by Selena Scott
“The Emperor’s daughter,” Alec spoke again, this time in surprise. Milla raised her eyes from the horrible, infuriating sight of Griff. Looking back at where the Emperor sat, she saw a beautiful girl, maybe sixteen years of age. She wore her honey brown hair in loose curls around her shoulders and a deep purple dress of what appeared to be velvet. Her clean and opulent appearance was startlingly out of place amongst the many beggars and working class people who’d come to the square to watch the show. “He wants to make her a princess,” Alec explained. “He knows that the people of Herta will only ever fear him. But he believes that he can make the people grow to truly love his daughter.”
Milla observed the girl again, but it wasn’t her clothes that she watched. It was the expression on the girl’s face. She had a lazy and entitled expression whenever she spoke with her father. But the second the Emperor looked away, the girl’s eyes burned with intensity. And her gaze was trained directly on Griff.
She turned to mention it to Alec, but she saw, with a start, that he was already disappearing away from her, into the crowd. Okay. So. No goodbye then. She thought for one pained second of Ansel and Ruby’s impassioned goodbye to one another. Milla had no choice but to strike that line of thought from her head. She and John Alec were not Ansel and Ruby. This was not a love story for them. This was a rescue story for Griff. And she needed to focus.
So focus she did. She watched as Ruby slowly made her way through the crowd. People teemed around the platform, shouting up toward him, some of them spitting. Griff merely stood, his eyes burning, chained to the platform.
Milla watched as a few minutes after Ruby made her way to the platform, Griff’s head jerked down. She must have gotten his attention. The boy’s eyes widened for just a moment before he jerked his head back up to the front, the way it had been before. Ruby nonchalantly made her way out of the square; she started left, and then changed her mind to go back through an exit closer to the Emperor. That was the signal they’d come up with. Left then right. It meant that she’d accomplished her task.
Next, all she had to do was wait by the southern ferry for the rest of the plan to unfold. Milla didn’t envy Ruby. Waiting in this instance would be so much worse than doing.
And thank God it was Milla and Ansel’s time to start doing. Now that Ruby was clear, the two of them separated. Ansel gave her the briefest of squeezes on her hand and she was grateful for it.
He entered the square from one side and Milla from the other. She allowed herself to be jostled around and resisted the temptation to rush to her post. She could feel Alec’s eyes on her from across the square. She knew he was watching out for her. Even if he hadn’t said goodbye, he was still watching out for her.
When they’d both casually reached their positions, all they could do now was wait. It was the end of a long hour when the Emperor motioned for Griff to be taken back inside. This was their moment. The two guards in the back unleashed Griff from the loop of metal that had been holding him back. He still wore his chains but he was as free as he was going to be. That was Milla’s cue.
Depending fully on the crush of the crowd around them to obscure her actions, Milla struck out with both of her elbows at once and then stepped immediately backwards. The two men whom she’d struck, one a citizen and the other, one of the Emperor’s guards, whirled to each other, baring their teeth in anger. Milla quickly popped the guard in the face. He turned to look at her in pained incredulity. She kicked the other man who jostled the guard to get to her.
Suddenly, they were both lunging at her and Milla welcomed it. She let the men take her to the ground and could sense a similar scuffle happening on the other side of the platform. Milla scuttled out from under the two fighting men, carefully smacking and punching at the people around her, who also lunged. The crowd surged in one direction and Milla had just enough time to grab the guard’s black hat. Jam it on her head.
She looked up in time to see two guards flank Griff; they were fighting not to get swept away in the now rioting crowd. She came up behind those two guards and felt Ansel come beside her. They both kept their head down, their faces virtually invisible to anyone looking from above. She and her brother were in formation now, directly behind the guards who were dragging Griff through the crowd.
