Broken Wings

Chapter One

It was Dania’s screams that brought Mera awake. Shrill and resonant with pain and terror, the child’s cries had her out of the bed and rushing ahead of her husband into the family room of the aerie. She came to an abrupt, disbelieving halt just inside the doorway. Her blood thickened, congealing in terror as she saw the creatures awaiting her.

In the middle of the room, grinning evilly in the flickering light of the thick candle on the small altar where the statues of the gods were displayed, stood the nightmares of the past, the vilest creatures ever known to the Winged Clans.

Ralnd, who had rushed in behind her with sword raised, lowered it as the daggers pressed dangerously into the throats of their three babes. Their daughter cried out in desperation, her tiny wings fluttering in terror against the black-garbed chest of the human who held her. The twins, Aaroen and Gable, were silent, desperate to appear brave. She saw their fear, but also their belief that Papa would save them.

With the humans were the Vultures. They were the vilest of the Clans, nightmares thought extinct. Their black wings were dull, as though dirt and oil coated their feathers, large stocky bodies with their thick muscular arms pinning her sons against their chests. They watched her with narrowed, leering eyes, their evil grins tight and promising long-nourished retribution.

“Gods, this is not possible,” Ralnd whispered as his sword was jerked roughly from his hand.

One of the Vultures crossed the room. His black eyes were malevolent, his expression cold and cruel.

“All things are possible. Is this not what your White Lance priests teach you?” he sneered.

The Vulture Clan had been destroyed centuries ago and sent into the bowels of the Seven Hells. How had such an evil breed been brought back from extinction? And why had they once again aligned themselves with the human, demon-worshipping Elitists?

Ralnd pulled Mera close to his chest, but the warmth of his body, the strength she knew it contained, could do little to comfort her. The Vulture and human force numbered too many, and the tales of old rushed back to her with sickening clarity. Their brutality was remembered well, despite the centuries since their defeat.

“What do you want? We have nothing of value within the aerie. You know that such things are stored in the Fortress.” Mera heard the vein of fear in her husband’s voice and it caused her knees to weaken.

That tone, added to the tearful pleas of her daughter, was more than she could bear.

“Too bad.” The leader of the Vultures scanned Ralnd with contempt and loathing. “And here we so hoped such practices had changed in the centuries we’ve been gone.”

“Please.” Mera could not keep the terror from her voice. “Please let the children return to their rooms.

They are of no threat to you.”

The black gaze, flat and devoid of compassion or warmth, turned to her now. Mera watched, trembling as those eyes went over her body, scantily clad as it was in the thin nightgown. She flinched at the cold smile that edged those narrow lips as he paused to survey her breasts. She wanted to scream, to rail at the fates and the gods above that these creatures had chosen her aerie to invade.

It was too late for railing, too late to scream or to plead, but she knew she would do both before the night was finished.

“She’s right, the children pose no threat to you,” Ralnd said, his voice soft and reasonable. “Let them return to their room. They are just babes.”

Mera whimpered as the dagger dragged lightly over her daughter’s throat and the child’s eyes widened in growing terror. Dania was so frightened she could not even cry now. Shock glazed her eyes and she trembled with her terror.

“We could do that.” The leader cast a look to one of his brothers. “Stand silently and still while you are restrained, then we’ll send the babes on their way.” Mera felt Ralnd tense. The thought of being restrained, unable to fight or fly in the event of deception, was more than he could bear, she knew. But the jagged whimpers of the babes did what nothing else could have. Ralnd nodded shortly.

The humans tied them with practiced skill, twisting their hands behind their backs, beneath their wings and binding them with rope. Mera’s eyes stayed on Dania’s, fighting to offer hope, though she sensed there was no hope left.

The Vultures moved behind the humans, watching, their eyes flat and emotionless.

“Let the children go now,” Ralnd reminded them.

The smirk that curved the leader’s face sent a tear falling from Mera’s eyes. Evil, dark and cruel defined that harsh slash of a smile.

“Not yet, but soon.” He moved closer, his eyes glittering, and she could not contain her harsh cry as he touched her cheek. She jerked back—the vile smell of his body was more than she could bear, and she nearly gagged at the stench. His eyes narrowed and a gleam of fierce anticipation colored his expression.

“Release the children, my friends,” he said softly.

For a moment Mera thought they meant to keep their word as each child fell to the floor. Then she screamed, agony washing over her in waves.

“No!”

The children cried out at first. With each brutal blow, each bone-breaking impact of large fists and each demented kick, they screamed. They fought, their little wings flaring out to beat at their captors, even as Mera struggled for release from the Vultures holding her back, battled to reach her babies and shield them with her own body.

But the hands that restrained her were too strong as a brutal fist to the side of her head rendered her nearly senseless with pain. Ralnd fought fiercely beside her, his own wings extended, beating at the Vultures until a blow from a sword sent him to his knees. The harsh cry torn from his throat joined the last broken screams of her children.

The Vultures and the Elitists now circled the room, laughing at their handiwork. They extended the children’s limp wings and brutally hacked them off with their swords as blood sprayed the room. They groped into the mangled and torn flesh of the wings until they pulled from them one of the small circular discs that attached cartilage and bone to flesh.

