CHAPTER SIX. Sister's Betrayal.

A split second was all it took for Arud to shift into beast form, blast through the door and leap across the room, aiming to pin the stranger down.

Unfortunately, the male was just as fast and had leaped to the side, avoiding Arud's attack.

Now their positions were switched, with the stranger standing not too far away from the door and Arud standing next to the cot.

The noise had disturbed the sleeping infants and their wails rang like an alarm throughout the house.

Arud couldn't attend to them now, he needed to make sure this male wouldn't be able to hurt them.

His beast crouched lower, taking up a hunting stance, never taking his eyes off the stranger, snarling.

The next thing the stranger did was way out of Arud's expectations.

The shadow lurker bolted for the door.

Determined to find out his identity, and also because he would never let anyone escape after attempting to do something like that without teaching them a lesson, Arud shifted back into human form and followed him.

The stranger was noiselessly running down the stairs by the time Arud got out of the room.

Without wasting a second, the Prince grabbed the railing of the stairs and leaped over.

The drop was by no means shallow, but Arud landed on his two feet just fine.

The reason for this was mainly due to his talent which made it so his body was a lot stronger than most Gregors were aware of.

Arud had landed right in the stranger's path, bringing the intruder to a halt.

"Who are you?!", the prince demanded.

Due to the hood over the Shadow Lurker's head, he still couldn't see the stranger's face.

In response to Arud's question, the male pulled out the same weapon from before, two of them this time, and charged at the Prince.

Arud smiled, feeling his energy swirling just underneath his feet, "I wouldn't do that if I were you".

The male slashed his blade forward with lightning speed.

But Arud wasn't leader of the Guardians for nothing.

He didn't even try to avoid the attack.

He simply raised the side of his arm, smacking it against the blade and sent it flying.

The next minute, he thrust his heel into the male's abdomen, flinging him to the ground.

" I won't ask you again ", Arud said, padding to the stranger across the cold tiles that glistened beneath his feet.

  " WHO ARE YOU?!".

The male scrambled back to his feet, stifling a groan.

Still holding his side, he hurled the second dagger at Arud, it's sharp edge glinting in the moonlight that lit up the room.

Arud simply snatched it out of the air and flung it to the ground. It skidded across its smooth surface and stopped few inches from the far wall.

" You call that an a-", the stranger wasn't staying around to listen, he was already heading for the exit.

Arud shifted while running after him and pounced.

His powerful limbs locked the hooded male to the ground, holding him in place. He glared at the Gregor below him, lips curled in a snarl.

" You're not going anywhere ", he seethed, as he shifted back to human form.

Arud grabbed the cowl and flung it off.

Only to be met with disappointment.

All Arud saw when he did that was a plain white mask, with fierce grey eyes glittering through the eyeslits.

"You came prepared", Arud remarked dryly.

Although, the stranger was doing everything in his power to get away, he couldn't.

The Prince was just too strong.

Unknown to Arud, the intruder still hadn't shown everything he had. Leaving him briefly surprised by what happened next.

The stranger vanished.

Arud knew the male wasn't using his Shadow Lurker skills or else the Prince would have been able to still sense him. The male had completely disappeared.

'Two talents. That bastard can teleport'.

Arud stood up, waiting for the male to reappear. His senses on high alert.

Usually, a Gregor could only possess one talent, but there were few who could use two. This was a very rare occurrence however, but it also meant the stranger had nothing new to use against Arud as that was the maximum number of talents that could ever be possessed by a Gregor. 

The only exception to this was a Cursed One of course.

Although, teleportation - in the hands of a skillful Gregor - could pose as quite the formidable talent, it took a lot of energy for it to successfully cover a very wide range and could only be used a certain number of times.

Armed with this knowledge, Arud knew the stranger was still in the room and readied himself for an unexpected attack.

He was right.

The male silently appeared directly behind him.

Arud sensed him a little too late, however, as the stranger was able to deliver a flurry of punches up his side before vanishing once again.

The Prince shook off the pain, quickly regaining his composure.

The masked stranger appeared again, launching an attack from the side.

Arud was quick to notice him this time.

He avoided the attack and quickly aimed a jab at the other male's face. His fist met with nothing, as the stranger had teleported again.

The scene repeated itself, over and over. 

The stranger couldn't deal much damage to Arud, no matter how hard he tried.

Hitting the Prince was almost as good as hitting a rock. He wasn't coming down.

Nevertheless, the masked male was equally skilled, so much so that Arud still couldn't get his hands on him.

Not yet anyway.

The stranger couldn't keep teleporting around the room forever.

That would demand an unlimited amount of energy which no Gregor had yet been able to achieve, and eventually Arud noticed him slowing down.

The next move the male made was a lot more sluggish than the previous ones and Arud who hadn't used a single ability throughout the fight, still had plenty of energy left.

He was easily able to grab him by the arm and hurl him across the room, knocking over a pile of furniture in the process.

Not wishing to give the stranger a chance to regain his energy, Arud moved to him, grabbed him by the neck and slammed him against the wall.

Before he could remove the mask however, the Prince saw something that made him pause.

Directly over the male's forehead, on the mask was a symbol. 

A symbol Arud knew well.

There was the Royal seal, the head of a cat-like beast, its jaws wide open in a roar, with two sickle bladed weapons forming an X-shape directly underneath it.

It was the symbol of a Deathgiver. Assassins hired by royalty to secretly deal with Gregors who dared to speak against them. 

These Deathgivers could only be assigned such duties if it had been approved by the Greater Leader. Meaning his sister had to have had a hand in this.

But that couldn't be right. Sure, she didn't agree with him keeping the cursed child, but he already said he would leave and she hadn't tried to stop him in the end.

Why would she do this? Why put his own kids in danger this way?

The assassin had noticed Arud's hesitation and immediately stole the chance to escape. Breaking out of Arud's loosened grip and running out of the house.

The Prince didn't even watch him go. He felt disappointed, betrayed. If someone had told him that Zarah would do this, he would never have believed.

"You let him go", Eva said, standing behind him. The noise had woken everyone up. He could hear the servants coaxing the babies back to sleep upstairs. His mate had probably come down to see if he was okay.

Arud didn't even know what to say. That his own sister was behind this? That the boy they'd taken in as their own had almost been killed because of her?

Choosing to say nothing, Arud walked over to one of the daggers the deathgiver had left behind.

As he gazed down at the weapon, the thought of what could have happened tonight came back to him.

And with that thought came anger, one that Arud couldn't contain.

His beast growled.