Page 70 of The Forbidden Wolf King
A commotion started at the far end of the room, shouting and fighting, and the guards immediately moved that way.
This was it.
“I love you, Oslo. You’re such a good kid. Mom and dad would be so proud.” I tried to stay strong but tears leaked down my cheeks.
“I love you too, Zar,” he said and wiped at his own cheeks.
Damn. I prayed to the Maker then, which I hardly did, and asked that my little brother be protected.
“Psst,” the woman called to us and I knew we were on limited time. Kailani positioned her body to face the skirmish at the far end of the room but against the bars so that she could block what we were about to do. The fae-dragon hybrid woman removed the bar easily and Oslo looked at me one last time. I gave him an encouraging smile and he turned his body sideways, slipping through the bars. He got halfway when his ear got stuck and he hissed. I gave him a hard shove and he popped out into the other cell. The bar was replaced quickly and then the woman shuffled him across the room and I spun to watch the guards break up the fight, both of their attention fully engaged.
My heart hammered in my chest as I peered back to see the woman had already boosted my brother up to the window and he pulled the middle bar off, shimmying his arms through to the other side. All I could do was pray that there was no one out patrolling on the other side of that wall. We were halfway submerged underground so when he did get out, if he could stay low, he might be able to get away unseen. He’d look human to any passerby in Nightfall City so I just had to hope for the best or the worry would drive me insane.
I steeled myself as one of the guards left the cell in which the fight had been broken up and made his way to the center of the room.
Glancing over my shoulder, I noticed that the woman was still halfway through shoving my brother out the window. It was an extremely tight fit and he was having to crawl on his elbows to pull himself through.
I scrambled for ideas on how to get the guard to look away but my mind was drawing a blank. Anything I did would just draw his attention in this direction.
“Hey!” a male in one of the cells to the left side of the room shouted. The guard turned in his direction and then the man pulled his trousers down and flashed his backside, pressing it against the bars. “Kiss my arse, you bloodsucker sell-outs!” he cried.
The guard pulled out a baton and ran forward, rapping it hard against the bars and the man fell forward laughing.
“That’s enough!” the guard yelled. “Or you’ll all be put down!”
I looked back at the window just in time to see the woman replace the bar with shaking cuffed hands and then face forward as if nothing happened. I could just see Oslo’s feet as they grew smaller in the distance and he ran away.
Tears built up in my eyes but I forced them down.
He was safe. Now it was time to fight.
I walked closer to the bars and pressed my face against them, looking at the man who had helped distract the guard.
I gave him a nod which I hoped conveyed my gratitude. He nodded back in solidarity.
Kailani stood next to me then, laying her head on my shoulder. It was the equivalent of a hug. Or the best you could do for a hug when you were both handcuffed.
“Do you have family?” I asked her.
“Just my aunt. No siblings. Parents are dead,” she replied matter-of-factly.
“Mine too. He … was, is all I have,” I told her.
She nudged me and forced me to face her. There was a calmness in her gaze that brought me peace.
“We’re going to get out of this and then you, Madelynn, Arwen and I are going to go on a yearly women’s retreat. Like the men did when they were younger,” she declared.
I grinned. “Oh yeah?”
She nodded. “There is an elvin spa I know of that gives great massages and they have mud baths and all the confections you could hope to eat.”
“What will the men do without us?” I inquired, playing into her fantasy because it was taking my mind off things.
“Watch the children and tend to the kitchen of course,” she replied which caused me to bark out into laughter.
My face fell pretty quickly though. “How did we get here? War. It seems so … wrong.”
She looked at the guards. “Hatred. Division. If people focused on what they had in common, or how they could help one another, rather than how they were different, it would solve a lot of problems.”
