The skeletal dragon came screaming down from more than three hundred feet above the battlefield.
It struck the top of the Bone Tower like a falling mountain.
The impact split the night apart.
A thundercrack rolled over Mirekeep as rotten bone exploded in every direction. Huge ribs, skull fragments, and shattered vertebrae blasted through the air while black blood and half-digested organs burst from the tower's hollow interior in a raining flood. Chunks of meat and corruption poured down over the skeletal army below, splattering across rusted armor and bare skulls alike.
The dragon tore through the upper half of the tower and kept driving forward through the wreckage.
The war chariot chained behind its waist whipped violently sideways.
Lyra Farrow had already been hanging on by sheer stubbornness. Her injuries were terrible. Most of her Vitae was gone, and even her Aether had nearly dried up. The sudden shock ripped her hand free from the side rail.
She cried out as she slid out of the chariot.
Auryn Gale, still half-conscious and tangled in Lyra's grip, was dragged with her.
Kael heard the scream and jerked around.
For a heartbeat he saw both women falling through empty air beside the chariot, their hair whipping wildly in the wind while the battlefield spun far below them.
He lunged instantly.
One arm shot out and caught Lyra around the waist.
Lyra gasped sharply as the force nearly tore her shoulder apart, but she refused to let go of Auryn. Her fingers locked around the Golden-Glow Soror's wrist with desperate strength while Auryn dangled outside the chariot entirely.
The skeletal dragon banked hard through the sky, circling in a vast arc before diving once more toward the swaying Bone Tower below.
Kael hauled backward with brutal force.
Lyra slammed against his armored chest. Auryn came with her a second later, tumbling back into the chariot floor in a tangle of limbs and golden hair.
"Who are you?" Lyra demanded.
Her beautiful eyes stared upward in shock at the face hidden behind the Sevenfold Shroud.
The mask's seven twisted horns gleamed faintly in the firelight.
Kael ignored the question.
"Sit tight!" he roared at Auryn. "Grab the damn rail!"
His voice sounded rough now. Wrong. Almost animal.
He twisted sideways and pulled Lyra hard against himself, shielding her face and body beneath one armored arm.
The dragon smashed into the Bone Tower again.
Another colossal impact shook the battlefield.
This collision hit even harder than the first.
The war chariot was flung upward into open air and spun sideways violently. Auryn nearly lost her grip again as blood surged through her body painfully. The world tilted around her. Her vision blurred so badly she almost blacked out.
Lyra fared better only because Kael held her crushed tightly against him.
Too tightly.
Bone armor bit into her ribs and breasts through her torn robes.
"Ha!" Kael bellowed.
His laughter rolled across the battlefield like madness.
"Second one! We crushed two of the bastards!"
Something flooded into him then.
It came without warning.
A vast invisible tide slammed into his body from every direction at once. Rage. Terror. Death. Despair. Countless emotions left behind by the battlefield itself surged into his flesh through the Sevenfold Shroud.
Power exploded through his channels.
His heart hammered.
His blood boiled.
The hunger to kill became almost unbearable.
Lyra and Auryn both looked upward just in time to see the Bone Tower slowly tipping sideways.
The gigantic construct groaned as its ruined foundation gave way.
Then it crashed into the earth.
Even from high above, the destruction felt apocalyptic.
Both women stared in stunned silence.
Kael threw back his head and let out a savage howl.
He pointed the Soul-Binding Chain downward.
The skeletal dragon immediately folded its wings and plunged toward the densest concentration of undead below. Green fire erupted from its jaws. Several blasts of dragon breath tore through the skeletal formations before the beast landed among them in a frenzy of claws and fangs.
Skeletons shattered beneath its talons.
Others vanished inside its jaws.
The Bone Legion collapsed into chaos.
Only now did the undead army finally realize the truth.
Lord Ossian's dragon was no longer their ally.
Against the tide of retreating skeletons came fresh cavalry from the rear lines. Hundreds of skeletal riders charged forward in perfect formation, long spears leveled toward the dragon.
Kael's eyes blazed behind the mask.
"Good!" he roared.
His voice had become hoarse enough to resemble some feral beast.
The dragon surged forward to meet the charge head-on.
The Sevenfold Shroud flooded his mind with heat and violence. Endless strength pulsed through his limbs. Endless murderous desire clawed through his skull.
He wanted more.
More death.
