When a team of reanimated special ops soldiers pits itself against Pietas, the immortal king learns a new truth.
Excerpt
The stasis pod Pietas hid behind rested on the floor, and came up to mid-thigh. It hid him, but allowed no view of the door. A sudden change of light told him soldiers had entered. Grunts, they wore beams on their chests to light their way. The idiots had left them on, which let him calculate the level of brightness. At least six.
That was all he warranted? He hardly knew whether to be amused, or insulted.
He waited for a stirring of emotion, but felt none. Smart. They'd sent either androids or ghosts with those new anti-emo chips. The latter would be fun to fight. When he killed them, would they experience a human death, or did they have to be terminated like an Ultra? How well did the chips work?
He'd find out in a minute.
A tiny trickle of fear leaked. That meant three things.
One: ghosts.
Two: anti-emo chips? Worthless.
Three: even the dead feared him.
More fear leaked, and then frustration. The ghosts were fighting the effect of the chip. They were afraid of being afraid. Typical. Humans underestimated the power of death. They thought dying and coming back to life meant you'd overcome the fear of dying. He had died thousands of times, yet he still avoided it. Their anti-emo chips had given them no edge whatsoever.
Good. He could use that.
Another hint of fear surfaced. It zinged over Pietas's skin like a waft of air. How interesting! Emotion from the reanimated energized more than emotion from the living. He drew the aetheric fear into himself, gathering strength.
The silence meant no air had entered the room. He'd miss his favorite sound: bones breaking in his enemies.
Remaining on his side, Pietas let them get all the way inside the room.
Crowded as the space was between his pod and the wall, two ghosts crept into it. Six spots of light showed on the other side.
Eight ghosts then. Excellent. This would be a much better fight.
Book Hooks is a weekly cooperative blog hop hosted by Marketing for Romance Writers as part of the MFRW Authors Blog.
“They were afraid of being afraid.” what a telling sentence.
I thought so! Inspired by, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt