I pulled on my clothing with trembling hands and threw on my cloak in a rush.

With my dagger clenched tight in my hand, my eyes followed Ares on the battlefield as he charged the raiders. I hated to admit it, but he was a sight to watch. He leapt like a flying tiger, his two long swords sweeping, and two human heads dropped on the grass with a thud. Their horses squealed and loped off before the headless bodies tumbled down.

Ares swirled like the wind, burying a dagger into the head of a large Aryanian and cracking his skull like a watermelon. He plunged his sword into another opponent and tore through the rest of the raiders. He slashed and hacked like an unstoppable, destructive force, leaving a pile of broken bodies behind and around.

The humans rushed at him, trying to overwhelm him with their numbers. He became a flash among them.

His men, all formidable in their own rights, slashed their way out. Most of the attackers surrounded Ares. They had to know he was the leader and obviously intended to take him down first.

A Dragonian archer on a high horse some distance away released an iron arrow, sending it straight for Ares’ back. He couldn’t see it. Dread filled my stomach and I shouted a warning. Ares turned and caught it right before the arrow could puncture his skin.

He tossed the arrow back at the shooter, and it pierced into the archer’s throat. The archer managed a low, strangled cry before the veins in his face bulged and colored his face in a dark shade of purple. The arrowhead had been dipped in poison. I recognized the symptoms.

Ares’ gaze swept over me and relief flashed across his ferocious face when he realized no one was attacking me. With a visible exhale, he spun on his heel and dove right back into the battle.

This wasn’t my fight. I wasn’t going to linger and admire Ares’ superb fighting style and waste a perfect opening to get away. I would return to my pack and lead them far away before Ares and his team came for me again—if they survived.

I shoved my feet into my boots and pocketed my gloves. I’d have to leave my undergarments and the two other daggers behind.

I burst into a run toward the woods and looked behind me to see if anyone followed. Luckily, no one paid mind to me. Hopefully, the battle would continue on long enough for me to get out of here. My heart pounded hard; my feet didn’t slow down. I would stop to catch my breath once I was far enough away.

The sounds of the battle—roars, screams of pain, and sharp steel crossing steel—gradually faded into the background. I wondered if Ares or any of his men had fallen, but they weren’t my problem.

The woods became unusually quiet, which was never a good thing. I halted my steps and scanned the surroundings. Twigs broke behind me. I wheeled around just in time to see a large Dragonian jumped out from the tall tree.

“Going somewhere?” he asked as he straightened his legs and leered at me.

I whimpered in mock fear, and at the same time, I flicked my wrist and my dagger flew out. It soared into his eye socket.

He wasn’t as fast as Ares, and he hadn’t expected my speed. I looked like a fragile human girl, perfect victim material to him.

Another Dragonian and two humans appeared, cutting off my escape route. I darted my wild eyes around to look for anything I could use to defend myself. Their laughter rang through my ears.

The raw fear in my eyes only made them more excited. Predators loved to smell their prey’s terror—it always added an element of thrill to the hunt.

My knees buckled and I stumbled and fell on my butt.

“Please,” I begged, “don’t hurt me. I’m not what you want.” I pointed in the direction of the battle. “What you want are the men outside the woods fighting your pals.”

“You’re exactly what we want, wolf girl,” said the Dragonian. He looked just like the other three Dragonians in Ares’ gang—blue-skinned, hornless, and hairless.

Real panic swept over me. How had he also learned about me? Was the whole battle just to distract Ares and his men so they could get to me? Who had broadcasted me to all of the bounty hunters on the continent?

“What do you want with me?” I asked as I pulled open my cloak to expose my bosom underneath my thin, wet clothes.

The Dragonian’s eyes traveled over my body, his vulgar desire blatantly on his face.

Dragonian males were very much into human girls, especially advanced human girls. This Dragonian didn’t seem to recognize that I was only a half-advanced human.

“I’ll take you to my prince,” he said, his hooded eyes fixing on my breasts. “Before that, we can have a quick bang.” He turned to the humans. “Hold her.”

They lunged toward me. I kicked them as fiercely as I could. I needed the Dragonian to be on me as well, so I could touch all of them in one fell swoop and send their unrefined asses to hell.

The two goons seemed surprised at my strength. The Angel blood in me didn’t just give me a physical beauty. They groaned as I booted them and kept them at bay.

“She’s got some strength in her legs!” the bulky human whined as my foot connected with his groin. “What kind of girl is she?”

One of a kind.

“We should bleed her,” the other human shouted in anger.

“Don’t cut her, yet,” the Dragonian said. “The prince wants her alive.”

The humans jumped me again and I let them tangle with me, careful not to let them touch my bare skin. I struggled while my wild, seductive eyes never left the Dragonian.

Come and play, I beckoned him silently to join us.

Unable to hold back anymore, he unbuckled his belt and dropped his pants. He fell upon me with the humans on each side of me.

I shoved my hands onto the humans’ necks, then released them and seized the Dragonian’s face. The trio screamed as their skins turned gray and cracked like clay pots.

Before I could push the dead Dragonian off me, a roar thundered and footsteps rushed toward me. It was too late for me to get up and run. I shut my eyes, playing dead, but then the weight of the corpse was suddenly lifted off me.

“Freyja!” I heard my name and had to open my eyes.

Ares had just killed my chance to flee. I’d eliminated three of my attackers, but I still ended up exactly where I had started.

Ares tossed the Dragonian aside as if he was trash. “Are you hurt?” he asked urgently and reached for me.

