by Stacy Reid
“I thought he killed you.”
“No.”
“Did you actually control him?”
“No…I am his mate, and because of it, he cannot harm me. I am not sure how long his protective instincts will last for.”
Shock and fear blasted at her before the witch controlled her emotions. “It will last forever.”
Shilah’s heart jerked with such force she felt light-headed. Pushing aside that worry for if they made it out alive, she asked for the spell and explained of their escape and the Darkan’s promise he would come for her was still intact. The witch agreed, and she pulled from her mind. Lachlan placed her on the ground and remove the shadow space from around her yet remained within its confines.
She turned to face everyone slowly coming to a halt, pushed out her power and connected them once again like a hive mind. “There are hundreds of warriors just ahead. There will be a fierce battle to escape the Empire, but I believe we can make it.”
Shocked murmurings floated on the air, with cries of denial and anger. Some tried to run back toward their cages, fearing the retaliation of the Empire. The sounds of stomping feet, jangling armors rumbled through the tunnel as the warriors ahead started coming at them.
“Please step from the shadows Lachlan Ravenswood,” Shilah said.
He complied, and a surge of fear filled those close enough to see. “We have a powerful ally who will help us win!” She did not believe it, but she needed them to feel anything but the rancid fear and horror filling her mind. He was just one man, and she already sensed his priority would be to get her to safety, not saving the quivering, battered souls before her.
“This man is Lachlan Ravenswood.” She fed to their mind his image as she spoke. “He is An Archduke of the Darkage and has sworn to help me as I help us escape.”
Their fears and horror amplified and swarmed their senses.
Shilah stumbled back from this, desperately connecting to the minds of everyone behind her.
“He will not hurt us.”
She waded through their jumbled, panicked thoughts.
“Yes, he is a Darkan…but he is my Darkan.” Her heart trembled when she felt the echoes of his amusement and pleasure at her absurd claim.
There was no calm in their minds, and the assault on her senses was becoming too much. Shards of glass seemed to be piercing her head with the effort to sort through their uncensored emotions. Yet Shilah could not give up, would not give up. How could she liberate millions from tyranny and save her people if she could not save these pitiful people before her? Grief welled up, enveloping her, driving away her logic and reason. “There are three hundred and nineteen of you escaping with me. Not one of you will die,” she promised, determination beating through her. “I am Lachlan Ravenswood’s mate, and he has vowed to lay the world at my feet…and he will start with this piece of the Empire.”
Kala cried out her denial. The air in the room thickened to a black malevolence and savage satisfaction burned along her senses. A flood of violence and depravity stormed into her as the blackest of charka swirled around him. Palpable might and brutality emanated from Lachlan, and with a sinuous twist, the tattoo on his skin curled around his body.
Her sister flinched, her lips forming but no word emanating. Shilah faced him, a desperate fear in her urging her to take back the words, that there were unimaginable consequences to her plight to save these people but could not.
The warriors in the distance started running towards them, and she felt the people at her back braced for the brutal attack. She spared them no attention, centering her powers into the deep still well inside and pushing out the largest kinetic protective barrier around the people behind her. The blue glow of that aura rushed over their heads until it covered everyone in a barrier of cracking energy.
Lachlan tilted back his head and inhaled. Then a pulse of raw savagery and bloodthirst came from him as the tattoo of the Leviathan twisted off his skin and appeared before her. Shilah screamed at the wave of darkness and death that leaked from it.
Rage flooded Shilah, consuming her with the need to kill, to fill the terrible emptiness. She slapped a hand to her forehead, fighting to separate the demon’s beast essence from hers. The link had to be severed. Her head was splintering, fragmenting as the pressure increased. An ugly, twisting darkness poured through Lachlan to her as the need to bloodlet lit in his veins creating an inferno, one that blazed inside creating an unrelenting need to kill.
Somehow, she created a shield along their entwined threads, and it was only then she could breathe. This…this was more than she could understand. And she had aligned herself to him at her peril. Her throat ached as the implication of the depth of trouble she stood in resounded.
That monster’s head shifted. His pitiless eyes slid over her, making her flesh crawl, but with a sensual heat, revulsion and desire pulsed through her in equal measure. Lachlan’s beast revealed itself, towering over her at least ten feet tall, the head was dragon-like with a massive maw with serried rows of pointed teeth. The body was pitch black, except for the massive ridges running from its head down to its scale. Those were made from the most beautiful scales of green, purple, yellow and red. It stood upon four legs, muscled with rope-like sinews, and ending in feet with curved talons that gleamed like polished silver scimitars. The beast’s long pointed tail lashed in its eagerness to kill, its serpent eyes were pitiless in their barbarity, yet the creature was absolutely exquisite in its sheer savagery. Lachlan himself appeared as darkness. Charka roiled around him like the blackest of smoke, and the wall of energy she felt rising inside him was unfathomable.
Heart pounding, tasting fear in her mouth, she braced, not sure what to expect.
“Kill.”
The command burned along their link to the monster, and the beast screamed its triumph. Darkness descended, and Shilah could not see anything. Cries of fear and pain echoed through the tunnels, and the psychic overload had her doubling over. The terrible pressure in her head increased so that for a moment her head felt as if it might explode.
