I roll my eyes. “Fine. Thank you.” I’m caught by a yawn then, and even as I try to hide it, my jaw stretches wide.
“I’ll let you rest.” He pushes himself up and away, but I grab his arm, stopping him.
“Will you stay?”
“I promised not to let you out of my sight, remember? I’m not going anywhere.”
Sleep is already claiming me again. I want to ask him to hold me, but I don’t. I can’t. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“You’re not. Whatever you went through, whatever you saw, you weren’t alone then, and you aren’t now.”
Images flash in my head again, like they did before. “I’m not sure what I saw. Who I was. I was being chased. I kept changing.” I shake my head, trying to get a clear image. “It hurt, like Brigid said it would.”
“And now? Does it still hurt?”
“No.” I shake my head again. “No.” I pull my thoughts back from images I can’t recall, no matter how hard I try. I’m suddenly very tired. “I’m fine. I just… I can’t remember.”
His hand rests gently on my head. “Sleep, Kendry. I’ll be here.”
I do sleep.
Consciousness comes with a knock on the door. It’s not really functional consciousness, though. It’s that moment of total disorientation when your body is starting to wake up, and nothing really makes sense. I hear voices that my sluggish brain isn’t ready to identify. The knock is the only thing I can actually identify with any degree of even partial certainty, at least until the low rumbling coalesces into Axel’s voice. But words are beyond me. Waking up is slow.
The quiet returns, and I’m fading back into sleep when the edge of my bed sinks. It takes me a moment to process that someone must have sat down on it, and another few moments to actually get my eyes to open.
“Hey, you.”
Pushing my way out of sleep is like trying to swim in molasses. Shelly hands me a cup of water, and that helps. At least it untangles my tongue. “Hey, Shelly.”
She smiles, and helps me sit up. “How do you feel?”
I grunt. “Like someone drugged me and dumped me in an alley.”
“Oh, that good, huh?”
“Yeah. That good.” I glance around the room, realizing we’re alone. “Where’d Axel go?”
Shelly squeezes my hand. “He’s outside. I thought you might want some girl time.”
“Thanks.” I’m finally waking up enough to smile and return the hand squeeze. “How are you?”
“I’m good. Better, knowing you’re okay. The boys and I have been worried.”
It’s a nice reminder that I’m not alone. I didn’t come here alone, and I haven’t lost them, just because I may or may not be different now.
And I still don’t know if I am.
“So…what’s it like?”
I have to laugh, but it takes a lot of energy. Still, it feels good. “What’s what like? Being a demi?” I pick at the light blanket still covering my legs. “Honestly, I don’t know if I am. I don’t feel any different.”
She squeezes my hand again. “Give it time. Caleb said nobody’s done this in a long time. Apparently nobody knows what to expect, because it’s different for everyone.”
“Yeah.” I take a deep breath and laugh a little. “I’d settle for not being exhausted right now.”
“I bet.” Shelly scoots back so she’s against the foot of the bed. “So that morning at breakfast…”
I grunt. “It feels like forever ago.”
“It kind of was,” she laughs.
“Good point.” My smile as I remember is kind of sideways. “I’d only found out who Dad was the day before, when I met the Council. God, that was a day. Found out my father really was not only alive, but one of the most powerful demis in existence, got attacked on the way back to my room, and then, to top it all off, Axel kissed me.”
“What?” I wince at her shriek, but that doesn’t stop her. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me before now!”
I raise my hands in mock defense. “I’ve been a little busy!”
“No excuse! You’re my only girl friend, Kendry. You can’t hold out on me like that!” Her grin is wide across her face. “Now spill. I want all the sordid details.”
I shake my head and grin. “It was amazing. You know the kind of take-charge kiss every girl secretly dreams of? So that.”
She squeals, bouncing the bed, and I laugh at her excitement. “Okay, okay, you have to tell me everything. From the beginning. How did it happen?”
I tell her about the attack, about the storm, and standing in the rain praying he was okay. “It was terrifying. I couldn’t see anything but the storm. And then suddenly there he is, dripping wet and pinning me to the wall with a kiss that was almost as good as sex. God, it practically was sex.”