More destruction.
More screaming.
Lyra frowned suddenly.
That voice...
Something about it sounded familiar.
Auryn felt the same strange unease.
But neither woman could possibly connect this horrifying figure with Kael Ashvane.
The man before them wore skeletal armor drenched in gore. A monstrous demonic mask hid his face. He rode Lord Ossian's skeletal dragon itself into battle.
It was absurd.
Impossible.
The dragon smashed directly into the skeletal cavalry.
The collision obliterated the front ranks instantly.
Dozens of armored riders were hurled through the air like broken dolls while the dragon drove deep into their formation. Spears stabbed into its body from every side, but the enchanted weapons bent harmlessly against the creature's corrupted bones.
Kael attacked at the same time.
The Soul-Binding Chain lashed outward.
Purple lightning exploded across the battlefield.
The chain suddenly swelled thicker than a man's torso as crackling energy burst from every link. Its power far surpassed the Thunder General who had once wielded it.
Seven or eight skeletal riders were ripped from their mounts instantly.
Bodies flew apart in showers of sparks and shattered bone.
Lyra's eyes narrowed sharply.
That chain.
That shield hanging from his arm.
Recognition struck her immediately.
How could this man possess the Thunder General's divine weapons?
Was he another champion of the Empyrean Throne?
But if so, why did he look like some nightmare dragged from the Fell Realm itself?
And why was he riding Lord Ossian's dragon?
Her gaze rose slowly toward the mask again.
Toward the seven twisted horns upon its brow.
Her heart skipped violently.
The Demon Sovereign's Mantle.
The thought hit her like ice water.
Kael fought harder and harder.
The skeletal dragon rampaged with him like a beast tearing through the sea itself. Everywhere they passed, skeletal soldiers were smashed flat or scattered apart. The undead suddenly seemed fragile. Tiny. Pathetic.
Lyra found herself pinned firmly beneath Kael's arm the entire time.
Heat slowly crept into her pale cheeks.
She tried to push away slightly.
Instead his grip tightened unconsciously.
"Put me down!" she snapped.
Kael did not even seem to hear her.
The Sevenfold Shroud drowned everything beneath bloodlust.
He swung the crackling chain again and skeletons exploded apart wherever it struck. Then he spotted another Bone Tower forcing its way through a breach in Mirekeep's walls.
The dragon wheeled instantly toward it.
Inside the city, panic spread.
The towering Bone Tower lumbered through the shattered walls like some walking mountain of death. Behind it came the enormous skeletal dragon blotting out half the sky.
The defenders of Mirekeep froze.
Some soldiers collapsed outright in terror.
Even Rovan Ashford slowly lowered the iron staff in his hands.
His face looked hollow with exhaustion.
Then the impossible happened.
The skeletal dragon reared back and bit directly into the Bone Tower ahead of it.
Its jaws tore away half the structure's skull-like upper section in one savage bite.
Several skeletal sorcerers were flung screaming from the tower's crown. They plummeted to the streets below and burst apart on impact.
An instant later the dragon's tail swept sideways.
The strike hit with the force of a collapsing fortress.
The Bone Tower toppled over and crushed huge numbers of skeletal troops beneath it.
Both sides stopped moving.
High-ranking undead stared in stunned disbelief.
The defenders of Mirekeep looked equally confused.
Nobody understood what they were seeing.
Had the undead army turned against itself?
Was this some kind of accident?
Kael leaned forward.
"Down!"
The skeletal dragon plunged toward the streets.
It tore directly through the undead ranks like a landslide.
Kael whipped the Soul-Binding Chain once more.
Purple lightning erupted wildly across the battlefield. Silver arcs danced through the air as skeletons exploded apart in every direction.
Only then did the defenders finally understand.
The horrifying crimson skeletal dragon...
The monstrous armored warrior riding atop it...
They were enemies of the Bone Legion.
A wave of disbelief and joy swept across the walls.
Some soldiers nearly cried openly.
Others shouted prayers.
One man dropped to his knees entirely.
"Maybe the gods finally pitied us..."
Kael barely heard any of it.
He had fallen completely into the slaughter.
Strange sensations poured endlessly into his body through the mask. Terror. Pain. Agony. Dying screams. Every death around him seemed to feed the Sevenfold Shroud, and the artifact poured that stolen madness straight back into him.
He spotted yet another Bone Tower entering the city.
