Chapter 6: Protect


KIANNA

Kianna's feral green eyes flashed open, unsettled to find nothing there.

Get up, a voice echoed in her head. Get out.

"What?" The sensitive hairs on her arms raised as if an electrical current moved about the room, it told her that a foreign presence lingered close.

You need to get out. It told her again, this time she could tell it was female.

"Why?"

A malevolent presence that did not belong in her home seemed to be the answer. It was mingling and pulsing from every corner of her bedroom, moaning against the floorboards, creaking doors open with its near off energy. It invaded every safe thought she had nestled between her lungs, and the pulsing ache grew with each second that passed.

"Mama? Willow?" Kianna took a deeper breath to taste the heavy unease that lingered in the night-time air. "Mama! Willow!" Still nothing but the dark night answered her.

Even with the window open to the moonless dark sky outside, familiar warm air breathing its way in, the night did not hold the usual howls of wolves or even the dramatic incessant chirping of crickets, and it did nothing to calm her senses. It was as if the spring lands were holding their breath, and Kianna could feel the impending doom in the back of her bleary eyes as she rubbed the sleep from them.

"Willow!" She called for her human again, this time her feet dangling to reach the unsteady floor, and still nothing, no answer, and that is when she knew something was wrong.

With only a loose cotton nightgown for protection, "Willow I'm scared!" Kianna pushed her bedroom door open to Willow's ante-room to find the sheets empty and her door flung open. It was flung wide open to the candle-lit hallway, with slaves and sentinels in armor running past it in a mad dash to get somewhere quickly, quiet, too quiet for a night such as this.

Shut-it. Her mother's clear voice told her. Hurry Kianna.

Kianna did so, just in time for an explosion that knocked her clean off her feet, and skidding her across the ground to make it under Willow's bed with her hands covering her neck and head.

"THE HIGH LORD!" More screaming, female and male, shouting of the sentinels. "Protect your High Lord!" The Manor shook harder, the earth and Manor ceiling seemed to be at war with itself.

She heard Gavin for a moment, "you bastard! I'LL KILL YOU!"

More explosions came in quick succession, whatever Gavin was battling made the Manor groan at the reckoning behind it, and Kianna let out a shrill scream when something heavy fell on Willow's shabby bed, and the springs of the bed seemed to groan under the weight, pinning her underneath. A piece of the wood lanced straight where her hand was covering her head.

"Ah!" It drew blood, but still Kianna was too afraid to see the damage done.

"Kianna!" It was Willow that was calling her, and she was closer now, she could smell her lemony and pine scent, so sweet for a human. Her human mother.

"Willow!"

"You will not get her. You monster!" Those words made Kianna freeze from leaving the bed. Whatever it was did not answer Willow. Then it was the unmistakable sound of a neck breaking, and Kianna tightened her ears and eyes for what came next. Wishing, wishing that she was anywhere but here.

"Get out Kianna, HURRY!" She hated those words, but she did as the voice said.

Expecting to see sentinel or worse the monster that was tearing her house to pieces, but it was neither.

It was a young male that stood before in the doorway, and not just any male. The horrible feeling swelled inside of her when she rubbed her eyes to really see if dark shadows followed him as he sized her up. He made the very air chill, in the once safe darkness of Willow's room, nothing was safe from his darkness. He was the Dark. The Wings. Her brothers and father had brought him here, led him to their family, probably more of his vicious kind that dared even the horrible Hybern were right behind him.

"Night Court." Kianna remembered the mention of them at the horrible dinner, a slave screaming as his hands were torn off by her father, blood pooling with the rage of the Night Court and it's High Lord Marcus. Before that, her brothers had boasted that Illyrian battle leathers were inferior to their war armor. If they were inferior than Kianna couldn't see it, the male sported them with his massive warrior's build, probably a bit smaller than Tamlin, but still…. those intimidating black wings, moved in fierce motions with him as he passed the threshold of the Willow's room.

Jump out the window Kianna! Her mother's voice rose up, she was sure the male could hear it. Get away from him.

She couldn't do that when he kept getting closer!

He was making it abundantly clear that he could overpower her the moment she chose to make a dash for it. He was close enough that she could now see his dark hair was soaked in dried blood, his tan skin was marred with cuts and scrapes from the fight, and his cut lip stayed in a grim line as he regarded her with those steely hazel eyes that screamed predator.

He's going to kill you too. Kianna's heart was leaping against her rib cage, and she was ringing the life out of her dress as she fell to her knees, expecting the deathblow, and something inside of her became calm as she closed her eyes. Another explosion erupted upstairs in the Manor, but that could be miles away from where she was.

There was nothing she could do now, but as for the Gods to help. "I pray for Mama and the baby," Kianna raised her little hands, the way Auntie Maris did with Ianthe and her sisters during the mornings of Calanmai. "I pray for Willow to make it safe, and all the mothers and their children to find safety. That all the souls that have come to pass find their way to your Halls…" for some reason she knew her Mama was dead, and so was the baby. Because if her mother was talking to her now, urging her to survive, to get out, either she had been long dead or Kianna had truly lost her whatever shreds of sanity was left after the brutality Fae were capable of. As for Willow... Kianna did not want to believe she was gone, not even in her last moments.