“I am so jealous right now.”
I blush, and then my face falls. “Yeah, well. He’s standing there shirtless and dripping wet, kissing the hell out of me, and says he wants to take me to bed, and I’m all ‘Hell yeah!’ Because seriously, it was the only thing I could think about. And then he tucks me in, and walks away. Next morning, it’s business as usual, like nothing happened!”
Shelly’s mouth shuts with an audible click. She stares at me for a minute, and then lunges for the door. “I don’t care if he is some immortal protector. I’m gonna kill him.”
I grab for her, laughing. “I know, I know. I was ready to kill him, too. But we argued about it after breakfast, and there’s something else going on.” My face turns pleading as she settles back down. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Oh, honey…” She moves to my end of the bed and shoves me over, before sitting and wrapping me up in a hug. “You really like him, don’t you?”
I nod, afraid that if I answer, I’ll start crying.
“Maybe you should grab him and kiss him.” We both laugh at that, but it turns into a yawn that I can’t stop. “You need to sleep. I shouldn’t have woken you up.”
I shake my head and yawn again. “I’m glad you did. I missed you.”
Shelly hugs me again, and tucks me back in, fussing over me. “I’ll tell Axel to make sure he lets me know when you’re mobile again. Okay?”
“Definitely.”
I’m already half asleep when she leaves, which means I only sort of register Axel coming back in. I smile at the touch of his fingers on my face, but I’m not actually sure if it’s real, or if it’s a dream.
*
I wake to shattering glass and cruel laughter. Hard, rough hands grab my feet, dragging me. The bed flies out from under me, but it’s not the bed flying, it’s me. And then I’m not flying either, because the wall has suddenly gotten in the way. I smash into it with only a moment to protect my head, and it doesn’t work so well. The impact blasts through my head, radiating bright flashes as my body crumples. Even as the ringing in my ears fades, before clarity comes, I hear other noises. The oddly muted sounds of a fight. Stone on stone on stone. Crashing. The hammering of stone fists. But distant, all of it.
Clarity comes like the breaking snap of a heavy elastic band. My vision takes longer to clear than my hearing, so I don’t see the bed smashing. Or the wardrobe, but I hear them. I don’t see who lands in front of me, but I feel their hands grab my hair. I do hear the shattering of wood, and the grunt that comes from stone bodies flying into things. And I feel stone hands dig into my scalp, ripping at my hair. I feel my bare feet scrape across the floor.
I feel myself flung across the room again, the hand in my hair ripping away. The pain in my scalp, the pain from rolling into debris and another wall.
And I hear Axel’s roar.
My vision finally clears enough to see two grey bodies rocket out the balcony doors, wings outstretched. The room around me is in tatters, hardly recognizable. More noises come from outside, but I’m struggling to place them. My head is still spinning. I push myself up, trying to stand, trying to clear my head enough to move. I know I have a concussion. I hi
t the wall too hard. I can’t clear myself.
Roaring and screeching outside. I still can’t place the other sounds. Too much going on, and I can’t focus. My head is absolutely pounding.
The stone beneath me shudders as heavy feet land. I can’t even roll over. I try to gather myself, try to muster enough strength to defend myself. But my head won’t work with me. Won’t focus. It’s drifting, wandering foreign corridors while I watch helpless. In panic. As footsteps approach.
Hands reach out to touch me. Gentle hands. Not the hands I dread, but the hands I dream about. I want to sob with relief.
“God, Kendry, I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I wasn’t fast enough.”
No, I want to say, it’s not your fault. Instead I fail to stop the tears. I’m too muddled. He wraps me up in his arms, lifting me from the floor I couldn’t leave on my own. Movement proves to be too much for me. My too-disturbed mind fades back to black.
*
Everything is so much clearer when I resurface. Well, my head is clearer. I haven’t got a clue what happened, though.
“How do you feel?” Danu is standing over me. We’re in a different room, one not torn apart and broken. There’s no window here, only the door Axel is leaning against, wings tucked tight behind him, his face hard.
