by Amira Rain
Looking into his glinting green eyes, I hesitated a long moment before responding. "You have a deal."
That had been then. Almost three years earlier. That was how I'd wound up standing in a darkened copse of trees in the present, preparing to fight the lions of North Haven for my life, and my family.
CHAPTER TWO
With a couple hundred Angels, a few dozen lion shifters, and a handful of wolf shifters behind us, Dylan and I stood side-by-side in the darkened copse of trees at the edge of the clearing. I shivered, but not just because the predawn air was a bit chilly, especially for early April. It was actually so cold that I figured the puffy clouds floating across the velvety midnight blue sky above us could just as easily drop snow as rain.
I was more than a little anxious about the battle that was soon to take place. In fact, I was struggling not to let the word scared linger in my brain every time it flitted through. It wasn't that I couldn't more than hold my own during a fight by this point; that wasn't it at all.
After three years, I'd become an incredibly powerful Gifted, usually able to drop shifters with a single zap when my powers were fresh at the beginning of a fight.
It was just that this fight was a crucial one. With the end of my three-year contract to fight for Dylan coming to an end in just five days, this would likely be the last fight I'd ever have to participate in. It would be the last time I'd ever have to numb myself so that I wouldn't have to feel crushing guilt about weakening opposing side shifters with my zaps so that Dylan's shifters could easily kill them.
It would be the last time I'd ever have to do the same to Gifteds, all the while trying not to think about just who in the hell I'd become.
In order for us Angel fighters to win the battle and take over the lion shifter city of North Haven, where Dylan wanted to establish his state capitol, we were going to have to be the strongest we'd ever been. We outnumbered the North Haven lions. Dylan had enchanted our lions and our wolves to give them increased strength; but from what we'd heard, the North Haven lions were exceptionally strong themselves.
If we couldn't defeat them and they killed us all instead, obviously I wouldn't ever be fulfilling my contract and getting my family back, because obviously I'd be dead. No resurrection of my family members, no joyous reunion. No happy ending. I would have gotten oh-so-close, only to have death be the ending for us all.
I couldn't let that happen. Not when I'd come so far. Not when I'd endured what I had over the past three years.
What I'd endured, specifically, wasn't anything that had been done to me. As he'd said he would, Dylan treated me reasonably well, providing me with food, shelter, and other essentials as we'd slowly rolled our way across Northern Michigan, wiping out various shifter groups as we went. He was never violent toward me. He never tried to make a pass at me or sexually assault me, nor did he allow his men to, either.
Also, he proved himself to be a man of his word, as he'd told me he was. Not only did he keep his word about how I'd be treated, I also witnessed him following through on promises made to his men and his "whores" as well. If he said he was going to promote a certain fighter if that certain fighter killed a certain number of shifters during the next battle, he did.
He also "married" those of his "whores" that bore him sons, as he'd promised them he'd do. In ceremonies that I was sure weren't legal, he'd "married" four women this way, each one the very same week that they'd given birth. Women who'd "only" given him daughters just had to try again, he said.
As much of an absolute pig as he was, fortunately, Dylan seemed to save his outright brutality for the battlefield. It was there that his blood lust and undisguised joy of domination and killing came out, as it did when he and his men would overtake little northern towns and villages on the path to the east.
Those fights, against non-shifter humans, were ones I staunchly refused to take part in, in any way. I just couldn't. I could only fight shifters and Gifteds. Dylan seemed to respect this, and after a while, he didn't even ask me to help sack the towns and enslave or kill the inhabitants anymore. It wasn't like I was really needed, anyway. Bearing only useless guns to defend themselves with, the inhabitants of the various towns never had a chance.
During my three years as a contracted fighter for Dylan, I couldn't really say I'd been mistreated. I'd actually had to endure the absence of certain things; for one thing, I'd had to go without friendship of any kind.
Dylan's "whores," which was how he always, unfailingly, referred to them, just as I always referred to them as his women, weren't women that I'd ever been able to become friendly with. They were all strange in varied, yet somehow similar, ways, and there was something about their collective dynamic with Dylan that reminded me of serial killer groupies.
Some of them seemed to be jealous of me at times, for absolutely no good reason, other than the fact that I thought maybe some of them envied me being a Gifted and fighting alongside Dylan. None of them would ever let me play with their children or even speak to their children. The wives of the lion and wolf shifters wouldn't, either, and they themselves were women similar to Dylan's. All of them reminded me of serial killer groupies. All strange, and most of them seemingly obsessed with the dark deeds of their men.
A lack of platonic friendship wasn't the only thing I'd had to endure over the previous three years. I'd also had to endure a complete lack of any kind of a romantic life. And as a woman who'd always had strong passions and desire, both emotionally and physically, this hadn't been easy for me. Even before I'd been conscripted into Dylan's army, I hadn't dated in several months, after a bad breakup had made me crave a little solitude. I'd had no idea just how much solitude I was soon to get.
