Tyce falls to the ground, and Andrew's horrified scream pulls me out of my robotic trance long enough for my opponent's blade to rip through my skin. I clutch my arm, watching Andrew's visible distress for his teammate be the very reason he joins him in defeat.
The nobelist of distraction.
"No!" I yell, feeling the hot liquid pour from my wound.
Like a domino effect, Number Eight's selfless act has thrown us all off course, and now we have two injured members of The Elite unconscious in enemy territory. Both males' chests are heaving up and down, Tyce in his human state, Andrew in his wolf form. We still have time to save them. But how?
"Get them in the middle pronto!" I instruct, taking the approaching brute's weapon, and jamming it in his throat. We move as one, walking over our soldiers to protect them with our fortress, and Sierra wraps an arm around each of their necks to help drag them along. "Make the circle tighter!"
A tiny explosion of glass catches my attention in all of the noise, and chills run up my body. Not now! Yet still, I ask the question that I already know the answer to. "What was that?"
"Ahh! The elf-eye shattered." Will fires his last bullet, blinding an Orvex guard in one eye, and making him an easy target for Nova to finish. Then he knocks another one across the face with the butt of the gun.
He has heart, for a human.
The opposition continues multiplying the closer we get to the vehicle, and the constant exertion has weakened my knees. But even when I sustain another blow to my back, I do not fall. It is by the grace of the Moon Goddess and the blood of Alpha Chantel running through my veins.
"It is too many of them!" Cataleya's face is pink as she rapidly nears her limit. "The elf-eye was our only hope. This may be it."
"Number One, duck!" Nova remains the most vigilant. Venom in her eyes when she snaps the wrist of a female guard, and prevents a second one from jabbing me in the ribs.
"I cannot thank you enough, Number two." I breathe, keeping the pressure on my arm.
"I have your back, always!" She nods.
The Orvex guards suddenly make way for a slender gray wolf charging towards us at maximum speed. Not just any canine either.
Alpha Nuavin.
He leaps, aiming his head for the center of our circle with the intention to annihilate our most vulnerable members.
Before anyone reacts, the sun is eclipsed by a flying animal, and everyone's body is slammed onto the ground, the Alpha taking the brunt of the force. The battle has ceased involuntarily. We are unable to move a muscle, courtesy of a blinking glass sphere that has been thrown into the chaos. Blood has soaked the soil, its metallic scent creeping into my nose as the side of my face rests in it.
"Hiylo, finally." Cataleya closes her eyes, relief neutralizing her expression.
The gryphon descends gracefully, its feathers and fur unstained unlike the scene beneath it. Three elves jump off the beast, two females, one male. The shortest one's eyes no longer glow their yellow hue, and have returned to a chocolate brown shade.
Her Zenith Sryx has come to the rescue for the last time. I shut my eyes, to keep the grateful tears at bay. She has truly earned her title as Andrew's guardian elf.
She taps the blinking glass sphere, and gravity lessons for the six of us, but keeps the Orvex natives captive. Her Zenith Xorett and Her Zenith Exo collect Number Eight and Number Nine, loading them onto the massive saddle.
"In the vehicle now," Her Zenith Sryx orders, sticking a smaller glass sphere onto the top of the van.
Once we are piled inside, she climbs onto the gryphon, and snaps her fingers, activating the gravity defying feature on the object above us, and breaking the one on the battlefield, freeing our angry opponents.
The van soars behind the giant animal at supersonic speed, and we reach the elf prairies in a blitz. Healthy grass extends as far as the eye can see, creatures of all sorts grazing upon it. My stomach flips when Hiylo folds his wings and dips into an enormous hole into the ground, the glass ball taking us with him.
We gape at the dense underground forest through the windows. Eltheridge is the infamous home to some of the oldest creatures on the planet, characterized by futuristic buildings that have not lost their Earthy appeal. Trees grow upside down from the top of the cave-like habitat, and rightside up from the bottom floor as well, forming teeth-like appearances as they align.
Hiylo hovers in front of a large dome that sits below the opening of the hole beneath the prairie lands. It is the only structure in Eltheridge that the sunlight hits directly, and the cream color palette stands out from the brown and green majority, somehow floating above every other building. Two automatic doors slide open, and a metal walkway extends from their thresholds all the way to the awaiting gryphon.
A group of masked elves rush outside, pushing gurneys whose wheels clank against the iron underneath them. Andrew and Tyce are handed over, and a sob escapes from Sierra's mouth when she beholds their ashen lips.
