The Half-Blood (BOOK 1 OF THE HIDDEN KINGDOMS SERIE)

SKY AND SORROW

I couldn't be here.

And yet I felt the cold, the rain, the smell of death all too real. In the middle of a battlefield, in the middle of a storm. Like the rising of a war cry, a thunderous, choleric roar pierced my body, leaving me petrified, trembling with fear. Not only did I have hundreds of vampires, witches, and rogues in front of me.

The sound of bones breaking in unison made me turn around to see. Hundreds of bloodthirsty beasts waited on the other side.

The rain had turned into a raging deluge. I could barely see their faces. But I knew they were all enormous. Especially the beast in the middle. Its fur was utterly black. Its eyes carried the color of blood in them mixed with the blackness of its pupils.

A scream escaped my throat as I saw him rushing towards me, followed by what seemed to be his army.

I tried to move, but my legs seemed to be cemented in the mud. I turned my head from side to side, desperate, watching as both enemies ran towards me. I was going to die. It was the thought that consumed my mind at that moment.

I screamed again as a bolt of electric blue lightning struck the ground just a few feet away from me. Leaving black smoke in its wake. I screamed again when it hit again, though farther away, but still, I had felt it too close to me. My eyes went up to the sky. The dark blue of the storm had turned to black with thick, shimmering silver clouds moving in a circular pattern. Lightning was coming from its core.

This was no typical storm. It was magic. Black magic.

I covered my head with my arms as the first beasts attacked the other army. I thought their claws would pierce my belly, face, and chest, but I was still intact for some reason. Still pinned to the ground. Imprisoned by the earth.

For a moment, I thought that the beasts, no matter how big they were, had no chance of winning. Not only because of the disadvantage in numbers but because the vampires were faster than them and because the witches I saw had the upper hand in using spells. But when I looked more closely around me, the beasts seemed to be moving much faster. Disappearing into a kind of blackness and reappearing somewhere else, surprising the vampires and the witches and rogues.

Blood smeared the ground as more and more of the corpses fell. Making this place a bloodbath. The precise movements of the beast that had terrified me with its loud growl caught my attention. He seemed to be looking for someone. His restless eyes were suddenly fixed in one direction.

I followed his gaze, and found the female dressed in black who had come with the other army. Her fighting was extraordinary. With just a dagger she eliminated anyone in her path. Moving as fast as the beasts, through the blackness of the smoke coming from her body.

I searched for the beast again. Stopping helplessly at every part of his body. Realizing for the first time that it was none other than a Lycan. And he seemed to be the most important of all. The one who commanded the rest.

But the fury in his eyes suddenly eased. As if in that instant, a memory had come to him. A memory filled with pain. And if I was not mistaken, it had to do with the woman who fought with a single dagger.

It was a moment of vulnerability that I saw on his face. The Lycan loved her. It was a feeling that came over me suddenly. And that, for some unknown reason, made me feel vexed.

"She's mine!"

A gravelly male voice said. I frowned. Because I didn't think anyone had shouted.

"This will be the last battle! Kill them all!"

The same voice said. But this time, I could tell I had heard it in my mind.