The Twins • Book One • Wattys2017

Chapter 3- The Hostages

Author's Note: I hope you like my story! Feel free to ask questions, voice your opinion and point out any mistakes.

Antonia's POV

The Warrior and I continue to stare at each other, not moving at all. His orange eyes stare into my blue-green ones. He looks away from me and drops his gun. I relax my body, and walk over to him. I turn into a human and say

"Thanks." The Warrior just stares at me, then nods in acknowledgement. Saber yells my name, and I walk over to him. He throws me the keys for the hostage's chains, and I immediately unlock them, which is when I realize...

Some of the hostages are children.

How could anyone threaten to kill children? How could anyone capture a child? This realm truly is becoming corrupt under the rule of the horrible Dark Earth Queen. The hostages' fear is nearly palpable in the air, I could practically feel it wrapping around me.

Once they are all free, I turn to look for Saber and the kind Warrior. Any remaining Warriors are unconscious, and I see Saber slowly approaching the only Warrior left awake, the young one that didn't kill me when he had the chance. I quickly turn into a tiger and leap in front of Saber's path.

"Don't attack him." I growl.

"Why not?" Saber snarls. "He's one of them. He'd kill us if he had the chance!" I yell in response

"Then why didn't he kill me when he had the chance, huh? Before you called me over to give me the keys he had the chance to kill me. He didn't. He dropped his gun. This one is different!" Saber roars in anger and runs out of the town square. "Saber!" I shout after him. He doesn't turn around, and just continues going. I inwardly sigh, hoping he'll be okay.

"What just happened?" The Warrior asks, then snorts. "What am I doing? I'm talking to a freaking tiger! Can she even understand me?" I roll my eyes and turn into a human.

"I may have looked like a tiger, but I am still a human at heart. I can understand English in any form that I take." The Warrior jumps in surprise.

"Geez, you surprised me!"

"Sorry." I study him. "Are you alright? It's not every day a human, or even a Dark Warrior, stares down two cat shapeshifters as tigers and doesn't at least get knocked out."

"I think I'm as fine as can be expected." He laughs. I nod

"Alright then. Come on, let's go."

"Go where?" He asks.

"Getting this trash out of the town square." I say, motioning to the Dark Warriors. He groans, but doesn't protest.

We spend most of the day moving all of the unconscious Dark Warriors out of the town and letting all of their horses be free. Once we had finished that, I look at the courageous young Dark Warrior. Not a lot of people who were once with people attacking a village would then survive not one but two encounters with trained fighters of that village, then help one get rid of the very people they are apart of.

"Are you sure you're okay?" I ask again. He sighs

"Yes, I'm fine."

"Okay, if you're sure, then what's your name?" I question.

"If we see each other again, I'll tell you then." He says, winks, and walks off. I simply stand there dumbfounded, not sure how to respond, when I feel a light tap on my shoulder.

I whirl around and punch the person behind me, still alert and in attack mode, only then realizing who it is.

"Oh my goodness Saber, you really should know not to sneak up on me!" I laugh. Saber snarls at me half heartedly, rubbing his cheek where I punched him.

"Lesson learned, and I didn't think I was sneaking. I guess you were just distracted by mysterious Warrior boy over there." Saber looks over my shoulder at the retreating Dark Warrior and I hear him lightly growl. He looks very angry and tense, and I see he clenched his fists. I decide to tease Saber, hopefully to loosen him up.

"Ooooooh, is someone jealous that I spent the afternoon with a boy that isn't you?"

"What?! No! Of course not! What gave you that idea?" Saber asks, totally caught off guard. He tries to hide it, but I see a flicker of something in his eyes that I couldn't catch. I ignore it, chuckle and answer

"The fact that you growled at him and are very tense right now."

"I'm not jealous!" Saber states "I just don't trust him!" I roll my eyes and laugh

"Yeah, sure. Whatever you gotta say to yourself to make you feel better." I start walking towards the forest when I realize Saber isn't following me. "You coming?"

Saber's POV

I shake myself out of the distracted haze I was in and look at Nia, who's walked a bit ahead of me. She groans and slowly asks

"Are you coming to the cabin or what?"

"Oh, yeah, of course." I stutter. I guess her claims of me being jealous threw me off more than I thought they would, or maybe it's just all of today's craziness.

"Geez Saber, what's up with you? You're being weird." Nia says.

"Just the bizarre nature of today, I'm guessing." I shrug. Nia sighs and motions for me to follow.

"Well there's nothing we can do about that, so let's get moving." Nia turns into a leopard and runs into the forest. I follow suit, and think about the whole of today.

It started off nice enough, talking to Nia and watching the sunrise, until that turned into an argument about her parents. Then the whole craziness of the attack by the Dark Warriors and the hostages, and that one Warrior... I don't trust him, he seems too nice. Why would he help Nia get all of the unconscious Dark Warriors out of our village? Why didn't he kill her? Not that I'm not happy that he didn't, but still... it's suspicious.

Maybe Nia had a point, and I am a bit jealous. He spent the whole afternoon with her, laughing and being casual. It's just been me and her for so long, I'm not used to others looking at her like he did, like she is beautiful, and able to be seduced.

She is beautiful, nobody can doubt that, especially not me. But, everyone in the village kind of avoids us because they know no way are they going to get to either of us without a massive barrier to jump over. I will make sure the man that Nia ends up is a good choice for her and treats her like she deserves to be treated, like a queen, even if it's not me. He would have to be perfect to be with her, because she deserves nothing less.

I will protect Nia until the end of days, there's no doubt about that. But this Warrior is an unknown person, and caused Nia to lower her guard extremely quickly.

I don't like it.

I growl lightly and focus on moving through the forest, following Nia, making sure she's in sight the whole way. Eventually, we find the clearing where Nia's parents built a cabin a long time ago.

But, I smell blood.