“Listen, we’re going to get separated up here. It’s inevitable, and trying to stay together is only going to cause us to waste mental energy and focus that we should be spending on attacking the enemy.”
Isa’s eyes were full of terror, and watery from all the smoke. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying we should say our goodbyes now, because in the next minute or two we’re going to be pulled apart without a chance to actually say a proper goodbye.”
“O-okay.” She was trying to be brave, but even in the thickness of the smoke she couldn’t hide her true feelings.
“You don’t have to do this, Isa.” Leo took her face in his palms and held on tight, willing her to make the right decision—willing her to turn around and run for safety. She had done enough for the shifters. She didn’t have anything to prove. She didn’t need to fight in this battle for anyone to believe that she was sincere about wanting the shifters to have their freedom.
But Isa stood up straighter and stuck out her chin stubbornly. “I want to do this. I’ll be careful. But I know that if I’m fighting for the shifters, that I’m fighting on the right side. I truly believe that destiny will protect me. And if not, well, at least I’ll die with a clean conscience.”
Leo nodded. He knew arguing would be a waste of time, and they didn’t have time to waste right now. “Okay. Well then, I’ll see you on the other side. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Her voice was barely audible over the noise of the battle that seemed to be growing ever louder around them. Leo leaned in and kissed her lips, savoring their softness and sweet taste. He prayed that this was not the last time he would have a chance to kiss her. Their life together was just beginning. He could not lose her now. He would not lose her now. But as much as he wanted to hide her away and keep her safe, he knew that he had to let her breathe. He had to let her follow her heart, and if her heart was telling her to fight, then it was not up to him to stand in her way. He would stay close to her as long as he could, but he was not naïve enough to think that would be very long in a battle as crazy as this one.
Drawing himself up to his full height, he gave Isa’s hand one more squeeze, and did his best to smile encouragingly.
“I believe in you, Isa. You can do this. You’ll make it through.”
“I believe in you, too. We’ll both come out okay.”
She smiled at him, this time without fear, and he knew it was time.
“Here we go, once more into the breach!” he shouted, and then took off running, his heart filled with love and adrenaline. As worried as he was for Isa’s safety, he had to admit that nothing in the world was quite as thrilling as fighting for his freedom with the woman he loved fighting by his side.
* * *
Isa wondered if her throat was ever going to feel normal again. She had lost track of how long she’d been lost in the thickness of the smoke, but it had been long enough to make her hope she never encountered a situation like this again.
The noise around her was finally starting to die down, although there was still quite a bit of shouting somewhere off to her left. Isa drew on the last bit of strength she had and started to run toward the screaming. She couldn’t tell who was winning or losing this battle anymore, but she had promised herself that she wouldn’t stop fighting until the shifters had won or she was dead. Every muscle in her body ached, and she was sure the whites of her eyes must be completely red from smoke irritation. But she still had strength enough to swing a sword, so she was going to keep swinging it on behalf of the shifters. She owed them that much, after the way her family had treated them for generations.
Isa had managed to take out quite a few of the Gilt Hollow fighters, and to keep herself alive. But the fight had not left her unharmed. She had suffered quite a few punches and slashes from swords and daggers. Luckily, nothing seemed to have cut too deep, and she hadn’t lost a huge amount of blood. But the pain radiating across her body from the various wounds had been growing steadily, and Isa wondered how much more she could take before she was simply going to pass out from the overwhelm.
It doesn’t matter. As long as I can stay conscious and on my feet, I’ll keep fighting.
She hadn’t seen Leo since about the first thirty seconds of the battle. He had shifted into bear form as they ran toward the fighting, and Isa had thought that it would be easy to keep track of such a giant grizzly. But once Isa was in the midst of the battle, all she could see was a whirl of angry forms, shouting, punching, and slashing. Leo was lost in the chaos, and Isa knew that it would be a waste of energy to try to find him again. He’d warned her that they would be separated. She had to do her best to fight on her own.
And fight she did. Leo had been right about a real swordfight being pretty much the same as a staged one, as long as you didn’t let yourself think about it too much. Isa had always been decent at the practice fighting she’d done, and she kept telling herself this was just one more practice round. She’d held her own against men who were twice her size, and she’d taken down quite a few shocked attackers who hadn’t expected a girl to be able to best them so easily. Luckily for her, most of the people fighting didn’t even recognize her as Isadora Eastmore, daughter of the Emperor. The smoke was too blinding, and everything was in too much chaos for anyone to look closely enough to see who she was.
People were mostly surprised that she attacked at all, since pretty much all of the shifters had changed themselves into animal form. If there was a fighter in human form, that person was most likely from Gilt Hollow. Isa hadn’t seen a single shifter in human form in this battle since the moment Leo had shifted into his grizzly form, and she guessed the other Gilt Hollow humans had not either. That had probably saved her life on more than one occasion. No one with guns shot at her, because they assumed she was one of them. And those with swords didn’t usually attack her until she attacked them first. Once they realized she was fighting for the shifters, the Gilt Hollow fighters attacked her with gusto. But by then she’d had a chance to get the first move in.
