by Bailey Dark
I looked over the battlefield. Where could Daphne hide? At least twenty of my soldiers were injured, ten of them clearly dead. Sasrin and his elite army were slicing through Rhone’s without a single blemish. We were working our way across the meadow and closer to the cabins. I wondered where Rhone was. I had not seen him yet.
“Fine! Just stay close to me. You’re doing a really good job with the telekinetics. Just don’t let your anger or fear for Vania take hold, okay?”
Daphne nodded and turned back to bandaging the soldier, whose leg was surely lost. Some of the Bordash weaponry would eat through flesh like acid.
There, on the edge of the fighting, was Rhone. He was standing, alone, holding his sword out, pointed straight at me. As I took a step toward him, he gestured toward the tree above him. Hanging there, suspended in midair by Rhone’s telekinesis, was an Earthling girl. That had to be Vania.
Daphne had followed my gaze and she stood up with a start and began to run toward her friend. I grabbed her arm quickly. The look of rage on her face almost made me react with a snarl, too, as old habit, but I softened as I realized it was the woman to whom I was beholden and loved beyond love.
“We must be cautious. She is just suspended there by his magic. I will have to fight him and hold her safe, and pay attention to you, too. Come on. Follow me.”
We wove through the crowd of fighting figures, surprisingly untouched. Then I looked over and saw Sasrin staring at us intently, throwing soldier and arrow and knife and stun gun shot away from us, deliberately, with efficiency and skill. He was protecting our quest.
I waved a salute toward him and before I knew it, we were only ten feet away from Rhone. He swiped his sword down and I felt it cut on my cheek. I lifted my fingertips up to feel the blood. I couldn’t believe it. I knew Rhone had trained some in Curan schools to learn telekinesis, but I couldn’t believe he had the skill to use that sword he had stolen from some Curan. He knew how to telekinetically strike a slice. I would have to be more cautious than ever.
I pushed Daphne back and approached Rhone.
“Give up, Rhone,” I said. “Give up, call off your soldiers, and let Vania down safely. That’s all you have to do. Curan prisons aren’t that bad. Better than Bordash, in fact. Safer, calmer, with more opportunities for outside-time.”
Rhone laughed, a bitter bark against the screams, clashes, and whirs of battle behind us.
“How about you give up, Beast King? Call of your soldiers and let me have your Queen. How is it, after all, that she can use telekinesis and that you healed so quickly?”
“She is my Destin. She is my all.”
“Bullshit. I don’t believe in all that traditional magic.”
Daphne made a motion as if scooping up rocks from the ground and she flung them. A dozen pebbles lunged into the air from the ground and peppered Rhone’s face.
“It’s real enough, boss. You can never frighten me again.”
As she said it, Vania screamed above them and dropped three feet in the air. Daphne leapt forward, to catch her if she would fall.
“Ah…I see I can still scare you, Daphne.”
I placed my hand on Daphne’s shoulder and pulled her back toward me. “At least she cares enough about people to be scared for their wellbeing. Who have you ever trusted enough?”
Rhone’s face went blank, as if I might actually have insulted him. Then he laughed.
“So, are we going to cross blades now or never, Beast King?”
I held my hand up to Daphne, anticipating her protests. “We shall cross them now.” I whipped my blade down and the same slash across my face appeared on Rhone’s. He yelped and swiped angrily at the blood.
“You’re on…”
Then we stepped into each other, our blades met, and their clash of metal on metal evoked a scream of magic, a seething of steam, and a rush of adrenaline.
I hadn’t anticipated a fight like this in a long time. I licked my lips, eager…It was one where only one of us would survive.
Sixteen
Daphne
I tore my eyes away from my King and my former boss to look up at Vania. She was awake. Her eyes were open and blinking and her chest was heaving, but she didn’t seem to register that it was me beneath her on the ground. Much like the lanterns that I had seen all over Farian, Vania was just held in air by magical skill. Her hands and ankles were bound, and she was curled up into herself, fetal position, clearly stunned and traumatized by what she had been through in the past few days.
