Hopelessly Devoted ~ Garroth x F!Reader

Ch. 7: Tempe at 3am

With Garroth's face now in the open, a question played at his lips. Instead, he let it go, sending a a few glances out your window. Your knight-in-less-than-shining armor fixated on surveying the area outside.

"If I'm supposed to trust you now, then why do you keep checking that window?" you asked the paranoid guard.

"Routine," he answered curtly.

"But nothing's even there, you don't need——"

SHATTER. A deadly-paced projectile collided with the glass, an array of shards crumbling onto the floorboards inside. Garroth shoved you out of the way as a sharp object skirted past, narrowly missing the both of you.

"I thought you said this didn't involve me!" you whisper-shouted.

"Forget that! Stay low," he urged exasperatedly, as if you had a choice. His body remained pinned on top of yours where you'd landed.

He steadied you upon feeling the panicked rising and falling of your chest, then crawled away from the viewpoint of each window in the room. He stood first, and while you were out of projectile range from any other potential breakages, you hesitated to get up until he extended an outstretched hand to you. You took it cautiously, his touch warm in your trembling hand. Instead of letting go after helping you up, he guided you behind his body as he unsheathed his sword.

He took particular notice to his grip around your fingers, then winced and let go while maintaining his wide stance in front of you. He approached the window from the side, his sword outstretched. "Go to your room and stay out of sight," he instructed. "I'm going outside to investigate."

"Garroth, please!" You reached for him, afraid of what could happen if he left your side. You studied his face, this time not to forget it.

He flipped down the front of his visor with a resounding clink of chain mail. "Go! I'll be back," he insisted in a commanding tone that almost made you believe the uncertainty. However, after he disappeared outside of your front door, you grew less confident than he was in that promise.

You rushed to your unlit bedroom and closed the door behind you, then crawled under your desk, your back firmly pressed against the wall.

Your heart raced as opaque wisps slipped under the door, spreading over the floor in your direction like dry-ice fumes. The black smoke travelled as if following a scent, curling its way closer to you. You huddled deeper into your spot as impending terror compressed your chest, your back digging into the wall behind. You held your breath, but it wasn't voluntary. The air quality was suffocating. Cornered with no opening to escape, the cloud filled virtually every particle of air before engulfing you. It acted with its own force, attaching to your limbs and puppeteering you into a standing position.

Now that you'd been stripped from your cover, your heart constricted as the smoke dissipated into the hooded figure of cloaked and masked man. You gasped at the sudden apparition, inadvertently allowing for some lingering mist to invade your lungs, which prevented the scream of horror you so desperately wanted to let out at his ghastly face. Individual paths of thin smoke curled up your nostrils, the effects sedative and suffocating. Your body limped as he locked an arm around your neck, something sharp and cold pressing pin-pricks into your side.

You elbowed the wispy form with the last of the nerves you still felt before all control seceded. The oxygen in your lungs burst like a punch to an airbag, your pulse hammering.

"Foolish child," the cloaked man growled, then rolled his blood-shot eyes in annoyance, as if your struggle was more of an inconvenience than a setback. He folded up the bottom of your shirt, exposing the skin up to your belly button. Under his hungry stare, the shame of indecency welled within your helpless state. Tears welled in the backs of your eyes as his disgusting gaze dwelled on your body far longer than necessary before he swiftly sliced a gash above your hip bone.