Rylan's Heart (22 page)

She looked from Kayla to Rylan and back again. Her family, the one she just put together and she wouldn’t be losing them because someone lost there ever loving mind and came after them.

“I was about to come and knock on your door,” Gabe said as they walked into the dining room.

Mckayla went to sit by Vick so they could laugh and listen to what the adults had to say. Aviana and Rylan took their usual seats.

Aviana had to shake her head because they acted like one big family. They each knew where to sit and who would be beside them and what to say. Nobody felt embarrassed by talking over the table or the person next to them. One big different family and she was part of it. She’d almost give into misty eyes but they were under siege. Really how did that happen and why weren’t they more concerned?

“The Urom have us under siege,” Victor said, throwing Cal and Paige a calculating look. “They want Mckayla. I already have their demands.”

“No!” Aviana growled, half standing.

“Sit, Aviana,” Victor said quietly. “Rylan made it clear to me last night that Mckayla was his. This makes her a very unique child. She is human, Urom, and Arbrin/Matra. I have explained to the Urom that she is protected by who she is and I don’t turn my citizens over, ever. That has led us to this standoff.”

“A siege means we can’t leave the house?” Aviana asked turning to look at Rylan.

All the adults answered, “Yes.”

“Then we fight?” Aviana asked.

“Yes we fight, or you and Rylan fight. As her guardians you have a right to defend her. We will take up the flank and the rear. If anyone tries to breach our sanctuary without going through the two of you, we will join the fight.”

“Aviana, leave Mckayla with me. I will make sure she’s taken care of,” Selma told her.

Cal and Paige stood, tossed them a smile, and walked out. Gabe got up leaving his dishes and followed them through the door. Joaquin gave them a bow before heading out.

Aviana looked at the table and then to the door. “Where are they headed?”

“Just because we can’t fight at first doesn’t mean I’m not setting up sentry. They try one thing and you’ll have more help than you need.”

Aviana gave him a big smile and a murmured “thanks,” before she hugged Mckayla and told her to mind Selma and Victor.

“Mom?”

“It will be fine, don’t worry.”

She turned worried eyes to Rylan. “Dad?”

“Remember I told you I’ll take care of you and your mother?” She nodded. “That’s what I’m doing now. Go play with Vick.”

She got up and went to the front room to watch cartoons with Vick.

Rylan and Aviana went upstairs silently holding hands.

“Are you alright?”

“I am,” Aviana gave him a small smile. “I was just thinking this poor room has seen a lot from mate trials to actual mating and now off to war we go.”

“Amazing what can happen in one room.” He closed the door behind them and walked over to her

“Do we lie down?”

“Might as well get comfortable.”

She slid her hand across the bed until her fingers were entangled with his and closed her eyes. She didn’t know what was going to happen but she trusted Rylan.

Immediately she was someplace she had never been before. The night sky beckoned to her. It was a dark blue filled with silver stars and two moons that glowed making everything around them shimmery.

“Where are we?” she asked Rylan.

“I’m not sure but if I had to guess I would say this is the Urom home world.”

“You have something that belongs to us and we want it back.” A voice came out of the darkness.

“Sorry, you’ll have to be more specific than that. As far as I know, nothing I have belongs to you.”

“You have a Urom, the one you stole.”

“Are you talking about my child? The one I birthed. Believe me she’s mine.”

A blast came at them moving faster than her eyes could track. Rylan raised a shield causing it to harmlessly slide off.

Two blasts followed next, the shield Rylan raised sparked from the hit.

“Come on, we need protection.” Rylan pointed over to what looked like a hillside and directed her to move there as he stayed behind her covering her back.

They made it to a large rock formation just as another blast came their way. Moving carefully around the rock formation, they looked for a weakness in the defenses of the Urom.

Can you tell how many of them are over there?

“I am sensing five,” Rylan said softly.

