“To cause chaos.”
It didn’t take long for Amaia to see what Lawrence meant. Another wave of vampires emerged onto the battlefield, easily twice the size of the first. They pounced on Zenas’s fighters who were still at work on the first wave. Amaia watched as the first of Zenas’s vampires fell.
Amaia found the battle fascinating. Whenever a mated vampire fell, their mate went mad. Observing their energies, it was almost as if the surviving mates absorbed the energy of their fallen lovers. That energy fueled a flurry of attacks. The survivors went on a frenzied killing spree, beheading half dozens of the enemy until the energy burned out, and the vampires just stopped, raising hardly any struggle as their heads were plucked from their shoulders. Had Zenas anticipated this when he allowed his children to mate? A mated pair wasn’t just stronger alive, they were stronger in their dying as well.
Ezekial’s forces broke through the first wave of Zenas’s army. All together, the second wave advanced, not letting the enemy meet them where they stood. These fights were more interesting. The skill level was higher, and Ezekial’s second wave contained more bonded pairs. The skirmishes were not over quickly. Some lasted several minutes, each pair communicating telepathically, working in perfect unison. It was beautiful, a poetry Amaia let herself become lost in.
The fighting so mesmerized her that she didn’t notice the distant sound of thunder at first. Thick storm clouds rolled across the sky and released their weight on the battlefield. Rain pelted Amaia, and she reveled in it. It seemed a fitting adornment to the fighting. Water would make the rocks slippery and make it harder to get a firm grip around a neck. Mud flew in the same quantities as blood.
“Zenas says you may go. You won’t be needed. It looks like Ezekial isn’t going to send a third wave.”
“Where is he then? Shouldn’t we capture him?”
“No, he’s going to retreat and regroup.”
“Zenas will let him?”
“To be honest, I think he enjoys the fighting. He wouldn’t know what to do without an adversary. He’s similar to humans in that regard.”
“No, that’s not right. Zenas needs to kill him.”
“Perhaps, but he won’t today.”
Amaia didn’t really care about the feud between Zenas and Ezekial. She didn’t care who won or whether they decided to fight another day. She only cared that her heart was thousands of miles away, and she was here, on a battlefield, and hadn’t even gotten to kill a single vampire.
Battle still raged below. Zenas’s third and fourth waves sat quietly, knowing they wouldn’t be called upon. They didn’t move to help their comrades. Selfless behavior wasn’t exactly in a vampire’s nature. They watched as their brethren fell, confident they would ultimately win. Amaia couldn’t stand still. She couldn’t simply watch. A scream erupted from her throat, and she raced into the fray.
“What are you doing? Get back here!”
She ignored her sire’s call. She answered a need deep inside her, a need to feel flesh succumb to her strength, to feel the power over life and death, the need to unleash all of the energy she possessed until she was so spent that there was nothing left in her to desire Michelle. The first vampire she encountered was a middle-aged woman with wild red hair leaning over the vampire she had just decapitated. Amaia launched herself at the woman, toppling her to the ground. With her adversary pinned between her knees, Amaia wrapped the vampire’s hair around her hand and pulled the head back. Diving onto the woman’s neck, Amaia bit all the way through, tearing out the throat. She spit, trying to rid herself of the bitter taste of the venom-blood. She tightened her hand in the woman’s hair and yanked the head clean off her shoulders.