Just a quick shout out to FortheloveofLucianandSonja, thank you for your support, your reviews made my day. I hope everyone likes what I've done. Remember to review and I'm always open for requests.
The moon, almost full, shone down on the watchtower guards. Armor platelets shifted over skin and the lazy eyes of the guards scanned the clearing. A pair of eyes shone bright blue as they turned to see movement in the grasses. But it did not move like a wolf. The guard turned to one of his lesser.
"Oy! Get me a spy glass! Quickly!" Another guard handed him one and the guard looked through adjusting slightly so he could see clearly, "It's Lady Sonja! Open the gate! Bring a horse out to get her! Tell Viktor immediately!"
Viktor sat in his stone chair his face held in a tight expression, unreadable, but always dark. Irosas sat next to him blood dripping from his chin. He took another lazy sip before looking to the door which muffled the sound behind it. Footsteps. The guard walked through the door kneeling in front of Viktor.
"Lord Viktor!"
"What do you want? Can you not see that we are in a council meeting! Anything you have to say can wait, now leave!" he barked waving him away.
"It's Lady Sonja," Viktor looked up at the guard as Irosas shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
"What of her?" Viktor asked holding his breath, his knuckles white with worry.
"She has made it back." Viktor stood and turned to Coloman,
"We will finish this later."
"Lord Viktor," he began. Viktor turned from the doorway,
"Later. Irosas, come, your wife is waiting."
Sonja stepped through the dark gates and into the castle once more. The air seemed colder here and the orange lights bounced off the faces of the vampires giving them a ghastly glow. A guard ran to her a cup in his hand,
"My lady, some blood."
"Oh thank you." Sonja drank heavily and wiped her mouth clean with her sleeve. In the distance there was her father, too proud to run, but he still moved quickly. Sonja handed the cup to the guard and nodded her thanks.
"Father!" she ran to him embracing him and he her. He pulled back and looked her over worryingly.
"Sonja, are you safe? Did they hurt you?"
"No," she shook her head, "no, not at all. They just tied me up, that is all." He hugged her tighter and kissed her forehead.
"I was so worried about you."
"It is alright Father, I am alright, " she looked past Viktor, "Irosas!" Sonja let go and ran to Irosas hugging him tightly before giving him a loving kiss digging the edge of her breast plate into his ribs.
"Irosas, I was so scared, I thought I would never see you again." He smiled with a hint of malice in his eyes.
"I was so worried about you," he managed to spit out.
"Why did you not come for me?" she asked as if truly perplexed.
"One of them shot me as I tried to get you."
"Oh, are you alright?"
"I'll be fine, they were a horrible shot."
"I am glad to hear it."
"Sonja," Viktor started, "we must discuss where they kept you, I have to send my men to get them, and then this nightmare will be over."
"Yes Father, of course, however, I don't think they shall be going anywhere, they were all asleep when I escaped. Would you mind terribly if I returned to my quarters and washed up?"
"Sonja," he began.
"Please Father," the look in her eye pleaded and Viktor nodded.
"Yes, of course."
"Thank you Father," Irosas took her arm and began to walk with her, "my dear husband, please, I do not want you to see my this way."
"Sonja, please, I am your husband."
"I feel you may not want what you see."
"I promise you I do not feel that way, but if you feel better, then I will surely leave you be my dear." He leaned over and kissed her cheek,
"I will come for you whore, and I will take you and then I will find your lycan and I will kill him," he whispered. Sonja smiled,
"Burn." Sonja turned around and walked away toward her chambers.
Her chambers were just as she left them, clean and dark. She walked over to her mirror and brushed her fingers across her things. For some reason, she did not miss them. She looked at her silver hair brush and sucked in a breath, for she did miss Lucian. She began brushing her hair and set it down when she heard a knock on the door.
"Who is it?" she asked with a steely voice.
"Milady, perhaps we should introduce ourselves once inside," Sonja sniffed the air and recognized the smell of the freshly turned lycans.
"Come in," she turned to face the three men all dressed in clothes of a slave.
"Milady, I am Yvez, this is Jurnberg, and Sven."
"Hello," Sonja extended her hand and shook with all the men, "where is Luka? Is she safe? Did you speak with her?"
"Yes, she is in her quarters, after calming her down she did tell us that she was the one who shot Irosas. We did not expect you here, Lucian told us we would be the only ones coming here."
"Yes, I know, I didn't want to endanger anyone else, so I thought I could buy us all some time if I came back, solidify the story. And I needed to check on my husband. Did Lucian have some sort of plan?"
"No, we were just sent to check on her."
"Yes, alright, I do have a plan to get us all out of here. I need you to get Luka, fake a kidnapping."
"And what of you milady?"
"I must go tell my father what happened, how I got here, everything."
"And what of the men at camp? If you give your father the location," he started.
