.
“I will not,” she replies, remaining clear-eyed.
Wait… what?
The keeper falters a little and his brows draw down, but he tries again, sending a darker stream of magic toward the angel. This torrent wraps around her throat like a noose and tightens beneath her chin, throwing dark shadows up across her beautiful features.
“You will—”
“Don’t waste your breath,” she snaps.
She wriggles her shoulders and stretches her neck from side to side, and the dark light shatters, the pieces vanishing into nothing as they fly away from her body.
“Compulsion power doesn’t work on me.” She strides toward us, her boots crunching on the fallen pieces of glass and grinding them into the floor, leaving a trail of sparkling dust in her wake.
“I am the Serene Commander of the Philadelphia Order,” she says. “You are dark creatures trespassing on hallowed ground, and that gives me the right to end you.”
CHAPTERSEVEN
The angel storms toward us, her sword held ready. “Prepare yourselves to meet your keeper.”
If only she knew…
I glance at the keeper standing right beside me, but there’s no time for smirking. Unlike the angels back in the kitchen, power billows around this woman. If she’s the Serene Commander, then she’s the strongest warrior angel in this Order, and my instincts are telling me I’m in trouble.
My black claws extend as far as possible—a full two inches—and my breathing becomes harsh as I brace for her attack.
Beside me, the keeper launches into action.
His hand wraps around my arm. “I have another way out! Come with me. Now!”
I spin to follow him, but it’s too late.
The angel has released her wings, which carry her across the distance far faster than I would have ever anticipated, and now her golden blade slices down through the air between us.
The keeper is partly turned away, his hand still wrapped around my wrist, and I don’t have time to shout a warning. I shove at his back, knocking him out of the sword’s path before it can cleave off his arm where it’s extended toward me.
In the next moment, I leap backward, narrowly avoiding the arc of the angel’s blade as she adjusts the trajectory toward me instead of him.
She lands and retracts her wings but doesn’t stop coming after me, her sword slicing across the air toward the side of my throat.
In the background, I’m aware of the panthers hurling themselves toward her back, and of the keeper bursting with crackling energy that twines around his entire body. But I’m also aware that he may not be able to release his power unless he gets a clear shot at her.
Just as her sword would reach my throat, I throw myself forward but down, sliding through the broken glass on the floor. I cut up my bare knees and shins, but I grit my teeth through the pain.
The Serene Commander clearly wasn’t expecting me to so willingly injure myself, and she doesn’t follow my movement fast enough. I slide beneath the blade toward her legs.
I’m already twisting mid-slide, my left hand pushing upward, my claws closing over her hands where she holds the sword. If I weren’t pushing upward for the purpose of deflecting her weapon, I could ram my claws through her wrists and tear her hands right off.
But my target is also her stomach and lungs, a much deadlier blow.
As my left hand pushes up, my right hand swipes across her torso. My claws are strong enough to disembowel her and cut open her ribs, rending her lungs apart.
Unluckily for me, her reflexes are as sharp as mine.
