Eclipsed by Midnight by Kristina Canady Read Free Book Online Page A

I yell over the whipping wind, wailing around us, trapping us within its manifested walls.
    “Tsk-tsk-tsk, Nintuah. You know that’s not how this works.” Antoine and Tristan come to stand by the edge, opposite of Erik, Roman, and Naveed. “Now, tell me how you felt when the boys accused you of being a liar?” Erik attempts to bait me.
    So, he wants to poke the bear, does he?
    “It’s not going to work, Erik.” Why won’t he just leave me be?
    “How do you feel about their lives being stolen by the genes you passed on to them? It’s your fault, you know,” he hisses, landing just below the belt.
    Bingo . The fucker knew just where to hit.
    Red—my vision swarms with red as all that had threatened to take me down in the parlor when I sat with my sons and heard their accusations comes rushing back tenfold. Pure power courses through every fiber of my being as I subconsciously pull it from all around, allowing it to feed my lurking beast. The connection is strong and cannot be thwarted unless I lose control, which isn’t going to happen.
    “Fuck, yeah!” Maurizio growls and steps deeper into guard stance. Niall hesitantly does so as well, eyes momentarily lost in thought.
    “Gin-Utuey!” Erik echoes out the native battle cry.
    Maurizio doesn’t even hesitate before pivoting and issuing a mean roundhouse kick that would have knocked me out had it made contact. I side step him just in time to turn and block Niall’s jab, hook, right uppercut combination. With each attempt Niall makes, I block, the hand-to-hand combat growing my power, focus, concentration, and satisfaction.
    Okay, enough of this passive shit; I need to draw blood.
    Centering myself, I block his next combination and as he withdraws his left hand back to center, I let go of a mean left uppercut to his exposed side, putting my full momentum into it. It barely fazes him, but it buys me a split second to throw a ball of elemental power at the oncoming Maurizio and knock him flat against the cement wall. That’s the thing with these males—they are built like brick shithouses, and it takes a powerful punch to even make a small dent. A girl sometimes has to use all the elements to throw an ass back so that she can focus on the complex hand-to-hand moves Niall is now throwing. Koray and Inessa taught me that in order to keep my strength, I had to keep my essence close and not use it freely as an extension of myself. Instead, I needed to wield the elemental power that offered itself liberally. They also like me to do these combat exercises to keep my power under control. When I don’t, it builds and becomes unpredictable. Beings that I am an emotional, delicate-flower type of girl, the physical combat also does wonders for my anger management.
    Niall moves for a front kick, causing me to jump back and almost straight into Maurizio’s waiting clutches. Dropping down, I sideswipe Maurizio’s leg, adding earth’s elemental pull and shaking the ground with a tremor large enough to drop the beast of a man. Popping up, I meet Niall head-on, hook for hook, jab for jab. We continually dance around the ring, blocking one another and attempting to land a blow, but neither of us is successful. Niall forces me to circle with him a few times, and my attention drifts ever so slightly. A critical, stupid moment that finds me with a blow to the jaw and a front kick to the stomach, knocking the wind out of me and sending my mind racing as I am instantly dropped into a recovery crouch.
    Anger floods me as I painstakingly move my jaw side to side, the splintering of bone scraping as I go, forcing me to spit out a mouth full of blood. Screaming out a battle cry, I jump to my feet, the sand clouding up under the impact, and charge Niall. He steps back into guard and braces to take a punch .
    Nope, motherfucker!
    Suddenly stopping in front of him, I drop, side kick his legs out from him, and use my power to drive him down hard and into the ground. With a loud thud, his