Nox Eremite
Nox Eremite is the second book in the Harrow Eternus series. The complete manuscript is 145,000 words. The following is a sample from the first chapter. SPOILER WARNING (read Harrow Eternus before continuing)
“Haeden!” I yelled when I knew my feet had found the clearing by their fire ring. “Haeden!” I coughed and panted, trying to choke his name out, slipping to my knees, then righting myself.
I could feel him running for me. I could feel his steps as they rapped at my chest, my heart moving faster and faster along with them. And the others, I knew they'd heard me too.
“They're... they're after us.” I pushed the words out when he’d leapt from inside and reached my hand. “Rhys, Kell, two others, they came to my cabin. I lost them in the woods, but they're after us. We have to go!”
“Why are your eyes closed?” I heard Merrax say in a quick and worried voice; he held my other arm.
“I don't know. The energy. It was too much... it gave me a headache. I—I can't see.”
“Calm her. It's all that we can do,” he told Haeden, who took me by the hand and tried to lead me to his little cottage.
“No! NO! We have to go. He’s after us. We have to leave!” I shouted, struggling against Haeden's grasp.
“If they find us, Elizabeth, we'll be ready for them. We're fierslen too, you know.”
“But, Mr. Bailey. He knew they were coming. He knew we were in trouble and he said we had to go, not stay and fight. When I told him it had been six days... he—he gave me the map. He told me to run!”
“Six days...” Haeden whispered. “No. That was only a tale.. it can't be.”
“What does six days—”
“Bailey, how does he know all of this?!” George interjected.
“He’s fierslen. He said Sixtus has kept him here and... and that he knew what I was this whole time. Listen, it doesn’t matter. I left my cabin just before they arrived. They’re looking for us, or for me. My vision is coming back. We have to go!”
I grabbed Haeden by the hand and pulled as hard as I could in the direction of his cottage so he could get his stuff; George followed.
Within a few minutes we were back in front of the huts, packed up with gear and loaded down with weapons.
“When I lost them, they went west and I can still feel them over there. They must have gotten confused.”
“You can—” Lita began, but Merrax cut her short.
“Never mind that now. If she says it, it probably is. We head east.”
“And south. We need to get my car!”
In any other situation, it would have been impossible to convince the Malveauxs to travel by car, but there was so much more that they were about to experience. Being in a car was the least of my worries.
“How far do we think they can get?” I asked as we approached the barn from the side opposite my cabin. “I mean, don't they only travel by foot?”
“And horse, and auto, and whatever it takes to get what they want.” Merrax answered.
“What?”
“There is no way this is new to him as it will be to us. He's been here just as he's been other places. Just as he told us at Tilbury. The other tunnels. Now we know they exist and he must have access to them, which means he must travel to get to them. And in the modern world, he wouldn't limit himself as we do. Any mechanical devices you have, we should assume he’s seen. Who knows how far he’s been.
“And that sense of yours. The one that let you know where they were. You're not the only one who has it. Running will be far from easy, but if we must instead of fight, we'll need the extra time.”
“And time is all we have,” I whispered something Mr. Bailey had said to me so many months ago, something that suddenly made sense to me coming from him, then unlocked the doors and scraped the car again as I pulled it out of the barn.
The cold-front wind rolling across the front of the old structure coursed around the Malveauxs. It blew wildly at Lita and Haeden’s loose hair as they all stood for a moment and stared at my car until I gestured angrily for them to get in.
Haeden fumbled with the handle, then slid with caution into the front seat while the others crammed themselves in the back and I pressed the gas pedal to the floor, pointed toward Tulsa. Everything from this moment on had to be quick thinking, so I weighed our options and pulled out the map from Brimace Lane.
“We need to find a place to hide, at least for now. We need to be ready and get our bearings. They’ve had six days to think about what they’re doing and why.”
“What is this?” Haeden asked and I looked over to see his eyes darting nervously from the road to the map in my lap. I was hitting every curve above the speed limit of 55 and I could tell that he wasn’t handling it well.
“It’s a map Bailey gave me. I found it in a house last year when I was helping him.” I tried to distract him by setting it in his lap. “He told me to take it and find a place to hide... another time, maybe. I’m not sure, but I think some of the markings are tunnels.”
