Patthar had died protecting him, now the water djinns
would pay.
Akshay threw back his head and released his anger into
the wind. A raw, primal roar ripped out from deep inside,
charged from his throat. He called the molewyrms with
vengeance.
Thunder roared back in answer. Rain spattered his skin
like tears. The ground beneath his feet shook. What started
as a faint tremble broke into bone–shuddering quakes.
The earth split its seams and spat out mud balls and stone.
The rhaksha lurched in place, eyes wide with fear.
Akshay leapt forward, slicing down with his sword.
With an ear–piercing howl, the mountain of ugly
fell backward, landed with a wet splat. The air around the
creature wavered and reality hiccupped. Instead of an
ungainly rhaksha, a most uncommon woman lay in the mud.
A female in the battlefield? What the hell? Breath
rushed out of Akshay. He twisted his descending blade at
the last second so that it sliced through the fleshy part
of her right arm instead of her throat. A muted cry of pain
escaped from between her full lips.
Silver armor, like glittering fish scales, covered her
head and slim body and, damn, she had legs that just kept
going. Double damn, he'd always been a leg man. His gaze
jerked back up and met terrified whiskey–colored eyes
set in an elfin face of the most delicate blue of a robin's
egg.
Tremors wracked the battlefield as more molewyrms tore
out of the ground. One appeared so near that a shower of
mud covered Akshay from head to toe. When he'd wiped the
grime off his face, the woman had vanished.
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