The Raven Lord | Book I

XI. The Protector

The general's face had gone paler than death.

He knew what it was that sent the mountains roaring and the earth quivering, crumbling. He could feel its presence, moving from shadow to shadow in the labyrinth of streets, making its way toward its prey. Toward him.

The general stood weakly and backed up, but soon he was trapped. Trapped by the crevice that the false gypsy girl had fallen through just moments before, her scream fading quickly in the wind. He drew his dagger, albeit he knew the effort was pointless.

All went still, as the air itself seemed to hold its breath. The fire inside of the lamps that kept the darkness at bay banked, trembled: did the flame know too?

All too clearly, the scrape of stone on stone sounded from the alley ahead of the general. His breathing quickened as he attempted to melt into shadow. He flickered in that moment, frozen between smoke and solid form, before his power sputtered and burned. The damned king knew he was here: the wards were back up.

Sweat trickled down the brutish man's brow as he stared into the familiar darkness, which had suddenly become a place he feared. The stone on stone sounded again, but closer now. No, not stone, claws. The general backed up, his foot hitting the ledge. He had nowhere to go but forward.

A savage laugh broke through the air, everywhere and nowhere. More claws. The general was trembling now, reduced to nothing more than a bumbling coward.

Out of the darkness, a gleam could be seen. It grew, and soon, a man stepped out of the shadows. Not a man, a monster. The gleam was from it's incredibly large teeth, as it sneered from its place at the edge of the shadows.

"Please," the general whined, "please."

The half monster stalked closer, dragging his fiendish claws on the buildings as he approached his trembling prey. "You should not have come," it said. It cocked its head to the side, blonde hair falling into its face. In the light of the moon, the general could have sworn it was just a normal human. But he was very, very wrong.

The last thing the general saw was a clawed hand, poised directly above his head.

﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀Kaira﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀

I didn't know when I had stopped falling.

The only things that I registered were the steady beat of wings, and the smell of pine and ash.

Lex's smell.

﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀

I awoke sore and groggy, and if I was being honest, I was in a very foul mood. Every inch of my body felt like it had been used as a punching bag, and my side ached with a steady heartbeat of its own.

I hissed through my teeth as I sat up in bed: my bed in Lex's estate. A sense of relief fluttered through me at the thought of not being dead.

"You're awake!" Ash said from the corner of my room, where he had taken up a seat near the window. "We were so worried." He gave me a small smile and came to the bedside. "How are you feeling?"

"Like death," I rasped, and in doing so, I realized that my lip was split.

Another sad smile. "Noctia came just in time to heal you. We didn't know what was going to happen."

I sprawled my fingers across the fresh linen sheets. They were lined with cuts and small bruises, and my wrist was bandaged tightly. "How?" I asked, and from the look on Ash's face, I knew he knew what I meant.

He took a seat on the bed. "General Wrens made the mistake of shadow jumping when you were fighting. Lex felt the pulse of power through the wards and dove toward it. He got there just in time to see you fall."