This day is not looking too good for Kaio and me. Thubet’s royal guards have confiscated our weapons and horses. That little brat must’ve ratted on us while we were sleeping last night. I wish Coretha had written beforehand that Elred is related to royal blood. Now Kaio and I are in this damn pickle.
I am nervous as to where they’re taking us. No one is talking except for Thubet and Elred. They’re too far for me to hear. I don’t want to ask Kaio if he has some spell ability to make it easier for one of us to listen to them. So, I try discreetly using terrible sign language to ask if he can hear them.
“What?” Kaio says with his mouth. “What are you saying?” I rest my forearm on my chest to hide them from the elves behind me and point at Thubet talking. He shrugs his shoulders after I fail to convey what I want him to know.
“Nevermind,” I say, moving my lips and rolling my eyes halfway to the right.
“Halt,” Thubet says all of a sudden. Everyone but Kaio and I stop in synchronization. She flicks her hand to command a mage to open a portal. The portal opens just like the ring portals. We all step inside and end up in a long hallway where the polished stone floor seems like mirrors. ” Torlan. I thought I told you to wait in the practice rooms.” There’s a suave black-haired elf with a green feather in his hair sitting shirtless on a lone throne in the middle of the aisle. He’s too good-looking for my taste. He’s muscular but not as defined as Kaio. However, his definition has gotten softer since we last trained a long time ago. He can easily return to his peek.
“Your highness,” Torlan chuckles. “One thing you’ll learn about me is that I like to move around.”
“Sounds like you will be a pain in my side,” Thubet says. Something about her saying makes him laugh. She laughs too, but only for a short moment.
“So! Who are these two?”
“Humans! Come here!” The guards behind me shove me forward before they do the same with Kaio.
“Hey!” Kaio yells with some irritation in his voice. Another guard shoves him hard enough he almost falls over.
“Kaio,” I say gently to calm him down. “Peace, darling.”
“Yes,” Thubet snickers as she walks next to Kaio. “You better settle down, Kromagian.”
“You best not rile me anymore,” Kaio says, standing close to her as he looks down at her with his eyes.
“Oh?” She stands extremely close to him with her nose barely touching his mouth and her breasts pressing into his stomach. “What are you gonna do, huh? Yell at me? Hit me?” She doesn’t seem intimidated at all. She’s got balls, and I don’t like that one bit. Her personality reminds me of the ego of my younger self. If I’m assuming correctly, she might be cocky, bold, playful, and a fighter. If Kaio keeps reacting to her witty remarks, this might turn bad for us.
“Hey!” I say loud enough to break the tension between them. He steps back to look at me. She stays firm and looks at me with the side of her eye.
“What?”
“What are we doing here?”
“You’re being detained.” She turns halfway to the left to signal two guards to take Kaio away.
“What? Why? What did he do?”
“And her,” she says, pointing at me. Two different guards escort me away to a room on the right.
“Ulrika, I’ll get Haleema to get us out of here!” Kaio says. They shove me into the room without any furniture and close the door with Thubet in the room. The floor looks like it hasn’t been broomed in months. It’s dusty and smells like old leather.
“What do you want from me?” I ask.
“Sit,” Thubet says, pointing at the dirty ground. I heed her command to stay on her good side. She walks around me slowly, slapping the heel of her brown boot on the floor with each step. “So, you’re one of the knights that destroyed my cousin’s neighborhood, hmm?”
“I didn’t destroy anything. You got it all wrong.”
“Really?” She grabs a handful of hair from the back of my head and pushes my face forward. I stop my face from hitting the ground using all my core strength. She tries to use both hands to drive my face closer to the ground.
“Get the fuck off me!” I slip my head out of her grip and pull her down to the ground. “I didn’t destroy anything! Roven had to go! The forces I was with decided to attack!”
“They did that to get to Roven?!”
“It was... orders,” I say with hesitation. “Roven started a foolish war between our kind!” She tries assaulting me with kicks and punches to inflict serious pain. They are violent, quick; precise. “You should have stopped him!” I fail to dodge one of her punches, but she suddenly stops her fist from slamming into my face.
