The Reluctant Amazon (Alliance of the Amazons) by Sandy James Read Free Book Online

well, because a threatening snarl
rumbled from his chest. “Sparks! Get your arse over here and deal with your new
Fire!” Damn, but the man’s voice could make the walls shake.
    Sparks nodded at her empty shot glass, and the bartender
quickly refilled it from a bottle of Cuervo Gold. She grabbed the glass, threw
her head back to down the contents and then slammed the glass on the bar. “Celt,
ye be all work and nae play.” Pulling a ten-dollar bill from her jacket pocket,
she slapped it on the bar as the bartender watched her with open appreciation.
“Thank ye, kindly.” She picked up the dirk she’d set next to the glass.
    Rebecca was in awe. Sparks and Megan were women who demanded
notice simply by walking into a room. The red hair, she figured, and the cocky
attitude. Their confidence washed over her. While she took comfort from it, she
envied them for being all she wasn’t.
    While Artair, Sparks and Megan talked, Rebecca looked around
Condemned. A place like this would normally terrify her. The men were rough. The
women even rougher. Most of them warily watched her little group while they
continued to drink, shoot pool or throw darts. If Megan gave so much as a peep
that she didn’t want to leave, every customer in the place would come to aid one
of their own.
    “We could take ’em.” Sparks’s voice
echoed in her head. The older Fire gave her a quick nod before turning back to
Megan.
    Funny, but the confidence Rebecca felt from Sparks and Megan
was slowly becoming her own.
    Megan seemed to be listening to the story of her new destiny
with eagerness. Of course, they hadn’t kidnapped Megan. Yet. With each piece of
information she was given, she nodded enthusiastically, and when Sparks produced
a flame from her thumb, Megan acted as ecstatic as someone who’d just been told
she’d won the lottery. She tried several times to duplicate Sparks’s motions,
and was rewarded with a flicker of flame. She whooped in joy that somehow
touched Rebecca’s heart.
    Things changed so fast, Rebecca couldn’t even react. She
noticed the smell first, that same sickening mixture of rotten meat and human
waste she’d smelled outside the church. As the doors to Condemned slammed open,
the odor grew to an overpowering stench.
    Artair suddenly unsheathed his sword, Sparks readied to use her
dirk, and Megan slipped her hand under the cuff of her pants to produce a small
handgun. He motioned to Megan. She stepped over to stand in front of Rebecca,
who could only manage to gape.
    The first monster that pushed its way inside could have been
someone right out of Dawn of the Dead. His skin was
pallid and rotting, literally peeling off his face in globs like some macabre
spa facial. The two men who followed appeared even worse, eyes glazed as if they
had severe cataracts, threatening snarls spilling from their lips. Ragged
clothes hung from their bodies.
    Revenants.
    The word echoed through Rebecca’s mind as adrenaline pumped
into her body. The weapon of the enemy, the creatures who she was evidently born
to fight. She willed herself to move, wishing she’d taken the dirk Artair had
offered, but her feet remained frozen to the ground as her heart slammed in her
chest.
    Artair charged the first of the beings and beheaded it in one
swift swing of his sword. As the revenant’s head rolled into the brass footrest
of the bar, the place erupted into action. People began to shout and charge the
creatures, which had now been joined by several more.
    Rebecca backed away until she found her retreat stopped by a
pool table against her ass. What was her next move? Should she jump into the
fray?
    And do what? Fight them off with my bare hands?
    Her eyes followed Megan, transfixed with the way she could
easily bring one of the revenants down with a good kick. The woman had trained
in martial arts. The only thing physical Rebecca had ever participated in was an
aerobics class with some other teachers at her school.
    Pointing her gun at a