A gong sounds, making me hiss through clenched teeth. The ground shakes as something large comes ever closer, cracks spider webbing from the paws tearing into the grass with inch-long claws. A wall separates me and this creature from the outside world, but we have an audience.

I jump, barely missing claws seeking purchase on my arm.

The creature roars her fury, eyes deepening from amber to a dark, dark red.

“Get ‘er, Ran!”

I snap my head around at my brother, Jack, almost losing the item clenched in my fist when Ran pounces.

I duck and roll, coming up running. “Who’s… side… are you… on?” I shout between heaving breaths.

He laughs when a velveteen claw swipes my legs out from beneath me.

I roll and roll again, feeling the breath of death on the back of my neck, making my hairs stand on-end. I scramble up, but not quickly enough.

Ran pushes me to the ground, growling. She barely pricks me with her paws. I still beneath her like a rabbit caught by a wolf.

Cause that’s pretty much what I am.

“A full fifty seconds that time, minx,” Hans says, his voice devoid of emotion. But I can read what he’s really saying.

I blow a strand of dirty blonde hair from in front of my eyes, raising my head to meet Hans' sparkling blue gaze in an otherwise stern face. The man who has become like a second father to me and adopted me as his niece. He’s a good man, but a harsh taskmaster.

Once I got to where I could best Hans at hand to hand half the time, he sicced Ran on me.

Totally unfair. She’s a giant wolf with saber teeth, for crying out loud. Of course I’m not gonna be able to beat her!

“I know, I know. I lasted a full turn last time. Could we please get back to archery practice?” I beg, practically groveling.

He strokes his beard, thinking. He props his leg up from where he’d been using it as a seat, leaning his elbow on his knee. Then his blue eyes turn back to me, sparkling. “No.”

I groan, doing a faceplate into the dirt.

Ran lets out a weird chittering chuckle.

Oh, that’s funny, is it? I hiss at her through our internal link. For a Bonded Timber Wolf, she’s sure unsympathetic to my plights.

She doesn’t respond verbally, but her humor and excitement to once again hunt me comes loud and clear over the tendril of gold-like thread I like to think is how my mind sees our Bond.

“Get off, you big lug!” I try to push up, but she’s heavy. Her paw takes up most of my back, and if that isn’t enough to grant a picture of her size, she’s as big as a 14.2 hand pony. I know. I finally measured her.

It was quite humorous, because my beautiful Bond wants to be as big as a horse. Well, golly, she’s a whopping inch from being considered horse-sized.

She growls into my ear, then licks it.

I shove her head away with one flailing hand. Ran! Bad wolf. Stop it!

She does it again, much to my brother’s delight. His chuckles grow into full-blown belly laughs, and it warms my heart even as my ear and neck get slathered in wolf-sized monster saliva.

Not too long ago, he, my sister, and mother were all taken hostage by a snake of a man. He was actually a monster, complete with scales, red eyes, crazy abilities… the full package. He could control objects… I think through the wind.

That is, until I stabbed him in the throat the night I rescued my family. Then Ran ate him.

Not kidding. Ran thinks it’s wasteful not to eat dead things. Most of the time I fight her and she concedes to my squeamishness… as she calls it. I call it respect for the dead. Plus, I don’t wish for her to gain a taste for human flesh. But that time… the man had come back to life after I thought he was dead the first time. I wouldn’t make that mistake twice. I doubt anything can come back from being digested.

But it turned out he was part of a larger plan… a plan to take out the echelons of society and remake Beulah in the image of some other world called La'Maciago.

The King put a bit of a stick in their plans when he went all hoodoo on me and talked to the enemy through me.

Yeah… it was an interesting experience. Wouldn’t recommend it. But it also helped me see deeper into his heart… which I would recommend. Being his mouthpiece was as weird as it sounds, but feeling his heart? That was… something else entirely.

So the laughter of Jack, free and healing from both internal and external wounds, is a balm to my soul. This is the first time the nurse has allowed him outside the house, and the bruises covering his face still make my heart heavy. When I rescued them… he was not himself. And for good reason. They’d been in the hands of my enemies for so long. At the time, I was terrified I would find them dead, but I got them back.

