“Your little games will not work today, young lady,” Regent Minassus replied.
“I am telling you the truth!” she insisted. “I was right nine years ago, and I am right tonight. They will be here in less than a day. We need to be ready!”
“Walk with me, Chosen,” he instructed. Giving his guards a brief nod, he started back to the entrance of the fortress.
Kiera followed, and noticed the guards did not accompany her or the Regent. “Why would you put the Sector at risk this way?” she asked.
“I am not, dear. You are.”
“How can you say such a thing when I’m trying to warn you and your guards? The ravagers are coming!”
“I know they are,” he said in a low voice. “I believe you, but it does not change the fact that you are the one threatening the lives of each and every citizen in the Sector. I will make an example of you and your lover, and anyone who has had a hand in this treason. I want you to listen carefully. I know everything. You dared to defy me, to disobey your vows as the Chosen, and to stand against the Sector and everything we have come to value. But there is still time to atone for your wrongdoing and make things right.”
“I will not turn this year’s shifters, your Eminence,” she said calmly. “I refuse to be party to your tyranny. I will not transform men who were never given the choice to serve, and I will not sacrifice my life by participating in an unnecessary ritual. We have found other means to fight the ravagers, yet you insist on this deception. The Sector will soon know that you have lied to us all.”
“No, my dear, innocent girl. You will get a message to your familiar, and you will have Commander Oslo gather the men scheduled to be turned. They must all report to the Great Hall within one hour. And you are going to perform the transformation spell. Tonight.”
“I will not.”
“Trust me when I tell you that you will.” He called over to the guard who had arrived with him bearing the torch. They made eye contact, and the Regent gave him a gesture.
On that signal, two guards approached the cowering prisoners, and dragged an older man to his feet.
“What are you doing with him?” Kiera asked.
“Summon your familiar,” the Regent ordered her. “Now.”
Before she could say another word, the guards lifted the man high and swung his legs over the side of the battlement walls.
“No!” Kiera screeched. Her eyes widened with horror. “You can’t do that! You can’t kill a man in cold blood.” The prisoner screamed, desperately begging for his life as they held his body over the edge with his feet dangling at least seventy feet off the ground below. “Please, your Eminence! Don’t do this!”
“Call your familiar,” he repeated. “I will not ask again.”
“Okay, I will do it!” She squeezed her eyes shut and connected to Coco, beckoning her to fly back to the fortress immediately. “I have called for her,” she announced. “Now please, stop. Let him go.”
It was evident to her then. If the Regent would go to these lengths to force her hand, he really was still in control.
“Be sure she gets the message to Xander as well.”
“She knows what I know now,” Kiera confirmed, eyes still fixed on the prisoner as he hung suspended off the side of the wall.
“Good.” The Regent took Kiera’s chin in his hand and turned her face forcefully so she could look up at him. “I am glad we understand each other.” Without releasing her, he looked over at his guards and gave another quick nod. He turned her around to face them, and the second her eyes adjusted their focus, the guards dropped the desperate, pleading, squirming man off the edge.
“No!” she screamed, horrified. Minassus had still executed the old man. “I did what you asked!” she cried, tears streaming down her face as she became aware of the sobs, groans and despondent, fearful whimpering of the remaining prisoners.
“Have your familiar inform Commander Oslo that if he’s not in the Great Hall with the men within one hour, his mother will be next.”
“But they are already on their way to the west of the Sector to help prepare the outer walls before the ravagers arrive,” she implored. “They may already be too far away from the Great Hall. Why make them turn back now?”
“This is not a negotiation,” he told her firmly. Then he turned and left, returning inside the fortress.
Kiera slumped over, hanging on to the side walls for support as she struggled to stop the tears. She swallowed down the bile that had made it up to the back of her throat, barely conscious of the guards who were coming toward her. One of them gripped her by the arm and led her back to the prisoners.
Kiera did not have the chance to get all the way across the walkway. A violent force pushed her backward, then another that was not as fierce, and yet another. She fell to the ground, and the guard stared down at her curiously as her body convulsed.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” the guard asked.
She closed her eyes when the last jolt of energy hit her, then slowly took a deep breath and opened her eyes again. Fear and uncertainty were replaced by rage, pure awareness and conviction.
Kiera got to her feet. She knew what she had to do.
This time, it was the guard who jumped backward. “But your eyes,” he stammered, full of fear now. “And your hair. You are glowing…everywhere. Jesus Christ! Your feet are not touching the floor!”
21
Xander
With gloomy snow clouds looming over the village and hiding the stars and crescent moon from view, it was pitch black outside. Darkness was fitting tonight. It matched the wrath that weaved around Xander’s chest, filling him with contempt and a blind fury. Coco had told him everything that Kiera revealed to her. The bird’s news about Minassus’ demands did not faze him. Minassus’ threat to harm his mother did not come as a surprise either, but when he killed the prisoner without a second thought or a sliver of remorse, just to underscore his point, Xander lost it. He had no doubt in his mind. It was no longer going to be enough to simply stop the Regent. Minassus needed to die.