I understood the reaction… I couldn’t believe what I had been through. Two weeks ago, I was complaining with Vania about my asshole boss Rhone, and now I was witnessing my soul-mate prepare to fight that boss in a telekinetically charged duel on a planet faraway, where I had recently been made the Queen. The Queen of a whole planet.
“Vania! Vania! It’s me, Daphne! Please, look at me!” I called, then looked over as I heard the clashing scream of the two magic Curan blades crossing. Sparks flew and I backed away from the clearing where Kajo and Rhone were getting ready to fight. I had to figure out a way to get Vania down. Could I use my meager telekinesis skills? I was afraid to…I seemed to be adept at swiping things in half and crushing them into oblivion. I certainly didn’t want to risk doing either of those things with my best friend…
I called her name again and this time, her eyes moved a little bit, finally meeting mine. However, I couldn’t tell if she recognized me. I stripped off the Curan cape and let my war-ready ponytail down, trying to make myself look more like what she was used to seeing, though she had seen me at my worst, best, ugliest crying moments, and happiest joys.
I had to get her down. I had to keep her safe.
“Daphne, watch out!” Kajo cried and I realized that the fight had begun. I figured if I just hovered close to Vania, if she fell, I would at least break her fall. She was about fifteen feet in the air. She wouldn’t die from such a fall, but she might get hurt.
“How could you deign to take an Earthling for your Queen, Beast King?” Rhone snarled. I glared at him. He had pretended to be an Earthling for years. To what end? “How can she possibly be your Destin? There must be something else special about her. After I kill you, I will take her as my own and do everything I can think to mold her into my own soul…to give me that extra healing you have…to give myself that longer life…”
With each sentence, Rhone and Kajo’s blades smashed into each other. The glowing blues and greens lit up the whole battlefield, momentarily blinding anyone watching.
I looked out at the other fighters and was stunned. Rhone’s Bordash units were either dead or on their knees, hands behind their heads. Commander Sasrin was leaning heavily on one of his lieutenants, a bright red blast through his upper right chest, but he was laughing and joking, watching the fight.
How was no one intervening? Rhone’s army had clearly lost. So, why were they letting Kajo still fight him? Why didn’t they just demand his surrender?
That was when I realized Kajo was crouched low, head bowed down, looking up from underneath his shaggy hair, left hand outstretched, fingers tense, right hand holding his blade over his head at the ready. He was breathing heavily from the fight, but he was smiling, smirking, really. A glow of animal desire was alight in his eyes. Rhone dropped his guard a moment and Kajo charged, slashing down, then up, spinning, jumping and slashing down again, parrying, ducking, shoving Rhone back with his telekinetic push, then stabbing low at his gut to rip apart Rhone’s leather armor.
The Beast King.
He would always be the Beast King.
I thought for a moment that he would lean his head back and howl.
It was the glory of the fight. His men and women, the warriors of the whole planet of Farian, might follow him for his intelligence and strategy, but also for his fierce protectiveness over his pack and his feral desire to rise to every challenge greeting him.
It was one reason I hadn’t been a conquest; I had been an equal partner, an invit
ation, someone to challenge him continually. He desired me, not as a prize to be won, but as a prize to always admire, cherish, and protect as an equal.
These thoughts struck me so profoundly that I thought I must be reading his mind, or at least his emotions.
Then, I realized, that I likely was.
He was in a vulnerable state, fighting in this way. It was like wearing one’s emotions on their sleeve. And, I could read them now.
I could cherish and protect them.
We were each other’s Destin.
As I watched, Kajo whipped around, did a fantastic flip in the air and then ran his sword clear through Rhone’s shoulder from behind. Rhone roared in agonized anger. Kajo whipped the sword out of Rhone’s body and Rhone collapsed to the ground for a moment, his own blade flying.
Sasrin picked up the green glowing Curan blade.
“This has never belonged to you,” Sasrin said. He held tight to it, leaning on it like a cane for support from his wounds.