When it came down to it, the most specific lack I'd had to endure during my years as an Angel soldier had simply been an absence of love, plain and simple. Platonic love, family love, and romantic love, all of it. I'd been starved; some days, it felt like I'd been drained of all heart and emotion.
Trying to recall what it felt like to love and be loved, and to share deep connections with other human beings, I'd spent many nights just staring up at the ceiling in whatever random bedroom of whatever random house Dylan had commandeered for our base of operations that week.
I always asked that whatever room was to be mine be swept of all personal effects of the previous owner first. I couldn't stand to see evidence of other lives ruined and other innocent families torn apart.
If I'd felt any brief flickering of any warmth or affection at all during my three years as a soldier, bizarrely, they were for Dylan. Though maybe bizarrely wasn't even a strong enough word, or a word that encompassed enough. It wasn't just bizarre that I had occasionally caught myself experiencing feelings of possible slight warmth toward Dylan; I thought it was something absolutely beyond bizarre.
I didn't even know what it was, exactly, but it stunned me and made me feel that there might be something seriously wrong with me. Nonetheless, sometimes when Dylan would be sitting at a table with his maps spread out, outlining his plan to claim the entire state of Michigan, I'd sometimes start to feel the slightest stirring of sympathy toward his cause.
Sometimes, when he'd tell me I'd fought well, which he usually did after every couple of battles, I'd experience a mild rush of something that felt an awful lot like pleasure, and maybe something like gratitude. Once, when he'd planted the black-and-red flag of the Northern Michigan Angels in the center of a lion shifter encampment we'd taken over,
I'd experienced a brief but clear surge of pride. Soon after, I'd made my way into the forest nearby and had gotten sick, in utter disbelief that I'd felt what I had, even for a second, in regards to the man who'd ordered the slaughter of my entire family.
Now in the copse of trees in the present, anxiously waiting for Dylan to give me and everyone else the signal to charge on out and head for North Haven, I was beginning to feel my stomach roll like it had before I'd gotten sick that time.
Dylan began glancing over
at me, and even in the wan moonlight, my face must have been visibly pale, because he soon, in a low voice, asked me what was wrong. "You still feeling sick from the boat ride over or something?"
In order to reach the "thumb" of Michigan and get to North Haven without having to cross the tight line of lion shifter encampments that cut across the state from west to east, dividing the Angel-controlled northern half from the still-free, still-American-controlled southern half, Dylan had taken all of us Angel fighters, as well as the women and children, into Lake Huron in boats.
We'd sped south, immediately attacking a small band of lion shifter guards once we'd reached shore. Then we'd traveled to their base camp, which was a tiny village called New Bad Axe, because it had been built over the ruins of a tiny city called Bad Axe that had been completely obliterated during the early days of the Takeover.
At New Bad Axe, we fighters had left the women and children and traveled about ten miles south, destroying another guard encampment along the way, only stopping when we were about a mile away from North Haven, maybe just a quarter-mile outside the area we knew was heavily patrolled by their lion guards. It was there that Dylan brought us to a stop to wait for a few of our lions to engage their guards in a fight, and it was here that we still waited.
In response to what Dylan had asked me, I shook my head and spoke in a near-whisper, not pulling my gaze from the moonlit clearing in front of us. "No. I'm not still sick from the boat ride."
Maybe I was; I didn't even know. My stomach was rolling a bit like it had done on the boat, but I had a feeling it was now doing so more from anxiety, which was intensifying the longer we waited in near-silence.
As if my denial about still feeling sick from the boat ride had disgusted him for some reason, Dylan scoffed. "Whatever your deal is right now, just toughen up. You've been a strong fighter for three years, and now's not the time to start acting like a little bitch. I need you right now, more than I've ever needed you before, and keep in mind that you need you right now.
“Just help me in this one last fight...just help me claim this one last territory that I need to claim in order to break into the southern half of the state by the 'back door'...and you get to see your family again. They'll all be brought back to life. Remember? After we claim this little North Haven town, we'll all take a little break from fighting to regroup, and you and I will take a little trip back up north to Traverse, and I'll resurrect your whole family. Then, you all can go off and do whatever the hell you want. No more fighting for me. All you have to do is just absolutely kick ass for this one last fight."
His words weren't helping my nerves at all, but still, he continued.
"Just start taking some deep breaths or something. Our scouts will engage some of their patrolmen any minute, and then, all we have to do is slip right past the resulting gap in their defense and race toward North Haven. It's all old, grown-over farmland from here to there, so it doesn't even matter where their lions and Gifteds come out to meet us. Wherever it is, we should have clear fighting space. So, just relax. Try not to be a little bitch. Your time working for me is almost over."
I couldn't wait. But more than anything, I couldn't wait to see my family again. To take each one of them in my arms. To feel my grandpa's big hands clapping my back; to feel my dad squeezing me tight; to feel my mom, sisters, and little cousin wrapping me in a big, exuberant group hug. It was almost time. Dylan was right. I just had to absolutely kick ass during one last battle.