Xander took the black skies as a sign of good luck. It provided the cover he would need. His plan was crude, but at this point, he did not care. He and the seven shifters with him were going to unleash their polar bears, enter through the tunnels, and take the fortress by surprise. Coco and Kiera could get the prisoners to safety using the horses he and his shifters were riding in with. Xander would kill Minassus, and Sector two would go back to a shared government under the Council, just like it used to be before Minassus.
Xander would appeal to the Council for an immediate cease to the shifter transformation ceremony until that point in time where the witches found a way to perform the ritual without the risk of death. There would be an end to the mandatory draft of men with the 236-k gene, and only those volunteering would be turned. Reena and her science-based witches would continue to find new ways to fight and kills the ravagers. Every citizen would be free. That was the future he saw beyond the edges of his contempt, where Minassus was no more.
He kept that image in his mind right up until he and the seven shifters rode past the cobblestone path. By the time they made it to the clearing beside the Great Hall, Coco was flapping her wings hysterically as she flew ahead of them.
“Everyone, stop!” Coco called out. “Look! At the top of the fortress.”
Xander pulled the horse’s reins hard, bringing his mare to a grinding halt. He stared up at the glowing ball of light hovering above the top turret. From this distance, it was close to impossible to tell what that shape was inside the light. “Wait. Is that…a person?”
“Yes. It’s Kiera.”
He looked on, incredulous. He had never seen magic that intense. “But I thought you said nothing happened when you touched the seven shifters?”
“It’s true. Nothing happened.”
“So how did she become like that? Some magic has obviously been transferred to her.”
“I believe I understan
d what took place…though I never imagined it was possible.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Full disclosure here. It may be my fault. Kind of…I just didn’t think it could work. Oh dear.”
“What did you do, Coco?” Xander demanded.
“I may have freed the spirits of the last eight Chosen witches from the Chamber of the Sacred. By accident, sort of…and I think they have just possessed Kiera’s body…but only temporarily.”
Xander stared at Coco. “How?”
“Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t think it would actually work.”
“Answer me!” he barked. “How did you do it?”
“Calm down! You’re making me nervous, dammit. It was Thalia’s talisman. I found it in the lockbox with her scrolls while Kiera and I were researching why her powers were growing. Of course, the Regent found us out and came to Kiera’s door, so I took the talisman with me when I flew out of her room…and I may have flung it through the window of the Chamber of the Sacred while I recited a tiny, little incantation…to conjure them.”
“Kiera is possessed. By eight witches,” Xander said aloud, not believing his own words.
“We were running low on options,” Coco added. “Plus now they are no longer under Regent’s thumb. He had their souls trapped in that room. No wonder they’re so vengeful.”
“They will rip Kiera apart!”
“That won’t happen. I am tempering some of their energy.”
“I don’t see you gleaming like a lightbulb!”
“I can take on my human form and show you all my shining naked glory if you’d like!” Coco shouted.
“It’s okay. Save me the trouble. Coco, why are you sure it’s temporary?”
“Most of the spell I recited was to release their bindings and free them so their souls could ascend. Yes, I tacked on a little pit stop to help against the Regent and the ravagers. So sue me!”
“Mark my words, shifter witch,” Xander warned her. “If anything happens to my mother or to Kiera, I will personally clip your bird wings and smother that sharp little beak of yours in your sleep.”
“No need to get all kinky, shifter. Focus on the task at—” Coco stopped talking and her head spun almost one hundred and eighty degrees to look up. “It’s working. They’re helping Kiera against the ravagers.”
“Amazing. How is she doing it?”
“I’m not sure, but her telekinesis is so powerful now, I can see her mind trained on hundreds of them now. As she focuses on each one, they just stop swimming, and after a few seconds, they blow up and die.”
“She is killing them? Just like that?”
“Well it’s not actually Kiera, Xander. It’s the witches who have possessed her. Kiera is locked in there, somewhere, but the eight Chosen are the ones using her mind control abilities to do their thing.” She flapped her wings again, and turned her head to face him again. “Exactly what are you waiting for?”
“What?”
“Let out your bears already! You need to get in the fortress and start saving the prisoners! Once she’s done with the ravagers, Minassus is next on her hit list. Well, not her list, the Chosen, but you know what I mean.”
Still looking up at the turret, Xander quickly scanned the outlines of each body he could make out. “Where is Minassus? I don’t see him up there.”
“In his private study. If he’s smart, he’ll be curled up in a ball, hoping the eight Chosen show him mercy. His guards are running scared too. You won’t have any resistance inside. Go now! I’ll be waiting up there with Kiera.”
“Let’s go, men,” he ordered, giving his reins a sharp shake to get his mare going.
The horse took off in a lively run, and his men followed behind. They galloped to the fortress gates and dismounted, removing their clothing to quickly shift and release their polar bears. Just as Coco assured him, the guards were already scattering, running scared, in fear for their lives now that their leader was hiding out. Xander assigned two polar bears from his team to find Minassus. He and the other five bounded up the several flights of stairs as quickly as they could to help the prisoners leave the fortress.
