Page 51 of Of Nightmares & Fire (Elusive Umbra #1)

Chapter thirty-nine

Astraea

The painting from the library in the palace, which I have spent hours at a time daydreaming of over the many years I have spent prisoner of the monotonous life of a kept princess, comes to life right in front of me.

I am frozen with fear and awe. My heart runs as wild as the storm of magick that surrounds me, but I hear nothing.

Everything slows as the chaotic sounds of wind howling, men shouting, and the shrill sound of blades being unsheathed are muffled, and time slows.

I can see Kyros’ mouth moving, but I hear nothing as his face strains with his shouts.

Something is tugging at me; my body jerks forward from where I stand, but I’m in a state of paralysis, eyes locked with the monster of legend .

Leathery wings bunch and then flare wide as the creature opens its giant maw.

Three rows of deadly sharp teeth are glaringly bright in the low light before the stars come out and cast the night aglow.

The sound of its roar vibrates my bones, but still I step forward.

The urgency in Kyros’ eyes changes as he tries to pry my gaze away, pleading for me to face him.

Desperate for me to come with him; to hear him.

I blink, and with a rushing sound, like water finally coursing through a pump, the chaos comes back into focus.

I finally look at him. I now see the arched ring of fiery shadows he has behind him, but I shake my head. I can’t leave, not now.

The creature steps forward with a rattling growl, the curving tail of a scorpion coming into view, as the flames from the portal cast his powerful deep ochre feline form into a casing of red. His fur gleams like ancient copper. He is breathtaking.

“Wait,” I hear my own voice, but as I take a step forward, Kyros wraps an arm around me, forcing my body to turn toward him.

“Shula, I need you to hear me. We need to get out of here. If that beast charges… We are both dead. If I run out of power before I can portal us out of here? We may be dead anyway. But please, let me get us out of here.” Kyros’s eyes flick behind me in worry, and he yanks me toward him, protectively shielding my body with his just before the manticore launches into the sky.

It nosedives back toward where I stood only a moment before.

He lands with a flare of black sand spraying out around him, but the sound of his jaw closing around flesh and bone is what has me recoiling.

A snapping sound claps behind me, and the glow cast from the portal sputters ou t, plunging us into darkness as the sun finally dips below the horizon.

Five of the Scylia face the beast, weapons drawn and muslin fabric billowing out around them as the wind begins to pick up.

They circle him like he isn't the predator but the prey. His strong muscles bunch as he anticipates an attack from one of them. His powerful tail rearing back for a strike with the deadly barbed end. A war cry echoes through the air from one of the men as he charges forward with his blade drawn. The lethal tail comes down faster than anything I have seen. The Scylia pirate’s screams are silenced from one breath to the next, as he is pierced through his chest with a sick squelch of flesh and blood and the distinct cracking sound of snapping bones.

Everything blurs—too fast to track, too sudden to stop.

The Scylia move in a vicious synchrony after the manticore’s attack.

Their deadly sharp blades aimed to cut down the magickal being who drew first blood.

My heart seems to pause its beating, the moment in time slowing to a standstill.

I look at Kyros, my eyes pleading. I cannot see this animal killed.

I scream in tandem with the beast’s furious roar.

The sound ripping from my throat in a savage peal.

That lasso of fire I’ve only ever felt in my nightmares wraps around me, squeezing so tight I feel as though my lungs will burst from the pressure.

“ Save him .” I scrape out, pressing my hand to the spot just below my heart.

His voice is barely audible, but I hear Kyros curse at my side before his magick comes alive, uncoiling from his arms and striking out like snakes at the Scylia.

Half of them are flung backward, while one is torn into by the claws and fangs of the fierce creature of terror.

I fall to my knees in the black sand and helplessly watch as Kyros extends his blade out and fights alongside the creature that legends only tell of its brutality.

It’s fearsome, bloodthirsty savagery. Blood sprays across both man and beast, coating them with the essence of life.

But instead of terror, all I can see is art.

Specifically, the art in the library in the palace.

I stared at it for most of my life. I always had the idea that they were fighting each other.

Man versus beast, but here and now, they work together to cut down the evil that wants to bring harm to us both.

When it's just Kyros and the manticore left, they turn in unison, facing each other. Kyros’ chest heaves with exertion; the beast's maw hangs wide. Blood drips and sinew strings limply from its teeth. The beast is the one who looks away first, its bright blue eyes almost a mirror of my own, clashing with mine. I don’t feel fear when I look at him; instead, something confusing takes over.

Something that I realize was there all along.

As soon as I laid eyes on him, I had an undeniable urge to go to the beast, as though it was beckoning to me.

A glimmer of movement in my periphery has my eyes widening, my heart leaping from my chest. Kyros’s blade glints in the low-hanging moonlight, poised to strike.

“No.” The word comes out as a whisper, but before his blade comes striking down across the neck of the beast, the manticore does something neither of us expects.

It bows its massive head. The hair from its mane falls across its eyes, its deadly paws, lined with blade-like claws, stretched out in front of him.

Kyros stalls, turning to look at me at the same moment the manticore’s blue eyes flash .

Standing, I push my feet to move through the loose, deep sand kicked up from the fighting. It's a struggle to even get my footing. As I move closer to the two, Kyros growls low in his throat.

“Shula, stay back!” Kyros says through his teeth, panic leaching through his tone.

“He’s not going to hurt me. He won’t hurt either of us.

” I say. I don't know why I feel this way.

Everything about the creature says otherwise, but the way he seemed to bow, submitting before us instead of turning and attacking us too…

Something in his eyes… I slowly reach my hand out in front of me.

