Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Theo had immediate regrets about sending Callum in first. This initial meeting could not have gone any worse, but Callum had been telling the truth. If Helaina didn’t cooperate, her people would undoubtedly die. They’d lost so many lives already.
He caught the unconscious girl as she fell. She weighed as much as a feather. Lowering her safely to the ground, he never took his eyes off the approaching beast. Theo was unsheathing his sword when he heard Callum exit the tent.
“Put it away. Your little secret weapon there spat in my gods-damned face. I need to hurt something.”
Theo almost applauded the girl’s gumption. Knife to her throat and she hadn’t backed down from either of them.
He took his hand off the hilt of his blade and pointed his fingers toward the sky. “I think you’re being a little sensitive, but if it makes you feel better.” He gestured to the predator as if it were an approaching barn cat.
Theo had suspected they weren’t alone. He had heard the panthera the second he entered her tent; it had been hunting the caravan.
What he did not expect was the scent of the undead trailing the animal as it emerged. It was not just a beast from the eastlands—this panthera had been turned into a blood-lusting version of itself.
Dark fur blended with the surrounding night, making it difficult to spot. The only giveaways of its location were those glowing red eyes and flashes of gleaming yellow canines.
Manos had forced everyone in the camp into that frozen state of his.
The mortals remained hypnotized, staring at the sky, unable to move until Manos decided to release them.
Two defenseless guards stood right there within the panthera’s reach, yet it passed them by with smooth intention, prowling directly toward Helaina and Theo.
“Anytime now, Callum.” Theo’s grave voice sounded, his own power charging within.
Callum drew his daggers as he sauntered between the cat and its intended target. The panthera flashed its teeth. He mimicked the gesture mockingly. “Nuh-uh,” Callum taunted the beast, shaking his head. “We saw her first.”
The panthera lunged.
With one swift slash of his blade, he connected with the creature’s torso. It went down with a whine, then got right back up for its second attack.
Claws nearly impaled his skin, but the teleporter was too fast. He had already vanished and reappeared on the beast’s back.
Callum plunged a dagger through the panthera’s eye, driving the blade home with a twist to ensure the damage was done.
The beast gave ample effort to thrash him off, but Callum’s strike had been lethal.
As it collapsed in defeat, Callum pulled his dagger from its mark and began sawing the head off the massive cat. He casually strode over to Theo, waving the dripping severed head like a trophy.
Theo remained on the ground, his body a protective barrier over Helaina.
“He was going after her, wasn’t he?” Callum asked as he tossed the head back toward the body.
“It would appear so,” Theo replied coolly.
Callum wiped the bloody blades on the grass. After he put away his weapons, he reached for a small torch staked in the ground by the two hypnotized soldiers. He tossed it onto the panthera’s lifeless body. It burst into a foul-smelling blaze.
Manos came up behind them both, still focusing on his mind tricks. “Are we done here?”
Theo nodded. “She’s soaked in sweat. She needs dry clothes for the journey.”
“I’ll get the horses,” Callum said. “Unless the panthera got to them first.”
“I thought you planned to teleport back?” Theo replied.
“If there are more undead on the road, I want to be there.” Gods forbid Callum missed out on a single fight.
Theo began rummaging through the trunks and found a change of clothes. Something warm for where they were going. At first, he was not maneuvering her as carefully as he should have. He was in a rush. He removed her layers, muscles going rigid from what he discovered underneath.
Protruding clavicles, a concave stomach.
She was wasting away. And there, just above her left breast, lay a brand.
A circle no bigger than a coin, with an image of a coiling snake inside.
He traced the uneven patch of skin with his finger, part of him hoping it wasn’t real.
This was such a hateful way to damage a person.
“Who marked you this way?” His voice trembled with rage. “Who allowed you to get like this?” How could her family let this happen? Had no one cared to notice?
He shuffled her into the change of clothes he found. Her eyes fluttered, giving him another fleeting view of those silver irises.
The prophecy had told of a mark, something god-given from birth.
He hadn’t been sure what to look for as confirmation.
A soul eclipsed in moonlight could mean so many things.
Silver hair, born on the full lunar eclipse.
But one look at those eyes, mixed with the power emanating off her, and he knew.
He hoisted her up over his shoulder, then cast his hand in a wave toward all the torchlights and the fiery blaze burning the panthera’s corpse.
In one fell swoop, all of them extinguished.
Theo stayed just long enough to confirm the statuesque bodies of the soldiers began to twitch, their eyes blinking rapidly in confusion.
Then he disappeared between the trees, his forgotten princess in tow.