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STRANGER COMPANY
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SHE DIDN’T SEE HIM turn.
She didn’t feel him grip.
The next thing Savara’s disoriented brain knew was that her feet were dangling inches off the ground.
In the blink of an eye, the man had caught and hoisted her singlehandedly off the ground like the catch of the day. Curious eyes stared back at her with a stillness that made the night tremble. His movements, both cautious and predatory, matched his lion-esque reflexes. Face to face with the mysterious figure, she found he almost looked like one too.
Scratches on his squared jaw might have been made by some sort of creature. Ferocious strength and restraint left their own marks on him. Everything about him spoke of caution, of dominance.
Everything but his eyes. Irises a shade of blue just shy of indigo glowed beneath heavy brows. Looking into them, she glimpsed an open savannah sky full of stars. A lion on the outside, possibly, but on the inside, something else entirely. A spark of recognition flashed through his eyes.
Savara shivered under the force of his gaze.
He tightened his grip on her wrist, making her drop the rolling pin before pushing it far from reach. His movements were swift. Decisive. She didn’t doubt he could’ve incapacitated her with the same crushing grip. It was a wonder why he didn’t. The pressure snapped her back to the present, sending a rush of adrenaline through her veins. She came back kicking.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said calmly in a voice that could still seas. “Stop squirming before you hurt yourself.”
“You’ve killed two people already.” The words left an unpleasant taste on her tongue. “I can’t imagine you’d think twice about a third.” Savara tried to wriggle free, but his grip was too strong.
“That wasn’t me.”
“Liar!” If words had bite, this one matched a wolf’s. It came out with half a snarl and left her growling. A fire burned inside her as the world outside drowned in the storm.
“Calm down, Savara.”
“What did you say?” she whispered through clenched teeth, wondering how her name came to be on the stranger’s tongue.
Before the man could reply, Jasper came at him from behind with a thwack to the head that did nothing more than break the spoon. The stranger dropped her instantly and pinned Jasper to the ground.
Savara propped herself up enough to meet his eyes. Jasper’s arms jut out awkwardly from behind him as he squirmed in vain under the force of the man’s knee.
“Let him go,” she hissed. The demand came out with less ferocity than she’d hoped. Savara moved for the rolling pin, but an invisible force sent it rolling out of reach and clamped her to the floor.
“Let me explain,” the stranger replied.
“Let. Him. Go,” she tried again.
The stranger nodded cautiously and, with a final warning push of his knee, released Jasper. Savara too was freed from whatever force kept her in place. The man stood excruciatingly slowly and raised his hands to the height of his cheekbones, while Jasper got to his feet and stepped towards her, clenching his shoulder.
“I mean you no harm,” the man said, glancing back at the pair of them. His voice cut through the tension in the air like a smooth knife through warm butter.
Savara and Jasper exchanged a nervous glance but held their tongues.
“I assure you all is as it was when I arrived,” he continued.
“How do you explain your rifling through papers then?” Jasper growled as he rolled his shoulder back into place. “Sav, he’s lying. I can feel it.”
Savara scrutinised the hooded stranger, hitching on how her name came to be on his tongue, and frowning when their eyes met. An energy surrounded him, one that she hadn’t noticed before and that seemed to engulf the room. It almost felt as if he was the source of the strange power outage on the rest of the street. Without realising it, her fingers danced over the base of the middle finger, the spot that she always touched when things didn’t seem right.
The man raised an eyebrow irritably. “If I had intended to kill either of you, human, I would have done so when you were waiting behind the door.”
“Human? What do you think—” Jasper began, but Savara cut him off.
“That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here and why my family is...” she trailed off again, unable to voice the word. The thought alone brought tears back to her eyes that she refused to let fall. The man was either a murderer or a graverobber, but he would be joining her late family, regardless. Savara balled her fists, readying herself to lunge at the man when Jasper, with his one good arm, pulled her back. He squeezed her tightly into his chest as the murderous rage bubbled inside her.
“Sav,” he said softly. She knew he was only trying to help but all she wanted to do was scream. She wanted to tear the house down with the stranger still inside. “Sav,” Jasper repeated, waiting for her to stop shaking.
“But Jasper,” she whispered into his chest, still trying to process the world around her, “they’re...”
