Taming the Queen of Beasts

If you like music when you\'re reading try, "I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight – Epic Trailer Version" by Hidden Citizens (trust me, it NEEDS to be that version of the song.) In fact, you can pretty much keep playing that song for the next several chapters. This song has been inspiring me for months as we walk towards the coming scenes. I hope it is as powerful for you as it has been for me.

*****

RETH

Reth\'s heart pounded painfully as they stepped through the portal and into the dark, dusty traverse. Before them the great cavern yawned, a massive cathedral of stone almost identical to the traverse he\'d traveled twice before. Dust—or was it ash?—puffed from under his feet as he stepped inside. The stench of death was overwhelming and made his nose wrinkle. The narrow walkway—wide enough for both of them to walk abreast, but not much wider—stretched ahead, barely visible in the dark. But the land dropped away in sheer cliffs on either side that promised a plummet to the death.

Reth\'s hand tightened on Elia\'s as she moved as if to take the second step, and he held her back.

"Just… just a moment, Love," he whispered.

Hands clasped tightly, they didn\'t look at each other. Both of them stared ahead at the darkness unbroken by any light, save the pinpoint at the other end, like a star in the night sky.

A guiding light, but a star they would not reach for.

Reth\'s pulse pounded in his ears, thrumming so his skin hummed with it. It was so loud, he could barely detect Elia\'s panting breath and the way her heart hammered as hard as his.

From the corner of his eye, he saw her wipe her face with her sleeve, and when she dropped it, he could smell no more tears on her.

His eyes were dry as well. At first, the only sound was the pat-pat-pat of his blood hitting the dust below. But then a bare whisper echoed in the cavern, the shift of wind on stone, laced with a murmured scream.

"What—?" Reth started. But above them, the cavern ceiling suddenly groaned. They both startled as a crack so loud it made Reth\'s ears hum rang through the cavern, and a trickle of dust and tiny stones pattered over their shoulders and on their hair.

Reth and Elia both ducked, their free hands over their heads, but there was nothing other than a rumble that rolled away to nothing in the dark air.

Reth licked his lips.

"Kalle," Elia breathed, her voice awed. "She did it."

"She—" Reth cut off. It was a thought he didn\'t want to finish.

Elia nodded quickly, her fingers tightening on his. "We have to go now, Reth. We can\'t wait—"

A piercing shriek rushed towards them from the depths of the darkness below, starting thin, but growing, like a freight train barreling towards them from under their feet.

"Go!" Reth called, his hand tight on Elia\'s as they both stepped forward and were almost immediately thrown back by a gust of wind that hit Reth\'s chest and whipped around them, so strong it almost took him off his feet, carrying with it chittering, raging voices, a multitude of voices that screamed for blood, for vengeance, and for death.

Evil in all its forms washed over them, screaming, shrieking, snarling.

"Ours!"

"Ours!"

"She belongs to us!"

"She comes to give and we will take."

"Peel her skin from her bones."

"Steal her air!"

Reth stumbled forward, pulling Elia with him, leaning almost in half to resist the wind that tore in a circle around them, roiling and billowing like smoke, like the darkness made flesh. It roared and turned and circled, like a serpent coiling around them, closing in, tightening its noose. But Reth pushed on, teeth gritted, every muscle rigid to resist, every step a mammoth effort.

"Stupid female. Stupid mate. Your day has arrived."

"We told you!"

"It was us or them!"

"You chose too late."

"Now you will have both!"

"Ours!"

Then, in the wall of rolling darkness, a face—fanged and malicious, with eyes glowing red. "She belongs to us—"

"SHE IS MINE!" Reth roared and swiped at the face that dissolved back into the wall of black, its laughter echoing through the chamber and feeding something in the wind.

The wind shuddered in his ears, tugging his hair from its tie and whipping it around his face in stinging lashes that threatened to slice his skin.

Then a gust, like massive arms, pushed between them, shoving them apart and threatening to break their grips.

"Reth!" Elia screamed as he was thrown sideways and one foot slid off the edge of the cliff.

She grabbed at him as he scrambled back to solid ground, shaking so badly his knees threatened to give. Elia threw herself into his chest, plastered herself there, her breath tearing in and out of her throat. Reth held her, heart-pounding, heedless of the blood dripping from his arm down her back, or the voices roaring overhead.

The wind whipped faster. The voices chittering, shrieking, groaning with bloodlust.

"Reth… there\'s no Protectors!" Elia cried. "We won\'t make it!"

"Yes, we will. Look at me, Elia. We will!" he snarled, burying his hands in her hair and forcing her to meet his gaze. "The Creator didn\'t put us here to lose." The wind tore the words away and for a moment he was afraid she hadn\'t heard him. Reth swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut. There was more. He knew it. There had to be something more.

The prophecies… Gahrye\'s revelations…

Mate hearts pure, love true. Mate hearts pure love.

Love is the hope of the Anima.

Reth\'s heart squeezed painfully, but his shoulders slumped. "He told us… Elia. It\'s love. Love is the key. And there isn\'t a heart in the world that holds more love than I do for you, or you for me. We can do this because I love you—and the Creator does too!"

*****

Added after publication so you aren\'t charged for the words, PLEASE READ!

THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE! You\'re incredible!

But we\'re about to walk into something painful. So, please: Note the Chapter title and read the blurb in my author profile! Then let\'s talk about this thing I always try to bring into my stories:

Not everything that\'s painful is bad for you. And not every dark journey ends in the dark. Sometimes the Creator asks us to walk through things that feel like they\'re destroying us. And they don\'t seem worth it.

I\'m not strong enough for those moments, and neither are you. But He is.

One thing He has shown me is that when I reach the end of those journeys and the light shines into the dark, I find out He asked it of me because he knew where it would get us. And it was worth it. HE was WORTH IT.

So, I\'m asking you: Don\'t give up. Keep reading. Keep breathing. And  trust me.

Because it\'s not over, until it\'s over. And when it\'s over, it will be worth it.

Are you ready?

Me either…