Loving the leech (Guardians of Red Moon city #4)
17. Day two

Kaylin’s POV

The darkness is falling, and the stars sparkle in the dark sky, holding millions of beings’ destinies. An evening that brightens when the tiny shining dots give a promise of a better tomorrow. What has once been heavy becomes more manageable after the night’s onset. I move noiselessly over the endless meadows marred by the arrival of autumn, and I feel like I’m in a noiseless oasis where nothing can hurt or get to me, even though I know it’s the exact opposite. I’ve come up with so far that there are several “obstacles” here and that the arena divides into four seasons.

In the south it’s summer weather, in the west it’s autumn, in the north it’s winter and, finally, in the east it’s spring. I still have to give them credit for their ingenuity; it’s creative. Right now, I replace myself in the south; the way I ran and encountered myself as a child, a hologram or an illusion, I don’t even know myself. The onset of darkness has now occurred, and a new day is being born, but even though I’m a vampire, I also need to rest from time to time. Therefore, I sit in a tree high up and lean against the tree trunk, looking out over the arena’s cold forests where the monsters are roaming.

I can’t sleep; my thoughts permanently move back to my beloved and his family, who monitor me all the time. There are many times that I want to talk to them, but I’m not sure if they’ll hear me. After trying to fall asleep for ten minutes, I give up and jump down from the tree. I can’t talk to them anyway; I’m aware it’ll ruin the picture I’ve set up. But the worst part of all is that I begin to feel how I lose control of myself; it becomes easier to kill more and more. My humanity isn’t completely gone, just a part that holds regret, empathy, and forgiveness.

The longer I have it like this, the worse I feel. In the beginning, I felt evil for killing other beings who are also possibly my subjects, my people, whom I’m supposed to protect and lead towards new successes. But over time, I’ve discovered that I enjoy killing the threats that stand in front of me, and that thought disgusts me more than anything else. I run into the woods and suddenly fall to the ground. Behind me stands a thick, majestic tree with massive roots that quickly come closer to me, and I back away hastily. I swiftly turn around when my escape route ends and realize that I’ve backed into a rock wall; there’s no way out from the tree.

As fast as a whip, the tree latches around my neck and lifts me into the air. The air doesn’t reach my lungs when the branch strangles me slowly, and I see white spots in my field of vision. With one last effort, I reach down for my ax and cut off the threat. The bark flies in all directions, and I cough when I land on the ground with a thud. Screams echo in the arena, and they all come from the tree. I run towards the tree with a warrior roar and chop a large hole in the middle of it. I use enough force for it to split in half and fall. When I make sure that the tree is harmless, I discover a black substance pouring out of it; dark magic.

This means that the council involved a dark witch in creating at least one threat; I know that it probably was she who made a younger myself yesterday. My breaths are heavy, and I feel how swollen my throat is after the iron grip. For some reason, it doesn’t heal like my previous injuries always did; instead, it continues to sting and hurt. With staggering steps, I decide to change direction and move to the west instead. It takes an hour before I begin to feel the temperature difference in the air and how the leaves on the trees shift.

Suddenly I’m surrounded by yellow, orange, and red leaves that make me feel normalcy for a moment. If I close my eyes, I can pretend that I’m not in a deadly arena where dangers lurk around every corner. Here and now, I can fantasize about all the times my dad brought me to the playground. We threw leaves at each other, jumped into leaf piles, and created leaf-rain, a simpler time in another life. A creaking sound takes me back to reality, and I stand ready in defense for security reasons. A dark-haired man with shoulder-length hair falls on the ground in front of me, and I immediately swing my ax; it stops right at his neck.

“What’s your business here?” I ask in a silent but deadly tone and push the ax to his carotid arteries harder.

“Tyson and the others chased me, I didn’t know where to go, so I ran aimlessly,” he replies, swallowing hard when the pressure from my ax results in a small streak of blood streaming down his throat. “I’m not a threat, I promise!”

My instincts tell me to ignore him and leave him to his fate, but my heart screams that I must save him. I hear the group chasing him at a long distance, they approach, and for some reason, I can’t let them replace him.

“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” I tell nobody in particular and put him around my shoulders like a scarf before running as fast as I can. “In which zones have they been looking for you already?”

“North and east,” he responds with a weak voice, and I switch directions to run to the north.

I sense that these vampires aren’t strategically laid; hence they won’t ransack the zones they’ve already been in. At least not before checking out the other two. The cold penetrates my skin the closer we get to the northern zone, and if I weren’t already dead, I would certainly die from the cold here. I keep moving forward until we reach a cave high up on a mountain. Once inside, I gently put the man against the cave wall, and he groans.

“Thank you for saving me,” he says, straining and smiling at me.