Haeden took a deep breath and looked down at the map in his hands. The skin on his cheeks was more pale than usual. His hair, still wet from the light rain that we’d run through, stuck to his forehead and I reached over to wipe gently at it.
“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” The smile he would normal give me at my effort to comfort him didn’t appear. Instead, he rested his hand on his eyebrow and closed his eyes.
In my review mirror, I now took in each uncomfortable face. The four of them, crammed shoulder to shoulder in my small back seat, kept looking with worried eyes at their surroundings. We passed little towns, then bigger ones; ones with strips of commercial businesses. Home Depot, Walmart... shops so large it made their eyes bulge.
But it was cutting through Tulsa that set them all over the edge. The small highway we’d been on suddenly expanded into a giant interstate, cars filling the many lanes on either side and my Taurus sped along with the flow of traffic while we entered the city limits.
Each of them gasped or cussed in shock at the buildings that grazed the clouds while we cut into the shining city. The swell of population, the buses and cabs, the sounds and lights; I could feel the abrupt and overwhelming change in the car as they were forced to see the modern world for what it was.
“I think I'm going to be sick,” Melitta said before she buried her head in Ethan's sweater.
“I'm sorry. I'm sorry you have to see it this way, all at once. It would have been less shocking had I shown you photos first. This is my world, though. This is it. Like yours, but bigger.. and brighter.. and—and louder.”
“I suppose we haven't a choice but to be a part of your world now,” Haeden said, his face fallen. It was so difficult to look at him with that face as I drove him deeper still into the thick of high-speed, urban life. And I knew it would probably only get worse as I peeked at the map that he still held and thought of where we might be able to shelter ourselves from Retemyr Sixtus’s men.
Many hours into our trip, the Malveauxs had finally come to be a bit more comfortable with the the car itself. We were back to driving on smaller highways and hadn’t seen a city or town in a while, which seemed to ease their nerves.
Haeden fiddled with the radio and appeared to enjoy the classical station, letting his head tilt back against the headrest as a soft violin came through the speakers all around us. He looked out the window and into the sky, which was now clear where we were, though darkening as the sun quickly fell below the horizon.
Merrax and Ethan spoke softly about life outside of the one they'd always known, contemplating this new world, trying to find meaning in the size and overbearing nature of the cities. I looked at them in the mirror, then down to Lita who was fast asleep in Ethan’s lap.
That left George, who seemed to be drowning in worry and paranoia, just as he had been six days prior when we were walking through the woods on our way to Tilbury. His broad chest expanded and fell in a quick pattern that I continued to glance back at periodically.
“I think if we head somewhere familiar—to me—we should be okay. There’s a spot on the map. If it’s really a tunnel, we could have the upper hand staying near it, ready to go through if we need to.” I spoke to the whole car, but hoped that George would take in my words and find some sense of reassurance in them.
“And even if they find us there,” Merrax chimed in, “it doesn't mean they'll be able to take you or whatever it is they are planning. We will fight.”
“What? So you think this whole thing is about them taking me?!” I accidentally shouted, finding his dark eyes in the mirror.
“Wait, wait, wait, I don't know for certain. It just seems that they went for you first.”
“Maybe to get to you!”
“To me?!”
“Err.. all of you, I mean!” I gripped harder to the wheel then and glared at him, wondering why he’d jumped to the conclusion that they were planning to take me. In my mind, they came to my cabin because they didn’t know where the Malveauxs lived. Sure, Sixtus had seen us together at Tilbury, but he really only knew my whereabouts having seen me very close to my cabin as he passed through to Owlton.
Merrax looked back at me and subtly shook his head as if to tell me he was sorry for mentioning it. We let it drop after that. None of us knew anything more than what we all heard on that battlefield; that Sixtus was essentially attempting to alter history for the sake of the fierslen race and that we'd destroyed one of his many plans.
But now, as I headed north, taking the Malveauxs far from Oklahoma and the comfort of their simple existence, I began to think about what we knew and what it all meant. There were more tunnels out in the world. More tunnels that we could assume led to other points in time. It made me wonder if he still could affect Elizabethan history by waiting for it to come around again. As he said, he’d planned the assassination of QE1 for centuries. Was it over once it was over, or could he loop back around?