It takes me a moment to find words. After all, I did get thrown into a stone wall. Twice. “Good, I think. Better, at least. Things are staying put the way they should.” I sit up, looking at Axel. His eyes follow me, too. “My head still hurts though,” I add with a wince.
“Sorry, Kendry,” Danu says with a shake of her head. “Healings only go so far, and you’ve had too many these last few days. Add that to the change, and…” she shrugs.
“No kidding. I’m happy enough to have my brains unscrambled. Thank you.”
Danu smiles. “You’re family. And until you manifest, you’re going to be a bit more fragile.” She says this last with a glance at Axel. “I’ll leave you alone.”
I watch her go, Axel holding the door for her. He closes it softly, eyes downcast.
“What happened?”
The muscles in his jaw clench and unclench. “I let you down. Again.”
“Axel—”
“No, Kendry! At every turn, every time it counted, I’ve failed at the only thing that matters!” The anguish on his face is tearing at my heart, but he won’t let me near him. He paces, instead, keeping me at a distance. “I am a guardian! And every time I fail to guard you, I risk losing the most important thing in my life!”
I freeze at the implication of his words.
“I should have known the window was a mistake. I shouldn’t have been alone with you.” Stone hands run through stone hair, and when he speaks again, it’s quiet. “There were too many of them for me. He almost killed you.”
“But he didn’t, Axel. I’m fine.” I’m begging him to listen. I can’t handle this Axel, the one who doubts himself. “I’m fine.”
“You’re fine? Then why are you wincing with every step?” He turns away, leaning into the wall.
“I’ll be fine, then. Headaches go away.”
“Kendry, you heard Danu!” Now his voice is begging me, and when he turns, so are his eyes. “Healings can only do so much, and you’ve had too many. You’ve hit your limit. The next time, she might not be able to fix you.”
“Axel, it’s alright! You have been there, every time. You’ve saved me, every time. I would’ve been dead so many times over if you hadn’t been there!”
Axel slides to the ground, and for the first time since I’ve known him, I see tears in his eyes.
I didn’t know gargoyles could cry.
I sink to my knees a few feet from him, crawling the rest of the way. I can’t stand to see him hurt so much. My thumb gently brushes away a tear as it slides down his smooth stone cheek. When his hand catches mine, I realize I’m crying too.
“I should never have let your father convince me…”
“Stop it.” My voice is hard, and it hurts to hear it. “I know you have a past. I know something happened, and your last charge died.” I hesitate, suddenly remembering something Grittanus said. “You’re better than this, Axel. And I’m pretty sure you were set up last time.”
He freezes. “What do you mean?”
I shake my head, and then wince. “Something Grittanus said. About how you should have been his to destroy last time. The way he said it, it was like he had something to do with your charge falling. It’s not your fault.”
Rage flashes over his face, followed by sadness. “Kendry, I…”
A series of heavy thuds shake the castle. “What’s going on?” I ask, as his grip on my hand tightens.
“They broke through our air defenses. The remaining gargoyles, the gryphons, dragons, the jabberwocks, sphinxes... Anyone who can fly is out fighting to keep them off us. My guess is they’re dropping large rocks on the roof,” he adds as another few thuds sound.
I push up, wishing I could curl up with him instead. “What are we doing here, then? Why aren’t we helping?”
“Kendry—” he starts, but I know what his tone means.
It’s my turn to protest.
“No. I won’t hide while the future of everything is on the line.” I’m standing up as I argue, and as he tries to pull me back. “I may not be the powerful demi everyone expected, but I won’t stand by while others fight. If Buc’s got another gun, I can at least shoot. You know I can do that.”
He stares at me from the floor, and I know he wants to say no, to lock me away. But Dad was right. Ben Franklin was right. Freedom requires the sacrifice of safety, and it requires it over and over again.
I think he sees it in my eyes, because his jaw clenches once again, and then he’s up, towering over me. “Are you sure you’re up for this? You haven’t exactly been awake much.”
I nod. Aside from the headache, this is the best I’ve felt in days. I’m awake, and feeling full of fire.
“Just keep them off me.”
