My Wild Beast-Chapter 163: The Horde (4)

"My people have fought enough tonight..." His words echoed back to Nova. "Why should they bleed for tribes too weak to hold their ground?"

Nova shouldn’t have been able to hear Vulcan, but she was still attuned to the bond, and her senses had been heightened, similar to Yoa’s.

Her eyes narrowed slightly as she heard his words. It was true, they’d been attacked by vampiras seemingly superior to the ones on the ground, and he was right to think of the safety of his people above all else. Yet, his callous words still irked her.

Yoa’s jaw tightened. "If they take over..." Yoa replied calmly, his tone low and deep, eyes blazing like twin fires in a storm. "We’re doomed."

Vulcan blocked another attack without looking and hurled them aside, so another shifted eagle caught them with their talons and ripped them to shreds. He turned back to them, not a hair out of place as his cold demeanour said it all.

Nova stepped past Yoa’s protective stance and put her hands on her hips, looking unimpressed as she gazed at the man she knew wasn’t entirely evil—or so she hoped. "Vulcan!" Her voice travelled upward, raw and fierce, halting his retreat.

"Stop fighting for yourself!"

There was a subtle shift in his expression, eyes narrowing slightly as he faced her, wings spread wide behind him.

"Prove yourself better than she!" Nova yelled, her voice breaking as she held his gaze. "Prove you’re better than Ixana! You’re the master of the skies now! FIGHT FOR TAYUN!"

Her chest heaved from the desperation clawing at her. She couldn’t help it. Vulcan’s men could help from the skies. They had something those on the land didn’t, and to have them on their side at a time like this would benefit them all.

A moment of silence hung between them. Nova’s heart thumped wildly as she waited for his decision. Half of his face was cast in shadow, the other half, and his feathers caught the moonlight, his expression unreadable through the chaos beyond him.

For a moment, it seemed her words had no reach. The battle above raged on, the harpy eagles fighting the darkness that swarmed their skies. Then, with movement so subtle that Nova thought she imagined it, Vulcan nodded once.

Nova exhaled, shoulders easing as Vulcan dove towards the ground. She followed the display, noting a small family running for their lives on the floor, vampira bats chasing them. One shifted into their human form, hand reaching out for the woman carrying a baby.

Vulcan tossed a knife at their hand, and the vampira shrieked, his entire body slamming into the ground from the impact. The eagle shifter looked like an angel of death as he shot forward, colliding with the other vampiras, snapping necks, punching holes through chests and stabbing them in the face. Unlike the winged vampiras in the skies, these ones died instantly.

"Pathetic," Vulcan scoffed, using a leaf to wipe off the black ichor on his fist.

Movement from his periphery whipped his head around, pausing at the family watching him with rounded eyes. The moonlight streamed over his body, casting his blood-splattered wings in silver hues.

The man of the family stood protectively in front of the women, wary of the harpy eagle shifter that had yet to move and attack them. They were, after all, his prey. When Vulcan made no move to attack them, they shifted into their spider monkey forms and leapt into the trees, swinging from branch to branch.

You’re welcome... Vulcan scoffed again, but he could not blame them. He was someone rightfully feared.

Shrieks from above shattered his thoughts, and he squatted before shooting off to the skies again, watching his men fight off the last of the warrior vampiras that had attacked them. He rose higher still, so he could survey the area. Where did Nova go?

Leaves rustled to the side, something so small, but his powerful bird sight locked on the movement instantly. There. He watched as Yohuali had shifted back into his jaguar form. Nova hopped on top of him, raising her blade as he lunged, claws outstretched at a winged vampira who’d dove for them.

Nova cried out in rage and swiped across their torso before the black jaguar tore into its neck. Nova searched their surroundings, her eyes glowing a vivid gold.

Vulcan’s eyebrow rose. They were true Serakai. Yohuali was sharing his senses and abilities with her. It was a rare ability, yet not impossible, especially for someone like this island’s Electa.

Nova looked fierce as Yoa leapt down from branch to branch, racing along the treetops, her blade and hatchet ready, wind rushing through her hair.

Vulcan’s jaw tightened, and he looked away from her beauty, her innocence still so alluring, and now, as a warrior, she was incredibly enticing. That wouldn’t normally shake his resolve. But her words were his undoing. The tiny creature knew how to twist his heart, and for that, he should dislike her.

Still, he had a task to complete.

He stared at his men finishing off the vampiras that wanted to foolishly take them out. The night was still young, and this would not be the last of the bloodshed they would see.

With a whistle, his warriors turned to him, chests heaving, eyes glittering, alive and ready to serve. "We won a battle... but not the war of this island," He declared, his voice never too loud. He did not need to shout to command those who followed him. "Tayun is in danger and needs us to salvage it."

Slowly, he watched as more of his men’s chins tilted higher, their backs straightening, pride gleaming in their golden-yellow eyes. They were ready to accept these orders, something no leader of the Silver Feather flock would ever do before him. That was exactly why he needed to do it.

He was not his mother.

Vulcan put his warriors into groups. Those who would stay and protect the nests, and the others were sent in different directions across Tayun, to the weak, and to scout.

With a fist to their chests. "For the flock!" Their voices echoed back to him. Then they peeled away in their groups and dispersed on their separate missions. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Vulcan and his men flew over Soluma, passing the waterfall, observing from the skies before diving towards the jungle, where the Takaru were. They were fleeing, leaving piles of bodies behind in the village. The vampiras here had fed on many, and zipped across the jungle in a blur, too quick to completely see, even by an eagle’s standard.

"They’ve grown stronger..." He muttered, his eyes zeroing in on a couple fighting, the piles around them, not of the Takaru, but the vampiras. "Isn’t that the Chief’s daughter...?"

The warrior flying to his right, just behind him, answered just as the woman swung her staff and pierced it through the vampira’s chest, shouting. "Is that all you’ve got?!"

"Aiyana, daughter of Tamuari, and Atia... They dropped off the Sky Matron’s body..."

Yes, she did.

Atia slid along the ground as Aiyana jumped up to smack at a bat trying to fly away.

"They’re already protecting the Takaru," the warrior to his left dismissed the notion of helping. But there were too many bodies to consider their protection helpful.

"I have stationed us here, and we will fight until they no longer need us," Vulcan answered sharply, glaring over his shoulder before diving below and staking a leaping vampira mid-air before it tried to attack the Oncari warriors.