by Ashley West
He knew that nothing in this district had been used since before Plintos’ father had been made king, and it was all old and derelict, dusty, and grimy with disuse.
So, of course, the perfect place for the Triptherus to hang out.
The blade illuminated the inside of the building as they walked in, and he glanced around, seeing old machinery and parts littering the floor as well as other Triptherus crouched in the shadows of larger pieces scattered around.
None of them moved, but their black eyes were wide as they took him in, following his progress. Draco didn’t see Stephanie anywhere until he shone the light into a corner and there she was, curled up on what looked like an old tarp. She glanced up when the light touched her, shading her eyes and then gasping softly.
“Draco!”
More than anything he wanted to drop the blade and wrap his arms around her, but he held firm. “You’re safe. You’re okay. Thank the creators,” he said. “You need to run, Steph.”
She got to her feet and nodded, and Draco could see that she was dirty and that there were tear tracks on her face. He could only imagine what it had been like for her in the dark of this place with the Triptherus hissing jibes at her and keeping her pinned to the spot with the feeling of them watching her in the darkness.
It made him angry, and he narrowed his eyes, feeling warmth and power seeping into him from the blade.
“She doesn’t leave until we have it,” said one of the creatures from behind him, and Draco whipped around and stabbed forward, inhaling sharply when he felt the blade stab deep into flesh.
The light from the blade threw the whole thing into bright, grim relief as dark blood oozed from the wounded Triptherus before he jerked back and fell to the floor.
For a moment, no one did anything. Even Stephanie seemed too nervous to move. And then three things happened in quick succession.
The first thing was the blade began to vibrate and hum, and Draco could feel it all the way to his teeth as power and sensation raced through his body.
The second thing was the Triptherus around them started screeching. Each picking up a sort of rallying cry for the one laying fallen at Draco’s feet. The screeching and the hum of the blade filled Draco’s ears until he wanted to block it all out, but he couldn’t have let go of the blade if he’d wanted to, the power and energy holding him rooted to the spot.
The final thing was the sound of marching footsteps approaching, the calvary came at last.
But things kept happening.
The blade grew so bright that Draco had to squint his eyes and the screeching grew louder and then, as if by magic or some clarion call, first the sheath flew out of one of the few remaining pockets of darkness, sliding to cover the blade, plunging them back into inky blackness.
Draco had two seconds to panic frantically before something cold and hard was forming under his fingers and he dropped the blade. the strange energy releasing him all at once.
He swore under his breath and then dropped to his knees, fingers scrambling to try and find cool metal before one of the Triptherus found it.
Luckily, Plintos chose that moment to burst in, a glowing ball of light in his hand that he threw into the room. It wasn’t a bright glow, but apparently each of the guards had one, too, and they all threw them, lighting the place up.
Draco could see that the blade was just in front of him, a Triptherus inches from it. Without thinking he dove for it, fingers closing around the gilded hilt and yanking it back.
With the sound of metal on metal he drew it from its sheath, the weapon whole and complete as he got to his feet.
Everyone stared for a moment at Cillidan’s weapon reformed, and then Draco was like a man possessed. That power came back with a vengeance, filling him to bursting and making him move from his spot.
It seemed that when the room had gone dark, one of the Triptherus had made its way closer to Stephanie, standing behind her with its mouth open wide. She glanced up at it, and before she could scream, Draco was there, slashing at the creature and rendering it dead in two smooth moves, even though he’d never used a sword before.
With that, the battle had begun in earnest.
Draco pulled Stephanie behind him and barked an order for her to keep her back to the wall. Triptherus poured out of the far door that led deeper into the shuttle bay, and didn’t take the time to count.
Blaster shots whizzed through the air in fiery streaks of orange, some connecting with the creatures and knocking them back, some glancing off or burning into the walls.
He saw all of this, but felt somehow apart from it, body and mind focused through the sword as he thrusted and swept the blade at anything that dared to come too close to the spot where he was keeping Stephanie safe.
For something they had been preparing for and worrying about for so long, the battle was over fairly quickly.
The Triptherus had small numbers, and they had Cillidan’s weapon on their side, lending them the strength they needed to win. No matter how fast one of the creatures came upon him, Draco cut them down with quick strokes of the sword through the air, his body seemingly moving of its own volition.
