A Beautiful Sacrifice

Chapter Twenty Seven

Creak…. Thud… click… snick…

His hand was still outstretched after he closed the door. He walked away from it wishing that with every step he was going in the opposite direction. In other words, he wished he was going back towards her.

“I can hear marching.” A bouncing Adrian said. He was twitching, restless; he wanted the waiting over and the battle started. He could feel his power weakening and it made him more twitchy. Perttu was calm, collected and patient. Waiting he could do. He was not afraid. He was a leader though and his observance was key to his duties. And so his next words inevitably came from a fully prepared and logically thinking leader.

“But who’s marching?”

“Wouldn’t Hounds be running?” Adrian questioned back.

                Perttu sighed, “Only if they were in the form of hounds. If they were human they would march. And we established earlier that hounds are not our only enemy at this moment in time.” In that sentence the rhythmic marching became something else completely. The footsteps became loud and louder. It seemed in their ears to go from steps to bangs and they only increased in power. It hammered in all their heads pounding continuously.

“They’re getting closer.”

“Much closer.” Perttu glanced back at the doors he had just closed then straightened his back… And his already tough resolve. “Upstairs!” He ordered.

                All the men fell into a line, backs straight, chests out, hands folding into fists and as soldiers they marched to the stairs. At the front Perttu turned his head back to the door one last time where all the women were locked in safe. “Goodbye Lily.” He muttered. Then he climbed a flight of stairs to the men’s safe chamber… and walked straight past it. Soldiers did not wait in safety when on slaughter was due. They had work to do in the form of protecting the house – on keeping the walls as strong as possible when under attack.

                So he climbed the second flight of stairs to the trap door he had kept hidden from Lily until now and to the lowest floor of the house. There was a reason he had kept the house as sparsely furnished as possible. It reduced the clean up in the aftermath of battle and the object that could be turned on him. His house was so big not for dinner parties with his father’s rich guests but because it was a safe house. It was impersonal except for his personal level because his life was a leader. He was too busy to think about the niceties of décor and picking out colour schemes and patterns. And if he had guests, their time was not in the lavish bedrooms that held only the standard provisions, but in the safe chambers. The walls that had been penetrated and now fixed thanks to Niklas were made of titanium; the trap floor was the border line separating the house and metal foundations. The house only had so many stories because if the enemy got in there was distraction. They would be searching a long time before they found the trap door - concealed with vampire magic and now – thanks once again to Niklas – which sorcerer’s magic.

                Due to his marching, he couldn’t wipe away the tear that was clinging to the bottom eyelashes. So he blinked furiously trying to stop it from falling… It dried on his lashes. Centuries, no, millennia they had tried to hold off attack but it was too much. It wasn’t just any of the hound’s princes that had been killed. It had been the oldest one. The one who kept the peace. A hound who had once befriended Perttu and when Perttu should have been allowed to grieve in peace he had been furiously trying to find out who had dared to kill the one who had kept them all safe. An age old truce had been enforced by Thaddeus and a vampire that Perttu had told wasn’t good enough to be in his personal rank of soldiers without more training first had decided such information was beneath him and to teach Perttu a lesson the vampire had killed Thaddeus destroying the truce. The vampire had then joined the hounds so he would come face to face with Perttu in his insinuated battle.