Page 104 of The Curse of a Kingdom
Then someone hit it full force, and even though the door was still there, it moved a fraction, the broken pieces showing sections of exposed pulp. Nava hesitated before looking at Devon who, unlike her, had walked to the door and was standing on the side with the sword, ready to attack.
Where he stood, it would be easier to get anyone who entered through the hole. She walked to the other side, hoping to imitate someone who had been taught and had fought much more than her.
The crack extended farther as a heavy body hit it full force. The masculine voice coming from the outside was clearer when the wooden door began to collapse and the gap grew larger. Nava couldn’t tell what the person was saying or the responses of the fae near him, but they were angry.
She trembled as her magic rose within, her skin glowed bright yellow. She had to do this again, fight for her life like she had last year. The building dread in her stomach wasn’t just hers, which meant Arkimedes was in trouble, and he was alone.
She met Devon’s gaze from the other end of the doorframe, and time halted right before the door blew off its hinges. Wood pieces flew across the room, and splinters went everywhere. She was protected from them by pushing closer to the wall. The bed screeched, hit by a large piece, and flew across the room as one of the posts broke in half.
She breathed out and steeled her nerves. Four winged men stormed into the room, weapons held high with their dark auras billowing around their bodies.
Devon attacked first, pure stealth and elegant use of the weapon, like an extension of his arms. The first guard who entered had not been waiting for the strike, and the blade went through the gap between the helmet and the bottom of the chain mail, slicing the head right off the body. Blood sprayed out of the severed neck, pooling on the floor.
Bile rose in her throat. She turned away from the body and focused on the guard closer to her, who didn’t take long to spot her. He was taken aback by the clear vision of her magic aura blooming off her body. A scream left her lips as she attacked with her knives raised high.
Nava swiped across metal and hit one of the straps of his arm plate. The metal slid over his arms, and the second swipe of her blade hit the chain mail underneath. His magic wrapped around her, but she had practiced against this shadow magic before in all of her training sessions with Arkimedes.
Her body heated in reflex, and the mist evaporated with the touch, then she called her bees. In the past few days, everywhere she went, the insects had always followed. Crawling over walls, camouflaged by the warm tones of the castle stones. Devon or Arkimedes hadn’t noticed or maybe hadn’t mentioned it.
All at once, the bees flew off the walls and swarmed the other two guards, who were jumping on Devon with both magic and weapons. Maybe they thought he was the biggest threat—and the Crow had been right. They’d underestimated her. The guards, the king, even Arkimedes.
She was a Beekeeper, a sorceress, and she would show them how wrong they were.
“Bees everywhere!” one said with a hoarse scream. From her peripheral vision, she saw a large man jump back, avoiding Devon’s blade. He swatted around his face as thousands of bees descended upon him.
His pink copper armor became a moving brown shade when her insects crawled over, searching for a crevice to get in. He ran closer to the bed, his panicked breathing one of the noises in the room. His aura turned black and heavy.
“I can’t get them off!” he screamed, and the man who had attacked Nava turned toward him long enough for Nava to jump on him. Her skin was bright, and it illuminated this corner of the room, cutting through the darkness that surrounded him.
She slammed the blade of her knife in the gap where the chain mail met his helmet, and warm blood splattered her hand and the side of her cheek. Pulling back, she held her gag reflex as the man staggered to the wall, dropping down while holding his neck.
Devon was on the third man, his face shiny with sweat. The Dark One’s aura surrounded him. However, the guard was overtaken by bees and was struggling to see anything beyond what was in front of him.
Her body temperature was high, and the stone beneath their feet swayed under their steps. The guard by the bed fell to the ground, screaming. The bees made it through the eyeholes of his mask and the crevices between his chest and arm plates.
Their screams echoed in the room, and she heard the sword cut the air once again and a pained cry a moment later. Looking at the last guard by the broken bed sent her a flashback of how her bees had attacked Devon last year and how Arkimedes had stopped her. The man’s shaky arms held him on, and there was not a visible inch of his armor.
Nava swallowed and walked to the man, leaving Devon behind. Every step she took, the bees swarmed around in a protective circle.
“Help,” she heard someone say. It might have been him or her subconscious yelling at her to hold off and exercise some humanity. He had come here to hurt her—maybe kill her—but Nava didn’t need to be like these people.
She called off her insects, and all at once, they flew off his body, and his shaky arms gave way as he collapsed to the floor.
Silence descended upon them, and Nava found she could take a deep breath. She heard Devon’s steps by the door. His eyes were wide as he looked at her, presumably remembering all that happened to him before.
“We need to get to Arkimedes,” she said and wiped the blood off her hand onto her pants, trying to distract herself with anything else than whether or not she had killed the man or how much easier it had been this time.
“He would want us to go to the safe house.”
“Too bad he isn’t here to call the shots—and I’m going there, whether he wants me to or not.”
Devon nodded, a smirk pulling his lips as they both exited the room. “I did say you seem like a fit mate for him.”
Except Nava didn’t like to think she would have stormed into a trap on her own. Ark—Orion—had done that. She was much more of a team player than a lone wolf. With the threat of the attack gone for now, she could fully sink into the changes of her mate.
How he had chosen to be alone, had decided he didn’t want the memories of their life together. The ache in her chest grew as she stopped by the door. If he didn’t want what they had, for whatever reason, she would have to be fine with it, even though it wrecked her.
Nava had been afraid of this very thing happening when she withheld the information about their bond. She wouldn’t have abandoned him before and wouldn’t now either.