I let out a shaky breath when the vehicle is lowered onto the metal platform, and several masked elves roughly usher us inside. The interior is that of a hospital, with monotonous white walls and matching floors. We're taken in separate directions, frightening the human girl even more. She wails as her hand is ripped out of Will's and grabs onto mine desperately.
"It will be okay, Sierra." I attempt to console her but my voice betrays me. "I-I think."
The masked elves manage to pull her away, kicking and screaming. "Drew, you told me that if it was too much to let you know! It's too much!"
But Andrew cannot respond. He has already disappeared from our sight, having been rushed down the hall and into the unknown.
In all of my twenty years of living, I have never experienced anything as confusing or as grave as this, so I do not know how okay things will be in actuality. But regardless of what my feelings tell me, I am Number One, and my duty is to lead even when things are bleak.
An elf with a wooden mask motions to my leaking cut, and guides me through many corridors. I do not put up a fuss or a fight, entering a brightly lit room and lying down on the paper-wrapped bed. The last thing I remember before I close my eyes is the muddy scent of a purple fog that overtakes the space.
* * * ☽ * * *
I am alone when I come to, and the room is quiet. I slowly sit up, and roll my shoulders back, wincing at the stitches fashioned horizontally across my upper arm. Throwing my legs over the bed, I retrace my steps, the trail of blood I left on the floors already mopped away. Minutes pass before I reach the center of the dome — a large common area with Nova, Sierra, and Will already seated on an extensive sectional.
"Alezah, thank Goddess you are awake!" Nova stands to hug me, but the humans hardly meet my eyes, their bodies tense. "No word on Andrew or Tyce yet."
"How long was I out?" I slump down on a loveseat, and turn my body to stare out of the floor-to-ceiling windows behind me.
"Three hours. It is around seven PM." Nova sighs, pressing her palms against the glass.
The four of us watch the commoners of Eltheridge from a high distance, all crammed on the bottom of the forest floor busy with their mundane lives. Shopping, eating, laughing. My heart beats with envy. I miss when life felt that simple.
The day after I defeated Andrew in the area, I was on cloud nine. Activating the mate bond was everything that I have heard about, everything that I had dreamed it would be and more. I was physically attracted to the new mysterious, yet kind hybrid from the human world from the beginning, but I did not know that it was him until the electricity knocked us out. I had underestimated the intensity of the Moon Goddess's ancient pairing. That is for certain.
"They are both still unconscious, but we have finally stabilized one." Cataleya's voice has a slight echo as she and Ricardo emerge from the left most corridor.
"Which one?" Will demands, picking his chin up from his palm.
"Andrew. Tyce's head injury is very serious. I have done all I can. We just wait now." She leans against her brother, looking past everyone.
Dinner is potato and sausage soup with a hefty helping of somber energy. It is like all the work we have done over the last couple of weeks to become closer was all in vain. Nobody cracks a smile, or even attempts to strike up a conversation. We eat in silence.
My insides churn everytime another masked elf walks by, believing that they will drop a bomb about either male, but none of them ever speak.
Eventually, night falls and we are allowed to see our sleeping teammates. We take turns in each room, some visits shorter than others though most are teary. I decide to go last.
Tyce's head is wrapped in gauze. The machines around him constantly hum, some beeping periodically. I slip my hand into his, reminiscing on our time at Saph Raven together. Whilst others attributed most of my success to my family, he always credited it to my own natural competence. One of the good ones. A stranger to jealousy or bitterness.
"Hold on for us." I clear my throat, and leave the door ajar before exiting for the adjoining room.
Andrew's condition is a little better, his breathing stronger. The connection is still present when I caress his forehead, sending tiny shockwaves through my fingertips. I sit down in the chair by his bedside, chewing the skin off my bottom lip before adding a dab of chapstick to his. "Please come back, Number Nine."
The cushion-less seat prompts me to get up after some time, and I raise my arms over my head to stretch, realizing that the rest of the group has probably turned in for the night. With a kiss to the back of Andrew's hand, I leave his room and head down the dimmed corridor, pausing when I hear faint whispers coming from the common area.
I bend the corner to find Ricardo on his knees, eyes shut, palms together, and brows knitted in concentration. He is facing a tall window, the moon casting a soft glow on his skin.
"Wake up, Andrew. Wake up, Tyce," he chants.
With a clap of thunder, the sky opens up and floods the prairie lands. Water pours into the underground forest, pelting the dome structure and sliding down the glass, mimicking the tears of both of our cheeks.
Did the Moon Goddess hear our prayers?