An offering of peace. Of understanding. Something I have so rarely been shown, I offer the creature a piece of myself.

“Shula!” Kyros hisses in warning, but I don’t care.

A deep rumble comes from the manticore’s throat, but it's not the growl at which it aimed at the Scylia but more of a purr.

It extends its neck, and my breath catches as my hand touches the center of its forehead, between the root-like curved horns on its head.

A slow smile spreads across my face, but Kyros is a statue of indecision standing to the side, watching this sort of connection I feel forming under my palm.

“Thank you.” I say, and when his large head lifts and his eyes come level with mine, he chuffs, looking at Kyros and then back to me before taking a step back and launching into the sky with a powerful downward thrust of his leathery wings.

I can't help but watch as he disappears into the night sky with a smile on my face .

“Incredible.” Kyros says, pulling me out of my state of awe. I slowly look over to find him only staring at me. Heat rises into my cheeks, and I wring my hands in front of myself.

“Thank you for saving him. For protecting us both.” I say, and he plunges his sword into the sand before storming the distance between us and slamming his lips to mine.

“You fucking drive me mad! Why would you put yourself in danger like that?!” He growls into my face, his hands bracketing my face as my own grasp his wrists.

“You are insufferable. A constant pain in my ass.” His lips are bruising as they claim mine again, not allowing me to respond.

“All of this would be easier if you were… not so different.” His hands are frantic as they grip my face, keeping me pinned to him.

I can’t breathe anything but the words he forces on me.

Words that are confusing but also making my head spin with a drunken feeling of needing more.

“We need to get out of here.” I manage to say through his unrelenting capture of my body. My words seem to fracture the air around us, and he finally leans back but doesn’t drop his hands.

“Yes, Shula. We can get out of here.” He says while rubbing his thumb across my cheekbone, but the look in his eyes makes my brows drop. What I thought was lust looks more like grief in his eyes.

“You are going to be sorry for this, Hawk!” A voice calls out from behind.

Kyros pushes me behind him as he turns to face a Scylia pirate.

His face is torn, shredded from scalp to chin.

Even in the darkness I can see the deep color that runs down his neck and darkens the already dark fabric that hangs in tatters across his chest. He limps forward, holding one arm at the bicep to his body, likely pulled from the socket.

“You will regret every decision you ever made when it comes to returning to Eathian. You and I both know it. It might not be me, but you can see it as well as I can. Death will come for you. She will be the death of you. She will be the death of us all.” Ice curls in a spiral up my spine, settling over my heart at his words.

“What a fucking way to go it will be.” Kyros growls, low and throaty, slowly unsheathing a knife at his thigh.

“But Karnnen?” He tilts his head to the side.

“ I—will be the death of you.” The man has no chance to respond before he is cross-eyed, looking at the handle of the knife that is now buried deep in his skull.

His lips part as blood seeps from the wound, his nose, and now coats his tongue and lips.

He staggers forward, a choking sound coming from him before he tilts forward and lands face down in the sand.

I tightly press my hand across my mouth to cover the scream that wants to break free.

I have seen death. I have seen torture and been tortured even, but never anything like that.

And what did he mean that I would be the death of Kyros?

The death of everyone? I watch frozen as Kyros walks a few feet away, picking up a Tsalalerian steel sword, weighing it in his grip like he didn’t just kill multiple people.

Didn’t just stare down a manticore in the divine dunes of the Dead Sea.

When he returns to me, his face is stern, not the wild adoration that I had just witnessed from him.

This is the Kyros that I met in the tavern. Detached. Cold. Controlled.

“My magick is restored.” He takes my hand and threads his fingers through mine. “Are you ok?” Am I ?

“What did he mean?” I swallow, feeling my confusion turning to emotion in my throat.

“Not now.” Kyros barks.

“What did you mean?” I ask, the emotion turning bitter, and anger simmers at the surface of my mind as the words ‘not now’ bounce around my reeling mind.

“Later.” He says with a sigh. My jaw clenches tight, but he ignores the way I dig my feet into the sand.

Taking his other hand, he releases a pouch at his hip, and he scoops some of the black sand at our feet into it before cinching it back on the hook at his belt.

He doesn't say anything else. The conversation is over because he says it is, and even though I feel the fight wanting to break free in me, my father’s words crash into me.

Silence, Astraea; that is what we want from you. There is no place for questions from a woman in the affairs of men. Silence Astraea, I will not have another word. Silence, Astraea, or you will get another punishment. I swallow my retort as a numbness settles over me.

Kyros lets his magick pool into his hand before splaying his fingers wide, throwing the darkness into the air. It crackles and pops, catching fire in a wide arch. He looks at me with the same sorrow-filled grieving in his eyes before his thumb strikes a hot line across the back of my hand.

“Trust me?” It's a question I’m meant to answer. It's a question I want to answer yes to, but all the doubt I’ve ever felt comes crashing into me like a storm as I recall everything that was just said. I nod. “I’m sorry. I promise I will explain; we just—”

“Have to go.” I finish for him with all the pain I feel in my words. His jaw ticks.

“Yes.”

“It’s ok, Kyros, I’m used to being silenced.

I trust you. You promised to get me back to Cole.

I hope now is when you make right on that promise.

” I say devoid of all emotion, and his lips purse.

His brows drop, and as we step forward into the rendered portal, I think of Cole.

Of the one person I know who will never keep things from me.

The one person I can trust no matter what.

As much as I wanted to trust Kyros, he is clearly still keeping secrets, and if they are big enough for someone to think I am going to be the death of him…

of them all? Then it seems that trust is already broken.