Chapter 125 Rhea #3
“Something is attacking them,” Xander says.
“Maybe we should try to leave.” More leaves crunch, the cadence quicker, as if someone is sprinting directly towards us.
The sound intensifies, one pair of steps morphing into more until I’m sure we must be surrounded by at least a dozen men hidden within the trees.
“I’m almost done,” Nox replies calmly, his fingers twitching around mine.
I scream when a man leaps out from behind a particularly thick tree trunk, his golden sword aimed for Xander, who lifts his own to block despite being behind my shield.
But the man doesn’t make it more than a foot before he’s abruptly yanked back and slammed into the ground.
My ears ring with the reverberation, and I don’t realize I’m shaking until Nox draws me in, one hand cradling the back of my head as the other stays firmly gripped around my own.
“Don’t watch this,” he murmurs above me.
But I do—of course, I do. With an ear against Nox’s chest, I watch as a shadow curls around the hilt of the fallen guard’s sword, yanking it out of his hand and spinning it until it’s angled at the soft spot between his helmet and chest plate.
There is no hesitation as the shadow—as Nox—plunges the guard’s own weapon into his neck, his whimper cut off before it’s more than a single note.
Nox continues, effortlessly extinguishing the guards that we can see, manipulating shadow and steel, and mercilessly killing the ones we can’t, their terrified screams alerting us through the trees.
Both of us command our magic without so much as lifting a hand, even as arrows fired in rapid succession hit my shield.
The guards’ screams eventually dwindle beyond us, but I hear them still in my mind, feel myself go stiff in Nox’s arms when he suggests dropping the shield.
As if my magic now bends to his will, the shield retreats despite my fears, and the woods return to the silence from mere moments before.
“Now can we go?” Daje asks, using his magic to extinguish our fire.
“I have something I need to do first,” Nox says, earning a frustrated word from his friend.
He kisses my forehead and begins to pull away before registering that I’m gripping his tunic, my fear-stricken eyes flicking up to his.
He gently cups both sides of my face, and I want to scream that I can’t let him out of my sight.
That even as terror begged me to run and leave him behind moments ago, now it has my feet rooted into the earth and is demanding that I keep him here with me.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he whispers, his face unguarded and open.
His touch on me is warm and firm. “I promise, Rhea.”
Reluctantly, I force my fingers to uncurl and release him, watching as he walks towards the guards, pulling shadows from the ground as he passes by. He uses them to gather the dead bodies, lifting them a few feet in the air to trail behind him.
“What the fuck,” Xander says under his breath, more statement than question.
We wait until Nox disappears behind the trees before we gather the horses and lead them to the road we’ve been traveling on.
There, I pace as I wait for Nox to return, stopping short every time I hear a twig crack.
It isn’t long before he emerges again; though, by then, the night has fully cloaked us in darkness only softened by a crescent moon.
Unable to help myself, I run my gaze over his body, confirming he is unharmed. Still, I ask, “Are you alright?”
At that, his serious demeanor fades, and he steps closer, gentle hands featherlight at my waist. “With you at my side? Always.” Then he lifts me onto the horse and mounts behind me, Xander and Daje mounting their own.
We ride out of the thickest part of the forest to a natural break in the trees, picking up our pace while staying off any roads that might get us spotted.
But as we ride, I keep glancing over my shoulder, paranoid that we’re being followed and also extremely curious as to what Nox did with the guards’ bodies.
“You know you can just ask me,” he says the fifth time I check behind us, and I pinch my lips together as I look up at him.
“I wasn’t sure if you wanted to share.”
“I want to share everything with you, even the things I’m afraid will shake your love for me. Because we promised each other honesty, didn’t we?”
My breaths are uneven as I stare into his darkened eyes. “We did.”
He nods, fingers flexing where they drape over my hip.
Thankfully, not the one with the brand. “I left King Dolian a message with the bodies. He can come for us, for you, but this time, there will be no hesitation in our response. There will be no holding back to spare those just following orders or because of my fear it will throw his kingdom in chaos if he is murdered.” The resolve in his voice is absolute as he adds, “I will slaughter his men as easily as I breathe, and I will do it over and over again to keep you safe.”
Words escape me at his declaration, but I slide my fingers over his, interlacing them as I force myself to relax against his chest. In the silence, with only the crunching of dead leaves beneath the horses’ hooves, I replay what he’s said in my mind.
And I wonder if safety will always be an illusion, an elusive idea that we are always running towards but never quite reaching.