“I am going to go get dressed. I will be back in just a moment,” Rema called, breaking up my plotting session.
“Okay, I’ll be finished by the time you get back.”
His footsteps retreated and the soft whoosh of my door closing let me know I was alone. The tan tunic and pants I’d picked out when I’d first entered had lost their appeal and I was pulling out a gray set with pink stitching when something moved out ofthe corner of my eye. There wasn’t anything there when I looked though. The bedroom was empty. Still, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Backing deeper into the closet, I pulled the tunic over my head quickly, and then the pants before pressing myself into the back wall of the closet, keeping my eyes strained on the door to the bedroom. There was something moving close to the ceiling, but I couldn’t see it from my position. When I took a step forward to get a better view, the thing darted into my closet on swift, glowing green wings. Sulu, the fairy from the garden, darted her tiny body in front of my face, dropping sharply before darting back up in a zigzag pattern, her tiny arms waving widely above her head.
I placed a hand on my chest over my pounding heart and breathed out a hard breath. “Holy shit, you scared the crap out of me! What’s going on? Run out of bugs?”
She came to a stand still right in front of my face, her wings a blur of motion behind her. I leaned in closer and her six eyes were wide, she was speaking but her voice was too fast for me to make out what she was saying. It sounded like a bee buzzing to me.
“Slow down. I can’t understand what you are saying.”
Her frantic arm waving intensified, and she managed to screech out one word before a dark shape moved into the doorframe.
“Danger!”
Yeah, got it. Thanks.
The figure moved fast, barreling towards me in a rush of air that gave me only a fraction of a second to jump out of the way. I stumbled over a stool, scrambling to my feet as the person rounded on me. It was male, tall and thin, and dressed in black armor from head to toe. Though this armor wasn’t black like what one would find on the Solus, this was smoother, lighter.The light wasn’t reflecting off it at all, but being absorbed. An assassin's armor.
I’d been cut. The tickling sensation of liquid running over my skin drew my attention to the blood soaking the sleeve of my tunic high on my shoulder where he must have slashed at me as I’d turned to avoid him. Whatever he’d cut me with was sharp enough not to hurt.
Sulu darted into the assassin's face, buzzing like a fly at him until he swatted her aside. Her small body hit the wall and fell to the floor without a sound.
Heat swept down my spine at the sight of my little fairy person crumpled on the floor, one of her wings bent at a sharp angle, but before I could say anything cutting, the assassin was on me again.
I blocked with my arm, finally seeing the six inch blade he held in his hands, and he brought his other arm up, cutting me with the other blade he held. It burned across my stomach as I sucked back. Dammit, all that training and here I was fighting in my regular clothes, getting cut up like an idiot.
I willed my armor up, the gold metal flowing up from under my skin faster than the eye could blink and my helmet clicked into place as the assassin shoved me away from him. My back hit the door frame with a thud, and I barely managed to get out of the way before my would-be killer slammed his knee into the stone where I’d been, cracking it.
I darted into my bedroom, avoiding the bench at the end of my bed, and watched as the assassin advanced at lighting speed. Holy balls, this guy was fast, and while I’d love to say I kicked his butt hand to hand like a boss, I just didn’t have the training for it, not if getting cut twice was anything to go by. Better safe than dead. So, I shot my vines forth, wrapping around him like thick bodied snakes, halting his forward movement. He hacked at them with his daggers, but more replaced the ones he managedto cut, until his hands were forced to his sides, and his struggles reduced to wiggling.
When I was sure he was secured, I retracted my helmet, and tilted my head at him. “Whoever sent you didn’t give you all the information about your mark, did they? I mean, really. Daggers against vines? Come on. You should have brought a machete. Or a gun.”
My shoulder and stomach were burning like fire, which was making me cranky. More so at myself than at this guy. If it even was a guy. I’d trained and trained to armor up at the first hint of danger, and I’d frozen up.Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.What an idiot. And my stupidity had cost me.
I ducked under a vine to jog back into the closet, where I scooped up Sulu as gently as I could into my hands. I brought her close to my face, a lump in my throat, and sighed in relief when her chest fluttered with breath. Not dead then. Poor little thing had tried to warn me and got hurt in the process. Time to do that second part of all that training I’d been doing. Calling in the backup.
“Hey, Rema. I need you in here, please. Someone just tried to kill me. Don’t shoot him before we ask some questions, okay?”I said over my link, walking back into the bedroom to stand in front of the assassin, the hand holding Sulu cradled to my chest. A smile touched my lips at the enraged snarl I got back before my door burst open and a furious winged elf stormed into my room.
Rema crowded me, his hands roaming over my armored body. “Are you alright? Did they hurt you? What happened? I’ll kill them,” he asked in a rush, his voice a grumble of anger.
I willed the armor away so he could get a good look at the wounds. “They got me good on the shoulder here, and here,” I said, lifting my blooded tunic to show him the cut on my stomach. “And Sulu got hurt. She came to warn me, and triedto help,” I continued, holding up the injured fairy. She was so delicate looking, laying limp in my hand. If she died, I was going to spit roast this assassin over an open fire. Worry made my chest tight.
Rema hissed, his teeth bared at the sight of my blood, his silver eyes chilling with the promise of death as he looked at the trussed up assassin, but he took Sulu from me gently, instead of acting on the need for revenge I saw on his face and tasted in the air. My heart gave a little flutter, anymore of all this caring about what I cared about and my heart would swell to normal size, I was sure of it.
He brought her over to my bed, laying her down gently. He examined her for a moment, turning her with a finger. “She will be okay. Her wing will fall off and regrow. She just needs energy.” He took his pinky finger on his primary hand and bit it with one of his sharp fangs, bringing the bloodied tip to Sulu’s mouth, and rubbing the blood until she took a few licks on her own, her tiny claws shooting up to grasp his pinky.
“That should do it. She’ll be up and moving in a few moments,” he said after she went limp again. He then turned to me, his face a mask of worry. “Now for you.”
He moved so fast I wasn’t entirely sure where he got the bandages from before the sting of nano metal was being pressed into the cut on my stomach.
“Ow. That hurt more than being cut did,” I grumbled, watching as the silver metal liquefied to cover the wound. Alien stuff was weird.
He didn’t answer me as he ripped the sleeve off my tunic to get to my shoulder wound. It wasn’t until all my wounds were properly taken care of that Rema straightened to his full height and rounded on the vine wrapped assassin. By now the poor guy must be sweating bullets. Or just plain sweating. I can’t imagine that being wrapped in vines is very cool.
“Patty, would you remove the vines around his head, please?” he asked, his voice steady, but there was a tremor of barely restrained violence underneath the calm.
