No, this can't be it. Somebody help me!
Anyone!
Feeling the blade on her skin, cold and biting into her body, Samira was certain those were the most humiliating moments of her life and likely among the last.
And how humiliating they were, not one drop of decency, chained, drugged, and spread half-naked on a table being cut open like a brute beast, her that was born a fighter, that dreamed of a death in battle and glory and of changing the world.
She couldn't move, her vision was blurry and she could barely breathe, it was so tempting to give up and succumb to slumber, darkness, and death if it would not have been for her daughter, the light of her life, she would have been long gone.
I cannot die! Not now! Not like this!
She screamed to herself, to her fading consciousness and she begged the universe, the gods and the titans before them, the moon goddess who and wherever she was and everything that lived and didn't, to not let her end like that and not let her daughter die.
Strangely, as she felt the power erupting from her, and her consciousness transcending space and time to bind with the only other mage known in the universe, that ironically was just in as much mortal danger as she was, she contemplated quite lucidly how that was possible and how she channeled that power that she didn't even know she had.
She felt Erik from afar and a hint of all the torment on his being, she felt the shadows eating him, and together with his fading soul was also the newly bloomed hope fading. Why was the universe so wicked to give her a little hope just to take it away in seconds.
But even after the bond was severed and Erik's consciousness slipped away, something lingered. Something was still in the air and even if her body was paralyzed, her senses rather numb she knew that something had changed and that Sanjay sensed it too, all of it. The rippling energy of her and Erik's bond made him drop the knife and that something that lingered, unsettled him to such an extent that he stopped what he was doing and moved through the room uneasily looking outside the window a few times and sniffing the hot, dry air.
"I am back, little lamb, we can proceed," he said stroking her face and hair after he seemed to have calmed down slightly.
Samira wished she could move, at least so much as to bite the fingers teasing her lips in unwanted caresses, but her body just lay there limp facing the window framing the desert sands and the slowly rising sun.
So this is how death looks, bathed in gold...
But then Samira noticed again something while she felt the blade sliding once more towards her belly button, a dot on the horizon that was getting bigger and bigger with fulminating speed, a dot that came like lightning and splintered the window into million pieces causing Sanjay to jump up and face the thunder.
Samira's view was blurry and her senses just as dull, her mind astray, but she could see the figure, blazing through the shards and shining in the dawn light, immaculately white, just like an angel...
That particular breed of angel though seemed to have crawled up from hell by the way Sanjay looked at the figure, mouth agape and eyes full of horror and rage.
Sanjay ripped his shirt open to boastful show off his alpha markings and roared earth-shattering, it was just that the other creature seemed utterly unimpressed and just leaped forward without warning, in sheer bloodlust that even Samira in her feverish state could feel pulsating through the room.
With tired eyes and a weak body, Samira was watching the fight that would decide her future too, without her tired eyes being able to follow the fighters properly.
Sanjay made the earth quake, boulders fly, and the sand of the desert swirl into a strange type of rain. With that Samira saw that he wasn't really trained or gifted in using her power, because her earthquakes would have made the foundation of the house move, she could move more than mere boulders and her sand storm were hurricanes not little rains.
He summoned himself an ice spear and made several icicles fly towards the attacker, howling and letting his eyes shine almost red.
Despite wanting to seem angry he was frightened because the white ghost moved very swift and silent, Samira could barely see it but she could feel its aura that was beastly and more than frightening.
She had to get away. Providence had indeed, as unexpected as might have seemed, provided her with a digression but there was no guarantee that that thing wasn't going to kill her too after being done with Sanjay.
But how? She couldn't move and her gaze became so blurry both figures were only color bubbles.
I have to remove the IV.
With last power resources, Samira yanked her arm and ripped the IV needle out that was pumping her with the sedative.
The effort made her fain for a time. It couldn't have been long because when she woke the figures were still fighting and her vision was just as blurry.
The white one seemed to be laughing, which annoyed Sanjay but judging by his panting breaths and the distress Samira could feel through his mark, he was not feeling well.
However, if that thing killed Sanjay that held the power of two Alphas she wasn't standing a chance, she wasn't anyway standing a chance in that state. She had to get away while they were still fighting.
Luckily the sedative slowly started losing effect and her vision cleared up bit by bit, but with that came also the awareness of her body and the pain, and fear, so much more fear.
And in the end, she understood who was standing before her, making Sanjay huff and pant.
Kiril. Risen from the dead, wearing some strange clothes that reminded her of ancient Rome was moving swiftly trying to avoid the boulders Sanjay was throwing at him.
He was very fast. That was one of the characteristics he was known for in a fight most, fast and sneaky. This time he was seemingly so extraordinarily aggressive and he appeared to not fear Sanjay as he should, which made his opponent increasingly angrier with each mocking smile he threw him and with each time he avoided his blows.
"Fucking bastard, not even death wanted you!" screamed Sanjay annoyed by the way Kiril was avoiding his attacks. It looked as if he was playing with him not the other way around.
The so far very unaffected Kiril that despite the odds seemed to have been having the time of his life in this fight, with a brilliant smile on his face, glacial but still oddly beautiful. That last sentence of Sanjay's however seemed to stir something up in him, because the éxuberant smile disappeared and was replaced by a frown and a most hateful gaze.
"What? It's true and you know that," he insisted smiling defyingly.
