Empress of the Gods

Atarah

Only Uphine knew how much they walked. The sun was no longer over their heads, but there was still light in the sky. On half of the road, they fought about following Galad, and when they did, they ended up in an open field far from the road that took them to the nearest village.

Her white-furred protector only laid down on a big rock, moving his tail as he contemplated the sunset in front of him.

“I will not forget this,” she whispered to Galad, who barely glanced at her. Her cheeks were warm in embarrassment when she felt William’s eyes on her. Even though she saw how the corner of his lip slightly turned up, he covered his mouth with his hand to hide his smile.

“Can we walk towards the village?” William asked, pretending he hadn’t heard what she said to Galad. “Or should we wait for his majesty?”

Before she looked at him, she took a deep breath and walked as if nothing had happened, moving her hair from one shoulder to another. A white light bathed her for a moment, letting her know Galad was no longer in sight. It was for the best, and she would be lying if she said it didn’t worry her that Galad would attract too much attention. So, they needed to be extra careful with the path they took because whoever had the knowledge of what a driadae protector meant would put them at risk.

For her, Galad was her friend instead of her protector. The feline with amber eyes promised to become anyone’s worst nightmare if they dared to hurt her. He was not like the other tigers, even though he was a hunter by nature. She suspected he held an incredible amount of power, which sometimes made her wonder what that meant.

There was an awkward silence between William and her. For moments, she felt his anger, although she couldn’t fully read his emotions, which made her curious about the man who was linked to her.

“Are we still far from the village?” she asked, but he didn’t answer right away.

“Well, if we haven’t followed your beast, we would have probably arrived when there was still sunlight,” he replied, but she didn’t answer. “Finally, for the first time, we agreed on something,” he added.

“You are an ass—”

William moved swiftly, covering her mouth with his hand, while he leaned her back against a tree to hide. He didn’t even let her finish her curse. And before she could even protest, he got closer to her ear. “Someone is approaching. They might be fae soldiers,” he whispered to her.

She moved her face in the same direction as he did to see if the soldiers had already passed.

Still, with his hand on her mouth, they both hid again. She closed her eyes when they heard how the soldiers rode furiously along the way. And as soon as she stopped hearing noises, she opened her eyes. William peeked out again, slowly removing his hand from her mouth. “It seems that they’re gone,” he said, with his hand still on the trunk of the tree, blocking her exit. William was close enough to see the road, but remained in her space, letting her smell a light scent of pine. She didn’t say anything, only held his gaze for a moment.

“Explain to me why we have to hide from fae soldiers?” she asked with her arms folded.

“Because, like witches, they don’t like hunters,” he replied.

“So, you are the one who needs to hide from them,” she concluded as she pointed to him with her finger on his chest, a corner of her lip turned up.

“Things don’t seem right for humans in some fae realms and you, my dear, look like a human even if you are not,” he said, putting down her finger as he started moving far from her.

“But my birthmark is what gives me away, darling.”

“Do you want to test that theory, sweetheart?” said a voice behind William. Two fae soldiers approached them.

“Call me sweetheart one more time,” she challenged him, ready to fight.

Everything happened so fast that she could barely comprehend what she did or what William did. Those fae soldiers heard them, and as soon as William had a sword close to his neck, he made a quick move to disarm him. She saw him fight with those fae soldiers as if he had the strength they had. He knew exactly where to attack, while she tried to dodge as much as she could until the fae soldier almost cut her in half.

“No,” Atarah shouted, “What did you do?” she angrily screamed when William buried the ax in the soldier’s armpit after he effortlessly blocked the attack that saved her life.

“Saving your life,” William replied, looking at the corpse in front of them that kept bleeding. “Anyway, you’re welcome.”

“I didn’t thank you,” she replied with a frown on her face. He turned to look at her, frowning as he sighed. “What about the other?” she asked him.

As if William remembered where the other was, he turned to see him and began to walk towards him with his ax until she stood in front of him, holding the ax tightly so that he couldn’t move it.

“We’re going to have a lot of problems if one of them leaves here alive,” he tried to explain to her.

“You’re not going to kill him,” she firmly said. All they had to do was leave them unconscious, but that soldier had been close to killing her.

“If I don’t, they’re going to remember our faces, and they’re going to be looking for us.”

Atarah looked at the unconscious fae that laid on the ground as if she was thinking about it. “You’re not going to do that,” she replied, looking directly into his eyes. “You’re not going to kill him,” she repeated.

He shook his head in denial as if he himself couldn’t believe he was following her orders. “Fine, but if this blows up in our faces, you’ll be the one to blame for it,” he warned her.

As he walked close to her side, she said. “How quickly do you want to go back to your old habits?”

He stopped when he listened to those words. “I’ve never left them,” he replied in a bitter tone.

His answer made her angry. “What the hell is your problem?” she demanded to know when she followed him.

“Are you seriously asking me that?” he stopped to see her, and she took a few steps back.

