�You lying bitch!�

A thousand words rushed through Koell�s mind as her sentence hit him, but only those three words could he form from his lips. Her body curled up and trembling against his chest, her neck pressed almost tenderly into his neck, Am�naelihn�s oldest son could not believe what he had been told. Rhaul was his son� his brother was also his son? Koell refused to believe it.

In a flurry he had her pinned beneath him again, his huge weight pressing her into the damp bank of the creek where moments ago a body had drowned; the body of a newborn child. His eyes were ablaze, be it with wonder or fury, and his lips so close to her face that his breath touched her like a warm hurricane. He spoke nothing and she turned away from him as much as she could manage, her bruised neck and jaw stinging her with the mercy of a thousand unforgiving needles. Tears streaming down her bruised face, Am�naelihn shook uncontrollably, but the unconscious movement was unwittingly mimicked by the son on top of her. Somehow this wall all her fault and he wanted to release everything upon her; with a volcano-like eruption Koell lashed out, his fist connecting with the side of her already disjointed jar, drawing forth a crunching sound unnatural to any humanoid jaw. She whimpered and Koell let forth a raging roar, his emotions spilled into his throbbing knuckles as he struck a second time, his voice echoing out over the silent creek and rippling waters.

�You whore! You fucking whore! He is not my child! How can you say that to me!? How?! You cheating, lying, deceiving bitch!�

He lifted his fist to strike again, wishing for her to pay for everything she had said and done in his whole life, including giving birth to him; allowing him to exist in this unwelcoming world. She had betrayed his love to be with Kaehlin, his father, when he knew, as she did, that she should be his and his alone. She had mothered Rhaul, the unplanned child, and now she had the audacity to claim that Rhaul was his son; the child he had played brother to whilst she engaged in her secret sexual sensations in the bedroom separated from him by only a wall. All of this was channeled into his third blow, but it did not connect , as she unexpectedly jerked her head around to stare up at him, her almond-shaped eyes damp with tears; and yet through these tears there was a strength that almost dared him to hit her again. She took a deep breath, though it pained her to do so and set a wave of agony through the ribcage pressed beneath Koell�s force. He met her eyes and the silence between mother and son spoke volumes, for in that moment he knew she had not lied. For a moment, Koell felt the breath catch in his throat.

�Damn it.�

Without even needing a psychic link to him, Am�naelihn felt the shot of grief that soared through him, his eyes almost clouding over, and the words tumbled off his chapped lips. �You drowned our son�� Am�naelihn gasped suddenly at his words and tried to protest, to explain, but all she could manage was to shake her head and form a squeak as he melted down into her, his breathing heavy yet as labored as hers. In drowning the child, she had attempted to drown everything between them, and his heart burned as he tried to comprehend all that he was learning and hearing.

�K-Koell� I didn�t.�

He hissed to a point of almost spitting in her face, his grief turning to anger that she would keep lying to him after he had seen her drown the child, and his amber eyes glowed with a threatening fury. Am�naelihn stared at him, refusing to allow herself the mercy of breaking eye contact with the son she could feel breaking down in front of her very eyes.

�It wasn�t.. Rhaul.. Koell.�

Her words took a moment to reach him.

Her arms still weak and trembling, Am�naelihn lifted the dead limbs from under him and wrapped them around his torso, her fingers trailing through the snowy feathers on his winged back, soothing him. She would have let him strike her if she knew it would have helped, but instead he allowed her to hold him, taking deep breaths for a moment, his anger dissolving as fast it had risen. Part of her wished to lie there forever, holding him, but she couldn�t; time was not on their side.

�He�s been taken, Koell� we have� Koell, we have to.. get him��

Something in his mother�s eyes warmed Koell�s blood; it was the look of needing, and he knew in that moment that he was all she had left to hold. As if everything that was exploding in his head at this moment was not there; as if nothing had just happened to completely change his world around; as if his every limb wasn�t weak with fatigue and adrenalin; Koell leapt to his feet, pulling her up with him. Their eyes met for a moment, and in that brief second shared, Am�naelihn felt like for once she was not alone. Koell�s arms wrapped around her and he lifted her like her weight meant nothing to him, the strong celestial wings that she had genetically granted him beginning to flap behind him. With a loud growl born of his demonic blood, he took to the air, his mother no burden in his arms as he carried them both to the domain usually only of dragons and doves.

