The Unwilling Queen

To sleep perchance to dream

Avery gasped in outrage. "That's disgusting! What kind of sick person would do that?" She pushed to her feet and stood in the pouring rain.

"Your mind is sick," Rena said gently, reaching out to caress Avery's face. "But we can help you."

*******

Niamh saw the face in the waterfall for just a brief moment. At first she thought it was Avery, but then the figure turned and the soaking wet curling hair flipped over her shoulder. The ripples in the liquid added years to the female's face. Niamh couldn't believe she ever thought Rena was human. How blind she was. Blinded by hate, by lust, but really by magic.

Niamh screamed as she raised her flaming sword and brought it down on the neck of a Collector.

**********

An arm reached around Avery's chest and held her tight, a hand clamping down on her throat. But it was the stench of him that triggered her fear. She had been trying so hard to feel nothing. Instinct took over. We are all animals at our core.

"Who are you?" Ferrik hissed.

Avery's body locked up. She ground her teeth to keep from screaming and squeezed her eyes shut. I'm an alchemist. I'm a human. I'm a slave. I'm a card-shark. I'm a mother. I'm the River-Avery. I'm prime. I'm the Sky Princess.

"I'm no one!"

"Liar!" Ferrik tossed her to the ground and kicked her in the stomach, just as he had done a hundred times before. She rolled away from the blows and curled up in the leaves to protect herself. "I know you're special! Why else would the sorcerer-king want a filthy human?"

Avery caught the next kick and yanked his leg forward until he was off balance. Then she knocked out his standing leg and Ferrik crashed to the ground. She leapt on top of him and started punching. The ragged scar down his face started bleeding first. Then his nose. Some blood splashed up on to her own face, but still she kept punching.

********

Greasy blond hair flashed in the water, catching Roedin's eye. The ripples made his face even more horrendous, the scars bleeding away any resemblance he might have had to Dellane. Roedin slashed at the waterfall in his rage. He had just put his hand on the rim of the pool when a blast of magic slammed into his side, ripping him off the glass.

He landed on his back and slid across the laboratory floor, crashing into his brother's legs. Hayden stumbled but recovered and pulled Roedin up with an arm before taking up position back-to-back. How many battles had they fought in this way, protecting each other, helping Corinth to victory? As Roedin ducked Hayden leapt. They both moved right, blocking and jabbing in perfect tandem.

Roedin saw Ferrik's face in the water again and the Collector he was fighting became the hated male. There was no stopping the rage that poured into his muscles, that steadied his sword arm. He would destroy them all.

*********

"Does it bear the mark?"

The trees surrounding the clearing blended together forming the walls of a crude shelter of sticks and bark. A fire in the centre of the room emitted more smoke than heat. Avery collapsed to the floor, bloody and exhausted, ready to weep. She was naked.

Rena knelt by her and ran a warm cloth over her skin, wiping away her anger and hate and energy. She checked over every part of Avery's body before declaring, "There's nothing."

"There has to be!" A new mother lay in a sweat-soaked bed. She was alone, propped up on elbows, looking down to where Avery lay immobile under Rena's hands.