My head spun a bit as I tried to work through what I was beginning to see as a true dilemma of traveling through time. There was nothing I could be certain of aside from the many proposed paradoxes I’d known about before ever having met the Malveauxs. I was happy when finally the sky darkened and each voice in the car drifted away as they all settled into sleep and I turned the music up a bit, muting my brain for a time.
I drove well into the night—stopping once to fill the tank, but skipping fast food, which would certainly cause another unnecessary bout of anxiety for them all—and cutting across the country to approach 94 south of Chicago. Though I wanted to hop off for coffee, I knew it would be wise to stay away from the city while we hugged Lake Michigan, avoiding yet another shock to my passengers before our final, equally distressing destination.
My hand lifted the map silently from Haeden’s lap, though I allowed myself to lightly run my fingers across his hand. He finally looked so peaceful after this traumatizing day. The dark gold twists of hair that fell across his closed eyelids moved subtly with the air coming through the vents and I wondered if it bothered him, if I should turn the air off.
It was strange to me, I now thought, how all of a sudden I was our driver. I was our leader; in charge of considering things only I could consider and planning things only I had knowledge enough to plan. Everything from eating to stopping for gas was in my hands. The Malveauxs couldn’t even calculate how far Kell and Rhys could get by car; they couldn’t fathom things like GPS, speed limit changes, potential variables like being pulled over by the cops or getting a flat tire. Everything that had to be considered was being considered by me now.
I looked down at the map which was now unfolded and revealed a tiny crossroads location I knew quite well. If it wasn’t a tunnel, it was something. The spot was clear; an arch marked in blue ink that sat atop a place very dear to my heart.
We coasted on into the night, headed for those intersecting streets, cruise-controlling across I-94 while my sleepy mind wandered. I wished I could change the music and play something that reminded me of our destination. Instead, I resigned myself to the industrial songs looping in my mind as we shot across Michigan and my eyes fought against a wash of exhaustion.
It fell over me so suddenly, the sleepiness; like I’d taken a bunch of melatonin. The pedal beneath my foot eased up while the Taurus slowed on the exit ramp. We were just outside of Ann Arbor now. Time for caffeine.
The small coffeehouse I randomly found at the edge of town appeared to be full of after-party twenty-somethings jammed into oversized leather booths. People chatted in line while waiting for coffees and shots of espresso; I waited to order my latte, but kept my eyes on the crowd around me.
How had I found this place, I thought. What a strange place to stumble upon, and why is everyone so alert and so—so bright? My thoughts were beginning to cloud my mind and the words that came to me were senseless as I stared around at the people in the shop. I tried to shake the fogginess from my head, but the strangeness of the description stuck with me. Why did I say they were bright?
When I reached the counter, my attention was on anything else but my order, so I blurted out, “cappuccino” and paid before I even realized it was my turn. The curious cup I was handed was filled with an unfamiliar taste, but I dazedly held on to it, then settled into a booth and continued with glazed over eyes to watch the people file in and out, laughing and texting, lounging and reading.
It took more than a minute for me to notice that someone had slid into the booth beside me and was staring straight ahead.
“Welcome to the Nightingale,” came a strange accent. “You seem to have opened your tired mind at just the right moment for us to convene here, yeah?”
“What?” I said like a hypnotized idiot, turning my head to see the rigid, leather-clad frame beside me.
For all the running that we'd done, the panicking and frantic thinking, the dozen-hour drive, we could just as easily have stayed right at home, for beside me sat Kell, tall and blond and brutish beyond compare. He clasped his hands together on top of the table, keeping his eyes ahead, satisfied with his position.
“You wander all the way to Michigan, leave your unarmed clan sleeping outside, and take a seat at a fierslen nox praesidium like its some bloody casual night. It's almost insulting, though I do take pride in having latched to your mind on those last turns. And to think, Sixtus claims you're some sort of wonder. Wonder I haven't run you through yet, letting yourself be pulled so easily.”