One of the things got close enough to slash at him with fingers while he lunged at another one, raking a deep set of scratches down the side of his face while another closed in and bit his shoulder hard.
Stephanie screamed and kicked out. “Get away!” she shouted. “Get off of him.”
It hurt more than he had been expecting for just scrapes and bites, but it was muted somehow because it wasn’t important at the moment, and he didn’t stop, instead spinning and slicing them all in a stunning arc.
He was breathing hard when the last one fell, sword held in one hand and the other trembling at his side.
No more of the things came to engage him, and a quick look around showed that the ones that weren’t in pieces from attacking him were dead on the ground with holes in their heads or chests from blaster shots.
Draco opened his mouth, looking for Plintos to make sure he was okay, to tell Stephanie that she was safe and he’d get her home, but the power suddenly left him again, and this time his eyes rolled back into his head and he crumpled to the ground, lost to darkness all over again.
Chapter 12: When You Think of Home
Stephanie frowned fretfully as she paced the infirmary, heart pounding in her chest. If something was really wrong with Draco, she’d never forgive herself for being stupid and going off and getting hurt like an idiot.
He’d come to save her, and none of this would have happened if not for her.
Apparently she’d said as much out loud because Plintos scoffed from his seat beside Draco’s bed. “That’s not true at all. We would have had to fight them eventually, and in the end he wasn’t alone.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t have to try and take on so much on his own. He was hurt because of me.”
Plintos sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Honestly, I think you’re more like him than you are like me. Always so determined to take responsibility where it’s not yours to take. Anyway, I’m not convinced that his injuries have anything to do with him still being unconscious, even if we don’t know what a bite from one of those creatures could do.”
Steph tilted her head in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that there’s very little recorded information about using the sword as a weapon the way Draco used it. Each item has its own energy, and together the power it puts out is immense. All that power was working through his body all at once, and it had to take a toll,” Plintos explained. “No one knows what Cillidan died from, but overusing the weapon is my theory.”
That made her feel a little better, but the fact still remained that he’d only used the weapon to protect her.
“If I hadn’t been here,” she tried again, and Plintos sighed heavily.
“If you hadn’t been here, then he would have gotten hurt because he was too busy worrying about how you were doing back on Eart
h. Either way, he made the decision to care about you and to go after you, so it’s his doing, and he’d tell you the same thing if he was awake to do so.”
His eyes strayed back to Draco’s unconscious form, and Stephanie noticed the tightness of his posture and the way he was shaking slightly and then felt ashamed. Draco was his oldest and practically only friend, and he was obviously worried about him. And there she was, going on about herself and how she felt.
Cautiously, she moved over to Plintos and set a hand on his shoulder in a show of support. “You’re probably right. And he’ll be fine,” she said, nodding firmly.
Plintos’ lips flickered in a smile. “He’s too stubborn not to be fine.”
She let out a shaky breath and nodded. Of course he was. He would be fine.
Draco was fine as it turned out. The medic who had come to check on him had declared him fine but for the exhaustion. She’d neatly stitched the wound on his shoulder from the Triptherus bite, commenting that it was extraordinary that something like that would be so deep. She’d even checked him over with a scanner of some sort that Stephanie didn’t understand, and said that there was no sign of poison or anything else in his body.
“He just needs to rest,” she’d told them before striding out to see to the others.
It had been a stunning victory really. No one on their side was dead or too grievously injured, and there hadn’t been any more attacks in the two days since the battle at the shuttle bay.
Plintos had no idea what the Triptherus population in terms of numbers, so all they could do was hope that none of the rest of them would show up looking for revenge.
“Even if they do,” he’d said. “We have the weapon now.”
And so they did. Stephanie had watched him take it carefully from Draco’s unconscious body and followed when he brought it to the tower. He locked it in a chest instead of displaying it like everything else, turning to her with a grim look. “Better to be on the safe side.”
She’d definitely agreed. Seeing how Draco had fought with it had shown her what he’d meant about the weapon being powerful.
He’d moved with power and speed that clearly wasn’t his, not stopping for anything. Something like that was definitely dangerous in the wrong hands, and Plintos had confided in her that he didn’t even think that was all the sword could do.
It was unsettling to think about.
On the third day, Draco woke up.
Stephanie had stepped out to get water and some food, and when she came back in, he was pushing himself up into a sitting position on arms that trembled.
“Stop that,” she cried, nearly dropping her cup as she hurried back in. “You’re too weak, still.”
