Saving Hibreon Ch. 01

This chapter follows Saving Hibreon: Prologue. If you like backstory, Wyfrost's is told in They're All Crazy, and Lost's story is Getting Lost. The plan for Saving Hibreon is to submit one chapter per month.

Thank you, RNebular and Krellyn, for editing. This would be a right mess without you!

I hope you all enjoy this, and as always, comments are welcome.

Guinevere A. Hart

***

Saving Hibreon: Chapter 1

Kytia joined Lost at the top of the stairs, and they stepped aside to make room for Wy. The hatch leading up into the throne room was made of sturdy wood and steel. The throne was similarly constructed, but the force of Lost's spell turned both of them into shrapnel. Slivers of wood and metal along with shards of stone flooring exploded upward, causing the Ay'niki in the room to dive for cover. Kytia couldn't see through the dust cloud that filled the chamber. Neither could the enemy. She observed her witch's chaos with a feral grin and charged her weapon.

The last time Kytia had been in the main hall was over three years ago, when the Ay'niki took everything from her. Guarding the queen had been her job, and she knew every part of the throne room without having to see it. Opposite her position, a set of doors opened on the courtyard. Risers adorned the right and left of the hall for audiences and petitioners. Behind and to either side of the dais they stood upon, a pair of doors led further inside the palace. Lost immediately turned and used her magic to jam those doors. If there was anyone on the other side who wanted a fight, they'd have to wait their turn.

The blue-skins were just coming out of their initial shock. They called to each other in their own language. Kytia had learned to speak Ay'niki early in her captivity. A voice stammered from the other side of the room, "What? What in Feru's name was that?" Feru was the Ay'niki goddess of commerce. Kytia almost spat. Then she remembered her face plate was down.

A steadier Ay'niki voice called out from a position nearer to Kytia and her companions. "Sound off," the voice commanded.

Oh, yes. Please sound off loud and clear, you fuckers. Kytia may not have been able to see her targets at that moment, but there was nothing wrong with her ears. As the Ay'niki sang out for their leader, she honed in on every voice. There were seven, she thought, including the leader. Three of their people were either dead, unconscious, or simply refusing the order to check in.

The first voice had come from the far end of the room just right of the large double doors leading to the courtyard. She turned to Wyfrost who waited for her order. She tilted her head in that direction and he moved off. For Lost, Kytia pointed upward. The witch gave a nod, her marks flared, and she floated toward the ceiling. It was Lost's job to keep them from getting shot, and her powers gave her the best vantage point to do that.

Lost's supernatural light pierced the gloom, and someone from the center of the room gasped, "What the hells is that?"

Kytia's smile grew sharper as she picked her way through the debris. She made a line for the leader and the two Ay'niki who were nearest him. She paused when their commander called out, "Wil, go get some help."

Still grinning, she gave them a second. Then, from the area by the exit, "Sir, the doors seem to be sealed shut." The guy ended on a note of rising panic. "I can't get them open!" Lost preferred to keep the party intimate, which was just fine with Kytia.

In the gargantuan armor, Wy's movements were anything but subtle. In seconds the Ay'niki by the door screamed, "Oh my gods, what the hells are you!?" Wy's dark laughter came across her comm along with the whine of an alien energy weapon. A flash from Lost's position let Kytia know that her witch had things well in hand. She let the sounds of Wy's fight fade away as she focused on her own job.

The dust began to settle, and Kytia could make out more of the room. A large Ay'niki console table dominated the center of the floor. She assumed she'd find her quarry there. Like a cat hunting a mouse, Kytia stalked the table. She heard another enemy energy weapon fire near the doors, but she trusted Wy had his own situation under control. She was locked onto where she thought she'd heard the leader.

Kytia leapt on top of the table, startling the three Ay'niki who crouched on the other side of it. Taking advantage of her position above them, she rained a series of sharp and rapid blows to their backs before they could get up. The three of them rolled from under the flailing ends of her staff and stood up. One of them ran for the doors immediately. She casually remarked into her comm, "Incoming, Wy."

"Yep," Wyfrost replied, "I'll get 'em."

She kept her staff in motion as the Ay'niki in the most decorated uniform straightened up to his full height. He puffed up his chest and leveled an alien hand-canon at her. She'd brought sticks to a gun fight, and that hand-cannon had to go. She dipped low and swung out towards his weapon. Locking the parts of her staff in a triangle around his forearm, she pushed off the table while twisting her hold on him. She jabbed his elbow and shocked the nerves there, forcing the Ay'niki to let go.

