Page 10

The second the vehicle came to a stop, the back door blew completely off with a blast of red fire followed by Kildare shifting into his dragon form.

“Something’s wrong,” Bellatore gasped the obvious, flying out the vehicle and sprinting toward the hill as Reuban finally escaped his seatbelt.

He ran to the top of the hill and forgot all about the sharp decent on the other side. Two cartwheels and a somersault later got him to the base, right as a scream split the air.

“Josie!” Reuban scrambled to his feet and raced into the hut. “What’s wrong!” he yelled, his powers gushing out everywhere.

“She’s having the demon!” Krave shouted.

Josie screamed Reuban’s name, and her commanding power ripped through his muscles. He shoved through the giant man blocking his path.

“I need to destroy it!” Bellatore demanded.

“Don’t let them hurt our son!” Josie cried between a long scream.

“Move!” Reuban roared, yanking Larena away from their Queen, the single word blasting everybody several feet back.

“Reuban!” Josie screeched, his heart hammering his chest.

“She’ll die!” Bellatore yelled at him.

“Kildare!” Reuban called. “Krave! Help me!”

They both hurried to him as Reuban knelt next to Josie.

“Tell us, Kollaborator!” Kildare half begged.

“Keep her alive,” he ordered, waiting for his powers to show him exactly what needed to happen. He only knew that he knew and was waiting for what the fuck it was that he knew!

“Krave, I need your winds,” Kildare urged.

“Take it,” he gushed, heaving. “Hold on Little Saint,” he called. “We’re here.”

“You must not allow it to live, Reuban!” Bellatore ordered behind him.

“Shut up, Larena!” he yelled, eyeing Josie then Krave and Kildare. “He must live.”

“The head is there,” Kildare declared, shaken by the sight.

“Use your fire to pull him out, King,” Reuban ordered, his voice quaking with fear and power. “Josie,” he called loudly. “You need to give us a good push. Krave, hold her hand.”

“Brother, control your winds,” Kildare begged.

****

The child’s cries shattered the air, his tiny body contorting as Kildare held him, his flames flickering and twisting with panic.

His gaze snapped between the child and Josie, her skin pale and slick with sweat.

Krave knelt next to her, gripping her hand in both of his, tethering her life to his feral winds.

“Give him to me,” Josie choked, her voice weak and trembling.

Reuban’s powers shook as he joined with Krave and Kildare to heal Josie.

“Please,” Reuban begged her. “You’re not strong enough.”

“Give him… to me.” The command was broken in a whisper but seared through them all.

Kildare glanced helplessly at Reuban, his own power raging.

“Give him to her,” Reuban said, his words strained but firm.

Kildare lowered the child into Josie’s waiting arms and the infant’s cries softened the moment his cheek pressed against her chest, as if the nearness of her heartbeat was enough to ground him.

Josie wept softly, stroking the child’s dark hair, her trembling lips pressing words of comfort. “You’re safe. You’re safe with me, my beautiful boy. No one’s going to hurt you.”

Bellatore’s voice slashed from the other side of the sheet barrier. “He’s not safe, daughter. He’s a danger to everything we’ve built.”

Reuban’s gaze snapped when he felt her power cutting more than the air. She was hurting the baby. “Enough Larena,” he ordered. “Do not speak another word.”

Bellatore’s breaths shuddered out and Reuban felt the angelic rage that demanded the elimination of the child at all costs. “You all knew what Kaos intended when he created that child,” she said in an ancient language. “You knew he meant for it to be destroyed. Yet you sit here pretending—”

“Not here!” Reuban ordered in the same tongue, the power of his command rippling through the air. “We need to all discuss this outside.”

Krave shot him a wild-eyed look. “I can’t leave her.”

Reuban’s gaze locked onto Krave’s, his own power surging with brutal intensity. “You will have to trust me on this one and come with me. Right now.”

He’d strapped as much authority as he could to his words and delivered it in the bond of their brotherhood and friendship. His red eyes flared with anger, but he recognized the critical demand in the message.

“Five minutes,” Krave bit out, pressing a kiss to Josie’s forehead before hurrying out.

“You too,” he said to Kildare as he exited the makeshift barrier. “And you,” he said to Larena, snatching her hand and pulling her with him.

“Now you will explain,” Bellatore demanded, her voice raw and brittle when he led them a short distance from the hut. “Why do you insist on letting that thing live, when you know what it is.”

Reuban pinned her with his gaze, his fury slipping.

“Because he is not the kind of evil you believe him to be.” He regarded Krave and Kildare.

