Abandoned (Born From Shadows #2)

Tatianna froze for just a second while her words caught up with her mind. “Why would we do that? That’s suicide,” she stated.

“Probably,” Tyrion replied.

“So…you want to die?” she asked, slightly confused.

“No,” Tyrion responded.

“Then why risk your life for someone who is probably dead,” she said. This Lady of the Night didn’t seem like the type to keep a toy around for years, rather someone who would play for a while then chuck it out. Just look at the pile of children that they found in the Hollow Plains, taken then cast out.

“He’s not dead,” Tyrion replied. His optimism caused her to roll her eyes.

“He most likely is,” she replied, not caring if her words hurt his feelings. His optimism had no place in this world. Not after everything that it had done or could do.

“I am fused to him. I can feel him, he is alive.” At that Tatianna was shocked, she had thought the one he was connected to was dead…not dead, captured. “Everything I have done is to get him back. You know why they call me the Coward?”

Tatianna shook her head, surprised at Tyrion who was raising his voice.

“Because I left him…I left him and now he has been a prisoner for the last seventeen years. I failed him; I will not fail him again. I don’t care if we die trying, I don’t care that it is basically a suicide mission. You said you didn’t care if you died.”

“Because I thought we were doing something productive and meaningful, not walking straight into the lion’s den and praying it won’t eat us.”

“I am a Fae, I don’t pray,” Tyrion replied.

“Well good for you, it doesn’t change the fact that we are going to die for no reason.”

Tyrion sighed. “What do you value more, your freedom or your life?”

“Freedom of course, but I wouldn’t mind having both for a change,” she frustratingly said. Why was there always a choice between two extremes? Why couldn’t people just leave her alone?

“Then you have made your choice. We will leave tomorrow. Tonight, I am going to make sure you understand the plan.”

“Enlighten me,” she said defeated.

“I have been trying to think of a way in for years…but then I finally figured out how. I need a distraction, one large enough that the Lady of the Night herself will be drawn to so that I can sneak in. She is smart, smart enough to know that whatever I present to her is a distraction and therefore won’t fall for it. So, I needed something that the allure out ways her logic, and she explores it anyway. That’s where you come in,” Tyrion explained.

“It won’t work,” she replied. “Maybe if you could send the Queen in there, but the Queen is dead.”

“Yes, the Queen is dead. But you were the Princess. Congratulation’s Tatianna, you have somehow found yourself being the Queen of the Elves. I don’t have a crown, but here,” Tyrion said and dug through his pockets. He held out his hand that was clasping something. Each finger unclosed till a silver wolf stared back at her.

Her hand clasped the pendent while her mind remained numb. Her breaths shortened and the area around her began to blur. She couldn’t breathe. Her heart was just a ball of pain stuck within her chest.

“Happy birthday,” he whispered to her.

Her eyes were now filled with tears as she gasped and gasped for air that her lungs couldn’t breathe in.

“No need to thank me, open it,” he told her. Her slim fingers pushed the lid of the box off to reveal a necklace. One with a black leather string with a pendant of a silver wolf on the bottom that had bits of sapphire laced through it and on its eye. It was beautiful.

Her eyes lingered onto the pendent in her hand, as if looking away would kill her. Yet the longer she stared the worse it was. Her legs had begun to shake, and she collapsed to the floor. Eyes bloodshot, air rapidly shot in and out of her mouth, but she couldn’t slow down the thump of her heart.

His hand brushed away her caramel hair, his fingers faintly touching her neck as he tied the necklace on.

“Beautiful,” he said, “both you and the necklace.”

Her throat was clenched so tight she couldn’t even think straight…she couldn’t think at all. Everything was focused on the pain.

“Storms are deadly, they can be destructive and catastrophic but also beautiful and renewing, filled with possibilities. Utterly extraordinary. You are a Storm.” “Together?” her voice was intended to sound affirmative, but it came out more like a question. “Always,” he confirmed.

“I love you. I know we haven’t known each other for too long but I love you in more ways than I could’ve ever imagined,” Nik’s gaze never left her own.

His body had fallen almost immediately to the ground when the arrow stuck his chest.

“Relax, little ninja, I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Where are your parents? It’s dangerous for you to be out here on your own.”

She felt the Red Prince release inside her then he immediately rolled off of her.

“Tatianna!” A voice yelled straight into her ear. It was distant, but it was there.

“Tatianna tell me three things you can see. Look around, just three things.”

She couldn’t breathe, her vision was blurred. But some things became more visible the more she tried to look. “Tree. Rock. Dirt.”

“Ok good now three thing you can here.”

“You can run. Hide. Scream. Nothing can save you now.”

“Damn it Tatianna concentrate. What can you hear?”

“Birds!” she shouted, although her voice felt like nothing more than a whisper. “The wind. Bugs.”

“Now move three parts of your body.”

And she did. First her toes, then her fingers, then finally she moved her eyes away from the pendent. Her breathing had finally calmed down. The images no longer haunting her mind.

“What…what happened to me?” she asked faintly towards Tyrion who she didn’t even realise was crouching in front of her.

“You had a panic attack. If I had known that was going to happen, I wouldn’t have kept the necklace,” Tyrion explained.

The necklace. The Wolf’s sapphire eye still stared at her. “Thank you,” she said. Thank you for so much. Getting away from the Elves. Getting her out of her own head. For giving her a piece of the man, she loved back. She couldn’t say all of that, so she just repeated, “thank you.”

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“Remember the plan,” Tyrion said, Tatianna nodded and the felt the shackles squeezing her ankles freeze up. The metal shattered as soon as Tyrion hit it with the hilt of hit sword. Ice was the magic that ran through his bloodline, she worked out. “Let’s go,” he said and stood up.

She was could still feel the ghost shackles clutching to her skin, reminding herself that they were just a figure of her imagination now. Just this last task and she would be free.

He picked her up by her waist, and a gust of wind pushed the dirt around them as Tyrion’s wings propelled them into the air. Her hand gripped tightly onto her blade.