“Isn’t the water cold, mommy? Have you become a mage like uncle Lith?” Leria asked, incapable of speaking louder than a whisper.
“Hush, my child. Go back to sleep.” Jolia caressed Leria’s small head and her Mesmerize made the child lose consciousness.
“My baby.” Jolia literally cried a river that entered Leria’s nose and mouth, emitting a gurgling sound. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. I’m doing this because I love you and I can’t bear the thought of living without you.”
In her mind, the image of her long dead daughter overlapped with Leria as Jolia repeated the same words she had said before taking both their lives.
The water flooding the small lungs also sucked the child’s life force and replaced Jolia’s suffering with the ecstasy of the feed, giving her a pleasure that made the entirety of Mogar fade away for a few precious moments.
It was then that Abominus, Leria’s steed whenever she played in the fields of Lutia and her bodyguard the rest of the time, came out of the pile of toys next to the door.
His cloaking ring hid both his life force and smell, while the Orichalcum mouthpiece that covered his fangs was imbued with enough darkness magic to kill an elephant.
The Ry exploited the undead’s feeding frenzy to bite at her neck, decapitating Jolia with a twist of his powerful jaws while the magic of the mouthpiece destroyed her body.
The water disappeared along with the White Lady as the stolen life force returned to its rightful owner. Leria gasped for air, crying for her mother at the top of her lungs while Abominus emitted a long, guttural howl that reached the Trawn Woods, alerting his pack.
“Oh, fuck!” With no more time to lose, Quaro opened Rena’s door just a split second before a few hundred kilograms of red fur and unbridled fury jumped on her back, ripping her spine out.
The Vampire emitted a pulse of darkness magic that sent Abominus flying and turned his fur into a sickly shade of green.
“Don’t worry about me and kill them!” Quaro’s spine was already fixing itself, but the injury needed a few seconds before healing enough to allow her to move again.
Brago rushed inside while Rena still stared dumbly at the two intruders without stopping to breastfed her child. The room started to spin and suddenly there was blood everywhere.
***
Nalrond’s flight stopped abruptly a few hundreds of meters from Selia’s home, but he didn’t slow down. He just curled up in a ball, using air fusion to roll faster and earth magic to remove all obstacles from his path.
He didn’t need his eyes to perceive magical formations or the presence of undead. He could feel that the house was surrounded through the scales covering his anteater-like body.
The only reason why the undead had yet to finish their job was the several arrays that Protector had left to guard his family. He wasn’t a Warden as good as Lith, but Faluel’s help in setting them up had made the formation a tough nut to crack.
Yet without someone to protect them, the arrays could be easily dismantled and Protector had built them only to give Faluel the time to arrive. They were meant to stall, not to kill.
One of the undead noticed the car-sized incoming cannonball and tried to stop it. The moment the Rezar felt his momentum decreasing, he raised his scales to expose their razor-sharp edge and infused them with air and darkness magic.
The enemy could stop his advance, but his rotation speed was unaffected by the living obstacle.
The Vampire realized that the cannonball had turned into a blender when the scales started to slice at his forearms after making short work of his fingers and palms.
The creature kicked the curled up Rezar with all his strength, sending him flying in the middle of a group of armed undead who would quickly put the unknown enemy down.
No one expected a golden chute to appear in mid-air, allowing the Emperor Beast to keep rolling toward Selia’s house while all they could do was to dumbfoundedly stare at the hard-light construct.
Their surprise grew when, instead of crashing against the defensive arrays and making the undead’s job easier, Nalrond passed through them. The magical formation recognized his energy signature and offered him no resistance.
“Selia, is everyone all right?” Nalrond had a hard time talking instead of taking down the closed door.
“Thank the gods you’re here! Tell me that you’ve brought reinforcements.” Selia let him in, closing the door quickly to not let the children see what was waiting for them outside.
“Yes, of course. I called Faluel, Protector-”
“Who cares about them? I’m talking about the Kings of the woods.” Selia cut him short, pointing at the very direction he had just come from.
“Are you telling me that you managed to forget about the three Emperor Beasts and four small armies of magical beasts who you could’ve asked for help?” Selia clenched her own head with frustration so hard that she would have cut her skin if not for her very short nails.
“I’m sorry, but after Faluel said that it will take her a while to get here, I rushed here to protect you. It was the only thing I could think about.” No matter how true those words were, Nalrond still felt like an idiot.
“Excellent, now you can die with us. Crash and Slash have been howling until now, but those bastards have Hushed the area around the house.” Selia slumped on a chair, wishing that Werepeople were as smart as magical beasts instead of humans.
Neither the Ry nor the Shyf liked how Selia had named them, but after making lots of damage to the house while playing with the children, they were too afraid of the alpha female to emit so much as a whimper of complaint.
“Are we really going to die, Mom?” Lilia, the oldest sibling said while tugging at Selia’s leg.
“No way. Mom is just a bit stressed because your uncle made a huge mistake.” She took Lilia in her arms, inwardly thanking the Hush spell which also prevented the kids from hearing the sound of the collapsing arrays.
“Can’t you project a symbol in the sky with light magic? Something to call for help?”
“Like what? I never spent time with the Kings nor did we agree on a distress signal.” The more he spoke, the dumber Nalrond felt.
‘All that grieving and those inner monologues about not letting history repeat itself didn’t teach me anything. I relied so much on Protector and Faluel that I never bothered arranging a single safety measure for my new family.’ He thought.
“Do it anyway. It’s still better than nothing.” Selia snapped her fingers in front of his eyes to force him to focus more on reality and less on hindsight.
Nalrond did as instructed, emitting a pillar of golden light that reached over 100 meters (328 feet) of height.
“Good job.” Selia put Lilia down and then made sure that Fenrir, her youngest daughter who was less than one year old, was firmly strapped to a sash on Slash’s back. Then, she checked all the weapons she had and nocked an arrow in her bow.
“Now you’d better weave your spells before-” The door exploded, signaling that “before” had just expired.
