Chapter 47 Izzy
IZZY
Pain tore me from an unsettled sleep.
Someone yanked my hair hard enough to pull my head up off the table. It hurt like hell!
“Hey, fuck! Stop it!” I said, coming awake quickly and blindly lashing out. I hit something. Someone grunted, but the pain didn’t stop; they hadn’t let go.
I looked around wildly as I was lifted from my chair and saw… Saldrea and her three goons surrounding me.
Fuck.
The dwarven woman was the one holding me, the one I’d hit. In return she punched me in the gut so hard it felt like she’d rearranged my organs.
I coughed out a breath, then couldn’t seem to get it back as the dwarf slammed me down to the floor and sat on me.
I rasped, not even able to gasp in a full breath as Saldrea’s face filled my view.
“I’m going to undo the binding on you,” she whispered with a sadistic grin. “Then I’m going to have Neya turn you into a toad so I can rip you apart and heal you, over and over again!”
The woman was insane. If I’d had any doubts before this, they were gone.
I couldn’t respond, couldn’t fight, could barely catch a breath.
Saldrea slapped me so hard blood burst in my mouth. Then she clamped her hand over my face and closed her eyes, concentrating.
Doctor Pointy-Ears hadn’t been able to undo the binding on me, but Saldrea… could she? Was she that much stronger?
I didn’t get my answer right away. Whatever Saldrea was doing it took time. And her face contorted more and more in frustration and fury and determination.
“Fucking hell!” she hissed. “Who did this fucking binding? It’s already weakened and I still… Fuck!”
Ha! Maybe she couldn’t undo it and I was safe… at least safe from being turned into a toad. Not really safe with these four ganging up on me.
“There!” Saldrea finally cheered and something shifted within me.
Oddly, it felt… good. That little bit of pain lingering from my ordeal this afternoon vanished. And though I’d never been able to discern the subtle changes to my eyes or ears or hair before, I suddenly had a knowing that I was whole. I looked how I was supposed to look!
And with the restoration of my form and body… came a much-needed breath.
That was all I needed. Because after this change, I also felt damned strong. I yelled through Saldrea’s hand clamped over my lips and pushed hard, sitting up and throwing Saldrea and her dwarven friend off me.
I shot to my feet and quickly looked for my best escape route.
“Wait…” Hana, the sylph, gasped. “She’s an elf?”
Who? Saldrea? No… wait… me? She was looking at me.
“An elf?” Saldrea hissed from the floor in shock. “No… a half-breed! Disgusting!” Her horror was clear on her face, and luckily, she seemed stunned enough by this revelation that she didn’t immediately get up.
I bolted.
Neyalim reached for me. I batted her hand away and she hissed in pain.
Hana blasted me with wind from the side. I flew off my feet… and into Vyns’ warm embrace.
“Uff. Oh… hi?” I said looking up at him as he held me.
“It’s true,” he breathed in awe, gazing down. “Heavens!”
I wanted to ask what was true, but we needed to get out of here first. “Run!” I hissed at him.
And he did. Vyns bundled me up in his arms and sprinted for the exit.
“I’ve got your back!” came another voice, gruff, deep, rumbling… I knew that voice.
The dragon!
Fuck!
He was here?
Wait… who’s back was he getting?
I tilted my head backward to look around Vyns and saw the large man behind us, between us and Saldrea’s crew. A blast of wind hit him as shards of ice peppered him.
He was protecting me?
He turned, and for an instant his gaze landed on me, and he smiled. “Go!” he shouted. Then he was running as well, bloody and hurt, but following after us.
Vyns burst through the doors of the library and was in the air an instant later.
WTF! We were flying!
A massive eruption of earth tore open the front of the library… wait… earth was elven magic. Was this Saldrea’s power?
Fuck me, she was strong.
An instant later, the massive form of a dragon also burst forth, looking rough, but strong enough to fly, great wings hauling it higher into the sky behind us.
Why in hell was the dragon helping me?
I didn’t know, but I was so very thankful.
“Where should I take you?” Vyns asked.
“Rook’s room… where we… were this afternoon.”
“They’ll look for you there.”
“I know, but I can’t let them find Myel. He’s there!”