The dragon accelerated instantly toward it.
Lyra grimaced.
Kael was holding her even tighter now. With her protective Vitae gone, every hard edge of the skeletal armor pressed painfully into her soft body. Sensitive flesh ached beneath the pressure.
"Damn you!" she shouted. "Loosen your grip!"
At that exact moment another violent impact shook the world.
The dragon crashed into the Bone Tower.
Kael grinned viciously beneath the mask.
This time he became even more reckless.
Before countless soldiers and monsters alike, he drove the skeletal dragon back and forth through the tower over and over again. Each collision sent enormous cracks racing across the structure.
Inside the chariot, Lyra and Auryn were battered nearly senseless.
The world spun around them.
Then, through blurred vision, they saw the Bone Tower begin to collapse.
The defenders of Mirekeep erupted into deafening cheers.
Hope returned instantly.
Men who had already accepted death seized their weapons again.
Rovan Ashford straightened sharply.
Fire returned to his eyes.
He pointed toward one of his officers.
"Find General Kessler!" he roared. "Bring in every reserve troop we've got!"
The battlefield shifted violently.
The Two-headed Commander saw the collapse and exploded into rage.
The enormous undead general charged directly toward the dragon, both massive heads snarling while it raised its gigantic sword.
Kael saw it coming.
With a savage shout he swung the Soul-Binding Chain downward like a thunderbolt.
The Two-headed Commander roared and caught the strike with both hands gripping its sword.
Then its expression changed.
The impact nearly shattered its fingers.
Its gigantic blade flew from its hands entirely.
Kael flicked his wrist again.
The chain snapped through the air once more.
Oddly, although Kael was clearly channeling fire Vitae, the chain's power remained blazing purple like living lightning.
The undead commander tried to dodge.
Then suddenly froze.
Paralysis spread through its entire body.
Its eyes widened in horror.
The chain struck.
The creature split cleanly down the middle.
Its human head and tiger head separated alongside the divided corpse itself. Both halves staggered drunkenly through the skeletal ranks before collapsing into the dirt.
Lyra and Auryn stared in shock.
Who in the hell was this monster?
Friend or enemy?
Neither woman could tell anymore.
Then movement flashed through the chaos.
A green blur shot silently upward from the skeletal army below and landed on the rear of the chariot.
Lyra happened to be facing that direction.
She saw the twin-pronged spear thrust forward like a striking viper.
Kael still had not noticed.
"Behind you!" she screamed.
Kael reacted instantly.
His first instinct was not to move Lyra out of danger.
It was to protect her from the attack.
He swung up the Soul-Strike Shield with his left arm.
Too slow.
The twin spearheads drove deep into his shoulder.
The impact slammed him backward against the edge of the chariot hard enough to crack bone.
Yet he barely seemed to feel pain.
With a furious snarl he smashed the Soul-Strike Shield downward and shattered the attacker's weapon apart by brute force.
At that exact instant, one of the carved skulls decorating the edge of the chariot suddenly sprang to life.
A naked half-skeleton burst upward from the rail itself.
Its body was covered in engraved runic symbols. In its hands it held a long-handled scythe.
Without warning it hacked downward onto the attacker's skull.
The ambusher was General Longbone.
The undead general staggered backward in shock as the scythe shrieked across his helmet. Bone split apart beneath the strike. His head and helm were carved halfway open.
Kael roared and lashed the chain forward.
Purple lightning flashed.
The Soul-Binding Chain punched directly through General Longbone's chest.
The undead general screamed horribly and fell backward into the skeletal army below.
The half-skeleton construct remained perched on the chariot rail, wildly swinging its scythe and chopping apart any skeletal soldiers that climbed too close.
Kael blinked once.
A mechanism?
He looked around rapidly.
More carved skulls lined the sides of the war chariot.
Without hesitation he slammed his hand into them one after another.
Five more half-skeleton constructs burst upward from hidden compartments.
Each one bore engraved runes across its body. Each wielded a different weapon—war hammer, hook blade, halberd, battle axe.
The last had no weapon at all, but tore at nearby skeletons with clawed hands viciously enough to rip them apart anyway.
Lyra and Auryn could only stare.
Kael barked out a delighted laugh.
Then he noticed one final black skull mounted near the front of the chariot.
He slammed his palm into it.
Dark fire exploded upward instantly.
