Chapter 4 The guardian

Warm tears rolled down Kaya's cheeks as she watched the old man willingly lay his life down for her.

The thought of the old man doing something like that for her, made her heart tighten.

Promising herself to come back for him, Kaya turned and raced for the west gate of the castle, running with the princess still asleep on her back.

At the turn she was greeted by another pair of assassins. Kaya elongated her canines. Blinded by anger, she rushed into battle, lashing out at the assassins at the front of the line.

Once they had eye contact with her, they always failed to react to her intrusion in time. The rush of her fangs placing precise wounds onto their unarmored bodies, spilling their organs and blood upon the crude stone floor.

More of them came running in blindly like zombies, running to join their fallen comrades. Blood flew through the air and caved the walls of the cavern in the narrow passageway leading deeper into the much larger areas of the complex.

These were the red assassins, the group of humans that had made it their goal to torment her kind, they took her parents from her and now they had taken papa Gerad from her, she would make them pay.

Taking a painful slash of their silver swords to her left forearm and another to her right thigh, Kaya roared in pain and rage as another of the assassins drove his sword through her back.

She turned around swiftly, lashed out at the assassin who had stabbed her, she tore the man's head away, throwing the bloody mess against the wall.

Fighting through the searing wounds, a dozen more bodies lay on the floor, their heads blown through by her inhuman strength.

They began to retreat from the animal they had awakened in her, realizing the fatal mistake they had made not to put her down when they had the chance.

Some of the uninjured assassins began to get torn to shreds by her as they tried to escape. The rest of them all ran for their lives. Maybe they were running so they could go and regroup. She could only assume the others would soon find their way here.

Limping and growling, she continued to crush out the brains of any of the assassins her fangs could take down, blowing it out like a farmer in harvest season.

Each of her hands felling, and dismembering them, hungrily exploding into their soft tissues and shattering their bones.

The sound of their boots making the familiar sick slapping as they tread through blood, organs, and other bodily fluids.

The last assassin fell to the floor with a dull wet thud from the skull, his eyes wide as his last breath hissed from his lungs and the lights left his eyes.

Dark sticky blood dripped down her back as she set off down another route to where she had left the old guard. The assassins were harmed with silverine bullet guns along with silver swords which were also laced with poison. Her kind never stood a chance. They weren't prepared.

The stench of death was a sick irony, as the assasins lay mutilated all over the half-burnt and scattered stairway. Tributaries of their blood slowly wind across the gray stone underfoot, making sticky tracks along the dim corridor.

She heard another roar of more assassins, they were coming towards where she was.

She was already wounded beyond mortal comprehension, Kaya weakly pushed the princess into one of the huge cracks in the wall as she slumped, using her back to cover the crack and hide the princess. Her vision became blurry as the noise grew louder.

In the blink of an eye she was surrounded by a dozen assassins in red.

Her time had come.

She closed her eyes awaiting the first and final blow from the assassins. She knew they would probably decapitate her and burn her. She didn't mind, as far as they wouldn't find the princess.

Then she smelt it.

The smell was faint, the room smelt of all kinds of blood, blood of the innocent, blood of liars, blood of killers, but this one was a rare scent. She had never come across it.

She slowly opened her eyes and looked through the dozens of assassins as they surrounded her raggedy body.

A huge white beast, crouching in the darkness, the eyes were dark gold, the canines were long and huge.

It was a huge white tiger, with shaggy white hair running around ripped muscles.

It had long canines, canines that were capable of decapitating anyone on the face of the earth. Maybe she was hallucinating because she was sure the Were-tigers had faced extinction in the Cold War. She had never seen one throughout her entire life.

The figure jumped down from where it hid, silently landing on the floor. The legion of assassins still hadn't noticed the figure.

Kaya watched through blurry eyes and a sick smile as the figure drew its fangs and crept into position, waiting for the assassins to turn around.

One of the assassins noticed Kaya's sick stare, slowly tracing the stare, as he turned around. In the blink of an eye, the man's body fell into two parts.

The figure assumed a pose, quickly hiding its shaggy mane and blending into the darkness of the room.

The room fell into silence as the group of assassins surrounding Kaya noticed what had been done to one of them.

A loud horrifying scream pierced the silence of the room another of the assassins was silently dismembered in what seemed like a blink of an eye.

The assassins quickly moved into formation, hoping to discover who this hidden foe was.

Kaya drifted in and out of consciousness as the fight ensued. All she knew was that the screams made by the assassins was reducing by the second and at long last the room was as quiet as a graveyard.

Kaya's eyes slowly opened, her vision still blurry, she looked around the room, before she could make do with her vision, she found herself laying outside on the cold street, with the princess in her hands. She looked up hoping to catch a glimpse of him. She could only see his back, as he walked away, his long white hair glistening against the crescent moon.

***

"Is that the end of the story?" The little girl asked, as she looked up at Kaya, her button nose wrinkling a little as she spoke.

Kaya smiled at the little girl as she adjusted the little chair she had been sitting on, beside the girl's pink fairylike bed frame.

"Yes Anna, that's the end of the story." She whispered softly to the girl.

"Well, that doesn't sound like a happy ending," The little girl protested, as she slowly sat up.

"What happened to the little girl in the story?," She continued, wrinkling her little button nose more, as if she was getting irritated.

"She's still a little girl, a stubborn little girl." Kaya responded with a smile.

"And what of the tiger and the guard lady?," The little girl asked.

"Aren't they supposed to get married and live happily ever after?"

Kaya slowly stood up, she walked towards the bedside lamp, stopping momentarily to look back at the little girl, she smiled.

The girl's eyes were huge with curiosity.

Kaya flipped the bedside lamp off and slowly walked towards the door.

"Goodnight Anna, sleep tight, and don't let the bed bugs bite." She whispered, as she quickly shut the door before the little girl would protest.

Three years had passed since she and Anna had escaped the rebellion, she had managed to get a job and helped the both of them settle down in a small city apartment.

It was Papa Gerad's dying wish for her to protect the princess, and she was going to do that till the day she took her last breath.

Kaya walked down the cramped corridor, leaving Anna to catch some sleep. The girl was starting school tomorrow, she was starting a new job tomorrow.

Daybreak was going to be the dawn of a new life for them, and she was ready for it.

*

17 Years later*

Warmth, sunlight, fresh air.

Anna's eyes shot open.

The sun had already risen, leaving behind a nice view.

it had all been a dream,

Aunt Kaya wasn't a wolf or anything, nor was she a princess.

She was still Anna Lewis, a theater arts student whose dream was to go to Julliard.

She had been having this reoccurring dream ever since she was a little girl.

She remembered Aunt Kaya always telling her this same story when she was little, but after a while, Aunt Kaya stopped.

Even though Aunt Kaya had stopped telling her the story, she still occasionally had dreams of that event, it almost felt as if it was real, and she was there when it happened.

She crawled out of bed as she made her way to the bathroom. She wasn't any werewolf or warrior.

She was Anna Lewis and today was another day out of three hundred and sixty-five days for her.