A slick zing was the only indication that Alec had done his job. And then another. Only because she was looking for them could Milla see the thin wooden darts sticking out of the back of the guards’ necks. He’d tranquilized them perfectly. Before the two guards could stagger and give the game away, Ansel and Milla jostled between them and Griff, taking the boy by his chain-bound shoulders and knocking the hats off the soon-to-be unconscious guards. They dragged him just the way the other guards had, but he didn’t resist them. He knew who they were and what they were there to do.
Besides the shouts from the fight behind them, there was nothing to indicate that the Emperor knew his prize possession was in the middle of being abducted. But one glance up at the daughter of the Emperor and Milla knew they’d been discovered. The girl’s eyes had seen it all, even under the guise of the scuffle.
Milla prayed the girl would keep her mouth shut as they approached the stone wall that lined the square. Because here came the part that would give up their positions. Instead of leading Griff through the wrought iron gate that led down to the tunnels where they’d been keeping him under the city, they were going to lead him through an archway just to the left. It led into the most crowded part of the city, filled with passageways and a busy market. They were going to disappear into the melee and head for the southern ferry off the isle.
But if anyone noticed that they were going through the wrong archway, the game was up.
With confidence that none of them felt, they dragged Griff through the archway. Milla automatically grabbed out at the heavy brown cloak that Ruby had planted there as she’d left for the ferry. Milla tossed it over top of Griff, obscuring him as they made their way out the other side of the archway. She and Ansel threw off their caps and Milla hung back. Leaving the archway in a set of three was too obvious. She let the two of them scurry forward. She watched them integrate into the crowd. But they weren’t disappeared. Anyone really looking for them could tell who they were.
“GUARDS!” came a monstrously loud voice from over top of her. Milla knew instantly that the game was up.
There was a great thump beside her and Milla saw that the Emperor was there, right beside her. Much larger than she’d thought and swinging a machete in her direction. He’d jumped clear off the wall, ripping the sling off his arm in the process. Ansel tucked Griff under his arm and charged forward, away from the Emperor, but Griff seemed to have planted his feet. He tossed his hood off and stared back in the direction of the wall. In the direction of the daughter, Milla realized.
“I’ll come back, Alayna!” Griff’s voice carried clear and strong over the chaos unfolding before them.
“Go!” she screamed back at him. “Go!”
But there wasn’t a chance for him to go. Because from two different directions, men in black hats started swarming them.
The Emperor swung his machete at Milla again and she easily ducked it, pulling out the two knives she kept in her belt. He sneered at her and swiped again, attempting to get past her and toward Griff. The civilians milling in the crowd of the market were all screaming and scrambling to get away. But the men in the black hats kept coming.
Ansel and Griff were running south, trying to blend in with the civilians, but Milla could see it was no use. They were going to have to fight their way out. Another few seconds and they’d be surrounded.
Without thinking, Milla launched herself onto the back of the Emperor, who was sprinting toward Ansel and Griff, machete drawn. The man went down hard, but for Milla it was in slow motion. She watched as four men in black hats tumbled to the ground around her, arrows in their necks or guts.
Alec.
As she and the Emperor rolled away from one another, dusty
and enraged, Milla saw, in the corner of her eye, Alec sprinting along the top of the wall, shooting arrows as he went. He was fast. Not fast enough. The Emperor rolled, his eyes filled with hatred for Milla, and he sliced his machete across her stomach.
Milla screamed in pain and she heard an echoing roar of fury from both Alec and Ansel, on opposite sides of the now empty market.
It was the screeching, furious pain that did it. But also the fact that she knew there was no way to get out without fighting. She thought of Ruby waiting at the south ferry. She thought of the humiliation that Griff had gone through every day for a year. She thought of the scent of an enslaved shifter. But mostly, she thought of how fucking good it felt to shift. The wound in her stomach already mostly healed, Milla didn’t wait.
The air around her pulsed and went thick with gravity and clear magnification. The Emperor’s eyes went wide with something like shock and fear as Milla ceased to be and an irate, golden brown grizzly took her place. She roared in absolute fury, standing fully tall over the Emperor. Rearing back, she swiped one steady paw straight across his stomach, exactly where he’d tried to gut her, and opened him wide. The man fell in a pile of bloody mess as he gripped at his gaping stomach.