Rhone looked up at Kajo from his knees as the King walked around to face him. Kajo held his own blade out at Rhone’s neck. Then he whipped it down to his side and struck Rhone across the face with his fist. Rhone rocked backward and then sat up straight again. So Kajo hit him again. Two more times. Rhone’s lips were split, his eyes blinking rapidly against the hits, but his spirit was broken.
Kajo shook his fist, knuckles bloodied, and held the sword back to Rhone’s neck.
“Shall I kill you? You have lost.” Kajo gestured to the beaten and bound Bordash.
“You kill me, and she falls.” Rhone pointed up at Vania where she was slowly spinning in her suspended web of magic. Her eyes were pinned to me, more alert. She was starting to struggle in her bindings, as if she had just realized there might actually be hope.
“Daphne…?”
“Yes! Vania! It’s me. Everything is going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.” Tears were pricking at my throat and freely falling from my eyes. I couldn’t believe she was here! I couldn’t believe she was at such risk…I knew it wasn’t really my fault, but in a way, also, it was…
While Kajo was looking at me and I was looking at Vania, Rhone had pulled a small knife from his pocket. I turned back just in time to see him lunge up and whip it at Kajo’s throat. Kajo deflected it just enough that it ran a line down his neck but didn’t pierce his throat. I stepped forward and grabbed Rhone’s sword from Sasrin, then slashed it through the air at Rhone.
He screamed in pain as my slash from ten feet away ripped through his leather armor, burying into his chest, the same way Kajo was able to use his telekinetic powers to amplify the sword’s distance and damage. Rhone collapsed to the ground, hugging his chest. Kajo was on him in an instant, but not before Rhone managed to lance the small knife in his hand up toward Vania.
I watched in shock, trying to spin and deflect it out the way, but it was too far gone, too sharply thrown, too fast for me to catch, and it impaled itself in her chest, right above the heart. Vania screamed, and then Kajo was ramming his own knife through Rhone’s throat. Rhone spluttered, dying, his magic collapsing, and Vania was falling from the air.
Kajo turned and lifted his hands to cushion Vania’s rapid descent, straight into my arms and I knelt to the ground, holding her as best I could, as she gripped at the blade above her heart.
“Don’t pull it out! Don’t!” I said. Tears were streaming down our faces. “Vania, you’re going to be okay, you’re—” I stared wildly around for help. The Curans were looking at me helplessly. “Kajo! Kajo, help!”
Kajo looked back at Rhone one last time to see him flooding out his life in arterial blood on the ground and then he joined me beside Vania.
“Please, please, do something! Save her!”
“Ok, lay her on the ground. I don’t know if this will work.”
I laid her down carefully. Kajo gripped the small sliver of a blade and pulled it out slowly. As blood gushed and her eyes fluttered closed, breath gasping, he wove magic over her body, telekinetically forcing her blood back into the arteries, closing the gap made by the blade, sealing up the wound, replacing the skin as if it had never happened.
“Hold her. Love her. That’s what you need to do,” Kajo said.
So, I stroked Vania’s head and whispered whatever memories I could think of. Of first grade field trips to the pumpkin patch. Of bicycle rides down by the creek. Of moving to New York together. Of her loser boyfriends and my aimless searches. Of her dreams of veterinary school, that she had never lived out. Of sleepovers and hairstyles and favorite sweets. Her eyes roamed beneath the eyelids, as if she were fighting to stay awake, fighting to stay alive. I couldn’t lose her…I thought I had lost her, but this would be entirely different. Not just being on different planets. This would be different planes of existence…
I looked up to see my King speaking with his Commanders, cleaning up the mess, sending the Bordash captives to prison. Sending the others to the morgues so their families could bury them however they saw fit. He kept glancing back at me, and I could sense his desire to hold me instead, to comfort me, to let someone else do these Kingly duties.