“What is happening?”
Her whispered entreaty was met with implacable silence from Lachlan. Only cries of terror and pain. Sound waves whistled through the narrow corridor and battered at the psychokinetic shield. Then as soon as the attack started, it ended, and the darkness relented.
Shilah stared. And then stared some more. She started to tremble violently.
Dozens of fallen warriors littered the floor. Hundreds of them and all by the hands of Lachlan Ravenswood and his beast. She glanced toward his direction and flinched. He was coated in blood, and thankfully the beast that had originated from the tattoo embracing his body was not in sight.
But she could feel the malevolence ahead.
The walls of the tunnel rumbled and shook with such force she cried out and leaned against one of its walls.
“What is happening?” she demanded.
“Come, mate, your power is needed.”
Without her seeing him move, somehow, she reached for his arms and was by the beast. Its massive form was burrowing through the wall of the dungeon, breaking apart rocks and creating a tunnel leading through the earth. She was lowered to her feet.
Shilah’s heartbeat thundered, and her blood roared in her ears as adrenaline pumped through her body. She was too close to the monster, the waves of malevolence pouring a sentient aura that rolled with sinuous intent toward her. “What do you need me to do?” she asked shakily, doing her best to not look directly at the monster which was staring at her unflinchingly.
“You will use your telekinesis and crumble the earth.”
“I am an Alpha in that genesis, a mere fledgling. I cannot bring down a lone castle much less a mountainous rock!”
At his lack of response, she glanced up into cold eyes that seemed to judge and found her lacking. Its notion stung and gritting her teeth she moved over to the dungeon wall and pressed her hand against it. Shilah dipped into the well of her p
ower and blasted at the rocks with her mind. There was a rumble as if the earth was alive and groaning its protest at her attempts. The ceiling above her shook and dirt drizzled onto her face.
Hundreds of stomping feet came from above, and she identified that more warriors were running along the maze-like corridors to stop them. The Leviathan battered at the gigantic rock, its enormous body and power digging through and creating a massive hole. The undertaking seemed impossible, for the beast would need to create a tunnel that spanned for miles to deposit them onto the surface. How could they do it in time, and before the general and his elite army reached them?
“You will do it or die in this dungeon, mate.”
Shock stole her tongue for several seconds then she firmed her resolve. Now was not the time to hesitate and she should have known this without his brutal reminder. She took a breath, released it, and let herself find that place deep inside where there was only stillness. Digging into the well of her power, she pushed with all her might at the rock wall. An ominous groan vibrated through the walls, and the entire earth dipped and rolled. Shouts of alarm echoed from the captives waiting far behind them in the corridors.
Power ran through her body and with it, confidence. Shilah blasted kinetic energy at the earth, a piercing scream escaping her as something she’d never felt before rushed through her. The wash of power felt dark, unlike her, and she belatedly realized the monster had connected to her and poured his dark energy along their neural connection.
The boulder cracked. She felt the fissure as the earthquake erupted. The walls of the tunnel exploded, the ceiling crumbled, and ahead, the Leviathan was like a massive scaled snake roiling through the now loosened soil of the inner walls with unparalleled speed through the terrain toward freedom.
Screams of fear and pain echoed from behind her as the roof of the tunnel came down in a hail of rocks and dirt beating against the protective barrier she’d formed. Her barrier wavered under the onslaught, because she was unable to maintain it while pushing all her energy into the quake rocking and breaking the terrane ahead, and she could see cracks spreading along the thin shield she’d constructed.
The screams intensified, and their fear rose suffocatingly into the dark tunnels flooding her senses. And through it all, Lachlan Ravenswood stood and watched her, a silent predator, yet she felt the strength of his charka pouring to her through their link.
Releasing the wall, she stumbled back, and he clasped her from behind. The trembling of the cavern stopped, and for a moment there was a hush, broken only by the gasping breaths of the those trapped beneath the rubble.
“I have to help them,” she said hoarsely, pushing from him and running back toward the captives. “My sister…Kala!”
Lachlan whirled and dissolved in a rush of fleeing shadows, and before Shilah could process what was happening, she stood outside of the crumbled tunnels and in the cold refreshing air. Only seconds passed before her sister, and the Queen’s Blades appeared beside her. Kala rushed into her arms, and they hugged fiercely before releasing each other. They glanced around dazedly to the gaping hole in the side of what was now evidently a mountain.
“How is this possible?” Kamu murmured, staring as dozens of prisoners appeared in bursts from the shadows until all stood behind them. “I’ve heard of the powers of Darkans, of how they controlled the shadows and darkness, but I’ve never understood the depth of their might.”
And the yellow-green hue of fear burned along his aura.
“And our princess has bounded herself to one,” Thyon said, a bitter curve to his lips.
“Be grateful you’ve escaped the dungeons. Does it matter if it was at the hand of a Darkan?” The reprimand in her tone was clear but, in their eyes, showed instinctive fear, and something crafty lingered. Shilah hoped they did not do anything foolish.
