The Dragon King's Heart

Chapter 110 - Emerging From The Shadows

Laina gritted her teeth. She could see the other shadow wolf attempting to take Victoria away. She could not let that happen. Laina needed to close the distance between them. 

She cursed beneath her breath. If she had brought Kol with her, this would have been a lot easier. Just then, the warm glow of fire caught Laina's attention. She turned to see where the broken lamp had fallen. 

The fire was growing. Laina looked back at the shadow wolf. She could see how it was carefully avoiding the flame. Laina had an idea. She kept her dagger. Instead, Laina chose to fight with fire instead. 

"You're not getting away with this," Laina declared with an evil glint in her eyes. 

The shadow wolves realized what the crown princess was about to do. The shadow wolf bared its teeth at Laina and swiped its sharpened claws at her. This time, Laina did not dodge in time, causing her left arm to be clawed. 

Her long jacket sleeve was shredded and long claw wounds formed on her arm. It did not take long for blood to seep out of the wounds and dye her arm red. Laina winced in pain, but she was not bothered by it. 

The other shadow wolf had successfully gotten Victoria out of the bed. In order to stop her from moving and squealing, the shadow wolf knocked her out and slung her over his shoulder. 

As it was about to escape through the balcony, Laina snapped her fingers. A wall of flame barricaded them within the room. The moment the flames licked the shadow wolf, it caused them intense pain. 

Like poison, it quickly spread across the shadow wolf's entire body. Yet surprisingly, Victoria was completely unscathed. Her body slumped onto the ground, face down. Laina turned her attention back to the remaining shadow wolf who stood before her. 

"Now it's just you and me," she grinned. 

The shadow wolf bared its teeth and pounced towards Laina. She took a side step to get away from it. From behind, a hand shot out from the shadows. It grabbed onto the neck of the shadow wolf. 

It was Kol. Though he was sound asleep at first, he smelt Laina's blood which woke him. Following the scent of the blood, he found his way here, just in time to lend a helping hand. 

Kol tightened his grip on the shadow wolf's neck. His eyes were ruby red as he bared his fangs at the shadow wolf. The once fearsome creature began to cower and whimper. 

Kol glared deep into the shadow wolf's eyes, as his own began to glow. The shadow wolf attempted to resist, but soon it could become helpless. Its eyes began to emit the same red glow that Kol's eyes had. 

With the shadow wolf under his control, Kol opened his mouth. His canine teeth protracted as he bit down on the shadow wolf. There was no blood. But moments later the shadow wolf completely disappeared into thin air. 

"I did not know you could do that," Laina said, impressed by Kol's power. The fire around them extinguished on its own. 

When he was done, Kol went up to Laina and sniffed her. Weirded out by his actions, she took a step back. 

"What are you-" 

Kol grabbed hold of Laina's arm. A sense of dread and horror was written all over his face when he saw the claw marks. He began to panic as he placed a hand over the injury and whispered a spell. 

A warm glow of light emitted from his palm and the claw wounds closed up, barely leaving a scar. 

"Where did you learn that from?" Laina asked. 

She did not recall Kol knowing any magic spells of his own, let alone a healing spell. Kol inspected his work, wiping off the bloodstains before putting down her arm. 

"Lady Margaret taught me. It came in handy," he replied. 

Laina turned her attention to Victoria. She carried Victoria in her arms and placed her back on the bed. 

"Kol, go wake up the Nyx and the others. I want all of them here as soon as possible," she instructed Kol as she tended to Victoria. 

Kol bowed, "As you wish, Laina."

Once Kol left to do as she had ordered, Laina turned her attention back to Victoria who stirred awake. As she slowly opened her eyes, Laina heaved a sigh of relief. 

"Victoria? Thank Kinshearth you're alright!"

"Your Highness, I'm alright. Sorry to worry you."

"No no, it's alright. This is all my fault," Laina sighed, "I promised to protect you and this happened. Please forgive me."

Surprised by the princess's apology, Victoria shook her head, "It's not your fault, your Highness. This was simply an unfortunate circumstance."

Victoria sighed as she frowned, "I've truly underestimated King Kragen."

"Underestimated? What do you mean?"

Victoria sat up on the bed. Laina sat down next to her at the bedside. Victoria began to explain that the shadow wolves had been sent to kill her. Based on her knowledge, only King Kragen had the ability to order them to do so. 

Shadow wolves were different from regular werewolves. They were fiercely loyal to the ruling monarch of Wolfenheim, meaning they would listen to his command without question. 

Victoria wrapped her arms around her knees and buried her face in her arms. Kragen seemed to know where she was and clearly wanted her dead. What could she do to protect herself?

Now, she had even burdened the Crown Princess of Kinshearth; potentially putting her life in danger too. She looked over to Laina with tears in her eyes. 

