To Tame An Angel: A Femdom Fantasy Romance

Chapter Twenty-Four

NALLA

I gasped, clutching my chest and staring at her incredulously. “Is he in the pits?”

The silence lingered and still she remained unmoved but for a few shuddering breaths. Just the thought that he was there, when I’d been there, perhaps even passed him by, perhaps he’d knelt next to Tannor. So close that I could’ve saved him.

“Is he in the pits?” I cried.

“No. He’s not,” mother said and slowly turned to him. “Your father… Hale.” And she paused, as if allowing his name to linger on her tongue. Perhaps she’d not said his name out loud in so long she’d forgotten how it sounded. “Hale and I realized what his life would be like.” She met my eyes. “And we snuck him out. Freshly born, still trembling and wet. All I could do was smell his hair and –”

I shook my head, feeling a wave of emotions take over me.

“You helped him escape,” I realized. “Father didn’t die. He didn’t leave you. Didn’t leave us. He was saving my brother.”

Mother’s eyes dropped to the ground and suddenly she looked her age. A worn, tired woman, who’d kept so much hidden that it fell around her like dried plaster.

“He was saving all of us,” she whispered. “I was weakened by your birth. I’d lost much blood. And the cloak I’d placed over Hale was impossible to keep up.”

Trying to grasp all her words and implications dizzied me and for the first time I felt truly weak. Like I knew nothing, understood nothing, like my entire life was this massive lie, whose shadow I lived under.

“He’d sprouted his wings,” Tannor’s voice came from behind us. “Hadn’t he?”

I glanced at him, at his massive, caged wings then back at my mother, who stood staring at him with empty eyes. She didn’t deny it but how she’d manage to cloak father was beyond my scope of understanding. None of us had such power.

“I learned early on that my magic was different. I could do things with it that others couldn’t. But I didn’t understand the extent of my power until the night Zaya was born,” she said and the walls silently witnessed her crime. “Hale was so utterly happy, it was divine. She was divine. She came from our love. And when he held her, they just… came out. He loved her so entirely. He loved all of you. And I loved him. I did. My heart was so full when he was around.”

She met my eyes and for the first time in my life I saw my mother cry. Her lips trembled as she shook her head.

“They would’ve killed him. But I wouldn’t let that happen. I tried to use my magic to place them back inside of his body. To save him. To save us. Instead, I realized I could cloak them. It was draining so we spent much time locked in our rooms. In our little peaceful heaven.” She paced, back and forth as I stared at her in a mix of horror, my head light with imagining her living such a life. “Each time he would have to be seen by others, I had to use my magic. It began to wear on me so that each pregnancy was harder and harder. By the time you came along, I was depleted. Near death. He wouldn’t let me cloak him anymore.”

Mother stopped and took a step towards me but I moved back, shaking my head. She flinched.

“The day you were born was the worse day of my life,” she confessed. “Because I lost my lover and my son. Because I stood petrified on my balcony, barely able to stand, holding Hale one final time, knowing I would never see him or my son ever again. Feeling split in half. The last thing he said to me was ‘be strong for our girls.” She gasped and her trembling hand clutched her mouth. “Everything I have done from that moment has been to keep you and your sisters safe. I’ve made myself indispensable to the crown so that my loyalty could never be questioned. So I would be the perfect soldier and leader with daughters who would never, ever, have to live through the hell I went through. I wanted you to see men as nothing more than playthings. I wanted your heart hardened for I have known intimately what it is like to love and to lose it all at the same time.”

This time, when she moved towards me, I didn’t flinch. I simply stared at the woman who birthed me, who loved someone so fully that she hurt us in her desperation not to see us killed.

“But I love him,” I whispered. “The way you love father. Don’t destroy me in the same way you destroyed yourself.”

Her face shifted and she was filled with sudden pity. She cupped my face and three tears dropped from her eyes. Mother had never been warm or affectionate. For the first time in my entire life I saw she loved me.