But The King saw fit to give me all the resources I needed to get them out. But they had lost the childlike joy I had tried so hard to help preserve for them in a world of evil and have the wounds to prove it, on both their hearts and their skin.

And now I must enter a competition for a prince I once loathed to make sure this other world doesn’t take over mine while entering the upper echelons as a noble. Well... as Sir Ri. The nobles won’t know Sir Ri, Aria Rosen, and the vigilante known as the Guardian are all one and the same.

Well, at least I hope they never know. That could be bad.

Oh, and I must go to my debut ball tomorrow, my first one as a noble. Well, it’s my first ball, period, but I was really hoping never to attend one. Balls impede on my time as a caped vigilante helping the small folk of Risia... but now I need to give that up because it’s become dangerous for my family, so I should have more time to go to balls.

Doesn't mean I want to.

Even so, it'll be a bit of a stretch trying to spend time with my family, train, compete for Prince Protector, try to be something of a noble, and try not to get killed by monsters from another world.

My life is a little crazy right now.

Ya think? Ran says into my head, now licking my matted hair with her tongue, something warm and slightly oily like a slimy slug dripping down my neck.

OFF OFF OFF! I shout in my mind, and she slowly, laboriously, gets off after one last lick.

Hans helps me up, his lips twitching.

“Not. A. Word,” I seethe.

He full blown grins, showing straight white teeth beneath his beard. “Didn’t say a thing. But the poor baby,” he says.

He takes the tiny doll from my hand.

And I realize the head is four feet away, somehow plopped off in my… fight… with Ran.

I scrunch up my shoulders, trying to scowl at the wolf licking her paws.

She takes no note of my metaphorical daggers.

But neither can I stay mad at her for long. I plop down on the ground, Jack dropping beside me as Hans goes to retrieve another doll. Jack winces, and I glance at him in concern but he waves me off. But he sits with a straight back and Ran's nose twitches and somehow I can sense the metallic tang of blood on the air through her nose. He's pulled the stitches... again.

But when I glance at him, he glares, daring me to say a word. I snap my mouth shut and nod. He wants to be a man and push through the pain, something I deeply respect, even as I wish I could take it all from him.

But then... maybe I can?

Rider, don't, Ran says softy, ears perked and eyes boring into me. You could endanger his life should you try to pull the pain from one you aren't bonded to.

As much as it hurts, I nod and let go of my Gift.

Hans places the poor headless doll beside those who have so far… died. One was bitten in half, another was dropped in a fountain of water, and another was scorched to death despite there being no fire for miles around.

Don’t ask.

Ran flicks her ears, and I hear something thump into the courtyard over the edge. There’s only one I know of who could make such an entrance. If it’s not him, me and Ran are already screwed, anyhow. The person's too close and she wouldn’t be able to hide in time—scratch that.

Where’d she go?

The assassin who helped me get my family out and stayed by my side through a journey through underground caverns over-ripe with enemies saunters into Hans’ courtyard as if he owns it.

His hood is pulled up so all I can see is his broad shoulders and a hint of his strong jawline and rounded lips. Twin pin-pricks of silver dart around the yard before settling on me.

A hint of a smile twitches his lips.

Ran pounces from the bushes, and he’s knocked flat on his back with a large wolf trying to lick his face off.

Mmmm. Yummy.

Ewww, Ran! I scold, but she takes no heed.

I sigh.

Welcome to my life.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, wiping away wolf slobber from my hair and face then plopping back on the ground, sitting cross-legged.

He sends me a smirk, leaning over to pluck a leaf from my hair. "Are you not happy to see me?"

I bat his hands off, trying to scowl but unable to hold it since his silver eyes glimmer with happiness. “Seeing as you either show up when I’m about dead or about to go into a fight for my life… yeah, no,” I say.

Ran shoots me a look, her ears laying flat against her skull. Liar.

I ignore her, smoothing back my hair and trying not to slouch.

My hair's plastered to my forehead from sweat and the dunking Ran gave me in the fountain earlier, plus I’m covered in dirt and grass stains. Silver has seen me much worse than this. So what, exactly, am I worried about?