Rhone was dead on the ground, eyes wide open, neck slit. The wound I had given him glared bright and red. How had I struck him so strongly? At least, I hadn’t been the killing blow…
“Daphne…”
“Vania!” I choked out her name between tears and hugged her blonde head to my chest. “Please, please, be okay…”
“I think I am…” She moved a hand to her forehead and then to her chest where the knife had entered. “How did he do that? And who is that? Did you see? He has the most amazing blue eyes…”
I laughed. I laughed and I cried, and I hugged her.
Kajo came over as he heard my laughter.
“Vania, this is Kajo. Vania is my best friend and Kajo is my soul-mate. My Destin.” Vania’s brow furrowed and she looked at me, rubbing her chest still, waiting for more explanation. “It’s a long story, Vania, but…basically, I’m a Queen now.”
“Well, my Queen…” She struggled to sit up and gasped. “I don’t know what your soul-mate his Highness did, but that feels a lot better. Unfortunately, I think I need some more attention. See, your asshole-of-a-boss drained a shit-ton of blood out of me before he brought me to this battle. I don’t understand anything that is going on with this planet. We are on a different planet, right?”
I laughed. “Yes…don’t worry. You’re here with me, now. We will catch up and I will tell you how things are.”
“Good.” Vania’s eyes fluttered close. “I think I need to sleep now…”
“Here, let’s teleport back to my Castle.”
Vania’s eyes shot open. “Your Castle?”
“Yes, silly. I told you: I’m a Queen.”
“And wait—teleport?”
“I’ll explain everything. Just close your eyes…”
She nodded, as if that was enough explanation for now and then Kajo assigned two of his soldiers to take us back to the Capital city. I held tightly to my best friend and looked at my King with the most grateful look I could…He had saved me. He had saved her. He was so much more than I could ever have imagined having…
“Hurry home, Kajo. Please.”
He nodded and stepped close to kiss my cheek. “Just take care of her.”
I brushed the red smear on his neck from where Rhone had almost impaled him with the knife. “Who will take care of you?”
“That’s your job. For the rest of our lives.”
I smiled and kissed his cheek, too. “See you soon.”
Seventeen
Daphne
I stood up from Vania’s bedside as I heard a rustling in the hall. It was Kajo, looking in on us. I could send the spark between us. He had saved her…He had saved Vania. As soon as we found out that she was captured, my King gathered together his strongest warriors and set out for war. For my friend. Truly, for me.
Granted, that battle was going t
o happen at some time. The war was already on. All that was needed was a striking match. But that match had been my King, my soul-mate, my Destin, caring for two Earthling girls in a way that no Earthling had ever cared.
I stepped out into the hall and he cocked his head at me, that cute smirk dancing on his lips. I reached out and took his hand in mine. The electricity was magnetic. He made a sound that was almost like a purr and I kissed his scarred knuckles.
Blue eyes, a lust for adventure, and a mean right hook…How had I said those words so flippantly to Vania just two weeks ago, and now my world was changed, quite literally. Shifted upside down, saved again and again by a man that I would also save.
He brushed my cheek with his fingertips. “How is she?”
“She will be all right. Thank you for saving her, Kajo. I don’t know how I will ever repay you.” I could feel my cheeks flushing. He grinned wide, reading my mind. There were at least a couple ways I could think of to try and repay him…at least to sweeten the day, every day, with afternoon delight and morning lust and evening play and middle-of-the-night deep kisses and dreams.
“You have your friend here with us now. That gives me the chance to see you even happier. I don’t think there is anything you could give me that matters to me more than your happiness.”
I leaned in to him as he spoke. He simply took my breath away. His words, the way his body moved, the way his eyes lit up when he looked at me. Not as if he owned me, but as if he were honored to hold me.
I moved my lips close to his, just close enough that our breath was mixing a cloud of heat into the air. I darted in, as if I were going to kiss him, but then held up and pulled back. He grinned and grabbed me around the waist, pulling me into him tight, spinning me back against the wall. His other hand crept up around my neck, stretching his fingers over the fragile, precious skin there, then he leaned in and kissed me, slow, deep, just the barest amount of tongue, warm and soft and forever.