“Excuse me? I should have stopped him?” She says like she’s in shock.
“He was your people. Why did you let him go through it?”
“Because I agreed to his cause to regain the lands taken from your kind!” I’m shocked beyond belief she agrees with that madman. She has to be fucking with me.
“You jest.”
“No,” she answers, coming up to punch me in the face. I can feel the air fly across the skin of my nose from the near misses of her knuckles. “I supported Roven! He was going to regain the lands your kind took!”
“What are you talking about? I’m a Kromagian! We had nothing to do with that!”
“Yet you wore Shemore armor. You are no Kromagian!” One lucky punch lands perfectly center on my left cheek. I retaliate with a spinning back kick. My foot plows deep into her gut. I place her on her ass, gasping for air.
“How dare you!” I calmly step backward with my fist up to protect myself. “Look! I’m sorry things went down as they did. But, he was a major threat.”
“I should have you hanged and quartered.” She’s blinded with rage. The veins in her forehead are coming out. Plus, she’s getting redder in the face. “Your placard will say the knight who killed our beloved Roven.”
“You know what.”
“What?”
“Screw you,” I sigh as I place my hands down. My mentality is at the point of disregarding every respectful courtesy towards a monarch. This damn crazy bitch is getting on my nerves. “I’m done trying to defend what we did.” I point my finger at her to emphasize the next statement I’m about to say. “I’m glad he’s dead. He would’ve disrupted peace between humans and elves.”
“You will regret those words.” The second she rushes forward, I get in a defensive stance. I wrap the air around my arms to dispel it at a moment’s notice. I aim to throw her far away behind me so I can blast open the door. Sadly, the chance is ruined by someone knocking on the door. “What?” She screams. They bang the door three times with three-second pauses. She swings the door open with an extreme force that breaks away from the top hinge.
“Gods,” I quiver.
“What do you want?!”
“Your highness,” Thubet’s guard says with a quivering voice. “Forgive my intrusion. I know you wanted to have alone time with the knight.”
“Speak directly.”
“Uh...” The guard looks to his right. He steps away from the door for Haleema to stand in the doorway. She squats under Thubet’s arm as if she’s an obstacle to come see me.
“Can I help you?” Thubet asks with an attitude. Haleema shows her a rolled scroll held by a golden ring seal. The guard at the door takes it from her hands to read it for Thubet.
“You are in possession of members of the Paladin agency. Release them from their bondage-” He abruptly stops in the middle of reading to gaze at Thubet.
“Why have you stopped?”
“Because the next few lines state there will be consequences,” Haleema says to reveal the ultimatum. Thubet aggressively soothes the left inside of her lip while clutching her left fist. I feel like she is about to lash out at any moment.
“Your Highness. Please, calm down,” the guard says. “You’re turning red again.”
“What is your name?” Thubet asks like she’s trying not to yell.
“Haleema Northana. I am the leader of the Paladins,” Haleema boldly says with her hands on her hips. “My predecessor had dealings with you in the past, yes?”
“Emdal gave you,” Thubet says with an emphasis on the word, you. “His position?”
“He did,” Halemaa responds momentarily taking a quick glance at me. “In response to one of my agent’s calls, you are falsely imprisoning them.”
Kaio, you angel!
“I beg to differ,” she chuckles in a low voice that is delayed between intervals. She points her finger at me, then says, “Do you know who that bitch is to my people?” Haleema takes a long look at me. “She—”
“I did nothing,” I say, cutting off Thubet. “She thinks I killed innocents on Ilnor!”
“You did!” Thubet yells in my face. “I will have your head for your crimes!”
“I didn’t kill anyone!” I scream in her face.
“Thubet, Thubet,” Elred says, popping into the conversation. “She didn’t kill anyone. I told you that.”
“She’s guilty by association. Arrest her!” Two guards enter the room. Haleema waves her hands up like she’s surrendering. A blue wall barrier morphs behind her to keep the guards out. She moves horizontally across the ground to force them out the door.
