CHAPTER 196: THROUGH YOU...

[ Old World - Greater Woods...Misty Battle field...continued from where Kieran took the blow ment for Autumn!]

"Kieran! Open your eyes! I swear, you just can’t... just can’t do this to me! Open your eyes for fuck’s sake! We need to get out of here! Kieran please! "

But he lay as motionless,as still as the rocks and stones on the forest bed...

Autumn could feel the hostility growing around her...she could feel herself choking... she knew they wouldn’t be able to hold for too long and that they must find an escape... yet it all meant nothing, because Kieran wasn’t moving... and she refused to admit that she could no longer feel his breath...

She kept calling... She kept fighting... And then, suddenly, there was a window of relief...

The mist convulsed, pulling back as if to make way for the final kill.

Autumn didn’t even see the movement..only the shadow of a limb rising, the glint of void-light where the creature’s face might have been.

And then...

"YOU DON’T TOUCH MY DAUGHTER ON MY WATCH...YOU FILTHY SICK ABOMINATION!!!"

Thorgar leaped in front of Autumn.

He didn’t just step between them...he slammed forward like a living wall, both hands wrapped around the haft of his axe as he swung upward in a brutal, earth splitting arc. Steel tore through enraged shadow. The ground shook.

The creature shrieked and recoiled, but Thorgar didn’t let it breathe. He advanced, hacking, driving it back blow after blow. It was clear, he was no longer being defensive... he was going all in for the offense.

Each strike was heavier than the last despite his dimming strength...it was less a technique and more like desperation... like rage induced stamina that came naturally to someone like Thorgar.

"Come on, you black souled wraith! What the fuck are you even doing on this sacred land?!" Thorgar bellowed. "I will carve your name into the dirt you crawled from! And then I will find out how you I filtrated a place like this...before uprooting your evil source and sending you back to the deepest hell...seal you and your evil kind for the rest of your ugly lifetime...come on,now! Show me what you got..!"

The air electrified alive with violence.

Thorgar’s claws scraped steel, mist hissing around him, roots tearing under the force of his boots. The forest itself seemed to hold its breath.

But behind him, nothing changed at all. Kieran still didn’t move. And Autumn still didn’t blink.

Her knees sank into the cold earth as she bent over Kieran’s still body.

"Kieran... please," she whispered, shaking his shoulder. "Please look at me. Say something.We have to get out of here, Kieran...I can feel the babies are kicking violently...they are getting restless,Kieran.I think they are scared...please help me! "

His chest didn’t rise even though Autumn slammed her fists repeatedly over it.

Her hands fumbled for his fingers as she pressed them against her cheek, searching desperately for movement...for warmth...anything...but her palms only found the roughness of his stubble, the chill of his forearm...

"Kieran, don’t you dare put me through this ," her voice cracked. "Don’t you dare make me worry like this in my pregnancy...I swear I am not at all in a good mood and I..."

A roar split the air behind her...

Thorgar was taking the offensive again, forcing the creature back. He wasn’t holding back anything anymore...but that was bad news...it meant they had even less time than Autumn thought...

At this rate Thorgar wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer... She needed to find a way to get both her father and her mate out of this hell... along with herself...

Thorgar’s rage came down in its purest form, and it thundered through the clearing like an avalanche.

"You think you can drain me?!" Thorgar shouted mid swing. "I am the son of storms...you will choke before I do!"

The clang of his axe rang like a war drum.

But despite the urgency...Autumn was starting to feel disorientation...Her world had narrowed to Kieran’s immobile face and what it could actually mean... she was fighting her own thoughts, fighting the growing discomfort in her belly...

The mist kept trying to creep closer, curling around her neck, her throat...like cold fingers, but she stayed where she was, brushing hair from his forehead with trembling hands.

Her tears hit his cheek, slipping down towards his jaw.

"Kieran... just breathe.I will never forgive you if you..." But then she slapped herself. " Oh come on Autumn! Stop being a pathetic damsel in distress! No other help is coming... you need to save the day... you need to save all of them... save your family! Come on! You have faced worse days! "

A shadow darted near her peripheral...the creature was trying to break past Thorgar...but her father’s roar split through again...

"STAY. AWAY. FROM. HER!"

