Landaine's mouth fell open as surprise flashed into being on his face. "What—" he gasped. His legs buckled and he fell heavily to his knees atop the green scales. Beneath them both, the serpent started to move, coils sliding one over the other as she slowly withdrew her fangs and repositioned herself.

  "Like…I…said," Dania gasped, fighting through the agony to sit forward and roll onto all fours. "She's…not…yours."

  "I am her god," Landaine whispered. The pistol he'd used to shoot Dania slipped from his fingers, sliding slowly down the curve of the serpent's body.

  "No…" Dania said. She reached inside her waistband and pulled out her own weapon. Her hand wanted to shake, but she forced it to be steady as she raised the pistol.

  "You can't—"

  "Watch…me." Dania squeezed the trigger. The recoil from the unfamiliar weapon knocked her off balance, and she slid toward the curve of the serpent's body. But not before she saw the back of Landaine's head blow outward, splattering the green scales with red and gray.

  The sparkles swarmed in from the edges of her vision. Her body collapsed as the pain dragged her off the side and down into darkness once more.

  ***

  This time, it wasn't a gentle tugging that pulled her back to the surface. This time, electric pain jolted through her body, lifting her up and then slamming her back down with the force of its passage. Dania let out a gasp, and then a mewl of pain that she couldn't stop from slipping between her lips.

  "Dani? Dani, stay with us. Dani! Someone get me that healing card—"

  Rhett's voice faded away as the darkness rose up to claim her again.

  ***

  "Dani."

  Dania blinked, but the vision didn't change. "Kaylie?" she whispered.

  "Hi, little sis." Kaylie stepped forward and opened her arms wide. Dania let out a sob and wrapped her arms around her sister. She buried her face in Kaylie's shoulder as she used to do when they were kids and Kaylie was the only stable constant in Dania's world.

  "Kaylie," Dania breathed. "Oh my gods, I've missed you!"

  "I've missed you too," Kaylie said. "But you've done such a great job on your own. I'm so incredibly proud of you, little sis. I can't even begin to tell you how much."

  "I…Jake. I'm sorry. I had to train him. To fight. To shoot and—" She broke off, unable to say the words that haunted her mind. To kill.

  "Shhh, it's okay. You did what was necessary. Jake is alive thanks to you and your training. All of your training. Because of you, Jake will grow up to live his life, and no mother can ask for more than that."

  Tears filled Dani's eyes, blurring her sister's beautiful face. "I love him," she whispered. "I know he's yours, but I love him like he was mine."

  "I know," Kaylie said, her smile gentle. "And I'm glad. If I can't be there to give him a mother's love, I'm damn sure glad you are. But that's why you can't stay here."

  "What?"

  "You have to go back, Dani. Jake needs you."

  "It hurts…" she whispered.

  "I know. But you can handle it. You always handle everything. I'm so fucking proud of you. Did I say that already?"

  Dania let out a sound that was half laugh and half sob. "Yeah." She swiped at her cheeks as her eyes overflowed.

  "Yeah, well, it bears repeating. I'm proud of you, Dania Ellis. You've become the woman I always knew you were meant to be. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you for protecting my son…our son." Kaylie leaned forward and trailed her fingers down Dania's cheek, then tucked a wayward piece of hair behind her ear. "Because he's yours now, too. I will never deny that. I will always be his mother, but in a very real way, so will you."

  "I love him," Dania whispered. "I love you."

  "I love you too, little sis. I'll see you when you're done, okay? Don't come back until then, though. Promise me."

  "I…I'll try," another sobbing half-laugh that Dania couldn't hold back.

  Kaylie reached out and squeezed Dania one more time, and then stepped back. Or glided, really, like Hush when he moved. Dania raised a hand to her lips and blew her sister a kiss as Kaylie faded back into the bright wash of light that flowed over Dania, blotting out everything—

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  ***

  Quiet. Broken only by a steady rhythmic beeping that Dania instantly recognized from her work in the ER. Sure enough, she opened her eyes to see a standard suite of vital signs measurements on a digital readout not far away.

  Heart rate and pulse ox are good, she noted. Blood pressure, too. Looks like the patient has been sleeping peacefully.

  For some reason she couldn't name, that thought struck her as funny, and she let out a low chuckle.

  "Dani? Dani!"

  Jake's ebullient tone came from behind her, and so Dani rolled onto her back, and then to her other side. She moved slowly, testing, just in case that stabbing, crushing pain in her lungs returned.

  So far, so good. "Hey, kiddo," she rasped, her voice rough and dry.

  "Oh my gods! Dani!" Jake threw himself at the bed, wrapping his arms around her as best he could while she lay semi-reclined. He burrowed his head into her shoulder as his young body shook with sobs. Dani lifted her arms and hugged him to her, feeling the strength in his shoulders, back and arms.

  "Shhh, it's all right, kid," she said. "I'm all right."

  "I thought you were going to die," he whispered, his words broken by tears. "I brought you here so you wouldn't, but then you didn't wake up and I—"

  "I just needed time," Dania said, knowing it was true but not knowing exactly why. "Time to heal and rest after… everything that happened. Which…what exactly was that, can you tell me?"

  Jake let out a watery laugh and sat up, wiping his eyes. "Yeah, it was kind of a lot," he said. "Where should I start? Do you remember shooting Landaine?"