The men in black hats charged her but Milla was beyond fear. Beyond anything but the pumping power of having shifted.
She could feel Herta tugging at her. Something external and heavy was telling her to fall down at the feet of the men around her. But Milla Keto was stronger than Herta. And she did not submit.
Alec, standing frozen on the top of the wall, watched his woman lose her mortal mind. She was gorgeous. Her bear was a vengeful force of war. A weapon in every meaning of the word. He winced as knives and arrows of other men lashed out at her, but he could see her healing almost as quickly as she was wounded. And the pain they were causing her only served to enrage her further.
But there were so many men. More than Alec had anticipated. Dozens of men charged her from every side and Alec watched as one of her steps seemed horribly woozy. God. He couldn’t let Herta take her. She needed to shift back to human form and fast. He jumped the edge of the wall and rushed toward her, his sword drawn. He sliced through the throng of men surrounding her. Hacking and stabbing as he went.
He heard a tremendous roar then, and men went scattering. Suddenly, there was an even larger, lighter bear in the market as well. Ansel charged the men and most of them had the wits to scatter. But many stood and fought. Between the three of them, Milla, Ansel, and Alec fought the Emperor’s guards back.
But then, another gate in the wall opened and it wasn’t men that poured through. It was dead-eyed, rotting shifters. Ordered to fight. There were a few other bears, bobcats, wolves, dogs. There was one long-toothed gorilla and a rhinoceros.
“Run!” Alec screamed. He knew two things. One, Ansel and Milla wouldn’t be able to bring themselves to fight other shifters the way they had the humans. And two, no matter what, they couldn’t fight that many shifters.
Milla, listening to Alec, barreled toward Griff who was wrestling with his chains. With one carefully vicious swipe of her claw, Milla shredded the chains off of his chest and the boy was free. He ran alongside Alec as Milla and Ansel cleared the way in front of them. The bears were not vicious toward the other shifters, but they were inexorable. They knocked and bowled the enslaved shifters aside. Ansel, obviously very skilled at combat, tossed two wolves to the side at once as he slid into another grizzly, wrestling the animal to the ground and knocking the great bear’s head unconscious.
Milla, for her part, deftly avoided the rhinoceros and barrel rolled over the gorilla. Even with the animal’s grasping arms and hands, Milla was faster and sharper. The great beast ricocheted off of her and they were through to the other side of the market.
The river glinted in the distance and Alec and Griff lagged behind on their measly human legs. Milla and Ansel skidded to a stop, bowing down, and Alec and Griff climbed on to their backs.
Alec gripped Milla’s thick fur in his hands and held on tight as he felt her muscles bunch and coil beneath his legs. Grizzlies couldn’t sprint for a long time, but for short distances, they were very fast.
And it was that speed that burst them away from the calamity of the market behind them. Arrows zinged at their backs, but soon they were out of range and the ferry was there. And so was Ruby.
The ferryman’s eyes widened as the unlikely group appeared, bloody and torn and riding bears. He pulled away from them in fear, but he winced and held still as Ruby jammed the knife she was holding to his neck just a little bit tighter against his skin.
Alec was impressed with Ruby. Holding the ferryman at knifepoint hadn’t been a part of the plan but it showed both grit and ingenuity.
He hopped off of Milla’s back and shoved Griff toward the ferry. “Get it going!”
Alec glanced back up the island and saw that some of the shifters were still pursuing them. And some of the men in black hats. And… was that…? Yes. The Emperor himself, bleeding profusely from his stomach, was riding a shifter horse straight for them.
They needed to get off land and fast. But they couldn’t do it with two full sized grizzlies in tow. They’d sink the ship.
“Shift!” Alec commanded the bears and with a dozy, almost hypnotized grimace, Ansel did just that. He shook his head clear and stumbled toward the boat where Ruby and Griff were crying and embracing. Ansel was ready to get the fuck out of Herta.
