Chapter 2 Keep the princess safe

Back to the present*

Kaya held the deposed crown princess tightly, the little baby had just watched her uncle kill her father. Her father, Siji Khan, had entrusted the baby princess to Kaya, along with his trusted old bodyguard.

Just before he died, he had made them promise to keep the princess safe, and now the task of getting the princess out of the palace safely rested on her shoulders.

The palace was surrounded by the red assassins, it was going to be a miracle if she managed to escape with the princess alive and unarmed.

Kaya looked over at the old royal guard by her side as he shivered again. He had been badly injured. A silverine bullet from the red assassins had lodged in his chest, silverine was the only substance that could kill a Werebreed.

Kaya slowly checked his wounds as her cold heart raced, they were fatal, beads of sweat filled his face as he looked at her weakly.

She struggled to hold the tears in her eyes as she turned her focus to his wounds. They were healing slowly, the crescent moon made them weaker.

The sound of more breaking glass shattered the tension in the room.

Another smoke alarm went off from down the hallway, signaling that the flames were spreading fast.

Already the smoke was thick enough to make their eyes sting, everything was starting to have an effect on her. She was badly injured.

"We have to get out of here, we have at-least a minute or two, before they find us," she whispered to the old man, the smoke choking her.

Rounds of silverine bullets started slamming into the window above them. The kind of silverine bullet that could send any of their kind to oblivion.

The silverine bullets rammed into the thick glass wall, creating long weird cracks.

Kaya grabbed the sleeping child and ducked instinctively when the glass shattered.

She hit the floor and covered their heads with her arms as pieces of broken glass rained down on them.

A split second later, another round of silverine bullets blasted into the upturned mahogany table opposite them, shattering it into a million bits of tiny wood. It had missed them by a few inches.

The noise outside had intensified.

Two smoke bombs and a grenade flew through one of the shattered windows, hit the floor and exploded into a wall of flame.

Kaya held the princess tighter, burying the girl's face in her chest. She didn't get a chance to hear what the old guard was whispering to her over the noise.

From the sudden rise in volume of that terrible noise, the noise from her kind as they met their ends at the hands of the enemy.

She knew the assassins had finally made it to the last layer of the castle wall and were about to storm the main castle where they hid.

They needed to leave while they still could, Her canines elongated as she managed to transform into half wolf form to reduce any scalds from the fire. The crescent moon hindered her from transforming any further.

She yanked a long roll of curtain from one of the scattered windows, using it to tie the baby princess to her back.

She was happy the baby princess had managed to sleep through all this.

As the fire increased, she moved back into a crouch and pushed the old guard behind her, using her left hand to lift and place him gently on her broad shoulders.

Fighting while injured was hard enough, but fighting while protecting the princess was going to be harder.

She waited as the loud noise rushed against her eardrums.

She could hear their footsteps, hundreds of them, running towards were they hid, their terrible smell strong against her nostrils.

They were about to be overrun and wiped from the face of the Earth.

Mali Khan's rebellion had already cost the lives of more than a hundred of her kind who had been caught in the bloody slaughter. They had no chance against the assassins and their silverine blades on a crescent night.

"Now!," Kaya shouted, grabbing the injured old guard and lifting him down from her shoulders. In a swift motion, she carried the princess, gently placing her into the old guard's hands.

She hauled the man towards the closest hallway, filled with darkish brown smoke from the fires.

In a running crouch Kaya sprinted across the corridor. A few yards into the hallway the smoke was already thicker, making her cough as she raced to find a stairway that would take them to the west gate of the castle.

She turned right and stopped short at the row of flames climbing up the walls and ceiling ahead of them, blocking their exit. Turning again, she ran blindly down another hallway just as the legion of assassins breached the castle.

Kaya could hear the shouts and pounding footsteps closing in on them, moving closer with every heartbeat.

Loud Shots rang out behind her, way too close. Whirling, she moved at the speed of light, running towards the shadowed passageway and tearing the men who stood in her way into pieces. She couldn't take them all at once, she was too weak.

She shredded three of them into shreds, before she jumped to her feet and raced down another corridor, avoiding the attention of the assassins as they appeared in the smoke down the corridor, right in front of her.

She was staying low to keep her sight and her breath from choking, toxic smoke.

As she ran down the corridor, the air began to clear slightly. She could just make out the huge mahogany doorway at the end of the hall.

She ran straight for it. But she wasn't fast enough.

More of the assassins spilled into the corridor behind them and opened fire.

A hail of silverine bullets smashed into the door next to Kaya's head.

She snarled angrily.

She quickly whipped around, moving at the speed of light, dodging the bullets as she tore through them, tearing them to shreds. Their screams rang through the dark passageway. She looked to her right and, slightly above her, she could hear the assassins' light footsteps as they rushed themselves toward the roof.

She chased after them, turning every few seconds to shred down the assassins who had been pursuing them.

The fire in the castle rose higher, the flames moved wildly against the wind, casting scary shadows everywhere.

She raced back to where she had hidden the old guard and the baby princess, placing them on her shoulders and racing towards the mahogany door.

Her lungs burned from the smoke, her heart slammed as she raced down the dark castle stairway.

First floor. Second. The legion of assassins were still coming after them.

At the third and last floor, she turned the corner on the stairs and came to a skidding stop when she saw a metal gate.

She clenched her fists as she hit the metal gate, she was too weak to transform.

She took multiple steps backwards before running into the cage, shoulder first, it didn't budge.

She pushed it again, but the gate didn't budge.

The old man whispered to her, his voice tense.

"Take the princess, get to the next floor and try the other gate."

"There is nowhere else to go. They're right behind us papa," Kaya warned.

"Go," he whispered sharply.

"I'll hold them off for as long as I can."

Kaya nodded, "I'll be back soon, papa."