I kept still and silent as he rattled on, his voice thick with a nordic accent, yet somewhat British. Now I thought only of the fact that I had no way of signaling to the car and that he was right, I’d been manipulated into stopping and letting my guard down. My clouded, confused thoughts and overwhelming exhaustion were his doing.
“Now I'd like to know what exactly I should do with you after I cut the throats of your passengers. I've been told not to shed your blood... continue the race, blah blah, all that. But—” he reached under the table and latched tightly to my inner thigh. “Nobody ever said I couldn't stake out my claim on you before we get back. You're to be one of ours anyhow. And I don't see myself waiting for you to come around.”
I'd be lying if I said I'd perked up at the point that he’d threatened to kill the Malveauxs. I was too far behind to register that before he grabbed me. Yet just as his fingers ran up to graze the seam on the crotch of my pants, my mind kicked in. I threw my fist into his throat, then poured my steaming coffee onto his lap, shoving at him until he nearly fell from the booth, but before he could hit the ground, two hands were there helping me.
Haeden grabbed Kell's shoulders and slammed him into the floor, boring into his upper arm with my dagger until it disappeared entirely. Nobody in the Nightingale—who I could now tell were probably fierslen—screamed or ran from the scene as Kell shouted at his pain. They just stared at us, bemused as the scuffle continued, my fist slamming into Kell’s face while he struggled against Haeden’s grasp. If I'd had a lighter on me, I would have set him on fire. Instead, I dug my nails into his wrists and tore at the flesh as I attempted to help pull his massive body outside. As the door shut, Haeden knocked him unconscious with a blow to the side of his head, and soon we were throwing him into the street where his men waited, backs to my car. They hadn't expected a fight.
Kell didn't move when we rolled his body toward their feet. He was far from dead, though. I'd injured him worse just a week ago.
“Interesting,” spoke Rhys as he stepped out from the side of the coffeehouse. He came up behind us to stand dangerously close to Haeden’s outstretched fist, which had readied itself to be thrown. Kell groaned then and blinked his eyes back open. We should’ve killed him.
“It appears you didn't think we saw you, Malveaux, creeping out of that wretched thing, leaving your brothers sleeping whilst you took to rescuing your girl. Sixtus will be thrilled when he hears of this union. But to think you liken yourself to what he says she is capable of. You're as dead a Sesmæith as any, no? She’d be far better matched with one of us.”
“Funny, you suddenly know me as an old pal when the most we've met was when I slid my blade into you. Did you enjoy it as much as I did?” Haeden's teeth parted into a sly and enticing smile that flustered me for just a moment; he never spoke like that.
“Not a pal,” Rhys shot back, “but I have long known you to be unmistakably ill-equipped in all of your narrowly won battles, Haeden Malveaux. But I suppose it's been so long, you wouldn't know me from the Hall of Vengeance on la rue Saint Sébastien. It is all gone now—you well know—but not forgotten... at least, not by me.”
“I know it well, but your face, I do not recall.”
“You'll know me soon enough, Malveaux. You'll remember that day as it winds its way through your mind on your dying breath.”
“Is that so? I believe I'll find the memory much before you’d have such an opportunity.”
“Unless you're taken by distraction,” Rhys hissed, throwing his weight into Haeden and pushing past to charge at my car. I stood in frozen awe as he took up his knife and sword and began to slash at the metal on the trunk and doors, making grooves, cutting away the paint in an attempt to rattle its inhabitants. His brown hair whipped aggressively in the wind and he smiled at us both while his blade dug at the body of my car.
But Haeden had purposely allowed Rhys to push him to the ground, making it easier for him to drop and disarm Kell who had started getting to his feet while Rhys had been talking.
I knew I had to be quick then as I turned to lunge at the two nameless men with my dagger, both of whom had been focusing on Haeden. The blade sunk into the shorter of the two and he fell into the curb in front of the Nightingale while I pulled it out, then rolled to the ground and quickly crawled to the other side of the car before the other could latch his hands on me.
Inside, the Malveauxs stared at the scene encircling their modern carriage, trapped and seemingly helpless as Rhys and the second man trailed their blades across the hood and doors, peeking under the car to taunt me from the other side.
