King Cave Read Free Page A

it shocked me for a second. But reality swiftly intruded my mind’s numbness when I saw a Com taking aim at a Mys child, who was barely old enough to walk but was standing in the masses, her bitty mouth opened wide, screaming from fear.
    My heart stalled. I may have a crazy dislike for brats, but I’m not completely heartless like the Com bitch that was about to murder the tiny air Elemental. My wolf growled instinctively, and I sprang at the Com. Falling on her rapidly, I viciously twisted her neck, damn near pulling her head clean off. The goddamned sadistic Com had it coming. Throwing her body aside, I swiftly lifted the air Elemental and held the whimpering munchkin close.
    Ezra’s spring green gaze met my own ice blue one as the child threw her arms over my shoulders and cried heated tears against my neck. He raised his gun directly over my head. His eyes never left mine.
    He fired.
    I didn’t flinch.
    A Com fell against my back, already dead from Ezra’s round.
    My grin was feral, matching my savage best friend’s.
    Our small group began our aggressive trek through the masses. Toward the pond.
    Any damned Com who got in our path was soon cut down. A steady group of Mysticals began hovering and fighting alongside us, seeing who the four of us were.
    As my friends’ guns ran out of ammunition, they began using their Mys abilities.
    Pearl glowed golden, using her Mage powers to toss Coms straight into the air.
    Jack used his water Elemental magic, drowning or freezing Coms.
    Ezra began blurring, ripping out Com throats in time with his mother.
    My gun never ran out of ammo, so I held the air Elemental close and shot every damn Com I saw.
    The reverberating disturbance of jets neared again. Only, it was much closer this time. Everyone froze uncannily — Com and Mys alike — in their brutality of warfare. The downslope of the hillside where the fighting horde had stopped in their maiming to stare up into the air was the oddest scene to behold. Four jets appeared overhead, and a gasp thousands of people strong could be heard as bombs were dropped. It only took me a moment to realize that all the Coms fighting right here and now were collateral damage to whoever was commanding their forces.
    My red brows rose, but I set the information aside. The Coms were now sitting ducks.
    Confident that Antonio was taking care of the bombs that were falling from above to blow everyone away, I started firing on the stationary Coms. Just because they were distracted didn’t mean I wasn’t going to kill them. If they came for a fight, they were going to get just that, dirty and all. Taking down at least twenty in rapid succession, I chanced a peek upward as the crowd gasped again.
    The bombs were glowing golden and no longer falling. They were chasing after the jets. Each one struck its target with deadly precision. The show was pretty impressive. The four airborne jets burst into flames far enough away that the debris wouldn’t plummet from the heavens onto anyone here. Antonio was probably grinning right about now and hoping more jets would arrive for additional target practice.
    Standing farther ahead, Ezra caught my best friends’ and my attention. He and his mom had also taken advantage of the dumbstruck Coms. Piles of bodies were left littered in their combined wake. He jerked his head, a silent demand for Pearl, Jack, and I to hurry up.
    The three of us raced forward.
    The tiny air Elemental in my arms hung on tight as I leaped over a particularly large area scattered with dead Commoners and Mysticals. The ground was chewed to hell under their corpses where a bomb must have detonated.
    Fighting resumed around us. The Commoners began fighting even more fiercely as they grasped exactly what they were to those in charge, their actions now directed toward fleeing instead of sieging. But my fellow Mysticals were having none of it; they had been attacked on our grounds. By Coms.
    To them — to me — that meant a fight to the