Brianna tucked her head down, driving into the sudden wind for the final few yards to her target, and was thrown abruptly sideways by some unseen force. Sparks flew as the Council men fired their weapons toward the second shadow, and Logan powered into him at waist level, the two men hitting with unnatural force. Three more shadows were swiftly approaching, doing their best to toss aside the assaults from Eric, Seth, and Kara. Only one had fallen, a dark-clad mass who rested beneath Aern and Emily, who pressed down on him as if they weren’t quite sure he was overpowered. A supernatural gust of wind revealed where Ellin and Wesley fought the seventh behind what trees and block remained.
Hair whipping around her, Brianna dug her fingers into the soil, securing herself to focus on the fight. Her power was strongest through touch, but she would get nowhere with hand-to-hand combat if she couldn’t in fact get a hand on one of them. She shoved every last thought she had into blasting the woman forward with concentrated wind, the way Emily had been trying to make projectiles out of marbles. Apparently caught off guard by the blast pushing her forward, the woman landed solidly on the ground near Brianna, air rushing out of her as her chest met with packed earth. Dirt clung to Brianna’s fingers as she pushed free, launching herself into the other woman. Her hands wrapped around the shadow’s head, clutching her temples as her grip secured itself into the ridge of the shadow’s eye sockets.
Brianna’s hesitation was gone when she felt the ire of the woman, sensed her intent. Something in Brianna warned her of shadows, something said danger. But this shadow was different; this was a siren in her head screaming kill or be killed. Brianna thrust her power into the woman, breaking every fragile part that made her body work. There was something feral in Brianna, some savage loathing that pushed her farther than she’d ever gone. And then she was thrown free of the woman, struck full-force by another shadow to land sprawled on the destruction of the lawn below.
Chapter Twenty-one
Aern
Aern shoved back at the force that was rushing him, spinning free of the blast in time to see Brianna tossed to the ground. Her eyes were glowing, burning dangerously below the green, her windswept hair and violent expression giving her the appearance of a mad woman. He kept running for her, but glanced back at Emily, hair just as wild but gaze focused like he’d never seen. The danger in her eyes was not below the green, it flared bright, intent on scorching everything in its path.
Aern hit Brianna’s attacker a moment before Emily, grasping the man’s shoulders to spin him back, away from Brianna and open for their strike. Emily crashed into the shadow, knocking him and Aern farther back, and they grappled for one short instant before Brianna was free. Emily burned through his powers, panting with the effort, and two more shadows launched themselves at Brianna. Aern knew what Brianna wanted, understood why it was so important to her, but he was afraid they were risking too much. They were losing time by trying to save them, and they would lose their men.
Brianna screamed, a roar of pain that cut through the din of battle, and Aern looked away from his task to find her in the grip of the two shadows, their power tearing into her as they held her by either arm. He shoved free of the shadow he held, releasing his hold to one of Logan’s men, and got his footing in time to see Eric thrown to the ground, his own knife lodged into the base of his ribcage. Logan ripped one shadow’s grasp from Brianna, but his blood-slicked hand slid away too soon. The force of the shadow’s blow knocked him back just as Seth smashed into the ground at their feet. There were bodies everywhere. They were losing, their men being tossed about like ragdolls while the shadows closed in on Brianna.
Logan shifted forward, gaze connecting with Aern, and in that brief instant, Aern could see the other man’s intent. They moved, hitting the shadow low and as a team, to throw him back just as Daniels slammed a spike from the underground security system into the man’s back. It shouldn’t have worked, given the body armor their opponents were wearing, but it appeared Daniels had some sort of affinity for metal.
Kara—hair pulling free of its compact knot in mangled clumps, blood running from her nose and the base of her ear—latched onto Brianna’s second attacker. The three of them were taken to their knees by the force of each other’s energy, and another shadow joined the fray. The lawn was crowded with the fight, wind pelting the lot of them with crumbling block and bits of earth, all of it raining down in bursts from above, or the side, or below—every direction the gusts were catching it. The ground was wet from the busted sprinkler system, mud beneath their feet. The air was filled with the stench of burned hair, of smoking leaves, of blood.