Dark Empathy Archibald Bradford (best books to read in your 20s TXT) 📖

But it never fell as Jez’s tongue lashed out and entangling the man’s ankle, pulling him off balance.

“Eave im aoone!”

With the perp distracted, Nameless recovered enough of his faculties to help her the only way he could think to; his hands grappled with the man’s leg and he managed to spin around on the floor to bring his own feet to bear, knocking the man off balance until he tumbled down beside him.

Once he was down, Nameless reached for his belt, scrambling to grab one of his canisters, instead he came back with Erica’s claw.

He hesitated, and it nearly cost him everything.

Even with Jez’s tongue tying up one of his opponent’s legs, he still had arms, and each one was half again as big as Nameless’s. Without delay the bigger man took hold of his wrist and wrestled the knife out of his hand, rolled over on top of him, bringing the blade up over his shoulder in preparation of killing the little shit.

But Jezebel had released his legs.

And Jezebel routinely trained with an Amazon.

“FROGGY KICK!”

Her foot may have been tiny but she drove it into the side of Nameless’s assailant’s head with enormous force after jumping against the wall and thrusting herself laterally at him.

He toppled off of the beleaguered cadet, the purple-bladed knife clattering across the floor as his grip slackened.

As quickly as he could manage, Nameless pulled himself to his feet and snagged the first canister he could off of his belt.

“Jez! Clear!”

The frog leapt straight upwards as the dazed worker, now on all fours, shook his head to cope with the sparkles she had set off behind his eyes.

Then a strobe skittered across the floor and went off right in front of his nose.

He shrieked with the agony of being so close to the blinding light, rolling over onto his back and gripping his eyes with both hands.

Nameless winced, but with one palm pressed tight to his bleeding head, he was ultimately unsympathetic.

“Hey! You still with me bucko?” Jez asked him.

“Yeah, y-yes!”

Adrenaline surged in him from the scuffle, but fortunately the Gripau knew her business.

“Good, because like you said, we have to tell the others!” She declared as her tongue shot out and quickly bound the screaming perp, only finishing her thought once she had a tongue-full of criminal; “Ow et oing!”

“R-Right.”

His hands shook even harder as he took up the knife and his dropped canisters and darted towards the sound of weapons fire coming from the back, running out into the yard.

__________

In the thick of the melee outside, Miranda was shouting orders in between throwing out canisters.

“Box them in! Oldeera! Don’t let them take the high ground!”

Hornets swarmed everywhere, their lances already bloodied from the conflict, but they kept having to veer off as the men below unleashed their flamers wildly in the air in a bid to keep them at bay.

Miranda was distracted suddenly when Kala tackled two men to the dirt immediately to her left so she didn’t see a third taking aim at her with eyes tearing from the noxious smoke in the midst of their ranks.

Erica did though.

“Miranda down!” She cried out even as she let fly with a pair of knives.

The veteran operative didn’t hesitate to drop to the earth even as the man’s weapon bucked against his shoulder and the Katje’s knives found his chest.

“Ah fuck me.” Miranda groaned with one hand pressed to her side.

“Shit! You’re hit!” Erica slid into the dirt at her side.

Kala was nearby still wrestling with her perps, but she was sidetracked by the spike of pain she felt from her bond-mate.

“Erica! Is she okay?!” The Amazon demanded.

“She’s fine!” Miranda growled as she brought her bloody hand to her face; “Just a graze, stupid cat saved my life.”

Fighting with the other Wolfen nearby, Jan likewise felt her mistress’s distress and tore free of her latest victim, blood covering her face around her mouth while she darted over to reach her side.

Erica’s face was pale.

“You and I have very different definitions of what constitutes a graze!”

With Jan’s help the Katje pulled her behind a slab of solid stone torn from the ground by a nearby earth elemental.

“Whatever! This is a complete clusterfuck! How are we doing?” Miranda asked while Jan fumbled with a bandage.

The nervous cat-girl poked her head over the slab, taking in the scene.

As Miranda said, it was utter bedlam.

Weapons fire was coming from everywhere, but so were the shouts of the Aegis, the snarling howls of Lilly’s pack, and the buzzing of Oldeera’s hive.

As the cat watched, two Hornets darted down and snagged one of the flamer-wielders by his skull and hefted him off his feet only to twirl around each other in midair, snapping his neck before tossing him back down to be torn apart by a waiting Wolfen.

At this point, anyone still holding a weapon was given no quarter.

“We’re winning, I think.”

But even as she said it she saw one of the Aegis operatives take a shot to the gut from somewhere and crumple in on himself, his two bond-mates howling in rage and agony as they felt the piece of their souls living alongside his die within him.

Erica felt queasy as she watched the grief-stricken pair recklessly tackle the man that killed their master and tear him to pieces, only to be engulfed by an explosion a moment later launched from another of those odd cannons wielded by a man huddled against the side of one of the scrap heaps.

“Oh fuck that guy!” The Katje snarled as she leapt out from behind cover and sprinted towards him.

“Wait!” Miranda called after her, her hand outstretched under Jan’s arm.

But the furious cat either couldn’t