Four walls of black flame erupted around the entire chariot, covered in countless writhing runic symbols. The barrier sealed them inside completely.
Kael recognized it immediately.
The same terrifying defense Lord Ossian had once used to withstand Isara, Lyra, and Sylva fighting together at full strength.
The Asura Flames.
"Now that's useful!" Kael shouted.
With six skeletal constructs guarding the chariot and the black flames protecting every side, the war chariot became unstoppable.
It crashed through the battlefield like an iron fortress drenched in blood.
The slaughter Kael unleashed broke the spine of the undead assault.
Everywhere the black war chariot thundered, skeletons shattered beneath its wheels or burned inside the writhing walls of Asura Flames. The six half-skeletal guardians hacked and butchered around it without pause, tearing through bone and rotten flesh like starving beasts loosed into a slaughterhouse.
The undead army that had forced its way into Mirekeep finally began to panic.
Men of the Iron Maw Legion who moments earlier had been fighting like doomed corpses suddenly roared with renewed fury. Spears slammed forward. Shields crashed together. Soldiers who had been retreating turned and charged screaming into the undead ranks.
Every time Kael smashed apart another monstrous commander, another wave of cheers erupted from the defenders nearby.
"Kill the bastards!"
Kael had never felt this glorious in his life.
Blood soaked him from shoulder to boot. Half his face was blackened by soot and gore. The Sevenfold Shroud whispered through his mind like hot poison, feeding the violence inside him until every heartbeat thundered with savage delight.
He laughed wildly as the skeletal dragon swept low overhead.
The war chariot crashed through another knot of skeletal riders. Bones exploded outward. One of the guardian constructs buried its hook blade into an undead horseman's spine and ripped him clean apart.
Kael stood atop the chariot like a mad king.
"This is more like it!"
At last, the two thousand elite reserve troops Rovan Ashford had refused to commit until the final possible moment came storming out from the heart of the city.
Heavy infantry in black iron armor smashed into the remaining breach points with brutal discipline. Tower shields locked together. War hammers rose and fell. Flaming pitch rained from the walls.
The scattered undead inside Mirekeep finally broke.
The breaches were sealed once more.
Across the battlefield, exhausted defenders realized the impossible truth.
All eight Bone Towers had fallen.
Victory no longer seemed impossible.
It seemed close enough to touch.
"Hey! Your shoulder—"
Lyra's voice trembled despite herself.
The broken half of the forked spear still jutted through Kael's shoulder blade. Blood had dried black around the wound.
Kael glanced at it as though only now remembering the thing existed.
"Oh. Right."
Without hesitation he seized the shaft and ripped it free.
The barbed head tore through flesh with a wet crunch. Blood sprayed across the chariot. A ragged strip of armor and meat came with it.
Auryn sucked in a sharp breath.
Lyra's beautiful face went pale.
Kael only grinned through bloodstained teeth.
The sight of Lyra trembling there—soft lips parted, pale from fear and exhaustion—stabbed strangely into his chest. Something fierce and possessive surged through him before he could stop it.
He leaned down suddenly and kissed her hard.
Not gentle.
Not hesitant.
A rough, hungry kiss that crushed against her mouth and stole her breath entirely.
Lyra froze.
Her eyes widened in pure shock.
Then heat exploded across her face.
"You—!"
Before she could react, Kael grabbed her around the waist and tossed her backward into the rear seat of the chariot.
"Bastard!" she snapped, cheeks burning scarlet.
But Kael had already vaulted back onto the dragon.
The skeletal beast climbed sharply into the sky while he scanned the battlefield in every direction like a wolf hunting prey.
Auryn stared after him, still breathing hard.
She lowered her voice toward Lyra.
"Shreve... what exactly is he?"
Lyra bit her lip furiously, still shaken by the kiss.
"I don't know," she muttered. "He's killing the undead, but that doesn't mean he's sane. We find a chance to escape, we take it."
Yet even as she said it, her eyes drifted back toward Kael unwillingly.
The madman standing atop a skeletal dragon somehow looked more terrifying—and more alive—than anything else on the battlefield.
---
Deep beyond the city walls, the women of Vane's Summit finally encountered the thing carving through the Demon Hunters.
It was hideous.
The upper body resembled a massive blood-red man swollen with unnatural muscle. Veins pulsed beneath stretched crimson flesh. Its lower body, however, belonged to a giant spider.