“You can’t arrest her,” Haleema says. She pulls me close by my arm and frees me from the enchanted chain around my neck. “Don’t worry,” she says in my head. “I took it off Kaioson too.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“She’s vital to my organization and the fight against Nite,” she says to Thubet.
“I’ll have your head for disobeying your queen!” Thubet says, nearly spitting saliva out her mouth.
“I don’t belong to you. Let’s go, Ulrika.”
I’m so grateful to hear her say that I immediately walk out into the hallway the second the barrier drops. This kingdom and the majority of its people are ungrateful assholes that hate humans for all the wrong reasons. I hope to the Gods someone here will have the sense to see that Roven’s death was for the greater good of both of our races.
“Haleema, where’s Kaio?” I ask. I look up and down the aisle. There are a bunch of guards standing around looking at us. “Where’s my husband?”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“He’s outside,” Haleema says, walking me towards the door before I begin to panic. “Let’s hurry before Thubet tries to stop us.”
“Stop right there!” Thubet screams at the top of her lungs. “Guards, arrest them both, now!”
“Shit!” Haleema and I say together.
Every guard in the damn building starts chasing after us. I have to shove guards away and evade being grabbed as I run for my life to get out of the hallway. In the chaos, I remember I don’t have my weapons. I can’t leave my sword in this labyrinth. It is too special to be in their hands. What if they use it against someone or smelt it into other weapons for their arsenal? I got to find where they took them.
“Haleema, I need to find my weapons,” I say.
“Are you crazy? We need to get out of here!” Haleema says as the guards from the outside rush into the building. I skid to a complete stop. She forcefully levitates them away by swinging her arms outward. The guards smack against the stone wall. Their metal armor clanks loudly as they crash onto the ground. “Kaio is outside waiting! Let’s go!”
“But... my sword is somewhere in here.”
“Forget it!” She makes a break for the door. I can’t decide whether to follow or sprint to the nearest room to find my sword.
Gods... I can’t...
Thubet’s loud voice and stomping force me to make an unconscious decision. I sprint after Haleema, instantly regretting my choice. The feeling of knowing I’m leaving the embodiment of my brothers’ swords in strangers’ hands turns my stomach. I am moments from probably risking my life for my sword when Haleema opens a portal with Kaio on the other side. She shoves me through without warning and closes the portal without her with us.
“No!” I scream.
“What is she doing?” Kaio says. I trip on a broken piece of stone when I turn around to look at where I am. He barely catches me from falling. My ass somewhat lands on another part of the broken stone.
“Ugh!” I grunt. “Where are we?”
“Ilnor.” To my right is Destruction Mountain. “It was the first place I could think of for her to take me,” he says, slapping the dust off my ass. “Gods, Ulrika... What happened to your face?”
“Shit!”
“What?”
“I have to go back. They have my sword, Kaio!”
“Hold on.” He puts his hand on my chest to prevent me from running off. “You can’t.”
“I need to! Do you know how important that sword is to me?!”
“Since the day I saw it in two,” he says in a calming voice. “I’ll get it back for you.”
We’re hours away from the castle, yet I don’t feel the need to question how Kaio will achieve the nearly impossible feat. I trust him with all my soul he’ll do his absolute best.
Kaio faces the castle, waving his hand like he’s conjuring his sword. It moves in so many directions. Left, right, up, down, side to side. All directions are accounted for, but when he pulls his arm back, his elbow hits my chest.
“Oh crap!” I say. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to be so close.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “I had to hide my sword.”
“Oh... Did... you find my sword?”
“Not yet.”
“Damnit,” I sigh.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get it.” His reassurance gives me more hope. I want to give him a great hug for my gratitude for what he is trying to accomplish, but I don’t want to break his concentration. He needs to hurry up so I can give my love. “So,” he says, opening his right eye to see me. “What happened to your cheek?”
“Uh,” I say, deciding on whether to tell him what happened. I don’t want to distract him with meaningless banter about my talkative fight. “Don’t worry about it. Stay focused.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says with a smile. I have to bite my lip to restrain myself from wanting to choke him.
