Hey all, hope everything is going you guys are enjoying so far, please let me know by reviewing! So this chapter is probably my longest one, you'll see why shortly. Hope you like it!

-Mia21

The next week passed slowly for Kaylin, as there were six more bodies that the hawks were investigating, but Kaylin had been forbidden to get involved. The good news was, it allowed her and Severn to spend time together away from work. They talked about the past, and how Kaylin had forgiven Severn for killing Steffi and Jade when they went through the test of name and the High Halls had told her it was her responsibility, not his. They also talked about the current case, about the kind of person who would kill others to gain power.

A day after the week had passed found Marcus sending a runner to call Severn into active duty. They had found the killer, a magician who called himself a diabolist, his name was Mazaren. The runner was supposed to stay with Kaylin, but after she said a quick goodbye to Severn, she slipped out the back way, following him to an old abandoned fortress in the outskirts of the city proper. She was surprised when she saw not only the Hawks heading in, but also the Swords and Wolves. She slipped inside after they were all in, trying not to stop walking to watch the fighting. She went up to the second level to watch from there, remembering that she wasn't supposed to be there. This Mazaren had an entire group of others, more magicians she guessed, who were willing to fight for him, but the Hawks, Swords, and Wolves were slowly cutting the group down to size.

"Hello, little goddess." A pleasant but sinister voice behind her said. Kaylin turned, to find herself facing a tall man with black hair and green eyes. She realized that this was the man who had been responsible for the theft that first introduced her to Royun.

"What is it that you want?" Kaylin asked, stalling, desperately trying to come up with some way to get back down.

"You already know what I want, little goddess."

"The only way the magic leaves me is if I'm dead."

He laughed then, the sound low and oily, making her skin crawl. "Then your death is imminent little one, that is, if you want them to live."

He gestured to the floor below them and she glanced over the balcony rail to find the Swords, Wolves, and her fellow Hawks locked in deadly combat with Mazaren's dark mages. Teela and Tain, Clint and Tanner, and even Marcus. All friends, all people she wanted to protect. And Severn, whom she wanted safe most of all. She had only recently discovered her depth of feeling for him, but suddenly he was the most important thing in her world. 'I wonder if this is how he's always felt about me,' she wondered briefly.

Then she looked back at Mazaren. "You'll let them go?"

He nodded. "In exchange for your sacrifice, they will go free."

"How do I know you're telling the truth, that you won't just kill them once you're finished with me?"

She had to make sure that they survived, that Severn survived.

"I promise you, Kaylin Neya, they will leave this place unharmed; and Diabolists are not allowed to break their promises."

It was as much a guarantee as she was going to get from him. "Get them all out and then I'm yours."

He sidled up next to her, leaned over the balcony and signaled to one of his dark mages. There was a sudden deafening explosion, then a cry of retreat as smoke filled the room and bits of wood and brick reigned down.

"Happy?" he asked as the Swords, Wolves, and Hawks began retreating.

"Not until-" She started, but was cut off when he wrapped a hand around her throat and began backing her slowly across the hall.

"I have been very patient with you, Kaylin Neya, but even I have limits."

He made a sharp, guttural sound and something hit her from behind, sinking what felt like a rack of small knives into her back. She screamed and wrenched out of his grip, hitting the wall and driving the claws in that much further. Kaylin looked around wildly for a weapon but another of the things latched itself on to her left arm, piercing deep enough to hit bone. Then another attached itself to her right thigh. She went down to her knees, blinded by pain and fear, only to realize that the things weren't continuing any attack. Instead, they forced her onto her back, pinning her helplessly to the floor as their master approached.

He went to his knees by Kaylin's side, and she could feel her magic draining.

He was beginning to feed.

He ran his hands up her arms, across her shoulders, down her breasts and stomach. His claws appeared and he ripped her shirt and under bodice apart at the seams. He smiled, bent down, and flicked his tongue across the skin of her breasts. "You taste delicious. Pity I have to kill you, we could have so much fun."