  "That crazy fucker," Dania said. "Yeah. He shot me first. Asshole."

  "Yeah, I know. I was so scared when I saw you fall off of Mari—"

  "Wait. Who is Mari?"

  Jake took a deep breath. "Okay," he said. "This is a long story, so let me just tell it and you can ask questions afterwards, all right?"

  Dania's eyebrows shot up into her hairline, but she nodded.

  "Okay. So Mari is the snake. You know, the big one? Turns out, she's an overland monster like Hush. Only Landaine had a card that basically enslaved her. Here, take a look."

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card edged in green and purple, then handed it to Dania.

  #

  #

  The Prince’s Leverage

  Unique, Legendary Tier-4 Equivalent Psychic Enhancer

  While this card is in the deck, and the deckbearer defeats an overland monster, they may spend 4 psychic power to make the overland monster act as a creature card under the deckbearer’s control, treated as if its summoning cost was 4 psychic power. The overland monster does not drop cards if captured this way. This card only allows 1 overland monster to be controlled this way, and may not be used on any monster with the designation [Boss].

  “Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.” – Niccolo Machiavelli, Champion of Jupiter

  #

  #

  "So even though she was incredibly powerful, you were able to tempt her after only four rounds?"

  Jake nodded. "Hush talked to her afterwards. Apparently she spawned not far from here on Drop Night, and Landaine took her down with a bunch of his minion deckbearers…who are now either dead, in custody, or on the run, according to Rhett. Anyway, because Landaine had that"—he nodded at the card Dania still held—"he didn't just kill her, he enslaved her, and was able to bring her out to fight against us."

  "Gross," Dania said, dropping the card on the blanket covering her lap. She scrubbed her fingertips against the blanket, even though she knew they weren't really greasy. They just felt greasy because of how evil that card seemed. "Tell me we're not keeping that."

  "I don't want it," Jake said. "Do you?"

  "Not even close."

  "So what happened to the snake…Mari?"

  "The card cops took custody of her. They're going to relocate her to a national park nearby. Rhett made sure they understood that she was sentient and had agreed to cooperate. He was really great, actually, Dani. Without him—" Jake choked his words off, his eyes filling once more.

  "Hey," Dania said, reaching out to squeeze his hand. "It's okay, kiddo. I'm okay."

  Jake nodded, swallowing hard and blinking before swiping at his cheeks again. "Anyway, so when you got taken, I called Amari from the Haven. She told me when it was safe and I popped back out. She'd already been in touch with Rhett. He helped us figure out where you were, and he got a warrant for a raid. I know you're mad, but he took me with him to keep me safe, and so I could get you out. He…I mean it, Dani. He was really great."

  "I thought you didn't like him," Dania said, carefully keeping her tone mild. It will be a cold day in hell before I forgive him for taking you into a firefight, Jake, she thought.

  "I didn't. But that was before I saw how hard he drove himself to get you back. I think…I think he might really care about you. Like seriously, Dani. And he did keep me safe. He has a divine golem creature that he basically assigned to fly directly overhead and zap anything that came close to me."

  "Divine? Like a guardian angel? But a robot?"

  Jake grinned. "Kinda. Sorta clockwork-y, too. Like a steampunk robot guardian angel."

  Dania snorted, and then full-on laughed as Jake's grin grew bigger and more infectious. Before long both of them laughed helplessly, tears of release rolling down their faces as they clung to one another and celebrated being alive.

  Eventually, though, the peals of mirth quieted, and Dania lay back against her pillows, her hands still holding on to Jake's.

  "Do you forgive me?" he asked softly.

  "For coming to rescue me?" she responded, in an equally quiet tone. He nodded. She thought about it for a long moment, and then shrugged. "I will never be okay with you putting yourself in danger, Jake. I need you to know that. But at the end of the day… I get it. I would raze this entire city to the ground if that's what it took to keep you safe. So I do get it."

  "We're family," Jake said, nodding. "We're all we have left."

  "Well…" Dania let herself smile again slowly. "I'm starting to think that's not strictly true anymore. I mean, look around you, Jake. There's you and me, sure, but now we've got Machairi, and Hush, and Amari and Joe and Kendra and Ethan and the baby—"

  "And Rhett?" Jake added, eyeing her sidelong with a teasing smile.

  "Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Dania said. "Detective Walker and I are still going to have a conversation."

  "Whenever you're ready, Dani." Rhett's voice came from behind Jake, startling Dania. She squinted into the shadows where he leaned against the doorframe, looking unfairly delicious in jeans and a leather jacket, with dark stubble covering his normally shaved chin. "Amari sent me to see if you want dinner, Jake."

  "Hell yes!" Jake jumped up with all the typical teenage boy enthusiasm for food. "I'll go tell everyone you're awake, Dani."

  "Wait, Jake—" Dani said, but Jake had already half-sprinted out of the room, apparently spurred on by the twin enticements of eating and bearing good news.

  Unfortunately, that left Dani alone with Rhett.

  And his stupid beautiful blue eyes.

  Books 1 and 2 are now available in KU, and Please check it out and tell him I sent you!

  join either the Guardian Card Holder or Guardian Deckbearer tiers of my subscription for early access! There’s some other fun goodies over there for subscribers, too. ?? See you over there!

  Penguins + Cultivation + LitRPG.

  Do I have your attention yet? :)