Darkness took her.
Chapter THIRTY-FIVE
Declan cradled Regin's limp body in one arm; with his other, he struck with his sword, clearing a path for them.
Stil fil ed with that incredible power, he effortlessly slashed through the melee. With every back and forth swing of his blade, he cleaved off heads, adding to the carnage.
Mangled bodies lay everywhere. Heinous creatures devoured fal en soldiers, raping others. Some beings had weapons, which meant that the storage area had already been raided.
He glanced down, saw a female's severed arm, still covered in a sleeve from a blood-soaked lab coat.
Dixon's oversize glasses lay crushed beside it in the same copious pool of blood. She couldn't have survived that.
So Vincente was missing, Fegley likely fal en, and the doctor was done-
The floor shifted beneath his feet. Rocks still rose, flames soaring. The entire area was unstable, could cave at any second. Time was running out.
If he could get to a truck, he could drive to a smallairstrip a few klicks away. There was an old twin-prop plane that might start. But the impound lot was too far from here.
With luck, there might be a vehicle in the warehouse loading bay. As he headed there, he spared a glance at Regin's new injuries. Too much blood to determine the extent of damage, but he could tell the staples had held at least. She would heal. She'd glow again.
I will see to it.
When he'd saved her from those vampires, he'd wanted to yel with the rightness of protecting her. The instinct to make her his woman and defend her to his last was primal, ingrained in him.
God help him-because he'd surrendered to it completely. Declan had nothing else to hold on to, no other reason to fight what he was feeling for her.
Now it grew inside of him, flaring to life like an out-of-control fire. Mine.
I'd die to protect her. The realization didn't shock him, just confirmed what he'd been grappling with for weeks. Once he reached the loading bay entrance, he shoved open the double doors. Inside, cracks in the roof all owed rain to pour inside, and the ground buckled. The area was dark, yet he could see clearly.
Another mystery explained-berserker senses.
Scanning ... scanning ... A truck! He sprinted to it, slowing as he neared. A section of rafter had crushed the engine. "Fuck!" Twenty-one minutes left. He turned back to the entrance.
Brandr blocked his path, his sword raised.
The man took one look at Regin, and his face fel . Declan thought he muttered, "I've failed him." Then he charged forward. "Put her down, you sick f**k!"
Declan raised his own sword, pointing the tip at the berserker. "I don't want to fight you," he said honestly. Whatever Declan thought of him, the man had protected Regin in the past. "And I've no time for this."
Brandr seemed to grow larger, his eyes wavering, but the torque stopped him from hitting his berserkrage. "Give her to me!"
Standoff. "Not goin' to happen."
"Then we fight-" Brandr went still . "Wendigos near. I smel them."
Red eyes appeared in the shadowed corner of the warehouse, blocking the sole exit. Dozens of the creatures scrabbled closer, their fangs dripping, the claws of their feet skittering over concrete.
Declan clutched Regin tighter. "Fuck me." She stirred, giving him a fitful shove against his chest, but she didn't wake.
Brandr mumbled, "Yeah, feck me, too."
"We put this aside for now," Declan said. "If your aim is to get Regin out of here safely, then we're in accord."
"Take off your glove, Blademan, and free me of this collar. Or we've got no shot."
"I can't unlock it."
"And I should trust that?"
Though the words stuck in his mouth, Declan said, "I vow it to ... the Lore."
At that, Brandr hissed a curse. "One scratch, Chase. That's all it takes. I will put you down if it happens."
Declan laid Regin against the back wal . "Same here, Brandr," he said, turning toward the oncoming threat.
The largest Wendigo made a guttural sound, and the pack charged them.
Declan and Brandr fought alongside each other, their swords slashing, drawing arc after arc of the creatures' brown blood.
"When this is over, she goes with me," Brandr said, decapitating one in a spray of brown ooze.
"Over my dead body." Declan took another's head.
"Not a problem. After what you did to me and to her? You want to give her more of that?"
With each of his sword strikes, Declan felt that same deja vu overwhelming him. Somehow, he knew when Brandr would swing, could sense when to sidestep the man's sword. There was an ebb and flow between them, even as they continued to argue.
"I didn't do that to Regin-didn't order it! I didn't even know about it." Slash.
"Bul shit!" Sword whistling.
"It's true."
"It doesn't matter, Blademan! It happened under your watch. You captured her. You're responsible. Gods, man, her skin is dim!"
The berserker was right. All of this is my doing. He had to atone. "I'm tryin' to get her out of here alive.
There's a plane. But we're running out of time. ..."
"That's the least of our worries right now."
For every Wendigo they took down, it seemed another appeared, closing in. He and Brandr began fighting back to back with Regin in the middle. That's how berserkers fight. Back to back, guarding the prize.
When the pack tightened the circle even more, and Declan barely deflected the swipe of a knifelike claw, Brandr said over his shoulder, "They're too close. Too many. I'll do Regin. Then you."
Declan swung madly. "We're not bloody there yet!" But in his heart, he knew they were.
Another near miss. No more room to maneuver-
Suddenly glass shards protruded from the fronts of the Wendigos' throats and legs. The creatures reeled, frantical y clawing at the glass.
Declan cleaved through one's neck. "Ask questions later!"
He and Brandr took advantage of the Wendigos' injuries, fel ing one after another. Final y, no more emerged to take their places.
When a host of convulsing, headless bodies fanned out from them, Brandr cal ed, "Who the hells in here?"
Out of the shadows, Natalya the fey sauntered, with glass shards between the knuckles of each hand and a charge thrower strapped over her shoulder.
Brandr murmured, "Wel , hel ooo, trouble."
She nodded. "With a capital T, if you please."
That halfling fol owed her, out of breath, his eyes a touch wild, his sword coated in brown Wendigo blood. He hauled a sizable pack on his back. Containing what?