Chapter 21

It all happens fast. Punja is about to tell us how I can help then one of the Urr'ki behind him is yelling and brandishing a knife but before I can react Dilacs grabs me. His arm hooks around my middle, knocking my wind out in a whuff.

He barrels towards the door. I'm looking behind, watching Punja collapse to the ground. The one who attacked him is running towards us a gleaming blade in his hand. Khiara tackles him and the two of them roll across the dirty stone floor.

Dilacs growls. It's a deep bass that rumbles in my guts. He bends almost in half with me still hooked over his left arm. He twists his body and I'm now half wrapped around his waist, clinging to him the best I can to try and help.

He hits someone. The person he shoulders aside spins past and falls to the ground with a yelp. The door slams open and we emerge from the hovel. Dilacs skids to a stop.

I can't see what's happening, but he lowers me to the ground. As my feet find purchase he keeps one arm across my stomach, holding me back. No, not holding me back, protecting me. A semi-circle of armed guards blocks the way forward.

"Give her to us," one of them says. "By order of the Shaman."

I'm too scared to be scared. Stupid, maybe. This is it. The Shaman and his Maulavi are about to take me away and I know what that means. I'll never be seen again. It's not a matter of if they will hurt me but how bad will it be before they kill me. But I'm not scared. Or I don't feel scared. All I feel is numb.

Nothing seems very important. There is this strange sense of inevitability that kind of makes it okay. Like I knew I was on borrowed time and now that it's all called due, well I'm more or less okay with it.

Dilacs, however, has a completely different reaction. His lips quiver then twist into a wicked grin and he laughs. It's a deep, grumbling laughter that grows louder and louder.

The eight guards facing us exchange nervous glances. All of them that is except the one two steps ahead, their apparent leader. He watches Dilacs with an easy confidence born from superior force.

Fighting continues in the hovel behind us. I have no idea who is winning or what is happening in there, but I hope that Khiara is okay. I hope, dimly, that he'll join us out here and shift the odds from nil to something slightly more in the range of not impossible.

What is it they say? Tajss provides, right? Well right about now would be a mighty fine time to provide. A quake could help. Lightning from the ceiling would be even better.

Dilacs laughter has grown louder and louder now shaking his entire body. He is guffawing and even I don't know what's happening with him. He slaps his thigh, shakes his head, and points at the leader.

"Oh," Dilacs says, straightening and reducing the pealing bells of his laughing to suppressed chuckles. "You're serious?" The laughter stops. Instantly. His face shifts from amused to deadly serious. "I'll give you one chance."

"One chance?" the leader asks. "Have you lost your mind? We outnumber you eight to one. Surrender and I will ask that the Maulavi be kind to you."

Dilacs growls. His heavy-lidded eyes look sleepy, half-closed and disinterested, but I know that is a ruse. He stands straighter, squares his shoulders, and smiles.

"There is something you need to understand," Dilacs says and as he speaks the door behind us bangs open causing me to jump. Though the guards flinch too, Dilacs doesn't. It's as if he knows before it happens that his brother is about to join him.

"What is that?" the leader asks.

Dilacs points at me. My heart speeds up as I look from him to the guard.

"She," he says, pausing for dramatic effect then moving his finger to his own chest, "is mine."

The way he growls the mine, so similar to what he did when he kissed me inside, makes me hot and wet. My body is an idiot but there is no controlling this absolutely visceral reaction I have to him or his claiming. Until I remember that Khiara is right behind him, listening to all of this.

Worry for Khiara and his feelings jerks my attention to him. Khiara looks at me with a deep, hurt frown, but he shakes his head. He steps up next to his brother, hands balling into fists. As he moves, he gives me a subtle nod and a shrug as if to say, it is what it is. My chest swells with a platonic love for him even as my heart breaks knowing he is hurt by this.

"You heard him," Khiara says. "The female is my brother's dragoste. No one, not even the Shaman, can interfere with that."

No one including him. That's what the glance he shoots at me says. I don't know what that word means, but I do understand his message. His message of support. He is such a good man.

The guards behind the leader shift and two of them mutter something under their breath. A flicker of hope that we might somehow get out of this sparks, almost catching fire.

"The Shaman is our guide to the next world," the leader says. "The old ways are what got us here, it is time to end it. Those things no longer matter."

The leader makes a slashing gesture with one hand. Nothing happens for a heartbeat. Two. Three heartbeats. Then the guards surge forward, and my men go to work.