Chapter 191: Make It Count
Kira and Claudia hurried down the dimly lit corridor of the restaurant’s back area, the muffled sounds of the battle behind them fading with every stride.
Just as they rounded a sharp corner near the kitchen supply racks, the shadows on the wall literally detached themselves.
"Look out!" Kira screamed.
Before Claudia could even turn her head, the lead Umbra lunged. Its claws ripped across Claudia’s torso, tearing through her clothes and deep into her flesh.
Claudia let out a horrific shriek as she was thrown violently against the wall, sliding down, blood blooming dark across the front of her dress.
"Claudia!" Kira cried.
Seeing the older woman go down triggered something wild and feral inside Kira. The fear completely evaporated, replaced by pure rage.
She raised her knife at the Umbras as they stalk forward. Just as they closed in, they shifted into their human forms. Kira was surprised to see three of her guards.
Petra, Brent and the other man.
"Come with us," Petra said. "We don’t intend to harm you."
"Stay the fuck away from me," Kira warned her knife still raised.
As Petra lunged forward to grab her, Kira ducked under her on pure instinct, the way Derek had drilled into her on that training ground, and came up behind her, driving her knife into her neck.
She wrenched the blade sideways, and the woman came apart with a screech, and fell forward.
Brent was already coming. Kira spun, but he caught her shoulder and slammed her back against the opposite wall, knocking the breath clean out of her.
He pressed in but Kira got her forearm up under his throat, straining, her knife arm pinned between their bodies.
"Stop fighting me, Your Highness," Brent said. "I won’t harm you. I will take you to safety."
A tear escaped Kira’s eyes. Never had she thought that one day, she would be fighting and killing her very own bodyguards.
She sniffed and nodded, deliberately relaxing her body. Brent pushed off her, deceived by her compliance. But Kira quickly raised her knee and connected with his groin.
Brent grunted in anguish and was distracted. With a scream, Kira jammed the knife up beneath his jaw, and drove it deep.
He shuddered, stiffened, and collapsed before her, leaving her gasping against the wall, drenched in blood, shaking from head to foot.
Her other guard, the one who had struck Claudia, came for her last.
Kira did not wait. She launched off the wall and met him head-on, burying her blade in his chest and riding him down to the floor, stabbing until he stopped moving entirely.
Then there was only silence, and her own ragged breathing.
She scrambled across the corridor to where Claudia lay in a spreading pool of her own blood.
"No, no, no," Kira whispered, dropping to her knees, pressing her hands uselessly over the wounds. "Stay with me. You’re going to be alright, do you hear me? Just hold on."
Claudia swallowed hard, a bloody bubble popping on her lips. She weakly grabbed Kira’s wrist, her grip surprisingly firm for someone who was literally dying.
"Listen to me, Kira... my queen. You must run. Run as fast as your legs can carry you."
"I am not leaving you!" Kira cried, the tears streaming down her blood-covered cheeks.
"You have to!" Claudia coughed, wincing in agony. "Do never... never let the Umbras take you. They mean to use you, your power, to raise their shadow king from the dark." Her voice cracked. "That is what all of this is for. That is why they’ve come."
Tears poured freely down Kira’s face. "I can’t just leave you here to die."
"We sacrificed ourselves... to get you to safety, My Queen," Claudia whispered, her eyes slowly starting to glaze over, though a tiny, proud smile touched her lips. "Please... make it count for something."
Kira wept over the dying woman, her whole body shaking with grief and horror and exhaustion.
Then, she finally gathered herself, wiped her face with the back of a bloodied hand, pressed one last trembling kiss to the woman’s forehead, and rose to her feet.
She turned, and ran down the remaining length of the corridor.
She burst through a side door and found herself back at the hotel’s main reception area.
It was all empty, but for the receptionist slumped lifeless behind the desk, and a scattering of other bodies across the marble floor.
The grand, glittering lobby that had welcomed her only hours ago was now a graveyard. Her dress, soaked through with blood, clung wetly to her body with every step.
Somewhere in all the chaos, she had lost her phone. There was no way to reach Dravengard. No way to call for help, for backup, for anyone.
She couldn’t fight these creatures alone.
If she could somehow just reach Jessica, her friend could get word to Derek and the elite warriors. They would know what to do.
She needed to get out, and she needed to get out now.
Keeping low and well away from the lights, Kira staggered toward the parking lot, slipping from shadow to shadow.
She had almost reached Connor’s SUV when a hand tapped her on the shoulder from behind.
Kira spun around instantly, her knife raised and ready to slash, but the person was faster and moved out of the knife’s way.
Brian stood there, staring back at her.
Before she could even process anything, Brian moved with lightning speed. He pinched the side of her neck, and a sharp, needle-like prick made her gasp.
"I finally have you," he said softly.
Kira’s brows creased into a deep, confused frown. Her hand flew to her neck, pulling away a tiny, empty syringe.
She stared at Brian, completely bewildered. His shirt was also covered in dark blood, and his face had a few nasty cuts across the cheek. He looked like he had just survived a brutal fistfight with the Umbras himself.
"What... what have you done to me?" Kira asked, but her voice sounded slurred. Her eyelids suddenly felt like they were made of heavy lead blocks, and her knees buckled as her body began to fall forward.
"Getting you safely out of here," Brian replied and caught her before she hit the ground.
"I’m sorry, Kira," he murmured. "I’m sorry. I’m only trying to save you from him."
He lifted her, draped her carefully over his shoulder, and walked quickly over to his own sedan, opened the back door, and gently laid her across the seat, making sure her head was supported.
He hopped into the driver’s seat, slammed his foot on the accelerator, and sped away from the bloody hotel grounds into the dark night.
A few minutes after his tail lights vanished, another convoy swept into the hotel lot.
Braxton’s car pulled in and stopped. He was out of it before it had fully settled, his nostrils flaring the instant the night air hit him, the thick stench of blood and death.
He hurried inside the reception area, stopping dead in his tracks. His men stopped right behind him, their claws out.
"Bloody hell," Braxton exclaimed, his eyes widening in shock as he took in the horrific carnage, the bodies, and the shattered glass. "What the absolute hell happened here?"
