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“Where is your warrant—”
Kellan wrapped his palm around my face to stop me from talking. “Wrong realm,” he whispered.
The guard gave me a crazy look as he walked inside the cabin. The spacious room suddenly felt small.
Kellan backed me into him as they walked around the home, searching for Ernest.
Kellan’s rough palms slid up and down my forearms in an attempt to calm me. Fern sat at the table, bouncing her legs and biting her bottom lip.
“Where is the old man?” one of the guards asked, stopping in the middle of the living room. “Where did he go?”
“To get herbs from the forest,” Kellan said.
The guard’s gaze shifted toward the herbs sitting on the arm of the chair in the corner. “Like those?”
“He sent us this morning, and we grabbed the wrong ones.”
Kellan’s ability to lie made me do a double take. Maybe being around for decades helped him because I sucked at it.
The other guard stopped in the hallway, the attic string hanging above him by a few inches. I felt my heart pound in my chest the longer he stood there.
“We should wait around,” he said, shifting his weight. “The king told us not to come back without him.”
Fern cleared her throat. “Why are you taking him?”
The tallest one shot her a look. “That’s confidential.”
I guess not all things were different from realm to realm.
A low groan in the wood of the ceiling creaked into the house. The guard underneath the attic glanced up. Seeing the string, he pulled it.
My heart stalled. Maybe Ernest had hidden. Though the crawl space didn’t look big. “I think someone is up there,” he said, turning to walk up the stairs.
The taller guard walked over, and I heard Kellan mumble under his breath. I watched in awe as he shoved me back onto the couch, making Fern gasp from the kitchen table and wield his sword from the air.
The guard on the ground turned and drew his sword, while the other backtracked down the stairs.
Fern gave me a worried look that mimicked the feeling of dread in my gut. Kellan stood tall, waiting on them both to ready themselves.
“I suggest you put down that sword, boy and surrender the old man.”
Kellan’s chuckle slid over my skin like silk. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. In fact, I don’t think either of you are leaving this cabin alive today.”
The shorter guard with the buzzed hair laughed.
Kellan took the opportunity to launch forward and knock his sword from his hand. It clattered onto the floor, drawing silence on the cabin.
My heartbeat pounded in my ears. The silence that drew over us split in half like broken wood and Kellan sliced the shorter guard across his face.
Blood splattered onto the dining table where Fern sat. She jumped up and put her back against the wall. Blood droplets hit her hair, and I watched as it stained the blonde strands.
Kellan spun around seconds later and slashed the other guard in the side, right at a break in his armor.
My mind stalled, watching this big man gracefully serve these guards their own ass on a platter. The quickness. The elegance. It looked unnatural for a man of his size, but it sent butterflies up my spine. It drew me into a trance. The way he dodged the guard’s sword, only getting hit once on his shoulder, but he never missed a beat.
In reality, it’d been seconds, but I felt like I’d watched him fight for hours. Both guards fell to the floor with a thump, drawing me out of my stupor.
“Oh my gosh,” I said in a hurried whisper.
