Courts and Cabals by G.S. D'Moore (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

women were dueling in the hall now. Deep furrows had been cut in the walls and floor by Dani, while holes from dissolved daggers littered the area.

Chloe roared in frustration, as Dani drove her away from me with a skill I’d never seen from the dwarf. It made sense she’d never gone all out during our training sessions.

Chloe knew she couldn’t get the job done, and stopped with the daggers. From one heartbeat to the next she summoned a sword to match Dani’s. The first time the swords met, the concussion nearly knocked me off my feet, and cracks spread across the walls.

“They’re going to take down the whole fucking floor,” I gasped. That was the type of power supernaturals brought to the table, and while Chloe and Dani were tough, they were nowhere near the top of the food chain.

I scrambled for my room, and my own sword. Conflicting emotions warred inside me. My survival instincts told me to get the fuck out of there. My dick – which might have been influenced a tad by my heart – wanted to help Dani. I figured I could make up my mind when I had the means to protect myself.

I missed what happened, but I heard a familiar scream. I grabbed my sword off the bed and darted back into the hallway. Dani was bent over, her own sword on the ground. Chloe was grinning like the cat that just ate the canary with her sword sticking through Dani’s back; the glamour blade tinted scarlet with blood.

I was stunned. Dani had kicked my ass up and down my room for the last few nights. She was great with a blade, even Lilith had praised her; but it wasn’t good enough. Chloe pulled her blade out. From fifteen feet away, I heard the sickening slurp of the sword coming free. Dani fell to her knees as blood flowed freely from the hole in her torso. The Fae grabbed the dwarf around the neck and lifted her off the ground. Dani didn’t even try to resist, and I was pretty sure she was dead.

“Hey, bitch!” my mouth moved before my brain caught up. Chloe’s eyes snapped from Dani to me.

“Yeah, you,” I pointed my sword at her exactly the same way Dani had. “You’re a lousy fuck, and an even lousier assassin. Who lets their target escape twice in a row?” I stuck my tongue out at her for good measure.

“What the fuck are you doing?” my rational brain yelled. “Run!”

By the sneer on Chloe’s face, I’d accomplished my mission. The nymph didn’t care about Dani anymore, and she chucked her through a closed door into some poor bastard’s room. If Dani was still alive, she might survive long enough for the paramedics to arrive. It was the best I could do, so I took my own advice and got the hell out of there.

My towel fell away as I ran for it, but my modesty took a back seat to staying alive. I nearly slipped and fell down the stairs – almost breaking my neck and doing Chloe’s job for her – as I tried to round the first landing. I clutched the railing, slid around the tight corner and kept on going. A pair of sophomores on the floor below screamed as a naked guy ran past them carrying a sword. If campus security wasn’t on their way yet, they sure as shit were now. Not that they could do much against a rogue Fae.

I didn’t look back. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and getting out of there as fast as I could. As I hit the landing on the third floor, I chanced a look behind me. I didn’t see anything, but I kept moving. By the time I hit the second-floor landing, I wondered where the hell my killer was. As I whipped around the turn, I found out.

So far, I knew Chloe was strong, fast, and could use glamour to create the instruments of my demise out of pure will and power. That in and of itself was more than most supernaturals could claim. What I’d forgotten about the Fae was her ability to teleport.

I whipped around the second-floor-landing and found Chloe waiting for me. She grinned as she thrust her sword straight at my center of mass. You had to do a lot of damage to kill a supernatural, but a stomach wound would spill my all-to-human guts all over the floor and end the blood feud once and for all.

Creepy Kev and the laws of physics saved my life.

I twisted as I whipped around the bend, throwing my whole body away from the blade. My gathered momentum was enough to throw the sword off target. The second pendent I got from Kev did the rest. Pain seared through me as the pendent tried to absorb the full force of Chloe’s thrust. It failed, and the sword sliced into my quad. More pain ravaged my mind, but adrenaline muted it as much as humanly possible.

Blood splashed against the wall while I spun out of control, but I’d bought myself a few more seconds. I tried to get my own sword up, but I moved like molasses compare to a Fae. Chloe rushed forward and shoulder-checked me; completely arresting my forward momentum, giving me the worst case of whiplash in the history of mankind, and nearly breaking my neck. That wasn’t even the worst of it. Every landing had a large window overlooking the rest of the campus, and Chloe’s hit sent me rocketing through the glass panes. I plummeted down two floors to the ground below.

I don’t remember landing, but when I regained consciousness, the last of the glass was still raining down around me. Everything hurt; my ribs, spine, shoulders, toes, even my fucking teeth. I wiggled everything experimentally and