The captives appeared confused, stumbling with exhaustion and hunger, squinting their streaming eyes, and staring into the sky. The young girl Raven cried out and stumbled over to a woman and younger girl who clasped her into a fierce hug. They babbled and hugged each other, tears streaming down their faces. Another lady dropped to her knees and started to wail, and then she kissed the grass on the ground. Brushing against her mind, Shilah learned she’d been a captive for two years, and her crime had been to reject the advances of a General in the army for she had been married and loved her life partner.
Merciful gods. How cruel of the empire.
Lachlan appeared at her side, black swirls of charka floating along his body. His beast had been called back to his body, for the tattoo was once again painted on his skin, except the beast was now positioned differently, and she swore the eyes shifted on his skin, following her. Then right before her eyes, red stripes burned his skin like fire, and though his lips did not move, a hiss of pain echoed along their link.
She stared at him, not understating. She could see his chakra flowing and twisting through his aura, the blue churning, as the black separated from it. Then his aura contracted into small balls with the darkest of energy, embedded at the center of the blue light.
“What is happening?” she asked faintly.
“The darkness cannot face the light.”
Her breath sawed from her throat as she took in the changes wrought in his body. She realized the dark malevolence of the beast hid in the blue light of his natural aura. She glanced at the sun, wondering at the power it held over his kind, then she glanced back at him. He looked as dangerous and primal as she knew he was, but somehow less petrifying. His eyes had lost their serpentine cast and multi colors, only a heated tawny gold stared at her. The claws had retracted from his fingertips, and the wicked curve of his canines had receded. His body still rippled with power, but the tattoo had stopped shifting across his skin.
“Are you saying you’ve lost your powers?”
A small smile tipped his lips, and she blinked. He was even more impossibly beautiful.
His gaze was a piercing caress she couldn’t evade. “Worried about me, princess?” His voice was smooth and sensual without the overlay of menace from his beast.
Her breath strangled at the amused taunt in his eyes, before his lids lowered. The man before her now seemed much more than a monster. He was still unapologetically brutal, but now there was a hint of something mysterious and seductive, and her entire body flushed and ached.
Shifting away from him she stared out at the waiting force, which numbered in the thousands. How could they survive such a force when he had no access to his demon’s power? She glanced in the sky at the red hue, sensing the sun would soon sink, but by then it would be too late.
In the far distance, a flash of light so bright it hurt her eyes shot into the air. And with a sense of shock, she recognized the aura of the Phoenyx.
“So, this is the power of the Phoenyx,” he said contemplatively while exuding acknowledgment and challenge along their link. “There is a battle in the Taryllion at the section between Mevia’s and Nuria’s borders.”
“Yes, that power is from King Ajali’s Phoenyx,” she said softly. “And from the soundwaves trembling on the air, he fights Mevian warriors. I had wondered how the grand general wasn’t here with this force to capture me. King Ajali and whatever he fights to defend is a greater force.” And she suspected the female who housed the Dracan the Emperor coveted could be what the king fought for. It warmed something inside Shilah to know that he would battle for her similar to how she had done for him when the empire tried to capture him.
“The empire is confident these warriors before us can retrieve you. They did not count on me. I am of the shadows and darkness. I am a force they cannot comprehend.”
She glanced up at him with a terrible fascination, unable to take her eyes off his expression of ruthless purpose.
He looked away from her. “There are two choices, mate.”
She shifted her gaze to assessed where he stared. Mist veiled the mountainous horizon and crept into the deep forest below them, and beyond the
tree lines, thousands of warriors waited, their bronze armor shining under the sun. Her heart stuttered. “And those choices are?”
“I take you now into the shadows, and we leave for my Kingdom.”
Her breath rushed from her lungs in a long gasp. “The realm of the shadow demons?” she asked, recalling every rumor she had heard whispered in the empire the three months she had been inside its walls.
“I will only take you, your sister, the Queen’s guards, and the witch.”
Shilah stiffened, understanding dawning. The captives would be on their own. “They’d gained no true liberation. Once we leave them here…they will be lambs waiting to be slaughtered or recaptured. They are weak and unable to fight. If they run, they will be hunted and found.”
A thundering sound rend the false tranquility, and the warriors waiting on the horizon flashed toward them, their speed making them a blur. Her stomach knotted for they would reach them in only a few minutes and the slaughter would begin. The wind started to increase in strength, and dark clouds drifted overhead. The frantic murmurings subsided as the people behind her spied the wave of warriors flashing toward them. The despair that rose in the air almost choked her, but she sensed their determination to fight, even at the cost of their lives.
“Can you take them into the shadows and hide them from the empire?”
“How long can they hide in the shadows,” he said flatly. “The emperor has a record of every prisoner in his dungeon. If they flee to the comfort of their home, they will only be retrieved.”
She hadn’t thought that far ahead, only the need to take them from that terrible place had burned in her veins. But had she just brought them to meet another death or imprisonment once again?
“Perhaps we could keep them in the shadow space until I come up with a plan.” Her heart felt heavy with grief and failure, for she could see no foreseeable way to save these people.
“There are three Darkans in the shadows ahead. They are coming our way.”
She wanted to scream her frustration to the sky. She took a breath, even though her lungs could barely drag in air. “I assume they are not with you.”