“Kaos created the child to save Josie. To purge the darkness from himself and put it into a vessel that could be destroyed. He was willing to die with that child to protect her. But our Queen said no,” he said right at Lenora. “And we’ve all obeyed her command.”

“That child is a walking apocalypse,” Larena whispered to him. “Kaos poured every shred of his corruption into it.”

“Yes, he was given the darkness in Kaos,” Reuban agreed, his words biting back. “But that’s not all he holds.”

“What do you mean, Kollaborator,” Kildare demanded.

“That the child inherited all of us. I felt it,” he assured, eyeing the Kings. “Krave’s winds. Kildare’s fire.” He looked at Larena. “He even bears your gift. The purity of your protection of mothers has somehow passed to him.”

Bellatore’s eyes narrowed on him. “How do you know this?”

“Because I am the Kollaborator King,” Reuban reminded her with a pointed emphasis.

“I see what others can’t. The child’s power is not just his own, it’s a tapestry woven from all of us.

And right now, that power is fighting to tear him apart.

That’s why he appears human.” He regarded all of them. “He’s hiding because he’s afraid.”

“What does it fear?” Kildare wondered, his words cautious.

Reuban loaded his tongue with the fullness of his power then muttered carefully, “He fears us. Those who seek to destroy him because they see only the monster in him. He’s known it from the moment of conception and has known it to this very second because he’s part of us.

The important question now is understanding why this happened. ”

He aimed the question at Kildare who immediately picked up what he was very carefully laying down. “What are you saying?”

He nodded once. “Exactly what you think I am.” Reuban regarded Krave, now finally tuning in as well. “You’re saying this was supposed to happen?”

“I’m saying it is happening, and right now, the child is battling for his existence. We have the power to destroy him or help him, and we are not destroying him,” he said, right at Larena before regarding Kildare and Krave. “We are helping him. We are supposed to help him.”

The revelation fully dawned in Kildare first then Krave who hurried back to the hut right as the Paladin’s voice cracked the air. “Help me!”

Their powers clashed as they bolted for the doorway, sharp dread cutting through Reuban.

Krave’s roar shattered the air. “NO!”

Kildare’s fire disintegrated the sheet, revealing Josie on the bed, lifeless with her arms out at her sides, eyes vacant and staring while Krave held her face, begging her to wake up.

“Where is the child!” Bellatore demanded as Reuban felt Krave’s winds building into a bomb.

“Kildare, control him!” Reuban hurried, looking for signs of the baby right as the heavenly King’s wings erupted to subdue Krave’s agony.

“We must find him!” Bellatore ordered, hurrying out the hut.

Reuban turned all around, sensing something nearby. He finally recognized it around the roar of both Kings. Fear. Clawing against his powers, trying to hide itself within the fragmented remains of Kaos’s void.

Reuban turned to the bed where Josie lay, moving closer. He felt it again, a splintered thing, desperately trying to make itself small.

“Remove him!” Reuban ordered Kildare, when Krave’s winds pummeled his ability to sense and hear.

Instantly, Kildare flew him through the roof, leaving the hut in a sudden silence.

Reuban lowered to the floor, stretching his power into the shadows under the bed.

He narrowed his focus at the darkness, then stilled.

He blinked at the impossibility. Pressed into the far wall, not an infant, but a child of nearly five years old.

Reuban’s seal instantly informed him of the being’s incredible makeup.

Where Kaos had evolved into a genius within an hour, his acceleration was a physical one. And much more.

Reuban’s pulse thrummed with additional knowledge and awareness as he very carefully threaded his words with whatever authority he possessed, and called to him, gently. “Come to me, little one.”

The sound of his breaths reached him, sharp and scared, his small body locked in place.

“Nobody will hurt you. I’m here to protect you.”

His breaths suddenly slowed in the darkness. “Are you… Uncle Reuban?”

Reuban’s heart lurched and squeezed at the little voice and the careful way he spoke each syllable. “I am. How do you know my name?”

He waited in the silence, noting an immediate drop in his fear. “Mother told me you were safe. W-where are… my fathers?”

Fathers?

“Mother says they will protect me but… I fear them.”

His pitiful little voice brought a sizzle to the King’s seal on his back, then promptly got loaded with every manner of wrath to meet any threat formed against him. “You have nothing to fear. Your mother is right, we are all here to protect you.”

“What about…” his little breaths quickened for many seconds. “Kaos?” he barely whispered, his name stirring a great anxiety in his tiny body.

“Kaos is my brother,” Reuban said, infusing the words with undeniable peace and truth. “He’s as kind as a teddy bear and won’t ever harm you.”