* * *

The unnoticed shards of glass cut through thick leather boots as he stamped down upon them with little regard. With a simple growl he kicked them across the kitchen, moving to the counter. There were spare blankets there where the child had lain, and they were snatched up by a pair of stone gray hands. Crimson eyes scanned the blankets for a moment, and then a gruff voice muttered an obscenity and tore the blankets clean in two, before tossing them down on top of the shards littering the kitchen floor.

Kaehlin moved briskly into the hall, trying his best to put the events of the last hour from his mind. Why did she always have to go running off after that damn child? This was not the first time that Am�naelihn had left home in search of Rhaul; that deformed freak of a child that she had given birth to against Kaehlin�s will, much has had been the case with the first son. Kaehlin had no idea what attracted to her these � little people so much, and nor did he care. She could have given birth to enough babies to populate the whole of Rovandon twice over for all it mattered to him; she would still be his and she would still do exactly as he pleased. Am�naelihn belonged to the tiefling and though he rarely spoke the words; the tiefling, in turn, belonged to Am�naelihn. Kaehlin arrived at the huge wooden double doors that were the entrance to their manor. The tiefling took down from its hanging the first leg of his darang armor, fitting it tightly to his own leg; this was followed shortly by the second.

She had seemed so distracted for so long now, Kaehlin had noticed the change in her; as if there was some darkness hovering over her, a darkness she hid from him and bore on her own. Along with this distractedness, the psychic link between them had become much harder to understand; no longer could he crawl into the deepest of her thoughts. She had blamed it on deterioration with time, �Everything fades over time, Kaehlin� nothing lasts forever,� she had said. But Kaehlin had often questioned this to himself. They would last forever, he told himself. He would be with her till time itself crumbled. Lifting the chest plate from the wall, Kaehlin placed it against his broad form, attaching it at his biceps, waist and shoulders. He then took each arm-covering one-by-one, attaching them. His hands he left uncovered by the near-impenetrable darang; better for grip.

He was fiend-blooded, Kaehlin knew this as well as those who stared at his glowing eyes and horned head, or his fanged teeth and gray skin. But this fiend had found love as so many failed to do, and this fiend would not release it. If Am�naelihn were thorns, Kaehlin�s hands would be shredded to bloody tatters before he would open them. He would do anything for her, as he would make her; force her if need be; do anything for him; just as he had forced her to bare the slave collar, a silent promise that never again would she play away. There was no one between them, not even the children, and never would Kaehlin permit there to be. �Till death do us part� were the words spoken at human weddings, and for the very inhuman pair, Kaehlin made sure the words applied. They were one.

His double axe in place on his back, Kaehlin took up his helmet and rested it easily over his head, the long strands of black hair tucked beneath the metal.

* * *

Too long he had spent entrapped in this world of aches, agony and flashing lights, bubbling chemicals and foreign words, jabbing needles and growing pains. None of the images that flashed before his tender eyes made sense, none of the words he heard could he comprehend, each one more of a meaningless noise than the next. He could not understand the agony he could feel burning his body; the torment he was being forced to endure. He had once or twice seen their faces, angular, their ears, pointed, their eyes, like almonds. They looked on him as though he were a prize, huddled with its knees against its chin in the corner of a small pen. Like an animal. He wanted release. He wanted it to stop, to go away. He wanted solitude, to be left alone. He would have what he wanted.

Rhaul stood for the first time in his life, both feet placed firmly on the floor, his legs shaking as though they were made of elastic, but he forced them to keep him upright; upright long enough for him to get free. He knew not what happened, and he did not marvel as the explosive energy burst from his furred hand. His entire body now matched the appearance that had once been a part only of one arm, the cat hair covering every inch of his body which was now three or four times the size it had been before he was snatched by the strange mages. The energy provided his escape, in the form of a gaping hole remaining in the wall, singed bricks the debris of the impact. Falling down to his knees before he could even afford a step, Rhaul began the arduous task of crawling away; crawling from the pain and the agony, crawling into a world he had little experienced beyond that of a caged being.

His escape was viewed though, by a single pair of eyes. A figure clad from head-to-toe in midnight black approached the over-grown child, surveying through slits the strangely furred body. In an instant the figure had grabbed Rhaul up from the rubble and slung him over a muscled shoulder. Rhaul accepted unconsciousness, not even squirming in the arms of the enormous figure. With a small grunt, Kaehlin turned on his heels and set a new path for his home manor.