Dead. Glassy, fear-ridden eyes, dried blood, pallid skin, all the things that would haunt her nightmares—and only six years after her parents.
“I know,” he replied before she could get the word out. “I know,” he repeated in a soft comforting voice, but none of it stopped her trembling. “Explain yourself,” Jasper commanded the man, fearful still, but strong—for her.
Savara pried herself from Jasper’s arms as the man removed his hood. Despite her mistrust and whatever she’d imagined of him, he did not look like a killer—not totally, at least. Nestled in the shadows of his face was remorse, possibly borrowed to be worn like a mask on occasions such as these. But there it was. The curve of his mouth, the clench of his jaw, the furrow of his brow, all seemed earnest, though it did little to console her.
“I was called.” His eyes moved down the point of his chin and across the room to the frail old corpse in the armchair.
Even in death, old Hyrum looked as stately and extravagant a gentleman as ever. His beard remained in perfect shape, hovering over the gilded sword embedded in his chest. An expression of plain serenity plastered his wrinkled face. His suit, despite the puncture, held not a single crease. Hyrum was his own brand of being, without a doubt. Even as they looked upon the blood staining his crisp white shirt, no one could truly say they were surprised to find it not red, like the corpse below, but a deep, inky blue.
“Talk about a true blue-blood,” commented Jasper.
Releasing some of the pent-up energy, Savara whacked him on the shoulder. Now was not the time for those types of comments. She couldn’t pull her eyes away, but the more she looked, the more her stomach churned.
“It’s the air here,” the stranger remarked passively, with no further explanation.
Questions littered her mind—nagging, preying, tormenting. Words rose like the tide, getting caught at the back of her throat, only to be swept down again into the depths of her conscious mind. So much left to say, but none of it seemed to matter. Her uncle, gone, Ms Short, gone, and here she stood, wondering what would become of her now that she was officially an orphan.
“Who are you?” The words strained her vocal cords as they forced themselves from her lips. “And what are you doing here?” Hot tears curved around the apples of her cheeks. Savara held her nose up high, pretending they weren’t there, even as they pooled at her chin and dripped to the floor. The two men were respectful enough to pretend along with her.
“My name is Captain Griffin Conroy of the Royal Izarian Guard, and leader of the Ris.” He placed a heavy hand over his heart and bowed.
Savara understood about half of the words that spilt from his mouth. She figured they were words to be proud of, seeing as how his posture stiffened. Savara had never been fond of pomp and pretence, despite her uncle’s teachings of proper behaviour—something she would very rarely adhere to and only if absolutely necessary under extremely limited circumstances. This man, Griffin, seemed to represent all that she had rebelled against for more years than she could remember.
“And I have been sent to bring you home,” he added, noticing the ever-deepening crease between her brows.
“Home?” she thought aloud. “What on earth are you talking about?”
Home. Savara had never quite felt at home anywhere, but she figured that was just a testament to teenage angst rather than the fact that she wasn’t actually home. Sure, there were times she’d noted things didn’t feel quite right, the way a shelf looks incomplete with a book missing, but in this case, she was the shelf, and the missing book had long since been on her radar. Home...
She looked over at Jasper, fiddling with something of her uncle’s that he probably shouldn’t. He’d been her one and only friend ever since she’d arrived here. Home is where your friends are, Savara thought, remembering all the memories she’d made with him as clear as a bright summer’s day. Glancing around the room, this feeling only grew. I’m already home, she reasoned. This is where my family is—was. This is the house I grew up in, the town I’ve terrorized ever since...
A violent shiver gripped her shoulders. Memories of the day she first arrived at the house burst into her head yet again, as though actively seeking her out. Savara squeezed her eyes shut until the images in her mind—the wind, the rain, the dark—disappeared. When she opened them again, she found his eyes locked on hers once more. The blue of his irises pierced her with all the qualities of a scalpel, dissecting each expression.
Suppressing whatever weakness she’d betrayed during her episode, she flared her nostrils and scoffed, “I’m already home.”
“Is that what you believe?” Griffin countered.
“Believe?” she hissed.
“You mean, you don’t know?”
Savara finally wiped the tears from her eyes. Sadness had taken a back seat to shock. Shock to anger. Now, anger and intrigue played a vicious game of ping-pong between her heart and her mind, and despite her visage, intrigue was winning.