“Five against two, not great odds unless we can draw them out one by one.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I figure the real person they want is me. So if you take off they will send one after you and the rest will come after me. As long as I stay back here, I can fend them off until you get back and then it will be four against two better odds.”

“Aviana.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“No.”

“It will work.”

He nodded his head lowering his voice even further as he whispered instructions in her ear. With a gruff “stay well,” he moved behind her allowing the Urom to catch the tail end of his retreat.

“Stay well,” she mumbled as she fired a blast off at a head that peaked over the rocks.

She could keep then occupied until Rylan got rid of the one following him. Shooting off another fire bomb, she looked for a way to actually hit something as opposed to shooting in what felt like a vacuum.

“It won’t work.” The voice of the first Urom spoke again. Divide and Conquer, is that what you were thinking? We simply capture him and force him to take us to the girl. You could end this by simply giving her up. Saving both his life and yours.”

“What about Mckayla’s life?”

“She will be sacrificed for the greater good.”

She had his greater good. She sent a stake his way concentrating on nothing but the sound of his voice to direct it. The grunt of pain let her know she hit something. Hopefully it was her intended target.

A hail storm of rocks came from overhead and she hastily raised a shield to deflect as many as possible. She hadn’t known that could be done so she returned the favor.

The knife that flew at her took her by surprise. It hovered at her throat as she fought back. The tip of it was coated in black. The Urom weren’t playing; they wanted one thing and that was her dead.

It took everything she had to slowly turn the knife around. A sweat broke out on her forehead and still all she could focus on was the knife. If it even nicked her, she knew they would storm the house to take Mckayla. Her knees shook as buckets of sweat poured off of her. The power it took to resist was wiping her out. She reached out to gather the free flowing droplets of water in the air trying to harness them to increase her strength.

The knife hovered before dropping to the ground and fading away. She had done it but the price had weakened her. She pulled her remaining resources together knowing she would lose the next battle when it came. Swiftly, not giving her time to breathe the next attack came.

A Urom stood before her. He was tall with glyph’s down his arms looking like two full sleeves of tats. She swallowed hard; how had he moved so fast that she hadn’t seen him?

“Calm down.” He smiled at her making her more nervous. “You can trust me.”

There was a lyrical note in his voice that made her want to relax. What was she fighting for anyway?

“Who are you?”

“Talum.”

“What do you want, Talum?”

“I want to take a problem off your hands making your life better. Now that you are soul-bonded, congratulations on that, you will want a fresh start. This way you can have it.”

“A fresh start?” Her head buzzed. The feeling of being light headed bothered her. It was as if nothing mattered anymore.

“That’s it, a fresh start. That’s what you want, nothing matters anymore. You don’t want something that will hold you down; you want to get rid of it.”

“Mommy are you going to get rid of me now? That’s what the bad man said. The one who came to me when I was sleeping.”

Am I sleeping? Whose voice do I hear in my head? Why do I want to fight? He could take away all my problems. A sharp pain shattered in her gut. She lost all her problems once, didn’t even know what a problem was. Her perfect life appeared in front of her without Mckayla in it. Without Rylan in it.

Neither had been the problem. They both were the solution to what she needed in her life. Was Mckayla the problem? Was she the little voice in her head? Shaking her head again, Aviana tried to stand. Her legs were weak as the Urom advanced on her. He was going to kill her and go after Mckayla. He would hurt her; she could see it in his eyes.

“Why? Why do you want her? What has she ever done to you?”

“She exists. While she exists, hope exists. I can change the future in this minute. A whole race will travel a different course. He tried so hard with his last ditch effort of impregnating you. Somehow he thought you were strong, but you are just weak.”

She was weak, he was right. The victory was in his eyes, he gloated knowing that he had her. Once again she tried to stand, to run, but her legs still betrayed her.

With desperation she tried to move the scene, pop in a different place where he was miles away from her, but nothing happened. She was weak. She closed her eyes as she let that knowledge sink in.