Silver chuckles, dropping something in the dirt beside me. “You dropped this.”

I pick it up. It’s the knife from last night… the knife I dropped and… forgot.

Great. Just… great.

I peek up at Silver, and his eyes are glimmering with more than mere happiness. And his lips are pressed as if holding in laughter.

Ran strolls up, snuffling at the blade. How could you forget this?

I tuck it away in its sheath. Quickly.

I scratch my head and give a chuckle that sounds awkward even to my ears.

“Perhaps I could have kept it, seeing as it is my blade,” Silver says, tapping the sheath where one of my blades lies from where we traded blades a while back.

I clutch protectively at the knife, sending Silver a scathing glare. He finally releases that blasted chuckle and plops beside me on the grass, stretching out one leg and resting an elbow on the other.

“How are you?” he asks, not looking at me.

I glance around at the hedges and cobblestone walkways between sheds, but Hans and Jack have mysteriously disappeared. I would do anything to have either of them as a distraction at the moment.

“I’m fine,” I finally reply, resisting the urge to draw my knees to my chest and hug them.

I sense his eyes on me, but this time I’m the one avoiding his gaze. He sighs. “Mea tigris,” he chides softly.

I shake my head. “I really am. I’m already healed from last night, not a scratch except for what Ran has given me this morning.” I glare at the wolf lounging in the sunlight, but she doesn’t even open her eyes to acknowledge me. “And how are you?” I ask in return, eyeing him.

He meets my gaze for a moment, then looks away. “Alright. I’ll accept that.” His eyes rove the bubbling fountains and shadows between us and the wall around the Hans’ Estate. “I’m juggling too much and disappointing many.”

I snort. “Then they don’t see your worth.”

His head jerks from studying the wall and the guards on top. “Am I growing on you?” he asks, a smirk pulling at his lips.

I glare, but have to bite my lip to keep it in place. “Of course not. I’m only pointing out how hard you work. They should respect you for how hard you try, not just for what you can or cannot do.”

He shakes his head, his toupee-like hair swishing on his forehead. “You are too kind for this world, Aria. But that does lighten my heart.” I smile. “How’s your family settling?” The smile deserts my face as if it were never there.

I give into the urge to hug my knees. “They’re strong. But not entirely strong enough. Jack’s back still hurts him, and Jill has yet to speak more than a few sentences to me. Mom is… she’s trying to be fine, but I can see how the past years have taken something from her. Something I’m not sure she can get back.”

“Then we will help her find something new. Losing pieces of your old self is not always bad. When things are ripped from you and you must fill the hole, there is pain as it heals, but there can be good to come. It takes a strong person to get through so much and still allow joy to find you.”

I give a wry smile. "It takes one to know one," I say softly, meeting his gaze that softens as his silver eyes twinkle with something I can't entirely define.

He smiles and rises. I watch him with a questioning brow, but he doesn’t even glance back as he stalks without a sound around the corner of the shed.

When he returns, he’s carrying a single white rose. He eases down beside me, not looking up as he strips the bloom of its bottom leaves. He hisses as a thorn from the rose pricks his finger, sucking the blood from his thumb like a child, and I can't help but smile. “This flower was part of a bigger whole. But now, it’s alone. I could place it in water; it would last a few beautiful days, then wilt. Or, I may clip its blossom and place it in soil. It will lose some of its beauty, but it can focus upon building roots it had never worried about before. With enough love and care, it can find a strength inside and grow its own roots. And then, and only then, will it bloom a hundred times over as it spreads its leaves and gathers its strength. It was forcibly plucked from its home, but now it has a chance to be something greater than it ever could have been had it remained on the mother plant.”

He rises smoothly to his feet. He gives me a gentle smile as he bows and hands me the rose. “A beautiful rose has her thorns, but her beauty is not in her bloom. Her beauty is in her growth.”

He disappears into the shadow, leaving me with a knife and a rose.

Plus a gaping jaw and strangely warm heart.

What in the worlds did I stumble onto with this man?