Chapter 14
Fourteen
Elaine
They came when I was asleep.
The crashing noise yanked me out of a dream. Sunlight burst through the breach in the wall. Jolted awake, I rolled off the mattress and grabbed the first thing that was within my reach—the piece of driftwood I used to scrape the salt from the trays.
Shadows solidified around me. Once they knew exactly what dwelling I was in, the shack was old enough for them to seep in through the cracks.
But to take me out, they needed to open the door.
Timur always secured the door with the magic of his bracer.
It made it impossible to open. So they broke through the wall.
Someone grabbed for me, and I whacked their arm with my wood scraper.
“Still the same nasty little shit, aren’t you?” the fae hissed, and I recognized Piara’s snappy voice.
“And you’re still the same conniving, cruel bitch,” I bit out, slamming my weapon against her temple.
The piece of weathered wood cracked and exploded into splinters. Piara sneered, baring her fangs, then grabbed my hair with her right hand and punched my ribs with her left fist, before settling me under her arm and dragging me out.
Pain and helplessness rolled through me with a wave of nausea. I screamed, kicking my feet.
“Elaine!” Timur’s voice sparked hope in me, but it didn’t last.
I saw the blob of his cloaked figure move against the backdrop of the black Wall of Ashgate, but he was too far. He’d never reach me in time.
It was probably better that way. Whatever Piara intended to do with me, she wouldn’t kill me. I was an expensive commodity worth my weight in gold, literally. She’d sell me or trade my joy. I’d no doubt be forced, abused, and exploited. But they wouldn’t kill me.
Timur, on the other hand…
To my abductors, Timur was just an obstacle. Judging by their lazy response to his sudden appearance on the beach, they didn’t even deem him a serious obstacle, just someone who could be easily swept out of their way and quickly forgotten.
I didn’t call him for help. I wished he never saw what was happening.
“Go away, Timur. Just get out of here while you still can, please…” I begged in my mind.
But I knew he wouldn’t leave me. He’d die to protect me, and that scared me more than whatever fate awaited me at Piara’s hand.
Piara glanced his way.
“Take care of that,” she sicced her goons at him.
They drew their weapons, raising their spears, knives, and curved swords. Most of the weapons were plain, their handles worn, but their blades shined brightly, sharp and well-used.
Piara didn’t bother to lift her spear, just tossed it impatiently in her hand while she adjusted her grip on me. She trusted her underlings to do the job for her.
“Let her go!” Timur boomed.
He was brave. He wouldn’t even flinch, rushing into battle for me.
And he would die.
“No,” I gasped under my breath.
My heart squeezed painfully. Ice ran through my veins despite the heat of the brewing day storm.
Timur’s cloak billowed in the wind, then suddenly tore into shreds like shadows torn by sun rays. Two glimmering white wings unfurled from his back, lifting him from his chair.
“What the…” Piara choked on her question.
She gaped, along with her foot soldiers, at the fantastic figure rising over the beach.
I’d seen Timur without his cloak, but never like this.
Stretched to his full height, his silver-streaked hair streaming in the storm like a wing of darkness, his skirt whipping around his clawed feet, he was a vision of vengeance and terror.
To me, he looked magnificent.
To Piara and her accomplices, he must be a nightmare incarnate.
They had never seen his face half-swallowed by the dragon skull.
His dragon eye, glowing red with menace.
The massive bone that covered his right shoulder like a medieval pauldron.
Or his skeletal hand that could caress my skin ever so gently but also could crash bones in its clawed fingers.
Until now, they had never known what Timur looked like.
And to them, he looked like a monster.
Two powerful wings of white bone and diaphanous membrane beat the air, bringing him upon us.
His spiked tail lashed out, knocking one of Piara’s men off his feet.
Shaped like a sun-bleached spinal column and tipped with a sharp spike, his tail crashed through the skull of another thug, spilling dark-red blood over the black sand of the beach.
“Shit!” Piara cursed, wielding her spear.
Timur flew past her, whipping the spear out of her hands with a flick of his tail.
One of the traders tossed a knife, opening a gashing wound in Timur’s left arm.
He growled in pain. Wrapping his long, bone-fingers around the man’s head, Timur squeezed hard.
His claws pierced through the man’s skin and muscles, his skull crushed, spilling gore and sending pieces of bone out in a blast.