The ground shuddered as he slammed the butt of his axe into the earth, sending a shockwave through the mist. His chest heaved, blood slicking his vest, but his eyes burned with fury. Even wounded, even slowing down, he fought with the reputation of his name...the kind of fight that war songs of the old remember.

It felt like the mist howled...or maybe it was the creature...

Autumn sat up, her eyes narrowed as she tried to focus... her vision strained and miraculously it cleared all of a sudden... she could see through the mist... the haze...

She could see her father and the creature clearly... and she could also see Velor flailing at the edge of the misty land... not completely unconscious but still babbling, looking up at the sky, like a lunatic...

Something came over, Autumn... she could feel this was her last straw... she had to make use of him...somehow...

Autumn’s chest rose and fell sharply. It was as if she was thinking with her breath!

She could hear her own heartbeat hammering in her head...deafening over the clash of steel and shrieking shadow..

And then she felt something in her womb... something she had felt before... when she was locked up in the attic... this feeling, she immediately remembered... understood...

The only difference was that it started in her womb this time, instead of her fingers. Like a ripple.

No...more than that.

It was as if something deep inside her was desperately trying to wake up again...

At first, it was only warmth...like a fire in the pit of her belly. But it grew, pushing outward, radiating through her chest, her limbs, then reaching the very tips of her fingers.

She gasped and clutched her stomach, not from pain, but from the sheer force of it.

Her children.

Their heartbeat.

This energy. It was intense!!!

It was flowing into her... through them...

Her eyes flicked towards Velor again, still writhing and mumbling on the mist’s edge, and a strange, instinctive thought came unbidden in her head... she commanded into his head, as if through a mind link ( that did not exist) , "Move!"

The warmth surged down her arms. She reached out with her hand, pushing the air... touching Velor’s shoulder.

Velor’s right hand twitched.

Her breath hitched. " It worked?"

She focused harder, narrowing her eyes, every muscle tightening. " Move again."

This time his fingers curled.

A dangerous grin cut across Autumn’s face despite the chaos.

"Oh... oh, you have no idea what you have just given me,babies.Thanks for helping out mommy! I will make it up to you, my little ones..." She pressed a kiss on two fingers before rubbing it once over her lower abdomen and then her attention was back on the battlefield.

She stood up tall on both feet, Kieran still lying motionless behind her. Her hand clenched, fingers curling into a fist...and Velor’s hand mirrored it exactly.

She tilted her head to one side, and Velor’s followed like a puppet’s.

The connection was... intoxicating.

Her lips curled into a snarl. "Get up, Alpha.Time for some action..."

Velor’s body jerked like a marionette dragged upright. His head lolled before snapping into alignment with her own posture. She exhaled a long, steady breath, grounding herself in the rhythm of it.

Just ahead of her, the ground quaked under her father’s blows.

"COME AT ME!" Thorgar roared. "I SAID COME AT ME, YOU ROTTEN CARCASS!"

The creature’s claws raked across his shoulder..."Argh! " It wrung out the first real cry from Thorgar’s lips. It was that deep!

But Thorgar didn’t even pause. He drove the haft of his axe into the beast’s ribs, making it stagger.

Autumn’s voice came low, cold, " Alpha Velor... time to attack."

The mist swirled violently as Velor’s body launched forward with inhuman speed, his movements jerky at first...but then smoothing as she fed him more of that strange, pulsing energy.

She felt everything...The flex of his muscles, the swing of his weapon,the impact as his blade met the shadow.

The creature reeled at the dual impact!

Thorgar’s grin was savage when Velor appeared at the beast’s flank. "Well now... that’s more like it, mutt!" He must have thought Velor had finally come back to his senses... he had no idea Autumn was orchestrating the whole plot twist!

Their coordinated assault continued.

From the front, Thorgar’s axe cleaved downward, sparks erupting on contact. From behind, Velor’s blade sliced across, catching the creature in places it could no longer defend.

The thing’s shrieks shook the air, sending the mist spiraling higher, but Autumn’s grip didn’t waver.

She was going all in, feeling Velor’s stance, his Alpha energy, pushing him to drive harder, faster.

"Don’t stop," she whispered, though the words were for herself as much as for him. "Push it. Break it. This will have to end now."

And for the first time since the fight began... the creature actually stumbled in fear...and looked like it was confused!