Thoughts of my family had suddenly steadied my nerves, and not a moment too soon. The near-silence of the darkened woodland was shattered by multiple roars at once, coming from someplace almost dead south, and very nearby.
With his breath making clouds in the chilly predawn air, Dylan elbowed me. "As always, cover my ass. Let's go."
Beginning to shimmer with silvery light than enveloped his entire body, indicating that he was mustering his supernatural powers, Dylan abruptly took off, charging out of the trees and into the clearing, though his feet weren't even touching the ground. When using their powers, Angels didn't walk or run; they did those actions, but they glided about a foot above the ground while doing so.
This was part of the spell that Alistair Jordan had cast over all the Angels before the Takeover, to make them even more powerful sorcerers and ones made in his own image. He'd thought of his Angels as superior beings who should show that superiority by never even having their feet touch the ground during battles.
He'd also made it so that their eyes glowed red during battles, and when various Angel leaders had cast strengthening spells over the shifters who'd volunteered to join their diabolical cause, they'd made it so that their eyes glowed red as well. Dylan liked how this gave all his Angels and shifters a unified intimidating look, but for me, it was just convenient. With all Angels and their shifters having glowing red eyes, it made it easy for me to differentiate them from the shifter targets that I needed to zap.
Not a moment after Dylan had sprinted-slash-glided away, I hopped on the back of a lion named Trenton, who was usually my "ride" into battles. With his eyes glowing red, brightly enough to almost serve as two red flashlight beams illuminating the path ahead, he took off and began running across the clearing with me gripping his coarse mane in both hands. Just ahead of us was Dylan, who, like all Angels, moved with speed far faster than a regular human, and behind us raced the other lions, the wolves, and our couple hundred Angels. Other than my heartbeat hammering in my ears, the only sound was the thud of paws on grassy earth.
Sometimes, the lions liked to charge into battle roaring, but this was definitely not one of those times. First we needed to get through the ring of North Haven guards without alerting them all, and then, I knew Dylan wanted us all to get as close to North Haven itself as we possibly could before all the lions in town were alerted and engaged us in battle.
To my extreme dismay, that actually didn't take long at all. And that was primarily because the gap in the North Haven guard ring was not quite as wide as had been anticipated. Showing that their shifters were indeed formidable fighters, several of their guardsmen had already ripped our Angel lion scouts to shreds by the time Dylan, Trenton, and I had even reached the point where the clearing became woodland again.
Still, we blasted past them, speeding right by the carnage in the dark, making way for our fellow fighters to get through, even as additional North Haven guards began tearing in from the east and west, closing the gap.
Dylan, Trenton, and I, along with several dozen other fighters, made it maybe a quarter-mile, to another wide clearing, before we were met by a large group of roaring North Haven lions. I could only assume that one of their guards had fled back to their town to alert everyone when our Angel scouts had attacked the patrol.
While the North Haven lions charged us, Trenton came to a stop, and I hopped off his back, already zapping our foes. I would have liked to remain on his back, just to have full advantage of his shifter speed, but the need for me to zap with both palms always made that impossible, because of course, I couldn't hold on to his mane at the same time.
Hovering a foot above the ground, Dylan was also zapping already, with his eyes like glowing red coals. Taking my usual spot just to the side of him, I began zapping the charging lions even faster, alternating hands, focusing on the fact that I just had to do three simple things. One, help to defeat all the North Haven lions and take their town; two, keep myself alive; and three, keep Dylan alive so that he could resurrect my family.
Now, with adrenaline flooding my veins, making me feel a wild, unstoppable desire to just get the job done, I couldn't believe I'd had even a trace of nerves earlier. Now I was in the place where I felt most at home, most at ease, mechanically zapping and dropping enemy lions like flies.
Dylan, a few other Angels, and I brought down at least half the charging lions before they could even get close to us. They dropped several at a time, with pale moonlight glinting off their golden fur. Our Angel lions took down the r
est. Really having to work a bit to differentiate the bodies of our red-eyed lions from the bodies of the North Haven lions in the fray, I began moving alongside Dylan, zapping at any lion who made a move in his direction.
I didn't zap any one lion more than a few times in a row, though, despite the fact that in my fresh, high-supernatural-power fighting state, I definitely could have. But, like during all battles, I was determined not to kill anyone. Not that I felt like this was particularly noble or anything; I was still helping to weaken the North Haven lions so that Angel lions and wolves could take them out, killing them via tearing their heads off.
I was still part of a malevolent force that was hurting those who just wanted to keep their country and state free, and this wasn't lost on me. Even though I wasn't directly killing, and never had, I still had blood on my hands. That was the way I saw it, anyway. I just hoped that my family would never learn what, specifically, I'd had to do in order to get them back. I was pretty sure the shame would kill me.