Before she could so much as think of a retort Kaylin felt a claw sink into the soft flesh of her abdomen. And without him uttering a single word she knew what he planned to do. He was going to slit her open like he had her clothing, opening her up so he could feed on something along with her magic. He was going to devour her alive.

Kaylin told herself that she wasn't going to scream as she felt that claw begin to tear through her flesh. He withdrew it for a moment, to lick at his blood stained skin, letting her watch as drops of her own blood ran down his arm. One fell off his elbow onto her lower stomach and he paused to lick it up, his tongue slick and cold against her skin. Then he inserted his claw and ripped her flesh open a little wider.

He was deliberately going slowly, splitting skin and muscle a centimeter at a time, pausing every few seconds to watch the blood seep out, spilling down her side and onto the floor. Then he would drink, sending violent, sickened shudders coursing through her. She was sobbing now, though she had told herself not to make a sound, but he seemed to be enjoying her terror as he lapped up her blood.

He wanted her to know that this was going to be a long painful process, that her death would be anything but quick and easy.

And it wouldn't have been, except for the pissed off love of her life that she had, once again, underestimated. He came out of nowhere, plunging his blade into Mazaren's neck all the way up to the hilt.

"Severn!" she cried as Mazaren choked and gagged, staggering back from them.

"Hello, sweetheart." Severn bent and, with a knife, detached the creatures from her right thigh and left arm. He swore when he saw her stomach, a phrase in Leontine that she had never heard, before he lifted her enough to get the third creature off of her back. Then he picked her up completely and, tucking her firmly against his chest, practically flew down the stairs, across the bottom floor of the compound and out. By that time Kaylin was lost in a world of pain, the raw nerve endings around the gash in her abdomen on fire. He gently set her down half propped against another building wall before ripping her shirt into lengths of bandages and using it to stop the blood flow from her arm, thigh, back and stomach. He then overlapped the two ends of her bodice and tucked them into her breeches, tightening her belt to secure it and keep pressure on her wound.

"Better?" Severn asked.

Kaylin nodded, breathing deep. Severn gently tucked a stray hair behind her ear, and then cupped her face in his hands. She stared into his serious blue eyes and tried to quell the urge to kiss him.

"Don't ever do that again. You scared the hell out of me."

She smiled weakly. "Sorry."

He smiled back. "Can you walk? The Lords of Law are regrouping at a manor house not far from here."

She nodded and he helped her rise, but after a few miserable steps he simply picked her up again and kept walking. Normally it would have bothered her to be treated as an invalid, but at this point anything was preferable to stressing her wound any further.

She had nearly slipped over the edge of unconsciousness when the Hawklord's voice called her back.

"Kaylin?"

She opened her eyes and looked up at him from the safety of Severn's arms. But all she saw was worry and fear, no anger.

"I'm alright." It was weak and she knew it. So did he.

"I don't know about that. But you're alive and that's what counts," He looked at Severn, or rather she assumed that, since his eyes left hers and traveled somewhere above her head. "What happened?"

Severn couldn't shrug as he still carried Kaylin, but his answer was simple anyway. "Mazaren."

The Hawklord nodded and began to say something else, but Kaylin was distracted by a humming noise. It took her a minute or two to realize that it wasn't just her exhaustion, and when she did she tried to figure out where it was coming from.

"Kaylin?" This time it was Severn, who gently set her down but kept an arm around her just in case.

"Do you hear that sound?" she asked, standing perfectly still so she could figure out where it was coming from. But it was the prickling on the back of her neck that gave it away. She turned slowly, looked up into the sky, and drew a sharp breath. Beside her, Severn went still and the Hawklord straightened into a perfect 'at attention' stance. For there on the horizon, and drawing quickly closer, were six dragons. Sanabalis and Tiamaris she knew at once, and she could guess that the second pair of dragons were Lord Diarmat and Lord Emmerian. This meant that the one flying in the front of the formation was the Dragon Emperor himself, and the dragon beside him was Belusdeo. Kaylin wondered if Mazaren really warranted the entire court showing up, and in dragon form. But he was an evil magician that happened to be well versed in ancient rituals and the Old Ones language, so she supposed she understood.