Blood Warrior (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles #4) by Jennifer Malone Wright Page A

the Mississippi. I couldn’t tell how far it
was, but she definitely had a good head start.
    I fired a couple of shots in their
general direction, but it was too dark, even for my eyes, since I
couldn’t really judge the distance. I was also still afraid of
hitting Zander.
    “ Let’s go. We have to tell
the others.” I bolted down the deck and then jumped over as soon as
I got close enough to the dock. Anthony followed right behind me.
Man, it was actually nice having someone around who could keep up
with me.
    We caught up with the group in no time
at all. “This way,” I called as Anthony and I plowed our way
through the mass of people. “They went this way.”
    The others picked up their speed and
followed us back into the city, toward the French Quarter, once
again.
    Korina had lifted Zander into her arms
and sped off. She knew we were not far behind her, but even
carrying Zander, she was really freaking fast. She rounded into an
alleyway at the same time I heard several guns go off at
once.
    The gunshots came from behind us and I
didn’t know if they were from our group or from soldiers. Then
shouting, followed the gunshots, and more firing.
    Oh, my God, someone was being
massacred, I just didn’t know if it was our guys or the bad guys.
Oh, my God.
    I looked over at Anthony as we rounded
the same corner that Korina had. He shook his head slightly and I
knew that finding Korina was the priority. Killing her would help
end this. But, I wanted to know everyone was all right.
    This was indeed, a war, and there were
going to be casualties. I just didn’t want them to be any of the
people I loved.
    With shouting and gunshots firing in
the distance, we found Korina had cornered herself into the
alleyway. There was no way out of this one, the buildings
surrounding us were two stories high, too far for her to jump
it.
    Her hair was damp and dangling into
her face and her eyes were wide, since she knew she had made a
mistake. She had dropped Zander to the ground where he lay
unconscious. Her stance was that of attack, arms slightly raised,
fingers spread like they were claws and her legs bent at the
knee.
    “ It’s time to go, Korina.”
Anthony aimed his gun at her. But, like me, he hesitated and she
took advantage. With a sudden burst of speed, she bolted forward
and knocked him to the ground. Anthony grunted and rolled so that
he was on top. Which was stupid because with him on top I was
unable to get a shot at her without hitting him.
    I threw a glance over at Zander, he
still hadn’t moved or made a sound. Dammit. I wish he would wake
up.
    Anthony and Korina continued to roll
around on the filthy cement, trying to choke each other. Both of
them were doing whatever they could to take out the other one.
Outside the alley I heard footsteps thundering toward us … a lot of
footsteps.
    Crap .
    Vampire Council soldiers thundered
into the alley with their guns raised. I just knew they were going
to fire before assessing the surroundings. So I pulled all the
energy inside of me and forced it outward.
    Flames burst forth from my arms. I
swirled them in the shape of a rainbow and then pushed even more,
forcing the fire outward, toward the soldiers. Their screams were
ear piercing. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them screaming
in pain as the fire scorched their skin and burned away their
clothing. Some of them involuntarily fired their weapons and
miraculously they somehow missed me.
    I didn’t let up on my fire, I kept it
going and moved forward slowly, a step at a time.
    “ Chloe!” I heard Drew’s
voice on the other side of the fire. “Put it out, they’re
down.”
    Drew, thank God, he was all
right.
    I extinguished the fire quickly, but
there were still flames flickering in front of me. I blinked a few
times, wondering what the heck was happening and then realized that
I’d been too close to the building and now it was on
fire.
    Damn old wooden structures. I turned
back toward Anthony and Korina, there