The Immortal Blade Trilogy: Book #1: Fate's Destiny.

The Attack.

When I opened my eyes, Cassandra was still asleep. I didn't want to wake her, so I closed my eyes again, and tried to get some more sleep. I had only slept for about an hour last night. I opened my eyes and looked at Madeline. She was already looking at me. I carefully laid Cassandra down on the floor to the wagon, and crawled to the bars of the cage.

"You okay?" I asked Madeline.

"Yeah..." She replied before adding, "Alexandra? When you get out of the arena, will you tell my mother that I love her?"

I noticed that she meant when I won all twenty battles. I was surprised at her confidence in me.

"Madeline listen to me. We are going to get out together. We will make it out, and we will both tell your mother that we love her. Do you understand?" I asked.

"And what of your boyfriend?" She replied, annoying me like crazy.

I looked back to see if he was still sleeping, but I couldn't tell because he was turned the opposite way.

"First of all, he is not my boyfriend. Second of all, I will try to keep him alive as well. Third of all... I don't really have a third reason. My point is, I will try my very hardest with every ounce of my strength to keep you alive." I responded, raising my voice dangerously high.

"If he's not your boyfriend, then why were you riding with him?" She asked, confused.

"He's just my ride. Nothing more." I said sternly.

I didn't actually mean it but I didn't want her calling us a couple. I then checked behind me to make sure he wasn't listening. He was. He looked at me with an expression of sadness. I quickly crawled closer to him and reached out my hand, hoping he would just hold onto it.

"Bentley..." I called as I felt a drop of warmth run down my cheek.

"Bentley! Listen to me!" I pleaded.

"Please! I can explain! Just hold onto my hand! PLEASE!" I was practically begging.

I couldn't see clearly because a curtain of tears blocked my vision.

"I'm not using you! I'm very thankful that you offered  to give me a ride. Don't block me out now..." I almost whispered.

As I said that I fell back and leaned against the back of the wagon and covered my face with my hands. I couldn't cover my face too long at a time though, because my hands would fill with tears. I wasn't crying just because of Bentley though. My life was a mess, I didn't know if Claire was safe, I was just about to have to fight for my life, it was all just too much. Bentley was the one I turned to when I felt like this, and now he's blocking me out.

I didn't care if Madeline saw me acting like this anymore, I just needed to cry. I cried myself to sleep that night and woke knowing that Bentley wasn't going to help me anymore. However, as much as I doubted Bentley, he always seemed to surprise me. After half a day of sitting around, depressed, he finally crawled to the edge of his cage, and held his hand out.

"I'm sorry for becoming angry with something like this, Alexandra... I'm sure you have your reasons for telling her that you were just using me for the ride." Bentley whispered.

"I know you love me..." He winked.

"I... She thought you were my boyfriend, so what was I supposed to tell her? You were the one who offered to give me the ride. And the ride was all it was, right? Nothing more." I responded, rather rudely.

He looked at me for a moment longer, then nodded his head and sat back down.

 A few hours later, I heard crashing and the sound of ringing metal. Are we under attack? I couldn't see who/what it was, because the wagons were blocking the line of vision. To our left we could see a forest, to our right we could see desert, and behind we could see the fields of dry grass that we had been traveling on. A slight movement along the forest line caught my attention. I scanned the forest line closely and I could see about two dozen figures, with green cloaks, on horses.