Though he'd lost his weapon, the Ay'niki sneered down his nose at her. With an arrogant tone, he asked, "Who are you? What do you want?"

She answered as politely as circumstances would allow. "I'm Red Mane, Coiled Dragon of Hibreon. I want you blue-skinned devils to free my people, and get the fuck out of my city."

He blinked in bewilderment and started to shake his head. He managed to get out a "But—"

Kytia was through talking, for the second Ay'niki crawled across the floor to try and retrieve the firearm. She spun away from the leader and lashed out with the full length of the staff to knock the weapon out of reach. It clattered to a halt at the base of the risers. If her opponent wanted it, he'd have to get passed her staff for it.

She snarled when an alien she hadn't seen previously hit her with one of their force-rods. The rods were used to prod slaves who were slow or defiant. They could also emit a powerful shock strong enough to knock a frost giant off his feet. Kytia's suit absorbed much of the initial lightning, as it was designed to do. Still, the nerves on the left side of her body thrummed in painful response.

She'd been a gladiator, trained by the Ay'niki themselves. All the pain did was make her more vicious. She activated the Eloua techno-magic in her staff while at the same time jabbing backward. The Ay'niki who'd hit her didn't expect her to be capable of retaliation. He received a solid blow to the gut that would continue to pain him long after the fight was over.

Kytia moved to keep all three of her enemies in her line of sight. The one trying to get his breath back still had his force-rod, and the one who'd tried to retrieve the gun had one as well. The leader stepped back away from her whirling sticks, leaving the other two to deal with Kytia. She could absorb one shock from their rods. If they managed to hit her both at once, she was done. Keeping the staff in constant motion, they couldn't reach her.

Then one of Ay'niki oddly began to get shorter. She glanced down and saw that the floor beneath his feet had liquified to a thick sludge. He tried to pull his legs out of the goo, but it was already solidifying around him. The Ay'niki screamed as veins of living stone crept up his legs and hips, rapidly spreading higher.

Kytia spoke to Lost through her comm. "Thanks, sweetie. But you're wrecking the floor."

"Pfft," Lost responded. "It's easier for me to fix the floor than your face."

The Ay'niki in charge nervously called out to his people that had moved to the front of the room. "How are we doing on that door, Wil? Linn?"

Wy loomed up out of the thinning dust. He had his shield in one hand, and two limp Ay'niki in the other. He dumped them at their leader's feet and answered for them. "Door's still stuck, asshole. Nobody's coming for you." To Kytia, Wy said, "Will you quit playing, and get this thing done?"

The leader made a sudden and desperate break for the door. Wyfrost simply extended his shield arm, and the Ay'niki smacked face-first against a wall of metal. The frost giant shoved and threw the alien back towards Kytia.

She "quit playing" and went to work on the leader and his remaining companion. She disarmed the one with the rod and beat him with a rapid succession of blows that sent him to the floor. She then locked the leader around the neck as she'd previously done his weapon arm. It took several seconds, but denied air and blood flow, the Ay'niki lost consciousness.

As she let him drop, a thunderous crack rang out from near the risers. She turned just in time to see one of Lost's portals open up right in front of her face. An explosive projectile could also be seen in the center of the portal. For a second, Kytia thought she was dead, then both the portal and the bullet were gone.

The portal reappeared in the face of the Ay'niki who'd fired the hand-cannon. A pocket of time slowed around the Ay'niki and the round now approached him instead of his target. Lost appeared beside him, though she was smaller the he, she seemed to intimidate him. She shook her finger at him and spoke as if to a misbehaved dog. "No. Bad." Then the portal disappeared again, taking the projectile with it.

At the same time, Wy dashed across the room. He tore the weapon from the stunned Ay'niki, then used it to clock him upside the head. The blue-skin dropped like a stone. Then Lost held out her hand to him expectantly. Wyfrost gave her a dubious frown, but he unloaded the weapon and handed it to her.

She held the thing in her hands and spoke a few quiet words. When she was through with her spell, the weapon had been completely broken down to its elemental components. Lost dropped the useless junk on floor and wiped her hands off on her suit.

Then she turned to Kytia, who was still in a state of shock, and asked, "You 'kay, Kytia?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so. Thank you."