I tensed. If he touched my bare-skin—

He saw something in my eyes and his hand halted in the air. He turned to look at the half naked dead Dragonian, crimson rings forming in his eyes. “Did he—”

“He wanted to. He tried, but then all of them just died.” I sat up, putting on my gloves, covering half of my face with the hood, and wrapping my cloak tightly around me. 

Ares offered me a hand, but I didn’t take it, even with my gloves on.

I rose to my feet.

Ares rushed toward the Dragonian, sinking his blade into the dead man’s heart and stabbing the corpse repeatedly. 

“He’s dead,” I said with a wince.

“I wish he lived so I could cut him to pieces for what he tried to do to you,” he said, yanking his sword out, and frowned, as if looking at a puzzle. He swept his examining stare at the two humans. All three of them had the same cracked, gray skins. A trail of smoke started to stream out of their eye sockets.

Damn it. The half-blood ringleader should not have seen that. If I’d known Ares would end the battle so soon and catch up with me, I would have finished these three off earlier and left the scene.

Ares turned his gaze toward the other Dragonian who still had my dagger buried in his eye several yards away before fixing his attention on me.

“Did you kill them all?” he asked softly.

When a warrior like him softened his tone, it almost always had lethal consequences. If he knew I was also lethal, I had no idea what he would do to me.

I shook my head, hoping my feigned confusion seemed genuine. “I killed the Dragonian with my dagger because I surprised him, and he wasn’t as fast as you are.” I looked up at the sky, as if searching for a powerful force. “And then all three of them pounced on me. I begged, but they didn’t let me go. They had no mercy. I called for Goddess Rhea like any helpless girl would. There was a flash of light from above and I passed out for a second. I heard someone calling me and you were right there.”

Ares regarded me—and I tried not to breathe too hard at his scrutiny—before staring up at the sky between the maple trees. He’d be disappointed if he expected to see Rhea’s face smiling down at him. 

His gaze returned to my face. “Goddess Rhea must want to preserve you. She wants you to find the First Witch for me.”

It was all about him, wasn’t it?

“You’re not hurt?” he asked again.

I put on a damsel-in-distress act for his sake. “If more of them had come and you hadn’t arrived,” I said with a shiver voice, “they’d have taken me.”

He looked as if he wanted to wrap me in his arms, but my body language offered him no invitation. “I won’t let anyone take you, Freyja,” he said fiercely. “I’ll always find you.”

That was not good.

“If anyone takes me in the future,” I said. “I don’t want you to waste your time coming for me. You should just go ahead and find your witch. That’s your priority.”

He frowned at me. “You’re my responsibility.”

There was no point in arguing with him.

Shadows from above darkened the area for a second, and the whooshing sound of beating wings greeted us. The guardians had returned. An image of them tearing the remaining raiders apart and chewing on their bones made me shudder.

“We need to get back to the team,” Ares said, gesturing for me to walk beside him. “I hope they left a survivor or two for me to interrogate. I need to know who sent them.”

I already knew who had sent them. I had this dark gift. When I touched someone, their truth and knowledge passed onto me upon their death.

This storm-faced man who stalked beside me with his hand tight on the hilt of his long sword was Prince Ares Darken, the heir to the legendary Dragonian Commander.

His half-brother Keegan, a pure-blood Dragonian, sent the mercenaries to kill the heir. Keegan had also heard of the Oracle, so he wanted to capture me after he killed Ares and force me to take him to the First Witch. He wouldn’t be as “nice” as his brother. He wouldn’t ask politely. One small offense from me, and he would beat the crap out of me as he did other women in his household.

I had to make sure he never got his hands on me.

Keegan would never stop until his brother was dead and I was his prisoner.

Ares was putting me in a constant danger. Pretty soon, I believed, the Angels would join the hunt. And he would never let me go before he had his witch.

Thanks to him, I now had many more hunters on my tail.

A new plan formed in my head.

If I couldn’t get rid of Ares and his minions, then I would use them to escort me to the Twilight Realm.

None of the hunters dared to go to Mysth where Empress Rose and her consort the High Prince of All Angels dwelled. Other than their unbreakable magical walls, the Fey had the most advanced battleships parked at the edge of their territory.

Rumor was, the Fey were also in possession of the Angel Flame, a power that could destroy the whole universe. So suffice it to say, I’d be safe in Mysth.

The Empress would receive me. I carried my mother’s genetic imprint. The Fey essence that the Empress had given to my mother to make her immortal had also passed along to me. The magic of the light repelled the Angel’s dark power within me, and the combination of the two had cursed me. Had turned me into a weapon.

As I grew older, the fight between the light and the dark became fiercer and more frequent. Some days, fire coursed through my veins, and other days, ice clogged my veins and turned my limbs to lead. I would start suffering the full impact of the curse when I passed the age of twenty-two, which was a mere week away. If I didn’t get the cure from the Fey, I wouldn’t live past twenty-four.

Empress Rose would cure me. However, if she learned about the other half of my bloodline, she might not allow me to live. Her consort, High Prince Seth, would definitely want to kill his brother’s spawn.

If the Empress decided to kill me instead of healing me, she would give me a mercy death for my mother’s sake. I had two more years before I needed the cure. Two years that would be a living hell as the two opposite forces battled against each other within me.

I would go to Mysth.

If Ares and his warriors perished on the way, I would still continue to the immortal realm. Should they survive, the Fey Empress wouldn’t be thrilled that the Dragonians showed up at her door.

But she would take me in.