The two Emerald Lake mountains near the asylum are where Demechnef relocated. We escape from a tunnel that leads into the forest.
Albatross was right, it certainly is a fortress.
He hops onto his motorcycle and signals for me to mimic his action. I nervously tug at the white medical gown I’m still wearing, smudged with blood around my neckline. I look back up as Dessin removes his brown leather jacket and passes it to me.
“We’ll get you changed when we’re safe in the Dark Wood.” He nods again for me to get on the bike. Sliding my right hand into the sleeve, I smell him everywhere. His sweet natural scent that is both soothing and intoxicating.
Hiking my leg over the bike and latching on to Dessin’s waist, I see a group of twenty soldiers come tumbling out of the tunnel. Conveniently, also with motorbikes. We are equally matched with speed as Dessin starts the engine and fishtails us out of the perimeter of the mountain/Demechnef fortress. But I can’t imagine that Dessin would come this far without a plan, without an effective escape route. Whatever it is, he’s hyperfocused and making only intentional decisions, weaving through trees, staying ahead of the mob only by a few yards.
“We can’t lead them back to where we’re going…” I shout into his ear, fighting the force of the wind. “So, what’s the plan?”
He glances over his shoulder, lips curling upward, not enough to make a smile, but enough to answer my question. “Are you still doubting me?”
Dessin accelerates the speed by thirty miles per hour and we’re flying through the forest like a wildfire devouring dead leaves and plants in a drought. The branches are cracking under the wheels, the healthy trees whizzing past us, while my hair dances behind me in the rush of strong winds… I lift my face from Dessin’s back. The rays of the sun leak through the speckled peepholes of the canopy of trees. They shower me in their warmth, welcoming me back to my home, to the blessings of Mother Nature, to the humming sounds of honeybees, and to the early morning taste of earthy air.
Something clinks against the back of the bike. I look back to find a crossbow pointed at us, with a fluffy red feather attached to the back of the arrow.
“It’s a tranquilizer. They don’t want to kill us. Just knock us out!” Dessin lifts the handles of the bike upward to jump us over an overgrown tree root. We hiccup in the air and come slamming back down to the ground without skipping a beat. One or two bikes don’t make the same move and are ejected from their seats, breaking bones as they are flung into the trees.
The next red-feathered arrow is shot through the air with perfect aim, blundering toward Dessin’s head, he seizes it by the stem with two fingers as if it were unmoving, sitting on a shelf like a book waiting to be snatched. He uses the same hand to launch it back to its home, soaring into the neck of the man to our left.
We can’t take them all out like this.
Is he going to steer us off a cliff into a body of water? Are we leading them into a trap? Is he going to pull over and fight them off one at a time? I wish I could take a dive into his mind and comb through his plans.
The ride starts to get bumpy as we drive over a passage of rocks, some small like pebbles, others jagged and the size of my head. This slows us down and allows the fifteen or so other riders to catch up. We’re bouncing up and down, jerking over the uneven obstacles. The ending of the rocky terrain is in sight, a flat dirt path ahead. I strap myself against his back, hugging my face to the muscles flexing over his shoulder blades, desperate not to be taken away from him again.
The other bikes succeed at closing in on us. A half circle of roaring engines moments away from causing us to wreck. Arrows are being shot from different directions, but Dessin is crafty with his shift of weight from one side to the other, driving in zigzags. I release a breath as we tumble over the last of the rocks, but the riders are still so close, and Dessin isn’t speeding up.
“Dessin!” I shriek. Why is he slowing down? “Go!”
He turns to give me a side view of his face, a flash of dominance, a flash of the alpha in his dark-mahogany eyes. They say, fear not, we’ve already won.
And just like that, a black shadow dives through the air from behind a sheath of trees. A pouncing beast with an unhinged jaw, showing off its white, sharp teeth. And those cinnamon eyes are in hunting mode, locking in on his prey, blazing with certain victory.
Something between a laugh and a scream comes out of my mouth.
DaiSzek makes a clean leap over our bike, wiping out three soldiers, knocking them off their motorcycles. Gasps and grunts of impact come from behind us. I regret turning around, regret the gory image of DaiSzek sinking his teeth in a soldier’s head, popping it like a balloon.
He’s merciless, fast, and unreasonably feral.
Dismemberment. Skinning. Scalping. An overwhelming amount of flesh and blood. It seems DaiSzek shares Dessin’s vengeful temper.
We accelerate again, aiming for a broken tree, slanted like a ramp.
“Hold on!” He grips the handles, leaning forward with focused precision.
A violent wave of panic crashes into me as we speed up the inclined trunk and eject into the forest, airborne, soaring over a small cliff. The humid air of wet tree bark and wildflowers blasts me in every direction. At least ten more soldiers are following us, coming up from our right and left sides. My teeth and bones clank together as we land, and I flinch at the sound of grown men screaming all at once, and then… silence.
We slow down to a stop, and Dessin reaches back to grip my hand.
“What happened? Did we lose them?” I try to look behind us but he stops me.
“Don’t look,” Dessin instructs.
“Why?”
He parks the bike against the tree and steps off of it to face me. I can still catch a hint of that murderous temper, quelled only slightly, but still remaining unsatisfied.
“I set a trap,” he says like I’m supposed to know what the result of that trap was.
I blink and nod for him to continue.
“It was a very thin string blade. It’s why we had to be launched over it. Because we needed to fly over it—not through it.”
I remember the sound of the snapping. The splash of liquid. My mouth parts as it all comes together.
“You sliced them in half?”
His focus is redirected to something behind me. I whip my head around, my entire body jerking as if I’m preparing to be hit, smacked, beaten. But his large hands hold me steady, covering my shoulders with slow, reassuring strokes.
“It’s DaiSzek,” he says calmly.
Dessin pulls a rag out of his pocket and wipes DaiSzek’s mouth and neck. The blood of my captors soaking through every fiber.
“You did so well, Dai.”
My heart swells with gratitude. I forget everything that had me questioning my morals just a moment ago. The dead soldiers. The way they were killed.
As of an hour ago, DaiSzek has only been a figment of my imagination. This herculean, wondrous animal has saved me multiple times. And every time, it’s always a great risk. He’s always outnumbered or facing beasts larger than him. He never hesitates or leaves me to fend for myself. Somehow, I have gained his loyalty and his love. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve him, but witnessing him soar over us to tackle our attackers. The looks of shock, disbelief, and childlike terror. DaiSzek is the monster that is supposed to be extinct, risen from the grave, delivering them to hell. I’ve only been starstruck with one other being, and that’s Dessin.
I kneel as DaiSzek walks up to me, slowly, like he’s very much aware I’ve been living in a hostile state. His gigantic head presses up against my chest so gently it breaks my heart. I swoon and sigh in relief, hooking my arms around his neck. A familiar warmth, like sinking into a hot bath. I know this feeling, I haven’t touched it in so long. Months. But that’s a lie. It’s only been hours.
I tangle my fingers in his black fur, and remember how he saved me in that cage, he brought me to young Kane. And it’s like DaiSzek can sense my need to hold him close, because he stays tucked in my embrace.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “You didn’t just save me out here. You saved me when I was trapped in that cage. You took me to a safer place.”
DaiSzek snuggles his head into me. I can sense Dessin’s eyes watching us both.
“I love you, DaiSzek.” My lips are lost in the fur around his ear. “I’ll love you until the day I die.”
And I will. I’ll always love my boys.