The next explosion was greater than the last, it came with a roar that ripped through the foundation of the Manor. It was still a wonder that her home was still standing, and what struck her now was that roar was a High Lord's roar, and yet not her fathers. Kianna's cheeks were wet as the blast flew her back a few feet, and flat on her back before she knew what happened.

The roar of a man followed the power. Her brother. "Tamlin," she groaned rubbing her aching chest, knowing he had found something that would bring her the same pain. "Ah!" She cried, clutching her chest that had erupted in pain. She lay there in shock, cradling her breasts, and trying to breath. It was as if a great power had been let loose and it electrified the air as it moved.

"Get up," the Night Court male said, his voice cool and detached as he stood over her.

She felt tears running down the sides of her face. Her hands shaking from the energy. "I can't."

"At least open your eyes."

She did manage that, slowly, and squinted up at him through her swollen eyes, moving sweaty golden curls that stuck to the sides of her tear-soaked face.

His face was an expressionless mask, kind-of-beautiful she noticed. The enemy was not supposed to be this handsome, but it would be nice one for the last face she saw. He held his right hand up, still clenched in a powerful fist. "I should finish what he started. I should do it…"

She didn't need her mother's voice for what came next.

Kianna moaned and rolled off the floor to where the window should be. The brisk outside was just out of her reach.

"No you don't-" the male grabbed her roughly before she made her escape, and then his arm was around her neck, pulling her to her feet. It had been effortless for him, a move and he had her just where she was going to end up. "Why would you turn your back on me?" It was as if it disappointed him to know how easy her death would be. Like he was thinking, what a waste of my time. Pathetic weakling, her big brute brothers had called her once.

Kianna yanked on his arm, refusing to submit, to be the weakling, feeling the muscles in his arms constrict her throat, "I can't breathe."

"You're lucky I was the one that found you." His arm relaxed a bit, raising her higher, until she was sitting on one of his arms, the other supporting her back, and thoroughly shocked at how calm she had become.

He was studying her. He asked, "What are you going to do about it? If someone came in here to finish you off?"

"I…"

"You have less than a second to react, what would keep you alive against a more adept killer…" it was as if he had taught this lesson before, and if Kianna was shocked before, she was past that now.

She responded to the best of her abilities, "to run away," she was so close to his face now that she felt her cheeks get red, his pine and mist scent invading her nostrils, "to get far away from you."

He smiled at that. "That would buy you some time." Kianna stared into the eyes of the male that had suddenly changed from the predator to one that she didn't feel so afraid of anymore.

She could notice how there was a golden rim around the center of his eyes, yellowish grey eyes… so unlike the blues and greens of her people. So, unlike the brutal strength the males had to command in her presence, it frightened and calmed Kianna to know that he had not brutalized or stolen her away… she was perplexed by him.

"I know you are terrified. You should be terrified." His smile vanished from his face, something harder taking its place. "This place is where terrible things happen. The humans that are set lose could hurt you, torture you, get back at what your brothers and father have done to so many others." He muttered as if he had expected it to happen. "There are worse things than death."

Kianna struggled against him, but this time it was against his words. He wouldn't let go, and so she screamed, and his hand covered her mouth to block her scream. He moved them to the window, leaning out to see if anyone heard probably.

"You know who I am, don't you?"

He waited, watching her child's face. She was trying to breath past the pounding her ears, to figure the best answer to get him to let her go.

"I know you do."

She looked at him, trying to glare, and then nodded.

"Good girl. You're going to have to be honest if I am going to help you."

I don't want your help, she muttered against his hand.

"Shhh." He soothed. "If your loud then the freed slaves will come in here, and you don't want that?" Kianna did not want to be tortured. Without the order of the sentinels and her father, even her brothers, she was at the mercy of whomever wanted to seek revenge. "You're wondering why I am helping you?" The male nodded as he understood the dilemma, and Kianna listened in rapt attention, "because if you know who I am, you probably know what I am capable of doing."

She shook her head.

He seemed at odds with himself, "I am an Illyrian warrior." He finally loosed a low breath, as it was a great burden to share such information, "my name is Azriel, and I am here to protect you."

Kianna wanted to scream when he took his hand away from her mouth, but his hand wavered in the air, and she found it wise to let out a whisper instead, "what do you want from me?" She kept her voice low like his.

"I want everyone to believe that you ran away while the explosions went off," so he was going to steal her away, and that didn't bother her as much as the other things. At least she would be alive. He continued. "When my friends and I think it is safe enough in the Spring Court, then you will return to your brother."

"Which one?" It might not have mattered to him, but the type of brothers that were left to rule the Spring Court meant a great deal for her future here. It meant a great deal to those whom was left alive. She dared, "is my Mother alive? Is the baby alive?"

"Kianna."

She had not expected him to know her name, and that just made it worse.

"Whatever happens, I won't let your brother hurt you like that."

She shut her eyes closed as more tears leaked out, thoroughly embarrassing herself more because no one had made a promise like that. Well not a promise that they kept.

Azriel cradled her in his arms, securing her before he used his legs to push towards and out the window. Kianna shut her eyes closed as the air whistled through her hair and ears, and she tucked her chin further into his chest, and held on for dear life as the ground disappeared below them.


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Odeveca