“Kaioson,” I say with a soft playful growl.
“Oh!” He suddenly shouts.
“What?! I jump.
“Someone grabbed my sword. I don’t sense any hostility. Maybe it’s...”
“It’s what?” Haleema suddenly opens a portal right in front of us with our weapons cradled in her hands. She closes the portal before a sword can impale her back, breaking it in half.
“Haleema?” Her face is battered up with sweat and scuff marks on her cheeks. Parts of her hair are loosely braided as if someone pulled on them. “You look like you got into a fight.”
“We need to go!” Haleema says, out of breath as she hands our weapons. “I got warlocks after me.”
“Shit,” Kaio says as he stands to his feet.
“We need to retreat to the Paladin Agency.”
“Why?”
Two portals open up with flames of fire coming out. The fire comes close enough to singe the hair on my arms. Kaio sucks the bulk of the flames into his hands and dispels them back through the portals. Two warlocks parry the fire easily, vaporing it in one backhand swing.
“We got to go!” Haleema screams. We run through the rubble, tripping over nearly everything. I bang my shin on a rock I stumble on. With every step I take, the pain feels like someone is turning a knife in me.
“Gods, my leg,” I say. “Why me?” Without any sort of heads up, Kaio swings me into his arms as if I weigh nothing to him. I use the dust of the rubble as a smoke screen to make it hard for the warlocks to hit us.
“Jump through the portal!” There’s no portal in sight.
“Where is it?!” Kaio says. She opens her hand like she’s going to reach something directly ahead. She does this several times to no avail. “Haleema, where is it?”
“Haleema!” I say after a fireball narrowly hits Kaio in the legs. “Open a portal, now!”
“I’m low on mana!” She says,
“I got it!” He says.
Kaio puts me down to use his portal ring to open a doorway to the main hall of the Paladin building. She runs in first then him after I rain down lightning on the warlocks. My magic does absolutely nothing to them. They run through it with one of them tackling me into the portal. The warlock pins me with his hand tightly gripping my throat. He takes his hand off my neck when Lyra and a dozen Paladins surround them.
“Take your hand off of her,” Lyra says as she presses the tip of her sword into the chainmail of the warlock’s collarbone. He complies without hesitation. Kaio stands me to my feet and keeps me close to his body.
“You okay?” Kaio whispers gently in my ear.
“Mhmm,” I reply. I get a good look at the two warlocks. These are no ordinary elves. They’re two times the size of Kaio. Their sashes have elven inscriptions stitched into the fabric. They’re wearing a full face-covering helmet with only the eyes, parts of the cheeks, and mouths exposed.
“Give us the knight,” the warlock says with a deep voice, pointing at me. Kaio’s arms begin to tighten around my body. I can feel his mana surge momentarily.
“Back off,” Haleema says. “You’re surrounded by the finest fighters my agency has.”
“The knight will come with us and answer for her crimes.”
“She is innocent!” Kaio says, drawing his weapon over me. “Ulrika, get out of here.”
“Okay!” I head out into the hallway but stay close to hear what’s going on.
“We are not leaving until she is in our custody,” the warlock says.
“You touch her; I will kill you,” Kaio says. Hearing him say those words to mages like that scares me. I’m glad he’s defending me, but I’m worried that threatening death to Thubet’s warlocks will cause the situation between me and her to be worse.
“Don’t make them angry with threats,” I say, sticking my head into the room.
“Leave now!” Haleema commands. Some of the closest Paladins near the warlocks take a step closer. No one in the room is letting their guard down, including Kaio. He stands at the ready. He has yet to move an inch from his initial draw stance.
“This will not be the last time you see us,” the second warlock says. The first warlock takes his leave, but the second one stays, staring at me. Kaio points at him and makes an ultimatum that I will never forget in a million years.
“If that day comes, it will be your last moments alive,” Kaio says. Both warlocks finally leave. Haleema takes Kaio’s ring to shut the portal. All the Paladins resume whatever they were doing as if nothing happened.