He was so confident, but who wouldn't be in his place with two alpha powers at his fingertips, yet still, Samira knew somehow that had been a rather bad move. And a few seconds later she was convinced by precisely that when Kiril's eyes shone so bright that the irises disappeared in the light and Sanjay seemed to not be able to move anymore and gasped for air.
His heavy breathes were short-lived, because in an utmost savage move, like the beast he actually was, the claws of Kiril's right hand dug aggressively and profusely into the back of his neck in such a manner that they crushed his windpipe and coiled around the vertebrae yanking his spinal cord our along with his severed head, while the other had dung into his chest to pull out his heart and crush it in his fist splattering blood all over his body.
Samira was aware that she should be frightened, and she was, but regardless she also stared at Kiril wide-eyed and in awe, struck by violence and beauty, feeling that she hadn't seen something that mesmerizing ever before.
Sanjay was dead, his body torn apart and limp on the floor in a puddle of his own blood. He had died a most horrible death just as she would have wished it for him, her only regret was that it had not been by her hands.
The problem at hand was what was going to happen now? Was Kiril going to kill her too? It was quite likely. They didn't really have a friendly relationship, the last time they had interacted he was holding a blade to her throat to compel her to put Anima Mundis together. She was already seeing how her spine was going to be ripped out just like Sanjay's.
As he was walking closer. Samira couldn't take her eyes off him even if tears started to brim in hers. Not again. Once again she assumed mistakenly that things are going to turn for the better but they were just getting worse and worse.
The strange garments that he was wearing looked like a toga and were quite torn from the battle revealing much of his torso that Samira couldn't help staring at, mainly at the Alpha markings that appeared right after the battle on it, gold brown and ice blue swirls entwined that made him the most dangerous monster alive walking towards her, that was mostly immobilized.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I don't see how I will survive this one. Where the fuck did he come from? And most of all what does he want now?
"P... please, n... not kill..." she muttered, humiliated again but there was no way around it.
Kiril didn't even grace her with a glance so far, and it looked as if he wanted to walk away, yet sighing deeply he turned his eyes from the door and looked at her finally.
"The perks of people thinking you are a jerk... no expectations whatsoever, maybe begging for the bare minimum. Now, what happened to you, scarlet witch?" he says bowing down and tilting her head to look at her face.
On her hot skin, the touch was pleasantly cold.
"Oh shit," he whispered looking down at her open wounds. "You are very weak and aren't healing fast enough."
"Erik..." whispered Samira lightly.
"Yes, Erik would have been the right person for the job, but he is not here. I am certainly not the one you want or need but the one you got, witch. Now let's see what we can do. Stop the bleeding, I guess. Who else is in here? I can't smell anybody but there might be some coming after they have heard the noise," he says looking at the destroyed room.
Samira was looking at him dumbfounded. Was he actually trying to help her? Or was it a trick? It must be a trick or him wanting something in return.
Yes, he must want something in return, but a deal with the devil would be a problem for future Samira.
"He...lp. Pl...se," she tried to articulate but somehow her body was getting more exhausted and aching deeply. She remembered she yanked out the IV with the sedative and her lower half was bleeding heavily. And the child? Saraunyia? The adrenaline rush was gone and replaced by pain and panic.
"Oh shit, the cuts are too deep still and you have lost too much blood. Now stop panicking, okay? it's only going to make everything worse."
Easy to say, asshole...
Samira thought she was saying the words but they were actually only in her mind, slipping away like her awareness.
"Fuck! Don't do that, witch. Don't faint now," she heard him screaming but even his voice, which was rather distinctive faded in the blackness that swallowed her.
Samira!
She heard it again, that voice, but that time it was inside her mind, like a blade something cold and swift was washing over her inner life, and then it was gone and she felt more frightened than before. And everything disappeared again.
When she woke up Kiril was holding her head and feeding her something, rather making her drink something sticky and bitter.
"It's working. You are awake and you are healing. The kid is okay too so don't dare panic again. OK?"
"What... doing?"
"What does it look like I am doing? Saving your annoying life. Who would have thought we will see this day coming."
He sighed again and as her vision cleared slowly and she started indeed to feel better, Samira observed her surroundings once more. Sanjay's body was still laying on the ground, the whole room was still a mess full of sand, ice and splintered materials.
"What? I am pretty awesome but I didn't have time to clean up too, busy with outer stuff and it's not really my area of expertise. Are you feeling better? You certainly look better, that serum is really enhancing the healing powers by at least ten times. I would really like to know where that asshole got it from. Too bad I ripped his heart and head off..." he said with a fain smirk on his blood-stained face.
"He... deserved it," said Samira and smirked back just a bit.
"And you are feeling indeed better. Good, because we have got company."
He barely finished his phrase when the room was invaded by several wolves.
One of them shifted back. It was Ganiru, with a more than grimm and disapproving face, that startled when he saw her, Sanjay's mutilated body on the ground and Kiril that was still holding her head in his lap.
"What?" asked Kiril nonchalantly.
Ganiru bared his fangs and the other wolves started growling.
"Oh, please, spare me. I am not in the mood," said Kiril in the same bored and unbothered tone.
"You... abhorrent, worthless, stray..." he started but wasn't able to finish, his expression was just frozen, as was his body.
"I said I am not in the mood, what part didn't you understand. Now I command you to kneel before your alpha, all of you filth," he said, eyes shining briefly and the knees of the little crowd bent one by one.
"Deeper!" he thundered and all their foreheads hit the ground.