Jill... well, the visit wore her out. I can see it in the way her eyes drift shut and how she can't lift her hands enough to gesture. Here's hoping it didn't wear her out too much. I'm unsure how another episode will affect her.

The remedies I've been making have helped little lately. And yet, I can't control her health and I can't hold her back from living. We'll just deal with it if and when it comes.

But that doesn't affect her voice. I may be practically carrying her home, but her tongue is still the outgoing little sis I know. She speaks an Eldertree mile a minute. Apparently, they raided Becca’s closet and went out to see the competitors come in. They waved and shouted and they even got a few waves and smiles from the knights on their ginormous (Jill’s word, not mine) horses. I believe it. Those two are cute as buttons when they want to be. I’m just glad they had a fun time.

My sister's blonde hair and blue-green eyes set in a high cheek-boned face has her drawing in all the men like fairy bats to a flame. Her outgoing and fun-loving personality only keeps them there. You don't know how many times I've had to run men off with the pointy end of a sharp object.

She's only thirteen, for goodness' sake.

She's my polar opposite in every way. She has light blonde hair to my mousy brown. I'm quiet and reserved and don't care a lick for how I look while she is fashionable and quant, even if the pretty light green dress she's wearing now hangs marginally off her frame. She's become skinnier and frailer since Father died, and beneath all the talk is a girl who cares deeply. Sometimes too deeply.

I'm the one who couldn't care less about poking someone with a pointy object. Jill faints at the sight of blood. But she's strong, sometimes stronger than even I in ways I don't know and can't quite explain.

There are a few humans here and there, but they mostly keep their heads down and travel on to wherever they are going. Ran darts into the still lingering shadows, then catches up to us when they have walked on.

How that big of a wolf hides in shadows... when she is WHITE... I will never know. I just know that when she darts into a cavity or some other shadow such as beneath an overhang or behind a large barrel, she disappears. I've learned not to question it. She always ignores me when I bring it up.

Ran’s ears perk as we come around a bend, traveling into deeper back streets that are utterly deserted.

But this time, instead of darting into a shadow, Ran pulls her lips back in a silent snarl, stepping in front of Jill and I.

“Easy girl,” I whisper before easing forward to peek around the earthy brown stone at my head.

This alley opens to a courtyard about the size of a dragon. In the center is a fountain shaped like a mountain goat. It's a mottled grey that has turned mostly green and slimy from age.

This was once a ritzy part of town, but when the nobles started complaining about being so close to the market and people, they moved to the outskirts of town... or the townhouses that look like mini castles built directly into the sides of the cliff that's right outside The Castle. So now, this place is left to deteriorate with age and disuse.

The trellises that held beautiful trailing vines are being eaten by termites. The out-of-control vines are now crawling up to the top of many of the two and three-story buildings around the old courtyard. On the left, there is a crumbling arch leading to a tiny garden, the garden behind it overrun with weeds. And the poor fountain, any mechanism for water to pour from his mouth long deteriorated, and any coins thrown to its depths long stolen by hungry hands.

I take this in from my periphery, my eyes trained on six burly men surrounding a prone figure curled into a fetal position. My stomach curdles as I watch one man kick the figure. The criminals laugh as the man on the ground groans. The poor thing practically vibrates with fear.

Jill perks up from her place on Ran’s back. My sister... oh boy. How'd she get up there... again? I shake my head, slightly exasperated. It took me years to get Ran to let me ride her, and she dumped me for the first ten rides. Or more. She still dumps me when she feels like it.

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But my sister? Nope. Ran acts like a tame old gelding with my sister on her back. No one can say no to Jill. Even my temperamental bond mate can’t deny my little sister’s charm, despite Ran’s insistence that only I ride her in the direst of times. Anyone else would be feeling her claws.

“What is it?” Jill asks. Loudly, I might add.

“Shhh,” I hush her just as loudly.

I peep around the corner as all becomes silent, making cold sweat break out across my skin.

A large bald fellow motions with his hands, breaking off with three of the men to trot towards the sound. Towards us.

I swear. This is not my day. And it's only just begun.

I duck back into the alley. The steps get closer at a fast pace. I pull my hood up and quickly tie the mask underneath in place. It covers my mouth and nose, tying directly to sewed hole in the hood to keep it from flying off when I fight.