“You look so much like your father.” She ran the pad of her thumb over my cheek. “I promised him I would keep you safe. Burry your love for this man now, while its still fresh and idealistic. Soon you’ll forget him, he’ll be nothing more than a memory.”

Our gazes remained locked on one another, and I trembled as she spoke. But I wasn’t as strong as her. I couldn’t live the rest of my life pretending Tannor was never in it. Emotionless in my couplings like she was.

“No, he won’t.”

The voice came from the stairs and both mother and I startled, turning to the intruder. There, midway down the stairs, stood Zaya. My oldest sister was dressed in her impeccable armor, a pure soldier just like mother. Her face was set, her lips thinned, nothing about her was out of place. Except her eyes. Her eyes were on mother and they were clouded with hate and resentment.

“Zaya –” Mother gasped and stepped away, a desperate sound coming from her mouth.

“I have lived my entire life believing he hated me,” Zaya’s words were razor sharp, thin and hissing. “Believing that his love for me wasn’t enough for him to stay. Making myself wonder if the memories I had of him singing me to sleep were conjectures. Imaginings of a desperate child. Shadows of wings on the walls, of feeling his downy feathers and making him laugh.”

She stepped down, her eyes remained on mother.

“It happened, didn’t it? All of it. He would sing me to sleep. He would let me play with his wings. Didn’t he?” Her last words came as a shout.

Mother was quiet, her mouth coiled, and her fists tightened. When she didn’t answer Zaya scoffed and shook her head. My sister looked at me and breathed deeply then cast a glance at Tannor as she stepped to the bottom of the stairs.

Slowly, she focused on me. “Take your angel. Get out of here. I can buy you a few minutes but only a few,” Zaya said with short, determined words.

“She’ll not,” Mother snarled. “They will kill her and us with her!”

“We tried to stop her,” Zaya’s tone was frighteningly cold and detached. Her eyes fixed back on mother. “Didn’t we?”

Then, with the precision of one trained for years and with a swing of her muscled arm, Zaya sliced her sword into mother’s stomach.

“No!” I screamed, stumbling forward as mother slowly looked down at the blade protruding from her body.

Zaya yanked back at the blade as mother fell to her knees, a moan at her throat. Her hand pressed against the wound and blood gushed between her pale fingers. Mother stared up at Zaya’s unmoving glare. Not a flinch came from my sister.

Instead, Zaya looked at me with a snarl. “I said take your angel.”

There was a split second of hesitation before I dove for the keys looped in mother’s waist, they were now covered in blood. Mother met my eyes for a moment and in that moment, I swore I felt her urging me to hurry. I had no words and perhaps I’d regret not saying one final thing, but I felt the minutes looming against us, dooming us if I took too long.

I dashed to Tannor and slipped the key into the chains and unlocked him, making him collapse over me. Zaya was there, her hands moved quickly as she uncorked a vial from her satchel. She lifted Tannor’s chin and forced down a tonic into him.

“It’ll give him strength, won’t last long, but it’ll offer you a chance,” she stuffed her damming evidence into her pocket. She moved around Tannor, unlatching the bind on his wings with a flick of magic from her hands. “I’ll distract mother’s guards at the top of the stairs. Fly east, don’t stop. I cannot protect you once you leave this room, if you make it, you make it. If you don’t… then don’t say I never did anything for you.”

I met her eyes. “Zaya, come with me!”

She shook her head and gave me a rare smile; one I’d seen such selective times from her that I scarcely recognized it. “I like my life, little sister. But I’ll not sit around and witness you be miserable in yours.”

Tannor straightened and looked at me, despite his battered body he seemed like he suddenly carried the strength of ten men. He grasped my waist and nodded. Our hands clasped and we dashed after Zaya.

Before we left, I couldn”t resist stealing one last glance at my mother, whose shallow breaths betrayed her.

“Four days to the east, then towards the white mountain, there’s a large lake. Tell him…” But mother’s words were lost in a gasp as she grimaced and clutched her stomach. Then she opened up her bloody palm and focused on me and Tannor.

