Chapter 12 #2
Gordon’s clearly entertained by her. “She thinks we’re—”
I throw a hand over his mouth before he can tell her we’re not human. “Shut up.” Once I’m sure he’s realized I don’t want her to know the truth, I release him and step toward her. I’m trying to think of what else to ask, but nothing’s coming to me.
She pries the small one off her back, sets him down again for no reason I can see, and then whispers, “Go home. Now.”
One of the other small ones—female as well, I believe—hisses. “But—”
“Do it.” The tall girl shoves the little one. “Take Sammy and run.” She bounces back and forth, clearly trying to distract us from the small creatures we don’t want anyway. “What exactly do you boys want?” She frowns. “You’re clearly not from our neighborhood.”
“Why are you sending your children away?” I want to ask so many more things. Why do they always assume we’re going to attack them? What is it about us, even in this form, that’s so menacing? But I’m afraid if I ask all of that, it’ll scare her away.
“Why are you three standing there, threatening a girl?”
As I stare at her, her golden halo starts to beckon to me, and I wonder. Bonding her would allow me to force her to answer my questions. She’s shiny. She’s golden, and I want her. I’m not sure why, but it’s true.
Gordon tilts his head. “Axel, you can’t ensna—”
“I said shut up.” I know Gordon’s right, but I can’t help it. Her golden pulsing pulls on me. I want to feel it. I want to. . .feel it closer. We should threaten her to tell us information, but I’m worried she’d pull out bullets and start shooting at us.
I’ve never met a group of creatures more terrified of literally everything than these humans.
“Alright. Leave nicely, or I’ll make you.” For the first time, I realize that she doesn’t look scared. She looks angry and determined. It makes me like her golden light even more. Finally, a human who’s not trembling and trying to kill us outright. She’s—that’s when it hits me.
She’s defending her children.
A brave mother, of course.
I never had one, but I’ve heard of it. Father even told me that humans live in families that are different than ours. He said they make a big deal of their families, and it causes them to make poor decisions. They do irrational things for their so-called families.
Now, instead of telling me more things that might help, she’s looking around the small area where we’re standing almost frantically.
Her eyes dart back and forth quickly, but they don’t look relieved.
If anything, the looking seems to make her more nervous, not less.
We appear to be in some kind of strange human place of worship.
It’s brightly colored and there are places for their oracle or cleric to stand higher than the others to more easily address the gathered crowd.
“What are you doing, exactly?” I walk toward her, trying to discover the pattern behind her glances.
What’s her plan? Is she looking for a way to escape, or a gun with which to shoot more irksome bullets at me?
I’m still trying to puzzle it out when she drops to the ground quickly and straightens again, and then she launches a small pebble at me.
It strikes my soft, human face, hurting a surprising amount.
It’s not a bullet, but it’s almost as annoying.
Gordon and Rufus both head for her, unwilling to stand by while she attacks me again.
Instead of quivering or screaming, instead of throwing more projectiles, she fights them—with her soft human hands and feet.
Surprisingly, with just her squishy human body parts, she puts them both flat on their backs.
It’s the single most impressive thing I’ve seen, and that’s when I realize that females must be the more physically impressive gender among the humans.
All the men who were shooting bullets at us must have been lamenting the lack of their female protectors.
She picks up a stick, and before Rufus can reach Gordon, she stabs him in the belly. He collapses to the ground, but instead of pressing her advantage, she stares at him looking strange. She blinks slowly.
A warrior shouldn’t do that. She should be finishing the kill.
The golden light around her swirls, and I can’t stop worrying about how distressed she looks.
She’s a warrior who doesn’t want to harm other creatures?
It’s the first act of mercy, the first hesitation I’ve seen from the humans since our arrival.
Perhaps it’s her bravery that allows her to be merciful.
I think about her small children and the pull they have on her.
She wants to leave us and go with them.
The idea, in that moment, of her leaving and never being near me again, it hurts.
It hurts as badly as it pained me when the humans just kept harming the blessed without a single second of remorse.
It hurts more, honestly. I can’t even think about the prospect of never seeing her and her golden light again.
Rufus straightens, and I realize he’s about to attack her. With as stunned as she appears to be, he might harm her.
“That’s enough.” I don’t want him to harm her.
I don’t even want him near her. I want all the golden light around her for myself.
The desire grows inside me like a tangible thing, my need for her light pulling me toward her, and then something explodes around me, and I feel that I’m tied to her—there’s a cord of golden light connecting us.
She bows inward and then flops back out, and then she grits her teeth and croons.
I don’t like it.
It feels like bonding her harmed her in some way. I didn’t want to harm her. I just wanted to own her. It sounds insane, as I think it. She’s shaking her head too, like she doesn’t understand what happened.
That’s when it hits me, the importance of what I’ve done.
The disastrous importance.
I’ve lived my whole life with a secret no other blessed can discover.
It’s always been my primary directive, to keep anyone from uncovering the truth that I am both Azar and Axel.
Earth and flame blessed. Among the blessed, you can’t have two affinities.
It’s just not possible. As her hair shifts color from the top of her head downward, from a deep, dark brown to a shining golden color, just like my scales, I breathe a small sigh of relief.
Rufus and Gordon just saw me bond her, so she has to be bonded to an earth blessed.
. .who otherwise are unable to bond humans.
I can’t allow anyone to discover that I could bond her because I’m also flame blessed, and by some miracle, her hair turned golden, not red. Perhaps, as the prince of the earth blessed, people will believe I managed to do what the other earth blessed couldn’t?
“Whoa, how did you do that?” Gordon’s eyes are wide, and his mouth’s dangling open. “I thought earth blessed couldn’t ensnare humans.”
“That, apparently, was not correct information,” I say, trying to sound as disbelieving as I should be. “Because I just did.”
But what if the others don’t believe me? What if bonding this stupid, brave, glowing golden human is the first step down the path to my doom? I have to figure out how to undo this double quick.