Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 131708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
“It could have dumped the body and then snuck off,” mused Ghost. “It waited for us to see it. It’s trying to lure us to the woods.”
Dice nodded. “It won’t be alone.”
“No, it won’t.” Viper reached out to their other brothers on the club’s ‘channel’: Everyone get to the main area of the clubhouse. Now.
They appeared in fast succession, and Viper quickly brought them up to speed before adding, “The strix won’t all be waiting in the woods. It’s too predictable.”
“Where will they be?” asked Rivet.
Hustle rubbed at his jaw. “They’d want to blindside us.”
Viper swept his gaze over the land outside. Realization hit him fast. “Mist.”
Razor’s brows dipped. “What?”
“They’re hiding in mist-form on either side of the land beyond the fence,” Viper elaborated. “Look. Closely. You can see faint clumps of mist.”
“Do we pretend we’ve fallen for their trick?” asked Jester.
“Don’t really have much choice.” They could attack from the safety of the compound, but the strix would retreat if they were unable to land any blows. Viper and his club couldn’t eat at the colony’s numbers if they didn’t battle them.
Viper felt his lips thin. He wasn’t in the mood for this. Normally, he’d perk up at the prospect of battle. But he planned to head to the pool hall soon, just as he did every Friday. He wanted to see Ella, corner her, coax her into giving in to him.
He hadn’t seen or heard from her since he fucked her at his club on Monday night. She hadn’t come to him—disappointing, but unsurprising. He needed her to take a step toward him, but he was prepared to make a move of his own; had warned her that he would. Viper didn’t want to rush her, though.
Viper slipped off his jacket and placed it on the nearby pool table. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about witnesses. The compound was out in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t vulnerable, though—not when it housed a collection of fallen celestials as dangerous as that of Viper and his brothers.
“We teleport outside the fence, forming two lines that stand back to back and fully face the mists,” said Viper.
“In our usual formation?” asked Sting.
They’d used such a move in the past during battles. “It’ll work best.”
Once the others had all removed their own jackets, Darko arched a brow. “We get to play again, right?”
Since Viper had somewhere to be … “Not for too long, so make the most of it.”
As one, they shimmered outside—seven forming a line facing the left of their land, the others forming a line facing the right.
Viper didn’t hesitate to make a move. He struck with a telekinetic wave that slammed down on the mists from above, forcing them to crash to the ground. The mists flickered, thickened, and rippled before reforming into a row of fifteen strix. Red eyes gleaming with pain, rage, and bloodthirst slammed on the Black Saints.
“I feel bad for them,” mocked Darko beside Viper. “I mean, how honestly devastated would you be if your eyes were red? I’d wear contacts for life.”
Two strix leaped to their feet and rushed him. Viper hit out with an archangelic blast. The rippling wave of unholy fire rushed out and sliced through their bodies like a knife through butter. Bodies that fragmented into ashes.
The fight turned ugly fast. Hisses, screeches, laughs, the crackling of flames and orbs—all of it echoed across the vast spread of land. Orbs of hellfire and unholy fire bounced back and forth; slamming into bodies, blistering flesh, eating at cloth. The scents of blood, acid, pain, sulphur, and brimstone clogged the air and fed his entity’s hunger for violence and death.
A strix propelled itself into the air and landed on Viper, knocking him flat on his back. His breath gusted out of him but, the thrill of battle on him, he didn’t hesitate in telekinetically ‘throwing’ the strix backward, sending it flailing through the air before it hit the ground hard. He jumped to his feet and slammed it with orb after orb until, finally, it exploded into ashes.
A whip of black fire cracked out and wrapped around his wrist, yanking him to the side. Gritting his teeth as his skin sizzled beneath the boiling heat of the whip, Viper tossed a blazing orb of unholy fire at his attacker, hurtling it right at the strix’s face.
The demon’s head snapped back from the force of it. Viper took instant advantage of its disorientation—smacking it with a lethal archangelic blast.
Beside him, Ghost tossed a fast-dying strix on the ground and spat. “Why does their blood have to taste like it’s been burned?”
On Ghost’s other side, Razor shrugged. “We’ve tasted worse.”
A strix leaped at Viper. No, over him. A pale arm then wrapped around him from behind as fangs knifed into his skin. The strix took only one gulp of blood before rearing back with a shriek of pain.