How many more swings of her sword would she have to make before all of this was over, though? She was tired, and she desperately wanted to know whether Leo was okay. But still, the smoke and the shouting continued. Isa forced herself to keep running, and to think only of fighting the enemies who still lay ahead. If she started to overthink things, she was going to fall into despair.
Isa wasn’t sure exactly where she was, since the fires had destroyed so many buildings and made visibility so poor. But from the little bit she could see, she thought she must be somewhere near Gilt Hollow’s Central Square. Central Square was known for its glitzy, gold-plated statues and its oversized, decorative water fountain that shot water up fifty feet into the air. She couldn’t see any water now, but it was possible the fountain was malfunctioning amidst all this chaos. Someone might have destroyed a part of it that was vital to the operation of the fifty foot spout. Isa had seen several of the golden statues knocked over in the midst of the glittering streets, and she doubted anyone had dragged a statue very far, which meant they had been knocked over near here, placing Isa in Central Square.
Isa had never seen Central Square like this, though. Blood smears were everywhere, as were lifeless bodies. She tried not to stare at the still forms that littered the shiny roads made of glittering, gold-flecked cobblestones. Some were human bodies and some were shifters, but either way: the realization of how many people had given their lives today in this war shocked Isa to her core. This war was so unnecessary. If only her father had treated the shifters like people, everyone could have lived in peace and so many lives could have been saved.
It was too late for could-have-beens, though. Isa heard shouting, roaring and growling directly ahead of her, and she ran toward the sound, her hand on her sword and ready to fight. She wondered if Leo was up ahead, still fighting as well. Or was he already one of the lifeless bodies lying on the glittering, bloodstained ground? Isa gulped hard and forced away
the thought.
Just focus on the fight at hand. That’s what Leo is doing, if he’s still alive.
Isa saw a group of Gilt Hollow guards up ahead, and with a loud, long scream she ran toward them, her sword outstretched and aiming straight for their hearts. The Gilt Hollow guards turned toward her through the smoky haze, and Isa could vaguely make out the expressions on their faces, registering shock. She felt a boost of confidence when she noted the fear in their eyes, and she braced herself for the moment when her sword would make contact with the first guard’s body.
But that moment never came. Before she reached the guards, she felt a sudden, sharp pain on the side of her head. Something had hit her, hard, and she lost her footing as she went tumbling toward the street. She had the horrible thought that she was about to join the rest of the lifeless bodies scattered across Central Square’s cobblestone roads, but before she had even hit the ground, everything went mercifully black.
Chapter Eleven
Leo was running through a mess of dead bodies, heading for what appeared to be the last Gilt Hollow stronghold, when he finally found Isa. He’d been keeping an eye out for her over the last two hours or so, hoping to catch another glimpse of her in the battle—and hoping that glimpse would be of her fighting and not of a dead body.
After two hours of not seeing her, dead or alive, he was beginning to wonder if she’d gone into hiding. She didn’t seem like the type to back down from a fight, but then again, she’d never been in a real fight. Maybe the stress proved to be too much for her, despite her best intentions. He hadn’t felt any sort of warning deep inside that his lifemate was in mortal danger, so surely, she must still be alive?
He hoped so. And then, all of a sudden, he felt a flash of sickening despair as he felt the lifemate bond within him going crazy. His whole body went hot and red, and he knew Isa was in mortal danger. She must still be in the fight, then, he thought, a split second before he saw her. The smoky haze was finally starting to clear a bit, and he could just make out her figure.
She was screaming at the top of her lungs, running toward a group of Gilt Hollow soldiers with her sword outstretched. She was so intent on the soldiers in front of her that she didn’t see the burly Gilt Hollow man jumping out at her from her left, a giant wooden stick raised above his head. He brought the stick down on the side of her skull, and she immediately lost her balance and started to fall. Leo was already running toward her, his grizzly paws flying across the cobblestones beneath him. He ran as fast as he could, but a horrible feeling filled him as he saw the man who had attacked Isa reaching down for the sword Isa had been carrying. An evil laugh sounded across the square as the man picked the sword up and raised it above his head, preparing to bring it down on Isa’s head.
I’m not going to get there in time! Leo felt a moment of panic, but that panic was quickly followed by the most overwhelming rage he’d ever felt in his life. Oh no you don’t! Not today! Not my lifemate. Leo let out the longest, loudest roar he had ever made in his life.
The man holding the sword paused, distracted by the roar. He turned to look at Leo for a split-second before turning back toward Isa, but that split-second was all Leo needed. It gave him the extra time he needed to reach the man. As Leo approached, he leapt into the air and ran sideways into the man, with the full force of his giant grizzly form. The man yelped in surprise and went flying sideways, his sword flying through the air as well. When Leo rolled off of him, the man took off running, stumbling across the uneven, bloodstained ground in his effort to get away. Leo let him go. He could have easily chased after him and killed him, but right now Leo’s more immediate concern was making sure that Isa was okay. After quickly surveying the area and determining that there were no more Gilt Hollow fighters around, Leo quickly shifted back into human form. He ran over to Isa, tears forming in his eyes as he knelt over her.
“Isa! Isa, are you okay?”
