a/n:

due 2 numerous screamz and pleaz, a couple of death threatz, and my own jarring conscience, i hav returned with the second installment of Protector! read on :) oh and sorri but you'll hav 2 bear with my crazi shorthand.

-k8

i recommend that new readers first read Protector before continuing with this, as it will help them understand the characters and plot. but i did copy critical excerpts into this, so if you don’t want to read the other one, please give this one a try and if you’re confused drop me a note and i’ll help as much as i can.

Protector II: Summary

Once he protected her. Now his allegiances call for him to destroy her. As political unrest and militia wars divide the kingdom, he finds himself caught in the middle – again. And the choices placed before him get no easier as time goes on. Now he must find a way to merge two agendas and complete both without betraying either. Oh, and don’t forget there’s someone from his past who has returned for revenge, and is watching his every move.

Chapter One

Prologue

She stood, silent and unmoving, on the palace balcony, staring out at a new day. The sun was just rising over the horizon, its light just beginning to show over the outline of the mountains. Her face was steeled, her expression cold. It seemed as if nothing could touch her, so remote she was.

The new light played across her face, bringing out her soft features. Her long black hair hung over one shoulder, sunlight glinting off it. Her stance was firm and its message clear: You cannot hurt me.

The tiara gracing her head caught the sun’s rays and glinted. Her hands moved to the marble rail, gripping it hard with her hands. She was the epitome of perfection. Her face was steady, her hair still. And still she stared out into the skies, at something only she could see, or maybe something she only hoped to see.

Anyone describing the young woman would say she was beautiful and calm. Untouchable. The kind of girl who you would imagine has had an easy life, with everything she wanted given to her before she asked for it. The kind of girl who had never known hunger or rejection. The kind of girl with a bright promising future stretched ahead of her and who should have no regrets, no haunting memories following her steps.

Yet if anyone had been close enough to her to look into her lovely light grey eyes, one darker than the other, they would have seen the shadows that lingered in them. The light common to young ladies of her age and noble station did not shine in any sense from those eyes. They remained hard, but not cold. And one could have seen that behind that shield in her eyes, there was a hint of laughter. A glimpse of a time when joy had been real for her. Just a reflection of what they must have once looked like, full of life and love. For what else could have made them shine now so guardedly?

Those eyes told a tale of pain and anguish. It cannot be denied that this woman, barely out of childhood, had seen much within her short lifetime. She had seen much, and had felt much. For surely, those steel orbs held the stains of far too much pain for such a young woman. They made you want to take the girl in your arms and hug her and ask her to tell you her story; the story behind that lost look in her eyes. And surely a tale of love and loss, joy and pain, hope and doubt would unfold.

A tale that would make you understand, after its telling, why this girl now stood as if alone in the world, even though she had everything that was worth anything in its material amount around her. And maybe after hearing her story you would understand why her eyes were so dim and darkened and why the soul of a young woman had died recently, leaving only the remnants of a life once lived and loved, a life which can never be repeated or rediscovered again. For that is all that remains in her gaze.

She stood staring out at the nothingness of the realm for a long time longer, until the sun had breached the horizon and hung in the still morning air, and the birds had begun their birdsong and the sounds of city life behind the large thick walls had reached the habitants of the palace’s ears. Only then did she stir, and at that instant, a flash of sorrow crossed from her eyes to her face, so quickly that within the same second it was gone.

But the sorrow had been so deep and so profound that had you seen the girl’s expression in that part of that second, even at a distance, and had you read even a hundredth of the pain that sorrow hid, you would never have forgotten seeing it, even if you never did again in all your life.

Finally, she turned and disappeared into the palace.

a/n:

that waz jus a prologue. and it sucked, lol. sorri. ideaz and commentz are alwayz welcome, and feedback iz definiteli needed, so plz review :D thank you. and now you can go on reading.

-k8