Chapter 18 #2
I gathered half of my shadows back to me and swept them around us, concealing our party as my instincts whispered to me, warning me that something was not right.
Malachi closed ranks with me, drawing two short blades from the sheaths at his waist, and Morden stopped staring at the ghostly world around us to move in beside Saphira, guarding her other side.
When we rounded a clump of trees, Saphira gasped and froze, and I swiftly shifted behind her and covered her mouth when I spotted what she had, muffling the cry that burst from her and keeping her silent.
And with me.
Her distress seeped into me, scouring my insides raw as I held her close, and the scent of her tears and the feel of them against my palm tormented me as I looked at the barn on the green.
At the two people bound to thick wooden poles outside it.
Her parents.
Both were bare, as if they had been stripped—or had shifted and been caught and hauled back to their captors. Thick ropes wrapped around them, covering their hips and cutting across their chest and ankles too, pinning their arms to their sides.
Her mother hung limp, head slumped forwards, pale blonde hair obscuring her face. Cuts crisscrossed her stomach below her breasts, and blood caked her right arm and matted her hair on that side.
Her father…
The male had been beaten, his face bruised and swollen, and blood stained his dark blond hair and his bare chest, seeping from deep gashes that looked fresh. He was lucid, dark eyes flickering between his mate and his enemies.
Several males threw stones and other things at him as they passed, and he flinched with each hurled object or vile words that hit him.
Saphira breathed hard against my palm, her heart thundering against my chest as I caged her in my arms, keeping her with me, stopping her from obeying that instinct I knew ruled her now because it had ruled me once too.
She wanted to run to them, to help them, even when doing so would only get her killed.
I drew down slow breaths as I murmured in her ear, “Calm, Saphi. Calm. Nothing will happen to them. We shall see to it. Calm.”
She shook her head and wrestled against my hold, frantic as she bucked and twisted, and even sank her blunt teeth into my palm. I held on to her, weathering her desperate fury, unwilling to release her while she was liable to shift and run headlong into danger.
“Calm, my little wolf. You will bathe your fangs with his blood soon enough. He shall pay for this.” I stroked a hand down her arm, repeating the motion, and slowly she relaxed in my arms, until her breathing was steady again and she was still and calm.
My attempts to soothe her and make her listen to reason had worked.
Or she was only giving me what I wanted, tricking me with her compliance so I would release her.
She tried to speak, her voice muffled by my palm.
I risked lowering it from her face.
“We’re not rushing in there.” She jerked her chin towards her parents. “It’ll get them killed.”
I looked there and spied what she had.
The bodyguard.
The big dark-haired wolf stood sentinel beside her father, a makeshift spear pointed at his throat, a threat that had the male going as still as a statue when another male came up beside her unconscious mother and held a sword to her side.
If anyone went blazing into the town now, there was a high chance one or both of them would be killed.
But if two of us were to teleport inside and catch them off guard.
I glanced at Malachi, gauging his thoughts on the matter with just a look into his eyes and that subtle shake of his head.
It was three against one. I did not need to check with Morden to know that.
Even if I used my shadows and went in alone, the risk was too great. If I were not fast enough, one of her parents would die. She would never forgive me.
“Let me bring men,” I breathed as I risked releasing her, needing her to see in my eyes how badly I wanted to help her. It would only take me a matter of hours to raise her an army.
Hours.
It was too much to ask her to wait that long.
If it had been my parents there, I would not have wanted to wait a minute let alone an hour or longer to save them.
She shook her head, resolve I did not like filling her eyes, one that hollowed out my chest together with that small smile she offered me as the four words that left her lips cut me like blades.
“I can do this.”
I firmly shook my head. “No. It is too dangerous.”
“I can do this. I won’t be alone. If I go, the attention will move away from my parents. I can buy them time. Buy us time.”
I nodded and glanced at Malachi, who received my silent command and opened a portal beneath his boots, gracefully dropping into it to return to the Shadow Court to muster a small contingent of men.
My gaze lingered on the black abyss in the grass as it slowly closed, my blood growing cold at the thought Saphira’s wits and courage, and my speed might be all that stood between me and losing her now.
I was not sure how long it would take Malachi to return.
I shifted my gaze to Saphira, not hiding my fears as she looked up into my eyes.
She unbuckled the belt that held her dagger, carefully wrapped the leather strap around the scabbard and stared at it a moment, a strange and disconcerting look in her eyes, before she held it out to me with a small smile.
“Take care of this for me?”
I placed my hands over hers, absorbing their warmth and the softness of her, battling the urge to grip her tightly and keep her with me as I slowly dipped my head. “It would be my honour.”
“Promise to keep it safe?” Her hands trembled slightly beneath mine.
I squeezed them. “I shall guard it with my life.”
I was not talking about just the dagger now. As precious as it was to her, she was more precious to me. I would not allow anything to happen to her.
“I’ll be careful. I’ll be clever. I won’t do anything risky.
I’ll try to buy as much time as I can.” That look in her eyes warned that if she saw an opportunity though, an opening to strike Lucas down and free her pack without a battle, she would take it.
She placed her hand on my arm, her touch light and her blue gaze soft with understanding.
“I won’t ask you to do nothing if I’m in danger, because I know if our roles were reversed, it would kill me…
so I won’t ask that of you, but instead I will ask that you trust that I can do this.
I can play a role as well as you do, and I can find a way to turn the tide in our favour.
I can get him alone and Braxton away from my parents and we can end this. ”
She lingered, fear in her eyes.
“But if things go badly, I wouldn’t be too mad if you saved me.”
I placed my hand over her heart. “It would be my pleasure.”
She smiled and kissed me, slow and leisurely, warming me right down to the coldest reaches of my soul and making me greedy for more. I held her close as I kissed her, savouring the moment and pushing the thought it might be our last from my mind.
Saphira was strong.
And I would not be far.
Ready to step in should she need me.
She slowly withdrew, as if she was as reluctant for this moment to end as I was, and nodded. “I can do this.”
I nodded and swept my fingers across her cheek, holding her gaze, deeply aware she needed to hear my next words now more than ever.
“You are strong, Saphira. You are brave, and you can do this. If you fear, remember I am here. I am the shadows. I am wrath. I am a blade you can wield. If you need me, summon me and I will be there.”
She pressed another brief kiss to my lips.
Then turned away from me.
All softness and warmth gone from her voice.
Her tone as cold as ice and dark as midnight as she snarled.
“Lucas will die by my fangs.”
That cold viciousness thrilled me.
Even as the concern within my heart grew.
As bewitching as this darker side of her was, I worried what change might take place in her should she kill someone, that I might lose my beautiful little wolf to that darkness.
The urge to try one last time to convince her to let me go in her stead was strong, but I denied it, respecting her wishes and her strength, and her need to do this.
But the goddess help anyone who dared lay a finger on her.
I would see them dead.