“What a bunch of assholes,” I say.
“You can say that again,” Haleema says, standing next to me. “Ulrika, Thubet will never let this go.”
“I know. She’ll try to hunt me down.”
“Could you talk to her to let it go?” Kaio asks.
“Look at my face,” Haleema says, pointing at it. “I tried.” She hands him back our champion list and the bounties. “I’ll teleport you two back once I’m well-rested.”
“Thanks, but we’ll stay here for a day or two,” I say, cutting off Kaio. He squints with silent curiosity or judgment. I can’t tell which one by how quick the glance was. “How does that sound, Kaio?”
“That’s fine,” he says, gently with his left eyebrow raised. Haleema heads towards the back of the building, where the public pools are. “So,” he mumbles as she puts away his sword. “We’re staying here? Why?”
“Because that was a shit show, and I would rather wait a few days until things settle down.”
“Ah...”
“Yeah,” I sigh with my arms crossed.
I’m so stressed I feel like screaming into a pillow. Now I might have a target on my back that will put Kaio in harm’s way. Woe is me. I’m screwing up the possibility of living a calm life and having the family of my dreams. Rosealie and Joyce can’t exist in this world if I’m unable to live in peace away from this stupid war and, Thubet’s grudge.
“Kaio,” I say. “This world fucking sucks.”
Kaio brings me into his body with his arms wrapped around my stomach. I uncross my arms to embrace his calming aura. He sways his hips like he’s dancing, but he has his crotch pressing against my ass. The touch arouses me to want to follow along. I try to follow where he goes instead of him moving me around. Somehow these small set of movements and being held against his body gets me slightly aroused. He stops moving before I can truly enjoy being teased to the point I straight up tell him to fuck me.
“You almost got me,” I giggle.
“What are you talking about?” He chuckles like he knows what I’m saying.
“Let’s go do something nice,” I say when I turn around to look at him. “The stress is getting to me and you’re are putting me in a good mood.”
“What do you got in mind?” Sex is definitely on the table. Since we are here, I have an itch for something more productive that will benefit us both.
“Let’s...
“Go to the pools.”
“Hell no,” I scoff, almost laughing out loud. “Too many naked women and she elves.”
“Scared I would take several looks,” he laughs.
“Scared?” I say with an eye roll. “I want your eyes to stay on me. I like it when they’re not always staring at my face.”
“Ah,” he says, looking down at my body. My body tingles at the image of him doing the same gaze but at my naked body. I have to cross my arms and keep my face straight to show him how serious I am.
“Okay. No pools. So, what are we doing?”
“Let’s go train.” I skip like an excited little girl while he walks with no sense of excitement. “At least show some joy.”
“But I don’t need to.” I wave off his excuse. We definitely need to re-sharpen our skills.
The vacant training room is roomy and has blunt weapons we can use on both sides of the wall. I hand Kaio a wooden sword that’s just about the length of his weapon.
“Ulrika,” he smirks. “You know I can dull my sword, right?”
“I know,” I say, then slap his ass with my wooden sword. “Just play along.” He returns a smack to my ass. “Ouch! I didn’t mean it like that!” We try to hit each other’s ass for a minute before he decides he wants to take training seriously.
Our skills and knowledge haven’t waivered even though it has been a while since we did any training. In a dual setting, we are way too smart for each other. Kaio can’t beat me, nor can I. The second we use magic, our win-loss ratio always ends in ties. Sometimes I win and sometimes he’ll get the upper hand. I’m limited in my abilities, but he is a complex man with those spells.
“Okay,” I lay on the ground. “I’m done.” Kaio gets on all fours. The sweat on his face drips off his nose and chin. “You’ve done enough, my love.“I haven’t seen sweat like that in a long time.”
“Gods, we need to get in shape.”
“Definitely!” I laugh. “This war and our job are taking too much of our time,” I sigh then remember the shit with Thubet. “What will be next?”
“You still sound a bit flustered.”
“I’m not.” He sighs with a smile while tilting his head to the left. I can tell he doesn’t believe me just by the fakeness of his grin.