It would have been insane to drive with our weaponry in any other place than the trunk, and in my own stupidity, I hadn't told any of them that they could access it through the back seats. In a brief moment of their distraction, I silently rose to my feet, making eye contact with Merrax through the window and mouthing “pull down,” while I motioned toward the loop on the seat behind him.
Rhys's blade struck out at me as I crept back around the corner and I hurdled it while he turned his head to see what was happening inside the car.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to draw any of my blood,” I said to him, trying to draw his attention back to me. “And one of you is to be my mate? Would you really start our relationship this way?” He smiled and halfheartedly laughed as he stepped in my direction; I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Continuing the fierslen race isn’t about relationships. It’s about strength in preservation.” His sword trailed across the pavement with a cringe-inducing noise as he stepped closer. “And anyhow, do you think I’d have you as you are, with the sharpness of your tongue; your aggressive nature? I’d sooner procreate with a human than a fierslen woman lacking civility.”
“That’s funny. I thought you were human when we first met. Are you sure you’d make fierslen offspring? I’m surprised you could get through the tunnel. Only fierslen can do that, right?” He narrowed his eyes back at me, put off by my questions, then cracked a wider smile.
“You really don’t know anything about what you are or the world you’re now living in, do you?” His words cut at me. What was it that I didn’t know now? “You haven’t a clue about the Contritum, even with some living in that little human town of yours.” A blip of confusion appeared, then retreated in my mind while I watched him laughing at me and shaking his head. His eyes closed enough for me to make a move then.
My arm shot out as I lunged behind him, reaching for his hair while he slammed his fists into me. I wrenched at his head and ignored the pain in my sides, swiftly pulling at a tuft of loose, brown waves, then drawing my dagger across and slicing at his face while he gripped my arms and pushed my hands back. I’d meant to stab him in the neck, but I was satisfied with the damage to his pretty skin. He yelled out then, spinning and striking me across the cheek with a blow I didn’t see coming. I fell to the pavement just as the back car door opened into his torso and Merrax stepped out.
Soon, everyone was piling out of the car and throwing themselves into the fray while Merrax grabbed me off the ground, then turned to hurl his body at Rhys. While everyone around me charged at one another, blades being drawn from the back of my car, I looked to find Haeden. Where is he?
I scanned back and forth between the fight and the open parking lot until I could hear a grumbling voice coming from the other side of the Nightingale. Around the corner, I assumed Haeden would be there, standing over whomever he had rendered unconscious, but on this strange night where we were continually caught off guard, another surprise hit me.
My eyes found him, slumped against the coffeehouse, trying to breathe while blood poured from his lips. One of the unknown men left him riddled with injuries while he ran back to join the fray, passing me while I stood, dazed by the sight of Haeden’s weakened body. His shirt was torn to the point that I could see the red of his skin beneath; the spirals of his hair continued to drip blood on the ground at his boots while he struggled to look up at me.
I wrapped my arm around him and tried to get him to his feet. “Merrax!” I yelled while Haeden’s body staggered against mine and we almost fell. Merrax ran around the corner and found us, pulling Haeden back up and half-running him toward the car.
But then came another shock as we approached the scuffle. Rhys and Kell stood between us and the car, now holding Ethan between them—one blade pressed into his throat, the other hooked against his ribcage. Melitta was screaming something incoherent through her cries while George glanced back to find us helping Haeden who was spitting blood on the pavement at our feet.
“We need to get to the car,” I said to Merrax who nodded at me, but continued to dart his eyes around like he was figuring out an equation written in the air. Haeden stumbled again between us as we waited for an opening that would never arrive.
“Lay down your blades and come with us to Sixtus or he will die in this human wasteland,” Rhys said, looking from Merrax to me like we shared equal power over the decisions being made. We all froze. Every person in that parking lot stood still, and through the hush that had fallen over us, I could hear the distinct beat of my heart in my ears followed by a sudden clash of metal as several blades hit the ground.
We were surrendering. Surrendering? Only I still held my dagger in my shaking hand and I found Rhys’s eyes as he brought his blade up under Ethan’s ribcage until he started to shout at the pain. The dagger slipped from my hand then as well.
