Chapter 66 - Gavran Wilds (9) — First Kiss

Ileus moved his head to the right and she aimed her dagger at the Yardrak's head. The dagger hit his skull right in the center of his forehead. As soon as it was embedded inside Anastasia turned her hand in the air and the dagger twisted to three o'clock. With a loud bellow the Yardrak fell off the ground and Ileus gutted the vampir in front of him, silencing him forever. Anastasia commanded the dagger back in her hand. 

She rushed to Ileus and was aghast to see two stab wounds in his back. Blood was gushing out. She felt nauseated. Ileus held her nape and brought her closer to him. He lifted her in his arm and his lips crashed on hers with fierceness and passion and want. Then he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against hers. His breath was shallow. "Let's kill the rest of them!" 

Together they rushed to fight with the remaining rogues. Darla had shifted to her wolf form. She looked ferocious in her gray fur. Anastasia saw her leaping into the air and attacking a Yardrak who had charged at Aidan with a knife. She grabbed the dwarf's head in her jaws and pierced her sharp teeth in it. The Yardrak's scream suppressed in her jaws as his skull cracked open. 

It took them barely a few more minutes to bring them all down. Their dead bodies were littered on the ground around them with limbs ripped apart, with pools of blood drenching the snow crimson. 

Except Anastasia, all of them were bleeding. It was worse with Ileus. 

He staggered on his feet as he sat on a nearby stump. His breath was ragged. "We need to leave now!" he said, his voice a whisper. He looked at Anastasia as she walked up to him. 

"You need help," she said with quivering lips. Her heart plummeted to her stomach seeing his condition. She looked at all of them. They all needed help. Darla was slumped on Aidan's chest while the others had dropped to the ground, tired and bloody. 

Suddenly Ileus looked beyond her and so did Kaizan. 

"There is more coming this way!" Kaizan growled. "We have to leave, now!" 

In the next fifteen minutes, they collected whatever they could, astride their horses and raced towards the Virgine Falls. This time Anastasia was sitting behind Ileus and had pressed two shirts on his wounds. The shirts were slowly turning red, and she was trembling with fear. 

They rode throughout the remaining hours of the night. 

"When are we going to reach Virgine Falls?" asked Anastasia, feeling agonized at Ileus's situation. 

"Hopefully soon!" he said in a hoarse voice. Ileus had managed to burst mist out of them in order to obscure their presence from other creatures. With tremendous blood loss, his body was becoming cold. Anastasia had put a fur she had managed to take out of the saddlebag on his shoulders and she had hugged him from behind. 

It was almost dawn. The clouds in the sky had started dissipating, giving a clear view to the sky above. The stars were still dazzling, but they were dull, for the sun's rays had begun to pierce the blackness of the night. 

Suddenly she heard the noise of a pounding waterfall from somewhere beyond the mist that surrounded them. 

Guarhal signaled them all to slow the pace by raising his fist in the air. The horses began to trot. 

"Hold on to me tight Anastasia and close your eyes," said Ileus.

She clasped him tight. She tilted her head to notice that suddenly Guarhal paced his horse to a gallop and disappeared beyond the mist. She gasped. "Where has he gone?" Goosebumps pebbled her skin. 

"Just hold me tight," Ileus said. 

Aidan, Darla, Carrick followed Guarhal and disappeared behind the mist. 

All of a sudden, Anastasia heard turbulence behind her. Scared that more royal guards had come, she turned around, but what she saw was even more vexing. The mist behind them had started to scatter. She could see the unsteady threshold of Gavran Wilds that had now begun to waver and shrink. Her mind began to reel. Was she hallucinating? The vista behind her spiraled at a speed that she thought if they didn't jump out of this place, they would get shredded to pieces. 

"Ana, don't look at the back!" Ileus warned her. "Close your eyes!" 

But she couldn't do that. Her eyes were wide with shock and fear as the wilds behind her whirled inwards in a circle whooshing everything inside, sucking it in. "Ileus!" She shouted as panic tightened her chest. Her hands and legs felt numb and she thought she would lose control of her consciousness. The wilds were swirling like a typhoon, only that its hole was in her direction. The typhoon was taking in every tree, every bit of snow and rocks. Dreadful noises rose from within. 

"Anastasia!" Ileus shouted to divert her attention. "Grab on to me!" 

But her mind was focused on the swirl behind her, on the painful groans and moans that were being strangled inside it. She felt she was going to choke. Suddenly she felt the horse galloping. 

Ileus, with a combination of legs and reins, Ileus commanded his horse to gallop. "Clasp me!" He roared and she immediately held him from the back so tightly as if her life depended on it. Ileus dove out of the mist at the last minute. The whirl behind them shattered into a thousand pieces as they barreled headlong. 

"Argh!" Anastasia gasped as she found herself under a pounding waterfall. 

Lovac was walking under a cascade, shaking his mane. "Where are we?" She asked as she swiped her hand across her face and sputtered. As soon as they were out of the torrential waterfall, Anastasia surveyed her surroundings. It was so dark and dense in the Gavran Wilds that she had to blink against the brightness of the sunny dawn in front of her. The sun was like a yellow rose, whose golden petals had stretched in the blue sky.