Vyns gave a grim nod and banked through the sky, flying hard, diving back down toward the lesser residence. I was sure we were going way too fast, and he’d slam into the ground, but his wings flared, and we slowed enough for him to step in through the broken wall of my room and set me down.
“Quick!” he hissed.
Didn’t have to tell me twice.
I dashed through the adjoining bathroom and found Myel and Rook commiserating, in the middle of some conversation about how to make things right with me.
Aw… how nice.
No time for that.
“We need to go! Now!” I shouted. “Saldrea’s coming and she can’t find you here.” I meant Myel, but it occurred to me Rook might not be safe either. “Either of you. You both need to come with us now!”
“Us who? You and…?” Myel asked, but he was already moving.
“That seraph you hate just saved my life. Trust him now?”
“Oh.”
The three of us ran back to my room, but there I stopped, because I had no clue where to go next.
“Where’s safe?” I asked the three men… no four.
The dragon was mid-shift, landing in my room as well.
Also, he was naked… because clothes apparently didn’t shift with you and…
be-still-my aching-loins! Wow, he was a big boy, in all ways, including the massive sausage hanging between his legs…
which was not what I should be thinking about right now.
“I know a place,” Myel piped up. “If they don’t know about me, then the shifter residence should be safe, at least for a little bit.” He glanced at Vyns.
“They don’t know about you,” Vyns affirmed.
“Yeah, shifter residence sounds good,” the dragon added. I really should learn his name. “That’s the last place Saldrea would look.”
“Wait…” Rook said, stunned. “Your ears… you’re… an elf?”
He’d only just noticed?
“Yup, no clue what that means, but apparently so.”
“It means she’s a pr—” Vyns began.
“It means we need to go… now!” Myel hissed.
“Right.” Vyns nodded. He scooped me up, and before I could ask how Rook and Myel were going to get there, Rook had sprouted wings and Myel had shifted into a small bat.
Koar didn’t take his dragon form but sprouted wings as a man.
They could all fly.
Everyone but me could fly.
I felt left out.
Though it was nice being held so securely as Vyns took off. The four of us didn’t take to the skies, but instead, glided out over the cliff, then down. Right… because Saldrea would be looking to the skies. She’d see us if we flew over the campus.
We glided low, over the ocean, heading east, before flying to the top of the cliffs on the other side of the massive arena.
There, all the guys transformed back and I was let down.
We all ran across the wide east-campus lawns, past several buildings before reaching the trees outside of a large, functional-looking building.
“I’ll get her inside, then come back for the rest of you,” Myel said taking my hand.
“How?” Vyns asked, but his voice faded — as did the trees and the guys — in a puff of shadowed smoke. And when the smoke cleared, I was in a room.
Oh!
Wow.
So that’s what it felt like to use Myel’s shadow-step!
“Who’s there?” a gruff voice sounded from the darkness.
“Myel and Izzy. Saldrea knows. We’re out of time.” Myel’s tone was imperative. I’d have thought we’d go to his room, but apparently not.
“Fuck!” The other voice sounded royally pissed. “Lights!” The lights came on, and I saw an older man sitting up in bed.
Myel puffed away and returned again a moment later with Rook…. then Vyns… then the dragon.
“What the fuck are they doing here?” the old man said as he got up and quickly wrapped a robe around his naked form.
“They all helped Izzy escape Saldrea,” Myel said.
“I no longer serve that villain,” the dragon rumbled as his gaze landed on me. Then, inexplicably he knelt, hand over heart, head down. “I vow allegiance to Izzy, as the true heir to the throne.”
What. The. Fuck?
A wave of dizziness spun through me, but I kept myself standing.
“They know?” the old man hissed. “You told them?” He was upset… at Myel?
“I swear I didn’t!” Myel blurted.
Wait… Myel knew?
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on!” I snapped, lightheaded, woozy, not liking where any of this was headed.
Silence hung in the small, very crowded room as every man around me… except Rook… slowly knelt. It was the old man who spoke first.
“Your real name is El Anadendyra Isolde. You are the daughter of Ysania the Exiled Princess, daughter of Leastrine the last true queen of the elves.”
Isolde?
Izzy?
Isolde… My real name is Isolde?
And that was the last thought I had before I fainted.
To be continued…