"I'm so sorry Princess Laina. This is all my fault. I should not have left Wolfenheim with you," she burst into tears, "I… I…"

The poor girl cried her heart out. Laina wrapped her arms around Victoria and gave her a hug. 

"I should be the one apologizing, Victoria, not you. I forced you to come to Kinshearth for my own selfish purposes. I'm sorry to put you in harm's way," Laina apologized as she wiped the tears off her face with one hand. 

Laina placed one hand over her heart, "I promised to keep you safe yet I failed. For that, I am truly sorry. I too had underestimated Kragen."

She took both of Victoria's hands into her own and looked deep into her eyes. 

"But that's going to change. From this point forward, I promise that I will do everything in my power to ensure that he can never harm you ever again."

<Writing Prompt #11 - Your Place Or Mine (Includes a snarky rabbit, shovel, seahorse, and a token)>

Dedicated to Chrystal_Sands

Burrowing through the soil, Tunnels, the rabbit, was growing increasingly impatient. Not to mention, its recently groomed white fur coat was slowly getting covered in dirt. Tunnels was an indoor rabbit since birth.

A lovely little girl by the name of Lizzie was his owner. 

"Argh, where is that thing?" he exclaimed in annoyance as he continued to burrow into the dirt. 

Just an hour ago, Lizzie had accidentally left the Tunnel's cage door open. While he normally would have remained in the comforts he had been accustomed to, he had grown hungry and his food bowl was out of food. 

Wanting to be fed, he escaped from his cage to look for Lizzie, only to end up in the backyard after wandering through a half-opened backdoor of the house. The bright sunlight and smell of freshly cut grass permeated his senses. 

A little crow had noticed Tunnels. At first, the crow wanted to help the white rabbit, but his snippy attitude gave the crow an idea. It told Tunnels that there was a token buried in the soil. If he dug it up, he could wish upon it for all the food he wanted. 

"Are you sure it's in here?" Tunnels asked the crow. 

"It is! It is!" the crow squawked, "Maybe a shovel would help."

Tunnels turned to look at the crow, "A shovel?" 

The crow scanned the entire backyard. It flew over to the small shed and perched on the handle of the shovel. 

"Shovel! This one!" the crow explained. 

Tunnels looked over and shook his head as he grumbled, "Too far! Too much work to bring it back. I'll just dig quicker."

As his tummy began to grumble, Tunnels grew increasingly impatient. Just as he was about to give up, he felt a hard surface against his soft paws. As he swiped away the dirt, it could see something shiny. 

It was a circular coin. It had a gold shine to it. The crow flew down and stood next to the hole that the rabbit had dug. Tunnels took the token out, placing it on the ground next to him. Just as he was examining it, he heard the voice of a human. 

"Oh dear, who left the door open like this?" the voice asked. 

What followed was the click of the door latch as the door swung close. In a state of panic, Tunnels hopped over to the door, rubbing his paws against the door. 

"Hey! I've been locked out!" he yelled.

But no one could hear him. When he turned back to ask the crow for help, the crow was nowhere to be seen. It had flown away after hearing the voice of a human. Tunnels was all alone. 

All he had left was the token that was supposed to give him some crunchy carrots. He had decided that it would be what he asked for. Tunnels hopped over to the hole he had dug, thinking about the juicy carrot he was going to get.

"Wait!" he exclaimed in shock, "Where did it go?!" 

He dug the hole a little deeper, but the token was nowhere to be seen. The crow had taken it with him. Now, Tunnels was all alone, with nothing. His fur coat was dirty from all the dirt and soil, he was hungry and he could no longer go home. 

Thunder rumbled overhead, startling the little rabbit. He looked up. Water droplets began to fall from the sky. Tunnels quickly dodged the rain as he hid underneath a broken flower pot for shelter. 

Just then, he heard the door getting unlatched. There was hope for him! As soon as the door unlatched, Tunnels came out of his hiding spot and made a dash into the house. 

"Hey woah! What was-" the human who opened the door was Lizzie's father. 

Tunnels ran straight into the house. But Lizzie's father, who did not see what it was, assumed Tunnels was a rat that came running into the house. So, a game of cat and mouse began. Or in this case, a game of a human and rabbit. 

The dirt-covered rabbit did not look back, he hopped all over the place, carefully avoiding Lizzie's father. His feet stomped onto the ground like a giant. Tunnels could feel his heart in his throat as he quickened his pace. He hit underneath the side table. 

Lizzie's father did not notice it. He rammed his foot into one of the legs of the side table and fell to the ground wincing in pain. As he did so, the ceramic seahorse crashed onto the ground. Tunnels jumped as he saw the ceramic seahorse shatter into pieces before his eyes. 

"Good thing that's not me," Tunnels said to himself.