Mera collapsed as Dania’s wings fell to the bloodied floor beside the child’s broken body. The sightless blue eyes stared toward her, horror and pain frozen forever in her daughter’s shattered face.

Those who held Ralnd continued to rain blows on his weakened body, pushing him closer to the edge of unconsciousness. Mera prayed now for the darkness herself, but the Vultures had yet to strike her with the strength needed to take her from this unbearable moment.

“Damn, they didn’t put up much of a fight, Graden.” The Vulture leader stood over the broken bodies of the children, his voice filled with disappointment. “I expected more from Eagle whelps.” Mera forced herself to watch them moving about her home, their feet carelessly tracking the blood of her babes across the stone floor.

“Kill while you can, diseased leavings of Cinder. When King Dearn learns of this he will hunt you down and leave your bodies for the winds of Sorin to strip bare of skin and life as you are borne to the darkest reaches of the Seven Hells,” Mera cursed him.

Hatred filled her heart. She knew now that nothing or no one could save her and Ralnd. Their fate had been written the moment the Vultures and the humans stepped into her home.

“Ah, such fire and hatred.” The Vulture leader walked to her, kicking Ralnd a fierce blow as he passed.

“Would you give me a fight, little angel?”

The agonized expulsion of breath that came from her husband’s body ripped through Mera’s soul. Gods help them, their own horror was just beginning. She watched the Vulture leader’s hand move to his crotch and tighten about the flesh there.

“I’ll spare your lives for a price, angel.” He grinned down at her now. “Spread your thighs and welcome me, and I will spare your husband.”

“No!” Ralnd’s desperate denial was cut off as a foot landed painfully in the flesh of his stomach.

Mera turned her head, meeting the pain-ridden eyes of her mate, and in them she saw the same

knowledge she could feel beating with wings of despair in her belly.

“Like you spared my babes?” She turned back to the monster looming above her. “I would never bow to your diseased and filthy body. I would prefer death to your touch.” She watched his eyes narrow, the black glitter in them more terrifying than anything she had known in her life. It was like watching Cinder himself stare down at her, his eyes filled with lust and contempt.

“Tie her to her bed and let her mate watch.”

Hands gripped her arms as laughter roared around her, and Ralnd’s desperate struggles finally penetrated the haze that paralyzed her. She fought the blows intended to weaken her as they tied her spread-eagle on her marriage bed. She screamed, she cursed and sought to tear with her teeth what she could no longer reach with her nails. It did nothing to halt their play or their enjoyment of it.

When she felt the first demon tear into her body, she screamed until she felt her throat shatter. After that, no other cries would come from it, only the desperate, mindless whimpers as agony spread through her.

She strained against her bonds, her hands forming claws, her legs fighting against the ropes binding her.

Mera could hear Ralnd as well, fighting to aid her, his broken protests of such degradation filling their bedroom. Time after time, they raped her, hit her, cut her with the sharp blades of their daggers. As the last began to loosen his pants, the Vulture leader walked to Ralnd and slowly, painfully, pushed his dagger into her mate’s chest.

Mera stilled. She was unaware of the last Vulture as he raped her. Her gaze was locked with the sightless, agonized gaze of her mate. She felt her body tremble; then, slowly, the only life left in her was that of her heart pumping, her lungs filling by instinct. She no longer felt the fists that bruised her body or the knives that nicked at the slow pulse of her veins. All she knew was her mate and the blood that oozed from the edges of the dagger, spilling slowly down his chest as his skin turned ashen.

Distantly, she heard the leader’s jeers, but on some instinctual level she also felt his disappointment. He had not gained from this night’s work the pleasure he had meant to.

“Worthless white whore.” Mera heard his insult as she felt the thick expulsion of his seed into her body once more.

She turned her eyes to him. She wanted to speak, but no words would form. As he gave a final grunt and she felt him pull his weakening member from her body, she sneered and mouthed the words she could not voice.

“Soulless, gutless slither.”

She watched him flush. His fist collided with her face, spraying her blood on the wall beside her bed.

Yet, she felt no pain now; it was mercifully numbed—only the vibrations of the blow were felt.

“Let her bleed out. Let the whore suffer.” He tightened his pants with a jerk of his hands and Mera sneered.

Her death might be slow, but she knew it would not compare to the death this viperous monster would know. Soon, there would be those who would miss her family, and the Vultures’ return would be known.

Then, Dearn would find them all, and they would suffer as they had never suffered before.

Daggers pricked her flesh, tearing into her with the smallest of slices. Let her bleed out, he had ordered, and she knew then what he meant—a slow, painful death. One that would give her time to remember, over and over again, what he had done.

Mera stared at the ceiling, refusing to watch, refusing to remember, refusing to stare at her broken mate.

She would not cry, not while they could see and revel in her pain.

Suddenly, she thought of their newborn, left sleeping in her cradle in the corner. She had a brief memory of an intruder with oddly colored wings lifting the child from its bed. The child had not cried. Its blood had not joined that of its brothers and sister. Gods save her, where was her baby?