Eight hooked legs spread outward around it, each nearly thirty feet long.
Those legs had already butchered more than a dozen Demon Hunters into twitching chunks of meat.
"So that's what it is," Sylva Dreyn said tightly. "A stitched horror fused with a spider."
"It hits hard," Isara Ashvane answered coldly.
Even she had been driven back two steps from the creature's strike.
Around them, surviving Demon Hunters scrambled away in terror.
The monster threw back its head and laughed.
"Aahhh! So many soft little women delivered right to me!" Thick ropes of saliva dripped from its jaws. "Fresh meat! Tender meat!"
Selene Voss nearly gagged.
She poured more water Vitae into the Banishing Ice-Flame Blade until the paired stones embedded in the weapon—one blue, one crimson—blazed brightly.
"There are too many enemies," Isara said. "Kill it quickly."
White light flared around her hand as she shot forward again.
The monster shrieked.
"You want death? Then learn the terror of Marshal Bloodblade!"
Its hooked legs lashed outward like giant crimson sickles.
Yet just before impact, Isara's speed changed strangely.
She slowed.
No—flowed.
Her body moved with impossible grace, slipping between the killing limbs like water weaving through cracks in stone.
Selene stared.
The Heavenpool Step.
But used at a level vastly beyond her own.
Isara slipped directly through the monster's defenses and closed instantly.
Marshal Bloodblade jerked in alarm.
Its rear legs whipped backward to intercept—
Too late.
A heavy strike slammed into its abdomen.
The creature howled and retaliated wildly, legs hacking in every direction until Isara finally withdrew. But when the monster looked down, confusion flashed across its face.
Gold light spread across its abdomen.
Thin blazing runes crawled over the wound.
Sylva's eyes widened immediately.
"The Demon-Forging Seal..."
A Gold-Escape Path execution technique.
Her admiration surged despite the danger.
Master Isara was simultaneously using both water and gold paths together.
Marshal Bloodblade roared in fury.
Sylva seized the opening instantly.
The Verdant Bow snapped open in her hands.
A single green streak flashed forward faster than lightning.
The monster barely reacted before the arrow buried itself in its shoulder. Emerald corruption spread rapidly around the wound, consuming muscle and flesh alike.
The creature touched the injury—
—and tore off an entire chunk of rotten meat like scooping wet clay.
"RAAAHHH! That took forever to grow back!" it screamed. "Now I'm angry!"
The thing suddenly reared upward and unleashed an earsplitting shriek into the forest.
Zaeli frowned.
"What is this freak doing? Sylva, hit it again—"
She stopped abruptly.
The woods around them exploded with shrill screeching.
Selene's face turned white.
"No..." she whispered shakily. "Not those things..."
"Careful!" Sylva barked.
Mira Stonwell raised the Earth-Spirit Flute to her lips instantly.
Low mournful notes echoed across the clearing.
The earth split apart.
Eight massive earth golems clawed their way upward through mud and torn grass before forming a defensive ring around the women.
Then something red burst from the trees.
A blood-spider.
One of the stitched horrors they had encountered before.
An earth golem raised its fist—
—but a crescent-shaped slash of blue water flashed past first.
The Crystalwave Slash cut clean through the monster.
The blood-spider crashed twitching into the dirt where two earth golems immediately pounded it into mush.
Selene had already swung again.
Another Crystalwave Slash.
Then another.
Then another.
Blue arcs flashed across the battlefield one after another as more blood-spiders burst from the woods.
Mira stared in alarm.
"Elder Soror! Stop! The Crystalwave Slash burns too much Vitae! Let my golems handle them!"
Selene either did not hear or ignored her entirely.
Her beautiful face had gone tight with fear.
She hated insects.
Always had.
And these things—
These things were nightmares made flesh.
She kept slashing frantically, cutting down spider after spider before they could get close.
"Sel!" Isara snapped sharply. "Control yourself. Conserve your Vitae."
Selene jolted slightly as though waking from a trance.
Only then did she stop.
Her chest heaved violently. Her face had already gone pale from the immense drain.
Sylva moved beside her immediately.
"Easy," she said softly. "We've got you."
Green light flowed from her hands as she used the Wood-Flower support art to restore Selene's depleted Vitae.
But more blood-spiders kept coming.
And more.
And more.
They poured from the trees from every direction until the forest itself seemed alive with writhing red bodies.
