Chapter 17: Kiara

Chapter 17: Kiara

Colt was a wretched pig of a man. He may not have looked it, with his cunning good looks and playful smirk, but I knew now that deep inside him was an irredeemable monster that wanted only to see his father succeed. I hated it so much that I had ever let him get close to me.

Seeing him again had shocked me with nausea. He merely stood by while his father pelted me with kicks and locked up my companions and me. He just watched, letting it all happen! And then he had the nerve to walk up to us while we were all chained up, making comments about how I’d find him irresistible as if our lives weren’t at stake and my mother wasn’t crumpled on the floor dying. I couldn’t believe him. He had no empathy, no heart. Why would he even pretend to care so deeply for that baby girl, as if she was his own, if not to manipulate us?

He didn’t truly care about her, did he?

The cold stone floor left pebbled impressions on my arms and legs as I lay, watching the guards like a cobra waiting to strike. If David and Colt thought I would just sit here quietly until they were ready to sacrifice me, they were wrong. The instant the guards looked away, I was scouring the cables around my wrists or the metal hooks driven into the rock, searching for weakness. Aislin, Billie, and I had developed an unspoken system of communication with subtle glances, nods, frowns, and tilts of our heads, working out a plan to distract the guards, but we wouldn’t enact it until I had figured out how to get out of the binds. We were going to escape no matter what. I stared at my mother, out cold beside me and just out of reach, every shallow breath of hers motivating me more.

The sad truth was that despite our determination, hours after sitting here and tricking ourselves into thinking we were onto something, none of us had a solid idea of what to do next.

Our first real chance arrived when a cacophony of noise blew up further down the tunnel. We all straightened, looking past the guards into the lantern light flickering against the tunnel walls. The guards turned, and one of them set out to investigate. Voices rose up in angry shouts. More gunshots bounced through the cavern. I looked to Aislin and Billie, relieved to find their faces illuminated with hope.

“That’s Gavin!” said Aislin, standing up.

“Hey!” snapped the remaining guard, “Get back down!”

“Fuck you!” Aislin barked back.

She immediately turned for the cables tied around the hook planted in the wall. The guard lunged for her, but as soon as the guard was within reach of me, I stuck out my foot and tripped him. He stumbled into the wall, sliding onto his butt, and I grabbed a rock that had been sitting nearby. Flooded with wild courage, I straddled the guard and slammed the rock into his temple. His hazel eyes widened as the rock cut deeply across his left eyebrow, pouring blood beneath his dark hair. “Bitch!” he hissed, throwing me off of him before I could strike again.

By then, Aislin had started slamming the padlock securing the cables against the rock wall until she’d smashed it open. Billie was on her feet, throwing stones at the downed guard. I threw the rock in my hand at his head. He raised a tattooed arm to defend himself against the onslaught, reaching for Aislin’s wrist. But she had unwound the cables and set us all free, and though our wrists were still bound, now we had freedom of movement to gang up on him. Aislin pushed him away, and I jumped on his back, slinging my arms around his neck. He choked and staggered, thrusting me against the wall. I kept my grip tight, choking him with the shackles on my wrists until he toppled over. In the meantime, Billie had roused my mother awake, pulling her to her feet.

“Mom,” I cried, rushing toward her. She was barely conscious and couldn’t even hold herself upright. Her silver hair hung loosely around her face, eyes looking emptily at me, through me, as if she didn’t recognize me.

But she did. My name hovered soundlessly on her lips.

“It’s okay. We’re going to get you out of here,” I promised.

I helped Billie support my mother while Aislin led us out of the tunnel into the wide cavern where most of the fighting took place. All of a sudden, we were exposed to the Dalesbloom wolves and Inkscale dragons defending themselves against a tide of our packmates backed by Mythguard humans. Surprise anchored me to the spot. I hadn’t expected such bravery from the wolves who previously had merely sat back and allowed my mother to be taken prisoner, claiming not to know where to even find their enemies.

“They must have followed us,” Aislin suggested. “Thank Luna.”

I gave no God credit for this. It was pure dumb luck that Billie and Aislin were stupid enough to sneak off without telling their Alpha mates. Obviously, they would have been followed!

My ears rang from all the gunshots firing through the cavern. Past all the bloodshed, I glimpsed the far-off entrance to the mine, where freedom glistened in rays of dawn. “That way!” I said to Billie, pulling her and my mother forward.

Aislin protected us as we pushed toward the entrance. She swung her fists at anybody that got too close, digging her nails into skin and throwing hard kicks into ribs. Her teeth flashed in vicious warning until somebody knocked her sideways and to the ground. “Damnit, Aislin!” I shouted, but before I could reach for her, somebody else stepped in to brutally snap the neck of the dragon shifter that attacked her. I reeled back, staring in awe at the dirty blond-haired, bearded, steel-eyed Viking of Everett March standing over Aislin.

“Ev!” Aislin rasped, rolling onto her stomach. “Shit, is that guy dead?”

“Get up,” Everett growled, grabbing her hand and helping her to her feet.

