Border Crossing

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Richard took the pair of pants and nodded, dropping his others on the floor without a thought. He had never been shy . being a prince, he'd never been given that option. "I am a little put out that I was unable to protect you when the mermaid queen became upset. But I am not angry with you."

The woman held her dress against her breasts and backed toward the door, feeling for the handle on the wall. "I did what I was told. Even your slave knew her place and left when she was told. I am not stupid enough to disobey the king's captain of the guard!"

"He has nothing to force her with. She will fight back." Garrik said, confident in this. "She believes I am dead. I'm not worried about it."

Yena frowned, turning her head. "They are all the same. All of then monsters. No matter the race."

"He doesn't need anything, he will have his mages and his mystics marry them anyway, even if it means using magic to force Alice into saying the words." Marisol warned.

"That's a dark way to look at the world, kitten." A gravelly voice breathed, it's owner leaning heavily on a nearby tree. Auron was barely standing, holding his ribs as though something inside them may well fall out.

"You have to let me out of here!"Garrik roared, not caring how loud he was. "I will break his neck! I will end the bastard!"

"Auron!" Yena was on her feet in an instant, though her own body was still weak. She nearly tackled him to the ground. "Where have you been?"

Marisol waved her palm in a circular motion, opening up the same portal she had stepped through. "Then do what you have to, because I can't come with you, the portal will only take one soul."

Auron laughed quietly and kissed the top of Yena's head. "I'd rather not upset you, kitten."

Garrik shook his head. "You go. They'll kill you if you stay here. I'll survive to get out on my own when she gets bored with me."

Yena tipped her head back, pressing her lips to his. Though she was sure he didn't care for her she truly did care for him. She'd missed him more than she wanted to admit. "I'm sorry." She breathed."

"And if she doesn't?" Marisol asked. "You know I can't save Alice from whatever Kane has planned for her."

The hunter was smiling as he watched them, though if Yena turned around, he would have already returned indoors.
"Really? So all that pleading you did to the Dread Wolf...  wasn't supposed to hear it?" Auron teased.

"You have powerful magic. He's human. Right?  It won't be a problem." Garrik said firmly. "You would wipe the floor with all of them. Kane can't open a portal."

"The dread wolf isn't real. He doesn't exist. He's an elf fairy tale. And I don't remember anything but cursing him." Yena snorted, pulling away.

"My magic isn't that powerful." Marisol breathed, still believing that. "If you don't leave through this portal, I don't know if I can ever get back here."

Auron was clearly wounded when Yena pulled away from him, but never said so. The large man had several scars that hadn't been there last time Yena had seen him, not to mention he looked much paler, like he had lost a considerable amount of blood.

Garrik didnt need to be told twice. He ran through the portal and didn't look back, not even caring where it dropped him off. 

"I missed you." Yena turned back to him, gingerly sliding her arms around him yet again. "It's been...a hell of a year."

The prison where Alice was being kept wasn't as small and cramped as Garrik's had been, but it was a prison nevertheless. The pirate Queen was being kept in one of the comfortable bedroom's of the palace, though she wasn't permitted to leave. She didn't yet know that her captors planned to hand her over to the one man she feared.

"I missed you more, kitten." Auron breathed, his arms rather heavy as they returned Yena's tight embrace. "When I woke up... and you had left... I never stopped looking."

Kane had just gotten the news. To say that he was more than elated was an understatement. He was already heading toward her cell, wearing a grin that threatened to split his face. He was winning it all. His life couldn't get better. 

"I..." she couldn't tell him what had happened. Her shame was still eating her alive. All she could say was, "I'm sorry."

Alice was certainly not expecting her brother to enter the room she was being held in, it was in fact the farthest thing from her mind. It had been months now since she had found herself washed ashore. She was in pretty bad shape, but had forced herself back here, thinking her former husband's people would want to end this war as much as she did. Clearly they had other ideas.

"Kitten... You left me with that awful woman." Auron told Yena sadly. "I don't know why you did it... did you really think I would hurt you?" He asked, thinking that was her reason for leaving.

Kane adjusted his ornate suit as the door opened for him and he nodded his head at the guard. His dark hair was pinned back at the nape of his neck, a few stray pieces sliding loose as they often did. His ice blue eyes were sparkling as he turned his head toward the bed. "Hello, sister dear. It has been so very long since I saw you last. I was truly beginning to miss you." He purred, offering her a princely bow.

This time Yena couldn't lift her head to meet his eyes. She just couldn't. Her shame had never run so deep. "I...I was...I was...carrying a child. I was afraid. I thought...you would like something...better...she was beautiful. I...I am not." She muttered. "I am sorry, Auron. I truly am. I was trying to do what was best for you so that you wouldn't kill yourself so foolishly."

Alice was quick to put distance between herself and Kane. She was unarmed, and all too aware that she was physically much weaker than her brother, should he choose to attack her right here. "You're still alive..." She commented. "I'm glad, it means I can have the pleasure of watching your blood drip through my fingers myself." The somewhat regal tone had returned to her voice for a brief moment then, despite the past few years of her trying to hide it.

Auron's whole body seemed tense when Yena confessed this to him. He had thought the torture he had been suffering these past months was the worst pain imaginable, but no... Here it was, inflicted upon him by the one he loved. "I'm a father?" He breathed, his voice cracking with his heartbreak.

Kane simply smiled at her. "Don't be so foolish, girl. You're threatening me and you don't even know what I want." He purred. He smoothed the front of his suit as if he were dealing with an unsavory subject and sneered ever so slightly. "You're trying too hard to be brave. Anaris' people told me the state they found you in. And you're down another boyfriend too. Broken, useless, and alone yet again." 