The women of Vane's Summit were powerful, and Mira's earth golems fought savagely around them, but the nearby Demon Hunters could not endure such numbers.
Screams erupted one after another.
Men were dragged down.
Torn apart.
Silenced.
Zaeli's face drained of color as the endless swarm closed tighter around them.
"How are there this many?" she cried. "They just keep coming!"
Selene's fear only worsened.
The nearer the spiders crawled, the more violently she attacked.
Crystalwave Slashes burst wildly from her blade again despite the drain.
Marshal Bloodblade laughed from a distance behind the swarm.
"My children! Tear those soft little women to pieces!"
The outer earth golems began falling one after another beneath the tide of blood-spiders. Mira desperately continued summoning replacements, but the strain on her Aether grew heavier by the second.
Then Isara spoke one sharp word.
"Sword."
Zaeli instantly pulled Dreamgate from the storage satchel and held it out with both hands.
Isara reached through the air.
The divine blade screamed from its sheath into her grasp.
Cold silver light flooded the clearing.
"Protect yourselves," she ordered. "I'll deal with the corruption."
"Master, I'll go with you!" Sylva called immediately.
She understood the same thing Isara did.
Kill the leader.
Break the swarm.
But Isara shook her head once.
Then she was already moving.
Sylva rapidly drew the Verdant Bow to support her. Any blood-spider that threatened Isara immediately took an arrow through the skull.
Isara crossed the battlefield in a blur.
Marshal Bloodblade screeched and lashed out with its enormous hooked legs.
Dreamgate flashed.
Silver arcs sliced through the darkness.
One spider-leg fell.
Then another.
Then another.
Severed limbs crashed to the ground in pieces.
Marshal Bloodblade stared in disbelief.
Its legs had been strengthened by Fell corruption until they were harder than forged steel. It had shattered countless weapons with them before.
Now they were being carved apart effortlessly.
Panic finally entered its eyes.
It retreated frantically.
Too slow.
Isara followed like a phantom.
Dreamgate thrust straight toward the creature's chest.
Then—
Danger exploded through her instincts.
Something appeared behind her from nowhere.
A cloud of smoke.
Ash and Smoke.
Isara reacted instantly, spinning and striking backward with her sleeve and palm—
A gigantic skeletal crimson claw erupted from empty air.
It slammed directly into her back.
The impact exploded like thunder.
Isara was hurled forward through the air.
"MASTER!"
The women screamed simultaneously.
Selene's blood turned cold instantly.
She knew that attack.
The same vile technique that had once crippled Kael and nearly destroyed her beloved frost griffin.
"The old monster..." she whispered shakily. "He's here..."
The smoke vanished again.
Sylva's pupils shrank.
"Ash and Smoke!" she shouted. "Careful! It's coming again!"
Too late.
The smoke exploded directly in the middle of the women.
They struck instantly in fury and panic—
—but a crimson blur ripped through them faster than sight.
Pain erupted everywhere.
Bodies flew backward.
The earth golems shattered apart.
In the blink of an eye every woman of Vane's Summit crashed into the ground beneath the swarming sea of blood-spiders.
The smoke slowly twisted together again.
A figure emerged calmly from within it.
Bald.
White-robed.
Relaxed as though arriving for a pleasant evening stroll.
Lord Ossian.
The Bone Ancient casually gestured toward Marshal Bloodblade.
The undead commander immediately shrieked, and the blood-spiders halted their frenzy at once. Instead they merely crowded tightly around the fallen women, hemming them in from every direction.
Far away, Isara struggled painfully back onto one knee.
Rage blazed across her face.
Then suddenly she bent forward and vomited blood onto the ground.
Lord Ossian smiled.
The expression was almost cheerful.
"Little girls," he crooned, "we meet again. How delightful."
Sylva curled protectively around her abdomen, grimacing through pain.
"You're supposed to be some ancient founder of evil sects," she spat. "Sneak attacks now? Aren't you ashamed?"
Lord Ossian cackled.
"If it saves effort, why would I care about shame?" His dead eyes swept over them mockingly. "Besides... didn't one of your own little sluts ambush me last time?"
His gaze shifted around the group.
Then narrowed.
"Hm?"
The smile faded slightly.
"Where is she?" he asked softly.
His eyes turned colder.
"And that annoying little brat." His voice became a hiss. "Where is he?"