41

J O Y

➳

We had all followed the plan meticulously, everyone had played their part and up until then everything had gone flawlessly. Our whole army had strategically positioned and hidden in front of the rock face in the forest. Then troops were infiltrated into different cave entrances one by one, which would then lead to the dungeon, while Arrow, Beau, Reah, Aramis, Xenos, Devon and I would face Echinda. At least that was the plan.

But something must have gone wrong, Xenos must have miscalculated the cards or the cards must have lied. For the tunnels we had followed, which must have led us straight to the core of the caves, and thus to Echinda's bedchamber, led us in the opposite direction and I stepped out of the dark tunnel into a moonlit gallery whose boxes were occupied by rows of cells . So many cells I almost got dizzy. So many cells, all empty.

"What on earth..." I whispered, stunned as I walked close to the cells, waiting for one of those cages to house someone. That I would run into my packmates, Heather or Kaylee, who also had to be here.

"Devon, what do you think...?" I turned on my own arm when I couldn't see him anywhere. I frowned. He had just slipped through the tunnels with me.

Beau yanked me out of my quest and swore next to me. Then he edged forward to the parapet among all the other squads of soldiers. His fist pounded the steel railing angrily. "Why the hell did we end up here?!"

I quickly made my way through the crowd to him and looked over the parapet down to the other floors to see a blond head among all the werewolves. "Xenos must have miscalculated."

The army split and Aramis joined me at my side. He looked around warily. "Where is he?"

As soon as he asked the question, I realized that Xenos wasn't with us. "Maybe he managed to get to her." Realizing I couldn't find him, I stepped back a little. Fear gripped my heart, but I forced myself to swallow it. "Devon isn't here either."

A soldier from an alien pack turned to face us. “There's nobody here for us to free. In not a single cell. What should we do?"

But before we could reply to him, a dark, terrific stream rose up the middle of the gallery to the top floor. It looked like a hurricane, a storm that spun around and threatened to engulf us all. Pale arms with black fingertips shot out of the stream, reached out, tried to grab us and pull us towards them.

We flinched from the railing.

"Fucking shit again! What's that?!' Beau yelled, looking at the black column that seemed to be spinning faster and faster, its black strands shooting up into the sky, out of the cave.

"I don't know." I blinked against the blustery wind that blew at us from the whirlwind, whipping my hair. All their captives weren't here, nobody was here. That was...

"Demons!" Aramis suddenly roared as chunks of the vortex seemed to loosen and black-robed creatures dug out of the storm. Pale hands were followed by sunken, gaunt faces with glowing white eyes.

"Ambush..." I finished my sentence. That was a bloody ambush. I yanked Beau back as he lunged at the Hell Warriors. “This is an ambush! We have to get out of here. All. And NOW!”

The moment I tried to convince Beau of this, Aramis seemed to realize the same thing, for he yelled, "Retreat! Retreat!" ALL HANDS WITHDRAW!”

The soldiers stared spellbound as the demons broke free from the black stream and darted toward us to drain us until we were nothing but empty, lifeless shells.

As if Arami's roar had roused her from her rigid state, they ran towards the exits. Meanwhile, I ripped my sword from my back and blocked out the throbbing and rushing of the other soldiers, focusing exclusively on the coming demons. Then I swung my sword. I sliced open one dark warrior after another. “Quickly quickly Quickly”. The sound of the shrill screams, the musty smell of the damp cave, glowing white eyes.

I stabbed my blade into the chest of one of these beasts. “Aramis, Beau, find Xenos! Arrow and I are holding up.”

Arrow, who had also joined us in the last few minutes, nodded to me.

"No, Joy, that's too many!" Beau growled as he ripped both paws out of two demons at once, then attacked another.

"We can do this!" I shouted over the din, even though I knew I was lying to him. But we were soldiers; that's what we did. We fought and if necessary, we died. But our king had to live. Our “Alpha” had to live.

"These demons are the least of our problems right now," Aramis, who fought far more demons than all of us combined, objected and cursed. "You are here."

I turned quickly, knowing that more and more demons were crawling out of the whirlpool and closing in on us as I saw them.

Slowly they came towards us, stepped out of the tunnel exits into the gallery and those sombre, inky black eyes that shimmered so far from any emotion sent an icy shiver down my spine.

Echinda must have known about our plans, otherwise I couldn't explain it. I shook my head dazedly as I realized what she had done.

"We're so screwed," I said. Because she surrounded us, there was no way out.

"DO NOT KILL!" Aramis yelled at the soldiers, who stared in shock at their dark-eyed packmates, then turned to face us. "Arrow, Joy. Help them.” He nodded to Beau. "Beau, we'll take care of the demons."

I forced myself to regain the calm that had always ruled me. Calmness and concentration were required here. So I nodded and stretched out my claws. "Understood." Then I ran straight at Echinda's pack with all the other soldiers.

I tried not to pay attention to their faces, just to see which part of the body I could hurt without doing too much damage, but still enough that they were no longer a threat to us.

A leg here, a headbutt there as we worked our way deeper into the tunnels. But there were too many. Far too many.

Blood spurted into my visage - black blood. I wiped it from my face, already ducking under another grasping hand, and smacked the prisoner across the jaw while trying to ignore the shouting of my men. Soldier after soldier fell and lay motionless on the ground.