“What’s up?”
“Okay fine.” I sit and take a deep breath. “Fuck that bitch and her people!” I press my hands over my mouth when my voice echoes in the room.
“Continue.”
“I fight for months trying to end that dickhead’s rebellion,” I whisper.
“It was long-lasting?”
“Yes! If we were to fail, we would be in countless, meaningless battles, Kaio.” I take a quick moment to compose myself. Talking about this fight aggravates me more than the hundreds of battles I went through. “Gods, I want to punch that stupid bitch in the face for defending him.”
“How about we talk about something else,” he says, patting my shoulders. “You’re turning red.”
“My face is feeling hot,” I say, rubbing my forehead.
“Do you want to go see your family?”
“Maybe tomorrow. I just want to be with you,” I say before giving him a kiss.
“What do you want to do?”
“Sleep with me.”
“Sleep?” He stutters. “Like,” he pauses, blushing and chuckling.
“Sleep, sleep,” I giggle.
“Oh... That one. I’ll sleep with you.”
“Oh, Kaio,” I say, shaking my head to make it seem like I’m disappointed in him.
“What? I thought you wanted sex.”
“No,” I lie to surprise him later in the day. “Let’s find a bed.”
----------------------------------------
I have not left Kaio’s presence to see my family in three days. Everywhere he goes I follow. I’m like a loyal dog following her master. If he wants to meditate, I do it with him. If he wants to walk around the town to look for stuff to do, I tag along. I voluntarily participate in everything he does and I love it.
Not having to worry about Nite’s war is a sigh of relief. I feel like I’m in Kromagia again, feeling the freedom of not wanting to care about the world’s problems. Even though there’s a war happening hundreds of miles away, I’m not worried. Without the stress of my job, I’m sleeping longer, eating more since I can cook now, training more, and having vigorous sex at least twice a day.
Five days later, I still haven’t left Kaio to see my parents or my other family members. I don’t know why I’m acting so clingy toward him. He hasn’t done anything I consider special. He’s just him, yet I’m severely infatuated with it. It’s probably from what I went through since fighting with the succubi against Nite. We’re putting our lives on the line in hopes Nite will be defeated. And at any moment we can possibly die. I want to get through this with him, so I can birth our daughters, retire in that wonderful cabin, and live peacefully. But this fucking war is threatening everything I’ve dreamed of.
On the sixth day before Kaio and I head to sleep, I play with his twisted locks to distract me from listening to him talking. He thinks he’s ready to go back on the hunt. I’m not, but I keep my opposition from coming out whether it is through words or something as small as any passive-aggressive body language.
“Ulrika,” Kaio says. He turns his head to look at me. The lock of his hair moves out of my reach.
“Hey,” I say. I grab a different piece that’s longer than the one before to play with. “Yes, my love?”
“Were you listening to me?”
“Not really,” I mumble, shaking my head when I cover my mouth to prevent him from seeing my hate in wanting to leave. “I... don’t want to hear you talk about... Nite.”
“Oh...” He sounds disappointed. “I see...” He stares at the ceiling, takes a deep breath, and looks at me with a smile. “You should have told me to shut up.”
“But, that’s rude.”
“No, it’s not. I know you hate doing this.”
“It is rude, Kaio.”
“Ulrika,” he whispers and laughs as he lies on his side. “I know you well enough that I know you’re mad right now.”
“I’m not,” I lie as I continue hiding my mouth.
“Don’t lie to your husband, my love. At least on this subject matter.” I can’t come to terms with telling him the disgust I have towards what we have to deal with to have a chance at winning the war. I feel like if I become honest he’ll get angry with me. The same might happen if I don’t, but I believe it’s better to keep quiet. “Speak your mind, my love,” he says. “It’s okay.” I kiss him on the lips, hoping it will make him stop pursuing an answer to me. He sighs and rolls on his other side to face away from me to sleep.
Forgive me for my silence, my love. I rather you be mad at me than hear your wife rant about our job. I hope in your vexation you’ll see my undying support for anything your mind is set to.