“You are not the only one who is uncomfortable with this situation. Do you think I asked for this?” she said, pointing to both. “No,” she said, the tone of her voice rising before he could answer. “But here I am, and believe me,” she continued as she approached him. “If my sister were here, we could have managed to get to Euthoria without your help. The point is that you don’t have to be an idiot, and you don’t have to murder every creature that crosses our path,” she ranted, and before he could say anything, she started to walk away from him.

Atarah was grateful she stayed a few steps ahead of him. She turned around a couple of times, and he seemed to show hints of regret, but at the same time, he seemed to be as angry as she was.

He could leave any time he wanted, yet he still was there with her.

She braided her hair as they walked, thinking that she could fend for herself. Somehow, she could have avoided a lot of problems if she had been on her own. Her blood boiled just thinking Rhiannon, and now William, believed she couldn’t make it on her own. She was not a child, but Rhiannon had to make him her second protector. She didn’t know what the Silverclaw leader was thinking when she linked them.

Atarah had seen his eyes and how determined he was to end the unconscious soldier’s life. That was exactly what scared her. She believed she would suffer the same fate at his hands.

“Stop. We will camp here,” he announced behind her. She hadn’t realized he’d stopped walking.

“I’ll try to find us something to eat,” she replied without looking at him.

“No,” he said right away. “I will. Try to light a campfire so we can eat,” he ordered, and Atarah rolled her eyes as soon as he finished speaking. His voice was beginning to irritate her. “I saw that.”

“That was the point,” she replied, glowering at him.

After she lit up the fire, Galad appeared next to her. William came back with a wild boar on his shoulders. Apparently, his shoulder had already completely healed.

“Don’t you think it’s a lot of food for both?” she asked when he put it on the ground.

“Half of it is for your beast Galad.” He cut a piece and then threw it to Galad, who caught it in the air.

Atarah did not understand how it was that her protector could eat since he lived inside her. She thought that it had something to do with the shape he took when he was out. He was just like another creature.

She could see William through the fire while half of the wild boar was cooked. That silence seemed to say a lot.

“I wasn’t going to kill him.”

“Well, he for sure is in an eternal sleep now.”

“He was going to kill you.”

“Whatever you need to sleep at night,” she told him with arms folded and moved her gaze into the darkness of the forest.

“And what do you know? You just like to assume that I am excited to kill. That I can’t wait to draw my sword or use my ax,” William snapped at her. “You just sit there, judging. You say it like I am a monster.”

“Maybe you should consider that you are,” she replied in the same tone he used. It exasperated Atarah that the man in front of her didn’t show any remorse. Plus, it frustrated her she couldn’t read his emotions, considering he had a kind of shield that protected him from her. Atarah knew she wasn’t good or bad, but those men in the woods when William saved her were a blur. She didn’t know if she had done it or if it was all on the man that sat across the campfire. Even when he killed a monster from the Eirian Forest that had no soul, the fae soldier who was about to kill her had one. He saved her more than twice, but she needed to know that despite the bond, he would think about it before sticking his ax into her skull.

William was pissed at her and not irritated like the other times, but she was the same about him.

“At the King’s decree in the mortal realms, as you creatures call them, the soldiers began to take children from families who couldn’t pay their taxes so they could train them more than just soldiers. There were only two options: agree or die. The village was not prosperous, and the most affected were those who lived outside of the cities. Children were taken away from their families, and they did not see them again. When they’re old enough to yield a sword, they send them to fight. One day, a fae kingdom decided they needed more space, so their soldiers set fire to a village that was near to their borders. Entire families were burned by creatures,” he explained to her.

“You can’t be sure it was them.”

“Would you forget how the soldiers that attacked Khrysaor look like?” Atarah didn’t answer, only waited for him to continue. “I found one of them barely breathing without the bastard being sorry.” William nailed the dagger to the ground as if he were reliving it a second time. Atarah didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to say anything. “While my family laid in the rubble because we arrived too late.”

William didn’t look at her, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him, letting the story sink in. She hadn’t realized that she had left her mental shield down, feeling acid going up to her stomach. It was a small part of William’s emotions that she could feel, leading her to think that perhaps she judged him too quickly without knowing his story. He had saved her more than once—the first time even before they were linked; he knew what she was and still he’d saved her.

She was so eager to scream, kick, and destroy. It was the same thing she felt lately. For a strange reason, she wanted to take that pain from him, but she didn’t dare to move. Part of her understood how he was feeling.

She wasn’t sure if the soldiers had killed Rhiannon, but she saw them when they killed Aeron, and she wanted to hunt down each one of them. She was no better than him.

“I’m sorry,” Atarah softly said. It was the only thing she told William who dared to look at her through the flames. Neither one lowered their gaze. Her sight began to blur as she felt a lump in her throat and tried to hold the tears from falling on her face.

The two of them had lost too much.

“I’m sorry too,” he replied.