He swallows hard, like he’s swallowing his arguments, and then he nods, and we’re off.
*
It turns out Buc has a lot more guns. We’re fortunate enough to catch him heading to his workshop, but I’m caught at the entry by the sight of what’s inside. He grins at my slack-jawed staring. I think my eyes might even be bugging out of my head. I’m guessing his workshop is an extension of the castle armory. Or maybe it is the castle armory. Whatever it is, it’s wall-to-wall firepower. Most of them look modified, too. He’s even got a machine shop for customizing and making his own ammo.
“Bloody hell, Buc. How long have you been stockpiling these?”
He snorts. “Oh, at least the last two hundred years. Since the old armory at Harper’s Ferry closed, really. Eighteen-somethin’-or-other. Figured they might come in handy at some point. Been making my own ammo longer than that.”
I shake my head. “I’m going to have to come back and admire some other time. What’ve you got that’ll work for me? Long-range, preferably.”
He snorts, obviously mulling over the decision, and is just about to speak when another voice interrupts.
“Give her this one, Buc.”
The voice, deeper even than Buc’s, belongs to second minotaur. His fur is the color of dark chocolate, not red like Buc, and he has one broken horn. The rifle he’s holding is solid black, with a long-range scope, a fluted muzzle break, and a pistol grip with a modified stock. It’s slim and sleek, and love at first sight.
“Hm.” Buc snorts again, and takes the rifle. “Sam, you’re a genius. This is perfect.”
The other minotaur laughs. “I know. You tell me every night.”
I cross my arms and give Buc my best you’re-in-trouble look. “Are you going to introduce us? Or keep fondling that rifle I’m itching to get my fingers on?”
Buc suddenly goes shy. “Well, Kendry, this is—”
“Sam Houston.” He extends a hand that engulfs mine. Minotaurs don’t have hoove
s, unless they want to. Most of the time, they have thick hands with short, stubby fingers. “Pleasure to meet you, Kendry.”
I smile and give him a sharp look, pointing back and forth between them. “You two aren’t…”
Sam winks like only a minotaur can. “Together. Yep. You’d think after a few hundred years, he’d stop being embarrassed about me.”
“I’m not embarrassed, you big oaf. Aw, hell.” Buc gives Sam a rough shove, but I can see the affection in his big brown bull eyes. “Shut up and let me give her this gun, already.”
Finally. “Buc...” His smile gets wider. “Is that what it looks like?”
“You bet your ass it is,” he says with a wink. “She’s a .338, started out life as a Savage 110BA. Ought to be heavy enough for you to do some damage. I fitted it with a holographic scope, and a much larger mag. Original only held ten.” He pulls out the mag clip, which definitely has more than ten bullets. “You’ve got thirty, and they’re my special ammo, too.”
Sam clears his throat, and Buc rolls his eyes. “Our special ammo.”
Holy hell, it must be my birthday, I think, taking the rifle from him, and winking at Sam.
He leaves me trying not to drool on it, while Sam points out modifications they’ve made. When Buc comes back, it’s with a great big box that he hands to Axel. “Ammo,” he says with another wink. “You should have more than enough to do some damage.”
I’m not sure which of us is grinning more.
*
Axel takes me to the highest floors of the castle. The farther up we go, the louder it gets. We stick to the interior routes, not wanting to attract attention from the attacking paras. This isn’t really the type of gun you fire in close-quarters. Buc did send me with a few smaller ones, for when the ammo runs out, but getting to them while carrying his beast of a gun would be problematic. And Axel’s carrying all my ammo.
When we finally emerge, blinking into the daylight, we’re greeted by utter chaos. I’m grateful for the sunglasses Sam passed me before I left the shop. They make the chaos bearable.
Every type of winged para I could imagine covers the sky above us, diving, clawing at each other. I suddenly realize I have no idea how I’m supposed to know who’s on what side. Below us, it’s the same story. The land surrounding the castle is swarming with paras. They’re everywhere. I had no idea there were so many in the castle. Or have they brought in reinforcements? It wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve been out of it for a while.
ParaWars Uprising Page 16