I thought she would curse us, throw me down with her powerful magic. Instead she let out a long moan and a flash of green erupted from her hand. She aimed it at Tannor and me. I placed myself before Tannor, seeking to stop whatever curse she threw our way when a warmth enveloped me. Like a thick winter shawl and I looked down to see our bodies were slightly translucent. Ghostly and pallid.

She’d cloaked us.

“You don’t have long,” were mother’s final words before she collapsed on the stone with a wheeze.

“Let’s go!” Zaya said and pushed her bloody sword at me. “Don’t use your magic until you absolutely need to. At the top of the stairs, stab me. Try to stick to non-vital places.”

I shook my head. “I can’t –”

“You can and you will, you’re a daughter of a fucking general and if you want your happiness you’ll do it.” Zaya was impressive in this moment. Stronger than all of us combined, unrepentant and daring. “Don’t make our sacrifice folly.”

Clutching the enormous gratitude within, I nodded. Loving my sister more than I could properly communicate. Zaya didn’t hesitate, she dashed forward, Tannor and I behind her. She took the steps two at a time, another one of her blades already in her hand. The moment Zaya pushed opened the door I came up behind her and raised the bloody sword, slicing neatly into the back of her shoulder.

Zaya stumbled forward with an exaggerated scream and took down with her the guards posted, creating mayhem.

“She’s attacked the general!” Zaya yelled, purposively tripping other guards as her blood painted them all.

Tannor was behind me, his wings pushing all the others away. They could barely see us as we flittered in and out of visibility, confusing the guards. With our hands clasped, I ran, leading us to one of the upper balconies where we could fly unstopped. Within seconds we heard soldiers shouting, sending orders as their metal clanked throughout the castle. The wounds on my back opened but I ignored them, feeling blood seeping down my dress.

We turned into the hallway across the library and found one guard startled. Without hesitation, I sliced my sword across her face, her blood painting my chest. I jumped over her body when five others came across us, confused because of our cloak but still cognizant enough to shoot an arrow. It came so fast I couldn’t deflect it, but Tannor pulled me to him, and I heard him grunt when the arrow slid into his shoulder. Without pausing he urged me to move, which I did, trying not to panic in the direness of our situation.

They may all be posted soldiers, but this was my childhood home. I knew all the corners and hallways. I stuck to the servant’s passages, running up stairs and encountering a few startled manservants, who stumbled back at the sight of us. One paused, looking at Tannor and me, then pointed to a door, which I knew led to mother’s study.

Tannor kicked the locked door open, and we stepped in, trying to gather our senses. Tannor yanked out the arrow with a grunt and looked at me.

“The window?”

“No, it overlooks the training yards,” I said with my hands already on mother’s bookcases. There was a latch that led to her room, which had a balcony. My fingers trembled as I pawed the volumes, yanking them out, desperate to find the correct one I’d seen her use.

The noises within the castle became deafening, each moment alerted more and more soldiers to our escape. I felt my breath catch when one book finally latched, and I heard a soft click.

I stepped back and we watched as the hidden door slid open. Tannor moved before me, running into the room and searching for the balcony. He went without hesitation, but I paused, taking in my mother’s things. I spotted her chest, which we weren’t allowed to open, and boldly yanked the lid up.

Inside were her favorite instruments, but in the bottom was a small box. I took it and opened it, revealing a small lock of hair, neatly tied. It was dark brown and downy soft. I knew, without doubt, that it was my brother’s hair. I needed to find him, I needed to meet him and fill this life-long gap in my life.

“Nalla! Come,” Tannor had thrown open the balcony.

I took the hair and ran to Tannor, whose wings were already spread and ready for flight. He opened his arms and I clutched him, our faces meeting.

“Are you certain?” he asked and his voice was nearly timid, afraid I would urge him to escape without me.

My grip tightened and I pressed myself closer to him. There was a sense of great loss for the family I left behind. Not knowing if my mother would live. Never being able to see Zaya, Valle, or my little sister Rynn again. Still, I nodded. I wouldn’t make their sacrifice a trifle.

Tannor clutched my waist tightly and his wings moved, sweeping us up to the sky.