“Don’t think that we’re friends now or that I trust you,” I answer, straining my eyes at him in a threatful manner, which makes him laugh.

“I would never even dream of that,” he laughs, leaning forward. “Princess.”

I look at him with a bewildered look and then return to my former blank facial expression. He smiles knowingly and looks out through the cave opening.

“Are you okay?” I ask, and he nods.

“It’ll heal quickly; it was just that I had too many injuries at the same time when I encountered you. I’m going to be okay,” the man replies.

I stand hidden at the opening and look admiringly out over the snowy mountains.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he suddenly says, standing next to me. “My name is Brandon.”

“Kaylin,” I answer without looking at him.

“I know; I saw your impressive introduction,” he replies, grinning.

None of us say anything more; we settle for enjoying the silence we both know is only temporary. At any moment, the group that’s hunting Brandon and who’s looking for me may appear to create hell on Earth. We have to be wise if we’re going to survive in here, and I already know how to do it.

“If we move around in a circle between the zones, we might survive,” I say quietly, and he looks at me questioningly. “Our next goal should be the east. We simply have to move between the places in a coherent pattern, and it isn’t enough that we’re in a different zone; we must constantly be careful with the distance. I think we can catch up with them if we’re careful and then-.”

“End their lives to be able to save ours,” he finishes, and I nod.

“Why are you nice to me and want to cooperate?” I ask and look him in the eyes.

“Because I’d rather have you as an ally than as an enemy,” he responds, smiling.

“But you can’t trust that I don’t stab you in the back,” I mumble and furrow my eyebrows.

“Yes, I can because it’s clear that you’re a loyal person who protects those who need it. I’m sure that together we can survive this and get out of here as victors.”

“What do you mean? I thought it was just one conqueror,” I say, confused.

“Only one person indeed wins inside the arena, but everyone who survives when the three days are over has taken their punishment. The victor is the one who will get tested in another arena, but as a fighter against other creatures.”

“How will the winner be determined if several survive?”

“It’s calculated from what the judges, i.e., the council, see in the contestants. They count points for fights, strategic ability, powers, and something secret that no one knows in advance.”

“But if I win, why should I have to fight even more? It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“In order for them to announce a real champion, you need to continue to fight even though you’re exhausted and don’t really have the strength,” he replies.

Yep, that doesn’t make any sense at all. But on the other hand, I can’t afford to question centuries-old rules and traditions just because I, as an individual, replace them unnecessarily complicated. I’m content with shrugging my shoulders and gather up all the dry wood in the cave.

“We need to light a fire if we’re going to manage the night,” I say to myself.

“Let’s do it!” Brandon replies and sits across from me to put up the timber.

“But the smoke will spread, and it’ll be easy for them to spot us.”

“No, I can control the wind,” he replies, continuing.

“You’re a wind deflector,” I conclude, and he nods.

“However, I don’t know how we’re supposed to light any fire. Do you have any matches?”

His words make me laugh and produce a fireball in my hand. Brandon looks at me with his eyes wide open. You might feel confused, too; I learned while I was at the council that I have pyrokinesis, which means I can elicit and control fire with my mind. It’s pretty practical to have.

“You are pyrokinesis!” he exclaims with open eyes.

“If you can control the smoke, then I can control the fire. We should be safe,” I answer and smile for the first time for real since I entered this god-forsaken arena.

I use my skills and light the wood while Brandon controls the smoke. Again, we sit in silence and think over our choices. What he thinks about, I have no idea, but my thoughts revolve around my life choices. If some of them were made different, would my life have become different too, or has it always been fated that I would end up in the situation I replace myself in right now?

“Stealth, too,” Brandon suddenly says.

“What?” I ask.

“They calculate stealth also in our final points, but I already know that you’ll win.”

“How can you know that?”

“I can feel it,” he responds with a cheeky smile, but it quickly disappears again. “Although you may not be the same once that happens.”

Brandon’s words don’t have the same impact on me as before when others mentioned it. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard it enough times that it makes me numb to the meaning. I won’t be the same person when I get out of here; I’m already well aware of that, given that I’ve already changed. Don’t you believe me? Okay, let me explain. One, I have killed people, and I have been at my conscious control when I did it. Two, the dark aura in here could change a saint into anti-christ by snapping his fingers. Three, being without my beloved has made my heart hard.