She blinked her eyes open, squinting at him and then furrowing her brow.
“Leo? What…what happened? The last thing I remember was running to attack some Gilt Hollow men, but then everything went black. And now you’re here.” She sat up slowly and looked around. “Looks like I’m still in Central Square. But the smoke has cleared up quite a bit. And I don’t see anyone fighting.”
“Shh, take it easy. You took quite a blow to the head. Some Gilt Hollow bastard was trying to take you out with your sword when I got here, but I stopped him. He ran away now, and I don’t see anyone else here. I don’t hear any more fighting, either, come to think of it.”
Leo looked around for a few moments, listening carefully and breathing in to see whether he could catch the scent of any nearby fighters. But he couldn’t smell anything above the stench of smoke and bodies. He couldn’t hear anything, either. The world had suddenly gone strangely, eerily quiet. Isa noticed the silence, too.
“Is the battle over?” she asked.
Leo shrugged. “I don’t know, but it sure sounds that way. Do you think you can stand? We should try to move out of this open space, at least. We can retreat to the forest to regroup, and maybe find out what’s happening along the way.”
Isa nodded. “I can move. I feel pretty much normal now that I’ve sat up for a few moments.”
“Good.” Leo stood and offered her his hand to help her stand. “Then let’s get you out of here.”
He supported her with one of his arms, and used the other hand to pick up the sword lying on the ground a few feet away from them. As they walked, he kept the sword at the ready, just in case. But he didn’t see or hear anyone. The fighting might actually be over, although Leo couldn’t say for sure who had won. In the midst of the battle, he’d only been trying to survive and to keep an eye out for Isa. Everything had been too much of a blur for him to be able to tell which way the battle was turning.
The fires must have all burned out now, too. The smoke was rapidly clearing, helped along by a brisk breeze blowing in from the north. Leo felt a bit shocked as he saw how much of Gilt Hollow had burned to the ground. He knew these streets well, and had spent years on these streets as a guard for the Severson noble family, memorizing the layout of the city streets. He knew which houses stood where, and what they all looked like. But nothing about these streets looked familiar right now. The houses were all burnt shells, and even the streets themselves looked charred in places.
“Wow,” Isa said, sounding a bit breathless. The destruction must have shocked her as well. “This place looks like the apocalypse came through here with a vengeance.”
“The shifter apocalypse,” Leo said. For the first time since the battle had started earlier today, he felt himself starting to relax. The shifters must have won this battle. There was no way that Gilt Hollow had sustained this much destruction and still come out on top. His heart pounded in his chest with hope. Was this really happening? Dare he believe that he might actually be free now? That he and Isa might actually have the chance to live together openly, with no one to judge their love or the fact that he was a shifter and she was not?
Leo held tighter to Isa as they walked through the ruins of Gilt Hollow. He had waited so long for this moment that it felt surreal to think that freedom might actually be here. But the more he saw, the more he became convinced that the shifters had won this battle. The majority of Gilt Hollow looked like it had been charred to a crisp, and bodies of Gilt Hollow citizens lay all over the streets. Leo didn’t see very many shifter bodies, though. Either all the dead shifters were somewhere else in town, or the shifters had actually made it through this with low casualties.
He picked up his pace without consciously realizing it. He was feeling less worried about attacks now, and more curious about where the rest of the shifters might be. They must have all gathered somewhere, but he didn’t see any signs of life anywhere. Had everyone already gone back to Bear Hollow? But if so, how had he missed that? Surely, Otto would have sent some shifters to sweep the town and let any remaining shifters know that people wer
e heading back.
Leo hadn’t been musing about this for long when he heard the faint sound of voices. Someone was yelling, although it sounded more like some sort of verbal argument rather than a continuation of the bloody battle that had been taking place.
“Did you hear that?” Leo asked Isa.
She nodded slowly. “It sounds like it’s coming from the direction of the palace. Should we go check it out?”
Leo nodded and the two of them turned to their left to take the road that would lead them past the Arena, past the Seversons’ house, and finally to the palace. Or to what was left of the palace, anyway. Leo was curious to see whether anything remained of the magnificent building after the explosion and fires.
The Arena had fared better than most of the buildings. Some of the outside area was covered in black soot, but the Arena itself didn’t seem to have suffered any fire damage. It was still standing, and its roof even gleamed in the sunlight that now shone through the clearing smoke. Leo turned away. He didn’t even want to look at that horrid building, where so many shifters had been forced to fight wild animals against their will, purely for the entertainment of the Gilt Hollow humans.
If this battle is over and the shifters truly have been victorious, the first thing we should do is burn that Arena to the ground. For now, though, Leo turned away from the sight of the Arena and back toward the road ahead of him. They passed the Seversons’ house, which had still been in the process of being repaired from a large fire that one of the shifter resistance fighters had caused there a few months ago. From the looks of things now, the repairs had been completely undone by today’s fire. The little bit of the Seversons’ house that remained was nothing more than a charcoal-colored shell. The gardens were all burnt as well. Where once there had been vibrant flowers and deep green trees, there were now only ashes and blackened trunks.
The Princess and the Bear (The Shifter Games Book 5) Page 9