Merrax had come to stand at my shoulder in our surrender, now holding Haeden up on his other side, and in an unnoticed moment, was furiously gripping my left hand. Next to us stood Lita and George, hands bound, just the same. And though no one moved, I could feel something stirring beside me while somewhere in the distance, Rhys's voice bellowed at us; something strange and foreign, or maybe it was English, I just didn’t have the focus to hear him.
My hand began to burn and sweat with the heat of Merrax's, the feeling doubling and tripling as his fingers tightly bound mine; his blood was pumping so hard, I could count his heartbeat in my palm. It was the moment I realized that his heart was beating so dangerously fast that I felt a sharpness in my wrist. I looked down in my peripheral vision to see a tiny knife—one of Ethan's—inside Merrax's hand, plunging into my skin. At first I was worried, not because he was cutting me, but because I thought it was so slow that the men across from us would surely see, but then my mind caught up, and the breaking of my skin and darkened veins took only the briefest moment.
Blood slid into my palm from my wrist’s tiny puncture, which Merrax held once more, and I now saw his own blood meeting mine. He squeezed my hand and turned to look in my eyes, then pressed our wrists together. The blood in his opened veins continued to course into my palm, and though at the start I thought I'd faint, as our blood began to unite, it flowed toward my heart, giving me a sense of solidity. I could feel it. Every wall of every vein and artery echoed the feeling of his blood melding with mine, strengthening me, powering my heart like a backup generator.
Beneath his breath, he muttered something in latin and I felt a slight tug at my hand and a ripple of energy that shot through my arms as the others dropped their hands. Rhys stumbled back a step, feeling—I was certain—the sudden force before him. He clenched his teeth at us and dug his blade into Ethan’s skin a bit more while I felt the surge of anger coming from every person standing on our side.
The jolt in my veins from the mix of fierslen blood pulsed black like the darkest of nights beneath my skin. A vibration of concentrated energy seemed to radiate from us, begging us to release it, as Merrax opened his mouth.
“Festinant ut effundant sanguinem!” he shouted. All but Haeden leapt forward in what was almost a flash of a moment. Our bodies collided with the two nameless men who now flanked Rhys and Kell and the energy between us shot forth in a wave that sent them stumbling. Their backs slammed into my car while fists were thrown and weapons recovered from the ground at our feet.
Merrax sidestepped me, his legs skillfully taking him beneath a passing blade, quickly sliding up to meet Rhys’s eyes. Rhys seemed to be shocked at the speed of it all, like what we’d done was foreign to him, and yet, his knife was still at Ethan’s side, pushing harder into his gut.
Lita, all force and fury, tore through the mess of clattering blades, glancing forward to grab at Kell’s waiting hand. The knife within his grasp shook as she wrenched at his arm, Rhys now looking between Kell and Merrax, unable to decide what should come next.
“Getting nervous?” Merrax asked with a voice I found too reminiscent of our first meeting. His cockiness worried me, though he successfully pulled back at Rhys’s fingers and forced him to release his knife. Rhys narrowed his eyes at him while his other arm shoved Ethan toward Kell. He shouted some obscenity, then shouldered Merrax back, landing a closed fist to his eye.
George had knocked one of the men somewhat unconscious and we were now helping Haeden to the car. We’d reached the hood; just a few more steps to get him around to the back seat. Blood dripped from his lips and my stomach continued to knot itself up as I imagined what his injuries may be.
Haeden’s hand planted itself on my car, steadying his legs and he nodded at George to get back into the fray. “I’m okay. Help Merrax. I’ll get myself in,” he said to me. I hesitated with my hands on his arm. It was the first time I’d seen him look so... weak.
I turned then, for just a moment, hoping to see Lita and Merrax recovering Ethan so we could leave this place... but the moment was too fast for my eyes. While Haeden leaned against the Taurus’s hood, I watched as Rhys angrily flattened Merrax to the pavement in a move that seemed to knock the wind from him. He smiled then—a look to knock him down a peg—while Merrax coughed under the weigh, which distracted George, who turned his head just in time for the man he was fighting to slam a fist into his temple. My knees bent and I charged at the guy while Haeden started to collapse on the hood.