From across the room, another voice hailed us. “Billie!” The brown-haired Alpha paused to throw a punch at someone, then looked our way again. “Are you okay?”

Billie swallowed hard, urging my mother forward. “Yeah, I am. Gavin, be careful, please!”

“Yeah babe,” Gavin replied before promptly being drawn into another fistfight.

With Everett’s help, we plunged into the crowd and made our way toward dawn. We were so close I could taste the fresh air. Just a little further…

Thunder broke through the cavern, and suddenly, Everett jerked forward, a bullet biting into his shoulder. Aislin cried out and grabbed her mate.

“No further, or I’ll put a hole in his head!” roared David.

Everybody in the room paused. The fighting immediately stopped as we all turned our eyes to David lurching toward the crowd, clutching his abdomen where he had previously taken a bullet wound. Colt lingered behind him, hugging the infant tight.

Everett snarled, forcing himself to stand up. “Keep going. I’ll deal with him.”

His eyes met David’s with a warning. When David tried to shoot Everett again, the Eastpeak Alpha dodged and charged at him, brimming with vengeance.

I knew it took all of Aislin’s strength not to go after her mate. Her eyes gleamed with worry, but all the same she took my mother’s arm and helped us. The fighting resumed, only now we had the Mythguard around us to protect us from Dalesbloom and the Inkscales trying to hold us back.

When I felt somebody grabbing my arm, I let go of my mother to push the offender back—only to see Colt already bleeding from where he had been attacked in the fray. He shoved the infant into my arms. “Get her out of here.”

“No!” I protested, thrusting the wailing child back at him.

“Take her!” yelled Colt.

“Kiara, let’s go!” Billie pleaded.

One of the dragons broke through our Mythguard defenders and tried to grab the baby away from me. I recognized the dragon—it was the tattooed guard, blood trickling from his temple. Then, time seemed to slow. I watched Colt turn his eyes onto the dragon, his expression twisting in rage at the sight of someone attacking me. With his hands now free, he lunged at the dragon, disappearing into the crowd with him.

He had turned on the dragons to protect me. He risked himself trying to get this baby to safety. For a moment, I was too stunned to process what I saw before continuing with the group. Step by step, we got closer to freedom.

A body eclipsed the rising red sunlight. He was the only thing standing in our way…

Lothair Javier.

The bedraggled man breathed heavily like he had fought through hordes to get here. He wore only black pants, no shoes, and no shirt. Long blond hair hung over his shoulders and in front of his dirt-smeared face. His piercing yellow eyes sunk into me like teeth—I was holding his daughter. “Give her to me,” he said darkly.

Seconds ago, I hadn’t wanted anything to do with this baby. But now, inexplicably, I couldn’t stand to hand her back to the enemy.

“Give me my child!” Lothair roared.

“Lothair! Forget the goddamn child; stop them!” David howled from deep within the cavern.

His eyes shifted behind me, flickering with anger. “You neglect the father’s obligation to his daughter. I will protect her above all else,” he said harshly, then zeroed in on me again. “Give her to me now!”

“You left her!” was all I could muster; the only argument I could think of to justify why I still held this baby dragon in my arms.

But it was stupid and reckless of me to think clutching onto the child was the right thing to do. Lothair rushed toward me, reaching for his daughter with one hand and my throat with the other. At that moment, his fingers wrapped around my windpipe with a sudden intensity I hadn’t expected. I choked as he wrestled the child out of my arms, and favoring survival, I let her go, but at that moment, Aislin shoved her shoulder into Lothair’s back. He stumbled and hit the ground. I stumbled, too. Everyone screamed, but all I could hear was the infant’s shrieking cries as she tumbled out of our arms, her impact with the floor surely enough to break bones. To stop her heart.

We all gasped.

Reacting quicker than any of us was my mother.

It must have been her maternal instincts, her motherly love for the motherless child, that threw her toward the baby. While Lothair was still sitting up, and I was still trying to understand what I’d just done, my mother was already on the floor, cradling the broken baby in her arms.

“Oh no. I’m so sorry. You never deserved this. I should have helped you when I had the chance. I’m so sorry…”

“Mom!” I called out for her. I tried to grab her arm and drag her away, but Lothair was already on his feet, blinding wrath drawing him toward the scene.

“We have to go,” Aislin urged, taking my arm.

“No! We can’t leave!” I pulled my mother.

She didn’t move with us. Her body shuddered with a swell of magic, using the last of her energy to desperately save the baby from death. Her voice cracked with pain that I felt in myself.

“Kiara!” Billie cried.

They dragged me away as I screamed for my mother. Through tears, I watched Lothair close in on her, and I felt her life force wither away as she used the last of it on the infant. I could only watch, helpless, as my mother succumbed to the furious claws of the dragon Alpha. I couldn’t save her anymore. I’d lost all my chances.

The Mythguard, Grandbay, and Eastpeak warriors that survived the fight pulled back, retreating with us back into the sunrise.

The last thing I saw was a glimpse of my mother’s sweet violet eyes, a tear rolling down her cheek.