She might be weak but…no one would hurt her child, even if protecting her was the last thing she did. She carefully constructed a stake. Made sure the ends were as sharp as they could possibly be and targeted him.

When he was close enough, she drove it straight into his heart with the focus of her gaze.

Talum fell at her feet.

Rylan rounded the bend to see Aviana shaking with a dead Urom at her feet.

“Is he really dead? As in never coming back?”

“Yes. Looks like you helped even the odds, now we’re three to two.”

“I killed him.”

Rylan made a controled fire that burned the body allowing the few ashes to float into the air around them.

“I should have been here, to protect you. He was a singer. They are so rare I didn’t expect one.”

“A singer?”

“A Urom who has the ability to influence you with his voice alone.” He looked at her with respect. “You beat the influence and you did it by yourself.”

“How did I do it?”

“The same way you kept me out of your mind. I could feel your fear of him and him reaching me through you. Instead of pulling on me for energy you pulled on something else. Whatever it was gave you a huge advantage over the Urom.”

Her gaze flicked to the waterfall. “I used the water. Selma, Paige, and I discovered that my power comes from the water.”

“I knew you were strong but this is amazing.”

She looked up at him, trembling. That’s when he strode the rest of the way to her and took her in his arms.

“You did it, Aviana, be proud of yourself. The Urom—?”

“Talum. His name was Talum.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure. He took great pride in telling me who he was. He said he wanted to change the course of the Urom.”

“Talum was working with a small band of Urom who want to restructure the way they are ruled. Right now they are ruled by royalty, a king and a queen. There is no one left in that lineage to rein after they die. When they die Urom will be in chaos unless someone steps in to take over. That was what Talum was working for. He wanted to be the one who picked the next ruler.”

“One I assume who would be sympathetic to him and his cause.” Aviana spoke, “Maybe he simply wanted to be the next ruler.”

“No, his blood lines wouldn’t allow him to be.” Rylan blanched, all color left his face.

The incoming knives made them both throw a shield protecting each other.

“I am so proud of your talents. You’ve been working on them.”

She nodded. “Little things that I could morph into big things and in my head I would picture how to do it, run through all the movements even though I might not exactly know how it would turn out.”

“When we get out of this we’ll practice every day.”

She agreed hoping they would get out of it. The knives dangling over their heads were proof enough that the remaining Urom weren’t happy. No doubt by now they realized Talum was dead.

“Do you think they have more singers?”

“Not with them.

Rylan built a shield to encompass the knives then let them float harmlessly to the ground.

“We need to get out of here.” He nudged her.

He showed her how to make a shield that would hold up long enough to hide their movements as they crawled to a larger boulder that was behind them.

“We have two choices. One is to circle around them and try to catch them off guard. The other is to stage a retreat so we can regroup and come back to fight.”

“Which one makes more sense?”

“Right now we have better odds; allowing them to regroup would mean they had time to bring in reinforcements.”

“Let’s attack while they are weak—and few in numbers.”

“That’s the spirit,” he smiled at her before they began to circle around.

They moved quietly while casting an illusion of themselves behind the original boulder. Rylan was firmly entrenched in her mind as he helped her keep up her part. Her heart had synched with his causing their heartbeats to sound as one not giving away their position. Her breathing matched his slow and steady breaths allowing her to keep the feeling of dread at bay.

She was a ghost moving in his shadow. The Urom should have seen them coming but didn’t—too focused on the illusion they were casting. Amazement washed over her that she could do something like this. The power inside of her was considerable. What she could do with it was almost more than she could take. The illusion hid them completely while casting an impression that nothing out of the ordinary was happening. There was so much good and bad that could be done with ability like this.

For a minute she almost tripped at the realization—she could become more than she was and not in a way that made her happy. The realization that, even now she needed to make a decision about what path she would choose, overwhelmed her until she felt Rylan caress her cheek. It was just a whisper of movement but it was enough to remind her who she was and what she wanted out of this life and ridiculous power wasn’t one of those things.