Free The Battle Sylph by L. J. McDonald Page B

finish this if he hurried. Then he’d have to take his queen and run, before one of the others decided to take his challenge personally.
    He bent over Saml, his fanged, burning mouth larger than the entire man. “SOLIE IS MINE!” he roared. There was no defiance in the human at all anymore, his rage turned into panic…but it would still be easier to destroy him. Solie wouldn’t have to worry about her father at all if he were dead. Heyou opened his mouth wide, fully intending to devour the father whole, when he felt a touch to the edge of his mantle that had him shimmering back into his human form, reappearing in the tunic that he’d swallowed inside of himself as he changed.
    Solie stepped up behind him, shaking even as she pressed herself against his back and wrapped her arms around his chest, palms flat against his body. Heyou tilted his head back, closing his eyes and relaxing. He could smell her and he purred, trying to remember there were other battlers who might be coming and that he was too untried to be sure of winning against even one.
    “Don’t hurt my father, Heyou. Please.”
    For her, anything. He moved his arms back, laying his hands against her hips. “Yes, my queen.”
    She hugged him, and all his anger vanished. His aura dropped and the tension that had covered the village eased.
    “S-Solie…?”
    Snarling, Heyou dropped his head and hissed down at her father who was frozen on the ground where he’d fallen, staring up with an ashen face. There was no sign of Choleor the other man, though different villagers stood a distance away, gawking and armed with whatever weapons they could find. Heyou growled at them and they flinched.
    “Heyou,” Solie admonished, hugging him. “Don’t.” She loosened her grip for a moment and then tightened it again. “Go away, Father,” she begged in a tiny voice. “I don’t want Heyou to hurt you.”
    “B-but…,” he gasped.
    Her arms stayed around Heyou, her body pressed against his. Heyou let his eyes close again, just relaxing against her. His queen’s smell was making him drunk.
    “He won’t hurt me,” Solie told her father. “He saved my life.”
    Somewhere, Heyou realized, the man was finding courage. Perhaps it was that Solie embraced him, keeping him contained. Heyou resented that the man recognized this, even as he leaned back against his queen, desiring her. He’d take her right there if she let him, other battlers be damned.
    “But Solie, your family loves you!”
    “I don’t want to marry Mr. Falthers, Father,” she told him. “I know you agreed to it, but I didn’t.” She paused. “And I think Heyou will kill any man who comes near me now.”
    At that, Heyou gave Saml a particularly evil grin. Solie’s father shuddered, realizing that he’d lost, and then he scrambled back, leaving his daughter standing on the doorstep and embracing her battle sylph from behind, her face hidden against his back. Heyou saw regret in the man’s eyes but didn’t care; he was leaving. Saml scurried off, regaining his feet and running after the others, toward the line of uncertain men with their useless weapons.
    “Heyou,” Solie said “I—”
    Heyou barely felt it in time: a flicker of concealed energyspearing down at them from above, something he might not have caught if he hadn’t been half expecting it even as he let his queen distract him. He spun, wrapping his arms around Solie as a hawk-shaped battle sylph dove down upon them.
    The entire cottage exploded.

Chapter Seven
    Devon trotted his rented horse out of the capital and along the main road, nudging it into a canter that could be maintained for some distance. The horse was one he’d used before, a dark chestnut gelding with a white nose, and he knew it was sound. The beast was also used to him, and its ears perked eagerly as it sped up. Its mouth was hard after years of being hired by incompetent riders, but the horse responded well enough to the bit, and its gait was smooth.
    Airi