“George! George, get Haeden in the car!” I yelled while the man tossed me aside with a sharp pang that I could feel in my injury from Tilbury. I needed to find my dagger, if only to protect myself, but I didn’t have time now.
George stood with a stumble, clearly knocked around by the hit to his head, but ambled toward Haeden while I pulled myself from the ground and ran at Rhys who had brought his blade up over his head and was moments from burying it in Merrax’s chest.
A familiar, slow and building tremble grew within my veins as I took in a deep breath and threw all of my weight into Rhys’s shoulder. The knife came down as I sidled him, tossing him off balance, his blade just missing Merrax, who rolled quickly back to his feet. Rhys turned and opened his mouth in an attempt to shout back at me, but Merrax held tight to one of the fierslen swords he’d swiped from the pavement.
While Rhys and Merrax squared off, a harsh squealing came from the corner of the coffeeshop and a black Lincoln tore around and stopped beside us, doors open. At first, I thought it was a cop, here to arrest us for the brutal fight that had broken out in this open, public space, but no; one of the men had slipped away and was there to snag the others.
I looked over to Merrax whose sword slid threateningly across Rhys’s dagger, then George who was finally getting Haeden into the back seat of the Taurus, then over to Lita... who was on her knees, bleeding, and trying to recover her breath. Kell brought his massive boots down over her, stepping across her body toward the SUV with Ethan now semi-unconscious under his arm. She cried out on the ground, grabbing at the leg of his pants, but he kicked her off while I ran at him.
“Lita, get in the car!” I screamed, and in the corner of my eye, I could see Merrax turn to watch my movements. As I flew toward Kell, clawing desperately at Ethan, Rhys took up his sword, and finally, successfully sliced a shallow path across Merrax’s chest. He sucked in a breath through his teeth at the pain and I was suddenly very aware of the decision I would have to make.
Kell’s free hand grabbed up my arm on his way and I tried to plunge my nails into the one that held Ethan, but I knew behind me that Rhys could be killing Merrax. So instead, I pushed my fist into Kell’s face and struggled to unhook his fingers. When he finally dropped me, I ran back to help Merrax, but Lita was hovering over him and Rhys was trying to grab and shove her from him.
“Talan, the girl!” Kell’s voice boomed from the back seat of the SUV and I flipped my head back and forth between them. Melitta looked up at me while Rhys stood and I paused for a moment, readying my blade to help her. Would he take her too?
Is he... wait... I felt a twisting in my gut as Rhys turned and charged, not for her... but for me. Suddenly, I was acutely aware that my feet were much too close to the SUV. Merrax, pained but getting up, looked over at me and the slowness in everything was eerily familiar as he yelled out, reaching to grab at Rhys’s jacket. A smile spread on his lips while Merrax’s hand missed. Inside my car, I could see Haeden’s eyes widen as he went to open the door, but George said something to him and reached to open his own instead.
The slow ticking that accompanied the scene around me rapped at my eardrums; an echo of my beating heart as I stood in nervous confusion. They were taking me... Merrax was right.
As his hand reached my arm and my eyes still struggled to see everything at a normal speed, I heard a whisper escape from
Rhys’s lips. “Before this ends, you will know the cruelties of this world and why we are salvaging you.” The words were almost nice and I cleared my throat while he clamped to my upper arm and started dragging me back toward the open door of their car.
Just then another hand latched to me. Merrax’s fingers finally held tight to my other arm while he threw his fist over my head and landed several quick shots to Rhys’s face.
“Unhand her!” He yelled, slipping one of Ethan’s throwing knives under Rhys’s chin and tugging at me.
“You’re making a mistake, Malveaux. You suppress her ability, letting her be tied to your brother!”
“She isn’t yours to harness... nor ours. Unhand her or it is YOU who will die in this human wasteland!”
Their eyes locked in a threatening exchange of looks that I knew would one day hit a boiling point, but I wasn’t waiting for more blood to spill today. I quickly brought the heel of my hand up and slammed it into Rhys’s chin as Merrax grabbed me back from him and thrust me into George’s waiting arms.
The SUV doors slammed and we all watched in utter shock as they sped across the lot and left with Ethan in their back seat.