“Go,” I whisper to Ran, jutting my chin at Jill. "Just come back quickly."

I won’t leave that poor soul behind. Who can say what those thugs intend? But I won't have Jill involved in my fight.

Ran looks at me for a split second as I pull out my two hidden daggers coated in a sleeping concoction I made. She hesitates, but I have no time to argue.

“GO!” I hiss.

She turns and lopes out of view just as four of the burly men turn the corner. I imagine they see a figure cloaked in a deep red hood, holding two gleaming daggers. Too bad I’m too short to intimidate.

A burly man chuckles. “Seriously? This has gotta be a poor joke, blokes. It’s just a twig.” His voice is surprisingly high-pitched for such a fat and large fellow. I mean, is he related to Eldertrees or something? He's as round as one, and the trunk of his neck is wide enough for me to hang on.

I growl deep in my throat. Seems I’ve learned something from Ran. The men freeze for a split second at the sound.

Then the laughter starts.

Great.

“Awww, did we offend the wittle bitty kitty?” high-pitch wheezes.

All four break out into guffaws, one even slapping his knee.

Internally I seethe.

They are about five or six steps away. I dart in and take advantage of their momentary humor.

The first I deem to target has wide blue eyes over a slightly crooked nose—or, as I like to call him, High-Pitch.

He throws a haymaker. The force would knock a giant out flat. But, it's also slow and clunky. I duck, slicing into his meaty bicep on the way through as I exit from under his arm and end up directly beside him. As he turns with a grimace of pain and promises of retribution on his ugly mug, I kick his knee, hearing a satisfying pop as he collapses with a strangled yell.

I evade the grasping hands of another to land a puny scratch on another man's thigh. It’s enough to draw blood and get my sleeping drought in his system within three minutes… if I can last that long.

A kick to my back lands me on my knees. I hate being short. A front somersault gets me out of the danger zone and grants me room to work. I blindly strike behind my back, a satisfying feeling growing in my soul as I feel resistance and a howl marks my third victim.

A quick glance over my shoulder and my eyes widen. Four men with murder in their eyes, and I'm trying not to kill anyone. I figured out early on that murder brought the hounds of the Honour Guard down, no matter what kind of scum was murdered. Do you have any idea how hard it is to try not to kill someone when they're trying their darndest to kill you?

I scramble up an old and broken trellis leaning against the wall of this alley. Timing this is going to be a blast. Not.

Three, two... one. I spring off the top, landing on the head of the first muscly fellow with the crooked nose and bad knee, courtesy of yours truly. He yelps, a high-pitched sound, as he tries to get his burly good hand on me as I cling to his head. I bat away his good arm with my blade, earning another yelp that makes me smile. I clamber around to his back like a squirrel clinging to a swaying branch... in a hurricane. I get positioned—my legs locked around his chest (did I mention he's fat?)—and cut his air off with my arm, locking him into a headlock that should put him out in seconds.

What I didn't count on is him blindly driving himself into a wall, knocking himself out on impact and leaving me to spring from his back like a squirrel abandoning a felled tree.

I roll as I hit the ground to disperse my momentum... rolling directly into the knees of the fourth man. Just my luck. It’s like hitting solid rock and knocks the air from my lungs.

His hard, cold eyes land on my face and pierce my retinas. He swims in my hazy gaze for a moment before my eyes focus as I wheeze in a breath. His red beard reaches his chest and muscles ripple along his chest and hairy arms. He even has muscles on his bald head. The eyes of a killer and the build of a fighter. I’m so dead.

He picks me up by the back of my neck with one meaty fist and shakes me like a rag doll. My teeth click together and I spit out blood.

“Think you could make a laughingstock of us, girl?” His voice is deathly quiet and somehow more frightening than if he'd shouted.

I kick out with both feet. One lands a glancing blow to his chest, and another smacks right into his nose. He shouts and lets me go as blood cascades over his upper lip and down his chin.

I somehow land on my feet and back away. The two goons still upright look back and forth between me and their boss in surprise.

“GET HER!" he honks.

I almost laugh, but stifle the urge as I turn on my heel and sprint away. I somehow end up racing towards the goat fountain and the two men guarding their hostage instead of away from it.

My only job, only job, was to buy time until Ran got back and not put myself between a rock and a hard place.

So much for that.