Yena closed her eyes and turned her head as if she'd been struck. "No." She breathed. "Your king..." She swallowed hard, barely able to breathe. "He...I don't know how he did it. He took over it's body and killed it. He used us both as a portal through the Fade. I..." The little elf once again found herself wanting to run. She had to escape her shame and guilt. "I didn't know...I'd never had a child. It was all my fault. I'm so sorry...."

"I am not broken!" Alice hissed, her slender fists balled up at her sides. "Why don't you just tell me what you want so I can decline!"

Auron was struggling now, his strength threatening to leave him entirely. "The king?" He managed to breathe. "He... Killed out child?"
"Why don't you save this for another time?" The hunter suggested gently, having been keeping watch from his cabin and able to see just how quickly Auron was fading.

"You are going to marry me." Kane said as if it were the simplest thing in the world. "You are going to serve me like a good little wife should. And love every moment of it." 

Yena nodded, waving a hand. "Can we offer him your stew?" She asked, disappearing from sight before he could anewer her.

Alice laughed, simply out of pure astonishment. "And why in any kind of world, would I do that?"

The hunter had struggled to get the much larger man inside and laid him down on the same bed Yena had been calling her own. She had told him so little about this mystery man of her's that he hadn't expected him to be this large.

"Because if you don't I'll break your toys." Kane hissed, narrowing eyes that flashed yellow and reptilian at her. "I happen to know you love one of those more than you loved even your dear mother. And...trust me. I can break that toy too." He purred, once again renewing his smile. "You are so lovely when you are smiling. My brother tried so hard to hide you from me. So selfish." 

Yena kept herself hidden in the shadows, her shame keeping her that way. She wasn't good enough to be near him. Or anyone for that matter. The shadows were whispering. Reminding her that she was an ugly piglet and she'd killed a child. She was the worst kind of monster. Worse than even Auron's king.

"Why?" Alice asked simply. It was something she had never understood. "You got your wish, you stole the crown before Richard could claim it, marry some vapid courtier! I don't understand why you think you need me!"

"You know, she thought I didn't see... But she thought about you a lot." The hunter remarked quietly as he began stitching up several of the wounds Auron had.
"I never stopped thinking about... Yena." Auron breathed. "She runs from me every chance she gets... But I love her."

"I get everything I want and you are the last thing I want." Kane said, moving a step or two closer. His smile was like that of a crocodile. "I've had you once. But until you are mine completely....You get the idea. Not to mention...you have no idea what it will do to my brother." 

Yena buried her face in her hands and began to sob, not aware that she could be heard. She was in the darkest part of the corner, trying to keep herself hidden from everything. His confession made her feel that her heart was being ripped from her chest.

"Our brother." Alice corrected in her ignorance, bravely not backing away from Kane this time. "But you must be seriously insane if you think for even one second you can scare me into letting you lay even one finger one me!"

Auron was slipping in and out of consciousness, no longer even certain what was real, and what he imagined.
The hunter, however, glanced to the corner. "It's never too late to make amends."

"My brother will be so furious when he finds out. I cannot wait." Kane said, clapping his hands together. "And I will do as I wish! I am a god! Do you understand me?!"

"It isn't good enough. It never was. You wouldn't understand." Yena whispered. "Even touching him could be his doom."

"You are no more a god than you are any kind of true king." Alice sneered. "Nothing in this world, or the next, could make me marry you, monster!" She spat, unaware that Garrik was already in the city.

"Does he look like he did so well from not having your touch?" The hunter countered. "Be brave, child. He loves you, is that not enough after everything you have been through?"

"Not even your First mate?" Kane asked, waving his hand toward the wall. He showed her a quivering picture of Garrik battling with a crowd of demons. "Come now, child."

Yena gingerly stepped forward, daring to touch Auron's arm. "I...I love him too. I'm worried it's not enough. Look what I've done to him."

Alice's jaw was tight, but she nodded anyway. "Garrik is a survivor." She told Kane bravely. "And you can't stop, else you would have paraded him in here, instead of showing me a pretty picture of him slaughtering your minions."

"Look what running from him has done." The hunter pointed out gently. "Isn't it time to try something new?"

Kane raised an eyebrow as the first demon stabbed Garrik in the side and then jerked out the blade. The first mate stumbled but kept fighting. Even when the next one hit him in the chest. It was the third blade that felled him, a jagged blade to the back, that was inserted just below the heart. "You were saying?" Kane purred.

Yena rested her head on Auron's shoulder and closed her eyes. "He cannot be near me. I break everything I touch. The Dread wolf himself knows what a true monster I am. I...all I do I hurt him. Can't you see that?

Alice's grey eyes were wide as she stared at what was happening before her. She couldn't stand it. She couldn't live with another man dying because of her. "It's too late! Even if I agree... Garrik wont survive!"

"He is more monster than even you can dream of." Came Auron's reply, though he seemed to be dreaming, rather than actually taking part in the conversation.
"Yena... Take a look at his wounds, he was tortured, for you. I would wager it was only the thought of seeing you again that kept him alive at all." The hunter told her with a gentle smile.

"I am a god. You don't think I can fix this?" Kane said with a cruel laugh. "All saying I want to that is." He added with a purr.

"You certainly know how to make it worse." Yena breathed, keeping her eyes closed. "I don't need to be reminded what a terrible person I am."

Alice stared at the image on the wall for a few painful minutes longer. Kane already knew she wouldn't say no. He had known that before she had. Once again she would find herself trading her body to Kane in a bitter attempt to save someone she loved, though in all truth... She loved Garrik so much more than she had had the time to love Anaris. "If you want me... you will save him." She breathed, her voice catching in her throat, damn near choking her with those words.

"No, you need to be reminded that you must be a wonderful woman to have the love of the Dread Wold himself." The hunter breathed.