My stomach churned, threatening to expel its contents.
“Let her go!” Timur roared at Piara who stood between me and him.
She glared down at me, her face lit with realization, and it wasn’t good.
“No.” With her arm around my middle, she lifted me up like a shield. “She’s coming with me.”
Timur paused in the air, the wind from under his incredible wings joined the storm that churned dust clouds, whipping the sand into twisters around us.
“Aagh!” One of Piara’s men charged him.
The man’s sword sliced through the membrane of Timur’s wing. Timur lost his balance and his lift with it. He fell and rolled on the ground, crumpling his wings. His roar was filled with pain now—a guttural, tortured cry of agony that I’d heard before, the night I’d kicked his feet.
“End him,” Piara ordered to her two remaining goons while she dragged me away.
“No!” I screamed, thrashing in her grip.
I kicked, punched, and bit, fighting to get free with everything I had. My strength was no match to the strength of a fae, but I wasn’t going to help Piara carry me away by being quiet and still.
“Let me go!” I kicked her into her stomach, making her howl in anger and pain.
“Fucking bitch!” she yelled, tossing me to the ground.
She lifted her boot to kick my face, but I rolled away quickly. Scrambling to my hands and knees, I crawled aside, then sprung to my feet.
“Timur!” I sprinted toward him.
Incredibly, he got up on one knee. Using his uninjured wing, he kept his balance and held himself upright. Leaning back, he tossed one of his short daggers. It flew over my head and sank into Piara’s head, right between her eyes.
She choked out a breath. Her body jerked, as if hitting a wall. Then she crashed face down into the sand.
The remaining two traders abandoned their fight with Timur and lunged for me instead. Timur swiped with his tail, knocking one of them off his feet. Sinking his claws into the trader’s eye sockets, he snapped his head back, breaking his neck.
The second trader rushed to me. I tripped in the sand and fell on my ass.
Panic rolled through me. Afraid to look away from the advancing trader, I searched around me blindly for something…
anything to help me fight him. My hand fell on the hard, smooth handle of Piara’s spear in the sand, and I closed my fingers around it.
The trader ran to me, tucking his knife into the sheath on his belt. He wasn’t planning on killing me. He wanted to grab me, carry me away…steal me.
I held up the spear, and he smirked. A lone human woman facing him with a spear she could barely lift clearly didn’t seem like a threat to him.
My arms shook from strain. I staggered back as he approached like a wall of dark shadows and hard muscles ready to overrun and crush me. My legs trembled. I fell down on my knees, but held on to the spear, my only weapon.
Propping the back of the spear into the sand, I aimed the sharp end at the trader’s chest.
Faced with the spear pointed at him, he came to a halting stop. Flailing his arms, he sucked in a breath to avoid my spear, and he would’ve avoided it. But with a flash of white wings, Timur appeared behind him and shoved him forward, right onto the sharp end of the spear.
Through my hands gripping the spear, I felt the nauseating sensation of the point going through the living, breathing flesh. Warm dark blood poured from the wound, running down the wooden handle and coating my hands.
I jerked away, letting go of the weapon. The fae and the spear tipped sideways before crashing onto the sand.
With a heart-wrenching roar, Timur bent over in pain.
“Timur!” I rushed to him, but he hit the ground, and I leaped away, lest he knock me off my feet.
I took a frantic look around, searching for more attackers, but there was no one left alive. Timur had torn them all to pieces. Their bodies littered the beach. The storm was burying them with sand already, and the wind was shredding the black shadows of decomposition that rose from the dead.
Fae weren’t easy to kill. Bullets would cause them very little damage. Cuts and gashes healed quickly, leaving no scars on their perfect bodies. Only Nerifir iron could kill them, and only if it pierced their vital organs or stayed in the wound long enough to lethally poison their blood.
Yet being torn to pieces brutally and savagely like this left no one a chance for survival. All my attackers were now dead.
But were there more coming?
I spun around, trying to peer through the storm.
The steel-gray waves rolled ashore, the surf beating frantically against the beach.
Wind slammed into the Wall, howling through the caves.
Sand churned in the air, blocking sunlight and obscuring my already impaired vision.
I couldn’t see much, but no one else seemed to emerge from the storm.