"I know, I have sent a note back to camp on my horse, they are moving as we speak. Now, go get Luka, grab as many horses as you can, I will meet you at the stables, pretend to kidnap me and it will be close to dawn at that time so we must move quickly, do you understand?" The three men looked to each other and nodded,
"Yes, we understand."
"Good, then go and quickly," Sonja turned around to get back to her things, "wait, one of you go get Luka and get down to the stables, the other two, stay here a moment." Sonja walked around the corner and into her dressing room changing out of her death dealer clothes and into a dress. She walked back to the men and stuffed her clothes in the bag before handing it to the two men.
"My father is smart, he may suspect something if I come to him in armor, he will not think to check that it is in my room after we leave, but he will notice if I wear it when I see him. Now, the rest of the lycans are still caged yes?"
"Yes," Sven answered.
"Alright, go free your men, they deserve freedom as much as anyone does. And if dawn comes and I am not with you, ride anyway."
"Yes milady."
"My name is Sonja please address me as so."
"We will see you soon Sonja."
"Be careful."
"You too."
Sonja drew herself a bath and sank beneath the bubbles before washing herself of the forest dirt and grime. She pouted a bit at the loss of Lucian's scent on her skin, dirt, pine, and metal. She quickly got out of the bath and dressed herself in a dark dress before looking out at the sky, an hour until dawn.
The halls of the castle were dark and wet and the floors ached and echoed and the wind screamed past the windows before kissing the fires. Sonja walked to the door of her fathers chambers and stood raising her hand to the dark oak door.
"Sonja," the voice startled her and she turned around to see blue eyes and greying hair.
"Father, I have come to you to tell you where the slaves are."
"Yes, of course, come in my child, come in." Viktor opened the door and walked past his bed to a desk before pulling out a slew of maps. Sonja followed him and pulled up a chair so that she may sit next to him. He presented to her a map of the forest.
"Alright my dear, where do you think they were, give me a few locations." Sonja bit her lip at the opportunity to give several incorrect spots, but she knew her father, and she knew he knew her sense of direction was not bad. Many times she had trekked through that forest, when the moon was not there, as wolves chases her, and as rain poured down and her helmet skewed her vision, and every time she had made it out alive and unscathed. Her sense of direction was perfect, there was no giving him false locations. Sonja pointed to a spot on the map and spoke with confidence as she gave away the position of her loved one.
"There."
"Are you sure?" Sonja turned to her father confusion in her eyes,
"Of course."
"Do you not wish to give more?"
"That is the camp I was taken to, that is the one I know of, I saw no others on my way home. And I never get lost. I know where I am and I know where I was, and that," she pointed to the map, "was where I was."
"Of course my dear, we shall go tomorrow night."
"Tomorrow, but Father, it is still night," she started.
"Dawn will be upon us shortly. For now all we can do is go to sleep."
"I understand," Sonja stood and walked to the door, "I will see myself out."
"Sonja," she turned to face him.
"Yes?"
"I will find them, and I will kill them all for what they did to you." Sonja smiled a loving smile.
"I will see you on the battle field when the time comes." He nodded and smiled before Sonja closed the door quietly and walked through the corridors until out of hearing range. Down to the stables she ran. A hand grabbed her arm and pulled her to the wall slamming her against the side,
"Irosas, what do you want?"
"Where are you going, we are but fifteen minutes from dawn."
"I was going down to the stables to check on the horses, Father and I go to find the lycans tomorrow night. I need to ready the horses."
"Your story is weak, I thought by now you'd be better at coming up with stories after all the lies you told me."
"Your mind is weak, the stories didn't ever need to be good." He grabbed her neck and lifted her up.
"I will kill your lycan and all of his mutts and then I will have you for myself."
"What a wonderful lie to tell yourself."
"I am much better at my stories Sonja, I make them true."
"Then make a story of this," she said through clenched teeth as she rammed the knife in to his chest. He dropped her immediately and ran down to the stables.
"Sonja!" Luka cried upon seeing her walk through the stable doors.
"Luka!" she ran up to the woman and took her hand, "we will discuss everything but we must make it to the woods." Yvez turned to her,
"Can we make it to the woods?"
"We must leave now," Sonja got on her horse, "where are the rest of the men?"
"Sven and Jernburg are with them and will lead them back to camp."
"Then we must go, hya!" And the horses ran out of the stable and to the clearing, the sun had begun to come up and dusted the field with light. Sonja pushed the horse turning around every once in a while to see if Luka and Yvez were still there. She felt a slight burning sensation on her hand and she swiped it out of the sun pushing even harder. And then darkness. They had made it past the clearing and once again into the forest. Sonja turned to see Yvez and Luka cross the threshold and go into the safety of the shade. Sonja looked toward the clearing and all of the air in her lungs felt heavy as she saw the rest of the lycans come running safely to the woods.