“What happened?” Draco asked, giving up and flopping back among the pillows.
“How much do you remember?”
He screwed his face up in thought, though it seemed like it hurt to do so, and Stephanie got a good look at the two scars scoring his face down the left side. They hadn’t needed stitches like the bite mark, but the medic had been sure they would leave scars behind. “The battle. They’d taken you, and I...the sword made itself somehow. We fought. I fought, even though that part feels like a dream.”
She nodded. “Plintos has a theory about that. We’ve been talking about it while you were out.”
Draco snorted in amusement. “Tell me.”
“He says that you were possessed by the power of the sword. He doesn’t know if it’s Cillidan’s spirit or just something about the weapon, but it explains some things. In his books it says that Cillidan used to fight like a man possessed, like he shifted into being a different person. That’s what happened to you.”
“Huh. That does make sense,” Draco said. “I felt like...like, I didn’t have control over my body. Like it was following through with what I wanted it to do, which was to protect you, but I didn’t have any say over how it did it.”
“That sounds scary,” Steph said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “How do you feel?”
“Exhausted,” Draco admitted. “How long was I out for?”
“Three days.”
He sighed and then looked at her. “Where’s Plintos? And how are you? I’m so sorry you got mixed up in all this. You never should have had to deal with it.”
Stephanie smiled and shrugged, reaching out to take his hand. “He’s out with some of the guards patrolling the area. They think you all killed all the Triptherus in the area, but they want to make sure. And they’re contacting some of your people on Earth to make sure they’re gone from there, too. As for me, I’m fine,” she said. She wouldn’t mention that Plintos had given her a small globe of light for Draco’s rooms while he was in the infirmary because being alone in the dark made her anxious now where it hadn’t really before. “And it’s not your fault. I was the idiot who went walking alone.”
“I don’t mean just that,” Draco said. “I mean all of it. If you hadn’t met me… If I hadn’t brought you here… I’ll take you home. I swear it. As soon as I’m better.”
It was funny, really. When she’d been in that darkness with the Triptherus hissing at her and telling her they were going to play with her if Draco didn’t bring the blade, all she’d been thinking was that she wanted to go home. Things like that didn’t happen at home. But then Draco had come charging in, glowing blade held aloft, and she’d realized that what she wanted wasn’t to go back but to be safe. And to be safe with him.
“I don’t want to go back,” she said.
“Stephanie…” Draco sighed and shook his head. “Your friends will be missing you. Your family. You can’t just...stay here.”
“And why not?” she demanded. “I like it here. The people like me now. Even Plintos likes me now, and we’ve been talking about him opening up a museum here, and he’d need help with that, and who better to do it, right? And I can call home and tell people I’m not coming back. If you can get a signal from Earth all the way here, I can get one from here to Earth, right? We can go exploring together, and I can examine things with Plintos when we bring them back. It’d be perfect.” She bit her lip and took a breath, meeting his eyes. “I want to stay with you.”
She’d already thought it all through, really. If she went back home, she’d always be wondering what she’d missed out on and nothing there would feel the same anymore. It wouldn’t feel right. Her head was full of the idea of her and Draco exploring different planets, finding treasures and then bringing them home to study. She’d learn all she could and then share that with the people. Of course, he had no way of knowing that she had similar thoughts soon after they’d first met, and they had kept her from being too scared when she was in Draco’s bed without him on the nights while he’d been unconscious in the infirmary, and she wanted it. Probably more than she had wanted anything for a long time.
Draco let out a shaky breath, and she could see cautious hope on his face. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I mean, I can take you back if you change your mind, but it would be hard to explain where you’ve been, and you can’t just go back and forth like that because it’s not technically allowed, and-”
Stephanie laughed and leaned in, cutting off his breathless spiel with a hard kiss. “I’m sure.”
And she was.
About The Author
Ashley West was raised in a small Midwest town. She has always been a big fan of science fiction and paranormal books and movies. Her all-time favorite movies are the first three Star Wars movies.
She started writing at a young age and has not looked back since. Ashley brings her worlds to life with vivid details and likeable characters. On her spare time, she enjoys painting, jogging, and curling up next to her favorite books.
If you enjoy Ashley’s titles and wish to stay updated on all her new releases and free book giveaways, please visit her website and submit your email.
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Paranormal Romance