By the time they made it up to the battlement walkway, all the guards had fled. Kiera seemed to be hovering about fifteen feet above the turret, which was already close to twenty feet above the battlement walkway. Coco had made it to the top of the fortress, and was perched on the turret wall a few feet away. The prisoners were all crouched down, watching the spectacle with awe. Xander saw his mother. Thank God. She was alive.
He was about to change back to his human form to greet his mother when Kiera’s body lowered slowly to the turret floor. The light around her slowly faded, and when it was gone completely, she collapsed to the ice cold floor. Coco flopped down beside Kiera right afterward, with her bird wings sprawled out and talons pointing to the sky. Panicked, Xander snarled out a bear growl and padded across the walkway, climbing the steps to the turret. Stepping up to Kiera slowly, he lowered his muzzle to her face, sniffing her skin. She was unconscious, and the small breaths of air leaving her mouth and nose were so light, he could not see the cold air the way he normally would.
Grunting, Xander licked across her face and nudged her shoulder with his paw. Slowly, her eyes opened. With a weak smile, she raised a hand to his snout.
“I am okay now,” she said to him, sitting up. She looked around. Coco was still unconscious beside her. “Coco?” She touched the bird, but its body lied there, lifeless. “Coco!” she cried out.
Xander moved a hind leg to change directions so he could take a look at the shifter witch. He lowered his nose to take a sniff, unsure whether there was anything he could do for her.
One talon slowly budged, closing slightly. Then she turned her beak toward Xander and opened her eyes. “Don’t even try to touch me with that snotlocker, Bear,” Coco muttered, still weak. “And polar breath ain’t minty fresh, so keep that tongue away from me too.”
Kiera leaned forward and picked up her familiar, giggling softly as she warmed her up against her chest. “I am so glad you’re both okay,” she said, looking up at Xander.
Coco pulled her head back and looked up at Kiera. “Did you see how the Chosen witches massacred the approaching ravagers?”
“I did.”
“The only thing is…I could be wrong, but I almost thought I saw a few get past you in your mind’s eye. I’m probably wrong.”
Still in bear form, and not quite ready to leave her side, Xander watched as Kiera closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, they were full of concern.
“No, Coco. You’re right. I can feel them. A few dozen or more are still swimming in from the west. The coming winter storms will also bring hundreds more…maybe thousands. I can work on my mental skills, but I am not sure how quickly I can hone them on my own.” She turned to look at him. “We need to warn Liam and Reena.”
Coco shook her head. “We haven’t sent word to them, so as far as they know, all the ravagers are still on their way. I can go.”
“No, dear. You cannot. You are too weak.”
Xander huffed out a long growl. His bear was not ready to relinquish control to his human form, but if he had to, he would turn to let them know that he and five of the seven shifters would swim west and join Liam, Reena and the Nauru. Two shifters could stay behind to keep watch over Minassus, if he was still alive and had not yet left the fortress.
“Did you understand that?” Coco asked Kiera.
“What? His bear sounds? No. Sorry, I can’t.”
“I did,” Coco said proudly, turning to Xander. “See, Bear? The evil shifter bird witch has some use after all. By the way, Minassus is alive, but he is back to being a shriveled up old man with no real power, now that the eight Chosen have ascended.” Coco looked up at Kiera again. “Xander said he has to go now. He will leave two shifters behind in town just in case Minassus gets out of hand. The rest of them will head west to meet Liam. You know? To be bi
g, white knights and look brave, flexing their polar bear muscles and doing their badass thing while they fight off the ravagers. They’ll swim and get there long before noon tomorrow. And he wants us to make sure his mother is all right.”
Kiera nodded, smiling. “We will. Be careful,” she told him, running her hand over the fur at the top of his head.
With a quick, soft nudge of his snout against her cheek, Xander left the turret, and crossed the battlement to meet his soldiers outside the fortress. There was still lots of fight in him, and that was fortunate. The real battle was just beginning.
22
Xander
Xander and his polar bear soldier companions had only made two short stops on their almost hundred-mile swim to meet Liam and the rest of his troops in the west. The falling snow intensified as they traveled, and by the time they made it shore at the meeting spot eleven hours later, it was coming down harder, blown around by strong gusts of wind. Thankfully, in polar bear form, they thrived on this weather. There were even a few hours left to rest before the last few ravagers were expected to swim up on shore and try to breach the outer walls of the western villages of Sector Two.
Liam and Reena were still busy working with the Nauru and the soldiers. They had made much progress. They were also relieved to learn that it was no longer an onslaught of hundreds of creatures on their way here.
Just after Xander woke up, around four o’clock in the afternoon, their soldiers in the water gave the alarm.
Liam rushed to his side. “You’re not planning to sleep through this battle, are you?”
“Are the men ready?” Xander asked, ignoring his friend’s dig.
“Yes. The traps have been set, and the Nauru coven has completed spells for all the expected land access points forty miles in each direction. Reena is a pretty innovative one. She even had the Nauru infuse the blue indigo in their spells for the shipping channels. You know how they use those barbed wire nets discourage the ravagers? They hate getting their legs or faces caught in those, and now, when they try to rip through them, it will be night-night for them.”
Mystic Storm: An Adult Paranormal Witch Romance: Othala Witch Collection (Sector 2) Page 16