Wyfrost rejoined her and gently removed Kytia's helmet. Shaken by what had nearly happened, he searched her face, as if he expected her to come apart before his eyes. He bent towards her and pressed his forehead to hers while he tried to get his breath under control. "You good?" he asked, a barely contained tremor in his voice.

Kytia was fairly certain she'd already answered that question. Before she could answer it again, Wy's mouth was on hers. A giant, metal clad hand cradled the back of her head, and his lips moved with hers in tender passion. When they parted, his eyes still closed, he breathed through an easy smile. "Yeah," he said, "You're good."

Kytia pulled herself together enough to smart off. "Hey, Lost, I was going to use that."

Lost turned to Kytia and said, "No. You not."

Kytia might have argued with her, but there was a look in the witch's big blue eyes that told her she probably shouldn't. "Seriously though, thank you, Lost."

Wyfrost interrupted them when he picked Lost up by the waist and lifted her high enough to get face to face with him. He grinned at her and she smiled back at him. He said, "Do you know that you're my favorite witch?"

"Yeah," Lost responded, "And you me best goat'nim, Wy." She teased him for his horns and shaggy white hair. He laughed and drew her in for a kiss.

Kytia looked on with a genuine smile and a deepening warmth. She'd been cold for so long, ever since the Ay'niki destroyed her life. She hadn't felt anything real until Wy and Lost. Now, no matter what happened, the three of them had each other.

An alien voice disrupted their moment. "What happens to me, now?"

As one, they all turned to look at the guy who'd been mostly swallowed up by the floor. Kytia had forgotten about him. Wy set Lost down beside Kytia and bent to retrieve his axe. He approached the Ay'niki and stood over him like he was about to split a log. Wy asked him, "What's your operation here?"

The guy tried to shrug, but his stone cocoon made it difficult. "We're a team of resource specialists and bio-asset analysts."

Kytia barked, "The fuck is that supposed to mean?"

He explained, "We're called in following an initial conquest of a new planet or habitat. We tap any environmental resource, and we test potential biological assets for placement. We tag everything, catalog it, and add it all to inventory for auction."

"Who has access to this data?" Kytia asked.

"It all goes to the Expanse Corps marketing department for proper distribution and sales."

"One more question," she said, tilting her head towards the doors that led further into the castle. "How many of you are occupying the palace?"

The Ay'niki frowned at Kytia and pressed his lips firmly together. Kytia shrugged and said, "Fine then. Wyfrost, kill him."

When the Norrhim casually raised his axe blade, the captive Ay'niki shrieked. "Twelve! There are twelve more. Four of them are armed guards, the rest are researchers. When the attack came, they barricaded themselves inside."

"Thanks. I'll be sure to let the Sil know how helpful you've been." Then Kytia turned to Wyfrost. "Lost and I are going inside to round up the other blue-skins. I want you to get on that console, and get our front gates open for the Sil ground troops that are waiting on us. Then I want you to get that data out of their system and destroy it. I don't want any more Hibreon business going to this dipshit's corporate whatever, and I sure as fuck don't want the Eloua to get it."

"Kytia, the Eloua are our allies. They're not going to—"

"Yeah, yeah. Just do it, Wy."

Wyfrost shrugged, "You got it, boss."

While Wy and Kytia questioned the Ay'niki, Lost made the rounds to the unconscious aliens and bound them. She then went to each of the doors to release her sealing spells. Lost passed by the stone clad Ay'niki, who looked up at her with a hopeful expression. She only smiled and patted his head before joining Kytia.

***

Wyfrost found it difficult to concentrate. Kytia could regenerate from wounds, even broken bones, but Wy was fairly certain she couldn't regrow a head. He had never been in love before. With Kytia, he'd fallen hard. They'd first met in the gladiatorial arena, pitted against one another. Wy thought he'd loved her from that very day. Whether it was a fight or sex, Kytia was someone who gave what she got and then some. She was all love or all hate, and a force of nature either way.

Then there was Lost. Where Kytia saw the world as black or white, Lost saw every color in between and maybe some colors nobody could see but her. As crazy elves went, she was by far the craziest. Once, she'd sewn closed the legs of all his underwear, then folded them and placed them back in the drawer. She was weird and quirky like that, but she could also be serious when she was needed.