But Milla didn’t shift. She couldn’t. So much of her wanted to follow Alec’s direction because it was so easy to follow directions. All she had to do was bow to him and he could make her life so easy. All she had to do was shift and he’d be her master. Just the way she wanted. No! She wanted nothing like that. She wanted to be free! She was Milla Keto. She had no master.
But she also knew that if she didn’t shift back to her human form soon, she’d be lost to Herta. She’d be stuck submitting to whichever human owned her. Her thoughts were lazy and syrupy and she just wanted to lay down and sleep.
But Alec was in her face, gripping the fur there and screaming. “Please, woman! Please! Little queen, you have to! I won’t leave you but we’ll die here if you don’t!”
It was the please that did it. Or maybe it was the thought of Alec dying alongside her. But something in Milla’s soul burst forth, blazing and bright and unstoppable. It was her own self that made her shift. Not an order from a human. It was her own free will and prerogative that had her tumbling into Alec’s arms, naked and golden and human.
He didn’t hesitate. Lunging forward with two great strides, he barely made the jump onto the wooden ferry that was already pulling away from shore.
They tumbled in a heap onto the wooden slats of the boat and Alec was holding her, hugging her, whispering in her ear.
“You beat it, little queen. You beat Herta. You’re no slave, Milla. You’re you. God. You’re so strong.” He pet and hugged her and Milla wasn’t sure if those were her tears or his that mixed on her face.
CHAPTER EIGHT
They dressed, switched boats twice more, and disappeared onto the other shore in the dead of night before they rejoiced. Alec watched with a long set of single eye binoculars from the top of a tree as the Emperor’s men filed on shore ten miles away, heading in the wrong direction.
Alec jumped down from the tree, caught Milla up in his arms and told them the news. There were tears all around and Ruby and Griff couldn’t stop grinning at one another, grabbing each other up in great hugs.
“You’re. So. Tall,” Ruby sobbed as she stared at her brother and held him an arm’s length away.
“And you’re so… in love?” Griff asked, looking back and forth between Ansel and Ruby. “With Ansel Keto?” He’d known Ansel casually before he’d been drawn into Herta. But he’d never have expected him to pair up with his sister.
“Yeah,” Ruby blew her nose on a small handkerchief that Alec had just handed over. “A lot has changed since you’ve
been gone. You’ll see when we get through the gate tomorrow.”
“Wait,” Griff paused. “What do you mean get through the gate?”
Milla’s stomach dropped. She thought she might know what was coming.
“Alec is leading us to a gate back to earth. It’s a full night’s hike, but we’ll be there tomorrow.”
“No,” Griff said immediately. “I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving Herta.”
“What?” Ruby looked desperately confused. “But isn’t it painful for you to be here? It hurts Ansel and Milla to be here and I know we haven’t really talked about it yet, but aren’t you a shifter, too?”
“Ruby,” Griff waved away her questions. “I’m not leaving earth without Alayna.”
“The Emperor’s daughter?” Alec asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Jeez,” Milla murmured. “You’re really swinging for the fences there, kid.”
Griff ignored both of them. “She’s as much his prisoner as I was. She’s the only reason I stayed alive this year. I can’t leave her!”
Ruby tried to speak again, but apparently it was too much for Griff who tore his hands through his dark hair and stalked off through the woods.
“Give him a second,” Ansel muttered, one hand on Ruby’s shoulder.
When he came back, it was with pain lining his face. But it was Alec that stepped up to him.
“I’m Hertian,” he told Griff.
“I know who you are, John Alec the Warrior. I was there when you freed that caravan last spring.”
Alec nodded. “Then heed my warning. You cannot get your girl back unless you’re at top strength. Your two best weapons are exhausted.” He looked back at Milla. “They’ll succumb to Herta if they have to stay here much longer. I have no idea how you possibly lasted as long as you did, but go back to earth. Get strong. Learn your shifting. Come back.”