At first, it was hard to be away from William, but somehow I got used to not having him near me. Salazar was right in one thing; no one can stand against a beloved bond, not even a stubborn Kaylin Clarkson. It also explains the two-sided feelings I have both had and have towards William. One moment I hated him, and the other moment he was the best thing that ever happened to me. The feelings of betrayal still burn inside my heart from time to time when I think that he’s responsible for where I am in this now, while I feel sincere love for him because he so desperately wanted to be with me that he bit me against my will. However, these twofold feelings complicate my life, as I need to think clearly and make a calculated decision in the end. I still have a choice to make when it comes to my beloved. Since he marked me when I was human and against my will, it doesn’t matter that we had sex; it simply doesn’t count. He has to mark me with my consent, I have to mark him with his permission, and it has to happen now that I’m a vampire. It wouldn’t matter if this had happened before I transformed, but the shift between vampire and human is great, hence the complications we now have.

I can choose to end my and William’s “relationship” to continue my life elsewhere or decide to continue with him. No matter what I choose, I’ll expose myself to threats at every step I take, given my bloodline; it’s a great inconvenience to me. I must have fallen asleep at some point in connection with my thoughts, considering Brandon suddenly pushes me. I try to rub off my sleep from my eyes and yawn big.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Given that the sun is starting to come up and we’re in the north, I would guess at around noon,” he answers wisely.

“How the hell could I have slept so long? I should’ve been on guard!” I exclaim with irritation that’s directed solely at myself.

“It’s okay; I was on guard a few hours ago. But we’re getting company,” he replies, pointing down to the valley below us.

Quite rightly, I hear our opponents’ heavy footsteps cracking the fragile snow-covered nature. I lie down on my stomach right at the opening to the cave, and Brandon follows me. Our eyes study the vampires carefully, and I hear them whispering among themselves.

“Where the hell can they be!?” one of them growls; he seems to be the leader, which means he’s Tyson.

“Ty, we have looked in all zones and haven’t found them. It’s time to rest up if we’re going to have the energy to continue,” one of the others responds cautiously.

“Two hours, not a minute longer!” Tyson says back in a harsh tone.

Brandon and I watch as they quickly build up a small shelter that they then lay under to rest. I laugh inside my head when I realize how stupid these vampires are, given that none of them have searched through this area and none of them are keeping guard. The first rule in situations like this is always to ensure that you’re alone in the area before you can relax; tactical thinking isn’t their strong suit, and that lesson have they obviously missed. I poke Brandon and point towards the cave. He understands what I want to say and follows me further, where we can neither be seen nor heard.

“We need a strategic plan,” I whisper as quietly as I can, and he nods his countenance. “Who’s the biggest threat?”

“For you or me?” he asks.

“There is no “you” or “me,” we’re allies. Who’s the biggest threat to us?” I ask and put extra emphasis on the last word, which makes him smile shyly.

“Tyson, no doubt.”

“We can’t get to him until his minions are out of the picture. Do you know how many there are left in here besides us and the four down there?” I ask and try to remember how many are already dead.

“From the beginning, we were twenty-one; if we count away the ones you killed, there are sixteen left...” he keeps counting quietly in his head. “We should be ten by now.”

“I guess it’s Tyson and his companions who killed the rest?” I ask, and Brandon nods. “Well, hasn’t he been a busy bee?”

“If we manage to kill at least those who follow him, we’re seven left, six if we kill him too.”

Brandon sits down on the ground and begins to draw up the arena in the dirt. I follow his thinking, and after a while, we finish our plan. Brandon and I nod at each other before sneaking out of the cave. With grace, we slide quietly down the mountain, hiding behind a huge tree. I make a hand movement to indicate that he can move forward. A young man lies at my right side, and my body moves gracefully towards him. I tear him apart with my hand around his neck while Brandon does the same on the other side with another opponent. I throw the man to the ground and crush his skull with my strength.

He can heal himself; hence I choose to tear off his head from the body. With one thud, the lifeless body falls on the ground, and the others wake up. I still have to admit that I’m impressed by their instincts not to appear confused when they wake up like most others usually do. Tyson looks at me with a dark gaze that hardly means anything good.

“Knock knock, excuse us for disturbing your beauty sleep, ladies, I know you heavily needs it,” I say in a deadly tone, picking up my axes, ready to swing. “But we have unfinished business to take care of!”

Tyson throws himself at me, and everything proceeds fast enough that I don’t have time to perceive whose blood it is that splashes over my face. Suddenly my greatest enemy disappears, and I turn around to face the most surprising thing I’ll probably ever experience.

A/N:

Hello everyone!

Kaylin has acquired an ally who can hopefully help her achieve her goal of survival.

❀ Why do you think Brandon is helping her?

✿ Does she make a mistake in trusting him?

❀ What role do you think he will have in her life?

✿ What do you think of Brandon so far?

❀ What do you think William thinks about his beloved hanging out with another male?

Please let me know your thoughts since they help me develop in my creative process! Thank you for reading. Lots of love.<3