He couldn't say exactly when or how it happened, but Kytia and Lost had become an integral part of who he was. Losing one of them would be worse than losing a limb. He gripped the edge of the console and tried to stop thinking about the shot that nearly took away a significant portion of his own soul.

"Nearly," Wyfrost said out loud.

"Nearly what?" the conscious Ay'niki prompted.

Wy turned to him and snapped, "Nobody's talking to you." As much as he loved them, his elves' crazy was rubbing off on him. He had a task to do and needed to focus.

His suit was supposed to help regulate his temperature. Though the throne room was spacious enough, he felt warm and stifled. It made him cross, which didn't help his concentration at all.

Wy studied the console and found the release switch that would open the outer gates to the city. Then he contacted the lead Eloua ship. "Command is secure. Go for Phase Three." The Sil would take over from there.

All he had left to do was find the data that Kytia wanted destroyed. He opened file after file, most of them were catalogs and cargo manifests. As their prisoner had said, they were testing, tagging, and shipping slaves to various Ay'niki territories. Instead of deleting the info, he transferred it to a storage crystal. What Kytia didn't know wouldn't hurt her, and they could use that information to help others.

While he worked, he absently tugged at the cowl around his neck. It seemed as though the garment grew tighter with each passing moment. The drug he'd been given had begun to wear off.

Still searching, he found a curious correspondence between their Eloua sponsor, Ambassador Araquies, and the Ay'niki stationed on Hibreon. It was sent shortly after the Eloua had helped Lost regain her memories. The Ambassador accused the Ay'niki of trespassing, as the Eloua had claim to Hibreon two centuries previous. The wording troubled him, and he knew it would trouble Kytia even more.

Before he could transfer the messages to storage, he had a sudden and irrational thought that his armor was shrinking around him. Wy panicked. His hands shook as he clawed at the fastenings, desperate to get out of the crushing suit.

In his struggle, he'd inadvertently opened his link and Kytia's tense voice was in his ear. "Wy, talk to me. What's going on?"

He shouted, "I need out! I can't breathe!"

The Ay'niki, still trapped in the floor, started to laugh at him. Wy didn't care about that. The alien metal suit was squeezing the life from him, and that was all that mattered.

Kytia's voice, calm and practical, came through. "Yes, you can, love. You've been in that tin can all day, breathing just fine. Can you hear my breath?"

"Y-yes. I can hear you."

"Then breathe with me." Kytia's breath was calm and steady.

On the first few, Wy struggled to match her rhythm. Once he managed to breathe properly, Lost's voice came to him. She softly and slowly recited the steps to release the seals on his suit. Her melodic pidgin soothed like a lullaby, and he was able to follow her instructions.

He had his head, chest, and arms free by the time his companions returned. Kytia was followed by a parade of bound Ay'niki, with Lost bringing up the rear. The hot-tempered Kytia went straight for the guy in the floor. He was still giggling at Wyfrost's predicament until, without preamble, she slammed a balled fist in his face.

Lost knelt in front of Wyfrost to help him with his greaves. He was instantly distracted by her beauty. Her petite body was clad in a skin-tight suit, revealing every delicate curve. He couldn't help but run his fingers through her tousled white-blond hair, releasing a pleasant balsam fragrance. Deep blue eyes smiled up at him. He let his eyes wander to her perky breasts, nipples delightfully erect beneath the thin alien fabric.

He thought of the night before, when he'd teased her nipples with his tongue. Kytia's face and fingers had been between Lost's legs. Lost had clutched at his horns, her back arching off the bed. Then Kytia sat up and kissed him. He remembered the sweet taste of Lost's sex on Kytia's lips...

"Hey!" At some point, Lost had risen to her feet. She patted Wy's chest to get his attention, and he reluctantly broke from his brief reverie. She looked up at him, waiting for something, but he couldn't figure out what she wanted. She lightly slapped one of his thighs. "Wy, step out!" she demanded.

Standing there in his under padding, his head dancing in a freak show of emotions, Wy felt his face turn red. He tried to shake off the intense desire to bed his mates. It was hardly the time or place, but the Eloua had warned him about the side effects. They weren't wrong. He did as he was told and stepped out of his armor.

Then he remembered the messages displayed on the Ay'niki console. He looked over and saw that it was too late. Kytia stood over the display. Her body was still. The absence of expression in her face was more distressing than if she'd been in a rage. "Kytia..." Wy started, but he realized he had no idea what to say.