The Rogue Warrior's Redemption

The Rogue Warrior's Redemption

Athena · Ongoing · 102.3k Words

404
Hot
567
Views
126
Added
Add to Shelf
Start Reading
Share:facebooktwitterpinterestwhatsappreddit

Introduction

“As if you could outrun me,” the warrior smirked, raising his bent elbow above the door frame. “As if you could travel to any corner of this universe and think I will not haunt you.”

“Don’t you have better things to do,” I scoffed, knocking past him, but he caught my wrist in a grip so rough yet gentle it felt like silver and starlight. But then he laughed through the modulator, which sounded like the sun.

“Afraid not, princess. Your daddy is paying half my legion’s salary to keep an eye on you.”

Princess. I tensed, for I was not Irina, heir to Astraeus, but her bodyguard, her Shadow, the stand-in, lures the Lunarii away from her true location. “I can defend myself,” I asserted, but there wasn’t enough bite under my voice.

I was nervous because Kade entered the room, as always, covered inexplicably by blood. He was gruff and in a worse mood than usual, which was apparent even from the helmet. “Your training was inadequate,” he said, beginning the ritual of cleansing his iridium armor.

“I have trained since the age of seven with Dawnlight Masters. My training was the best in the realm.”

“Maybe,” Kade responded, still emotionless as he cleansed his chestplate, “but your Shadow, who I assume had twice the amount of training you had, if not more, could not hold her own.”

My cheeks flushed red murder. I was the Princess’s Shadow. I was whom he spoke about.

The young warriors before me chuckled, “Well, to be fair, Kade, none of us are any match for you.”

Kade’s helmet snapped towards the warrior before me, “You say that as if it were something to be proud of.”

Chapter 1

I am holding a blood-stained knife. I had decided to kill the warrior. “I am Irina, Princess of Astraeus, kill me, not her,” I implore. My voice is resolute and the true princess is knelt before me, bloodstained and trembling, yes, but alive.

The Lunarrii Shadows hold her under a curved moonblade, alight with alchemic energy. My false mother had once warned me that moon blades are designed for slicing necks. A dreadful revelation I now fully understand as I hold the fate of the princess in my hands.

I lower my gun to the floor. “My blood ends the Astran line," I repeat, my heart pounding in my chest. I fall to my knees before the Lunnarri, our enemy, and lay my head. “Kill me, not her.”

The Lunarii speak in their ancient tongue, kicking the true princess to her knees before me. She is quivering noticeably, the only tell that she is the true princess and I am her bodyguard.

Silently, I berate her. “Get it together,” I mouth as the Lunarii tie my hands behind my head.

The Lunarii Empire is the enemy of Astreaus and all Light Kingdoms. They are the darkness in our world, colonizers, and oppressors, who seek to conquer as many planets as they can. But their main goal is to kill Astrans, mystic beings who can use what we as an advanced society can only call magic. The last child and only living child of the Astrans, Irina, is currently about to be murdered right before me.

"We will kill you both," one of the Lunarii states, and the princess's gasp echoes my horror.

Fuck.*

Her reaction is a huge giveaway to our true identities. Why does Irina always do this?

Looks like this is going to be harder than last time.

Suppressing my true emotions, I play the part of a frightened princess, feigning fear to distract our captors. "Please," I beseech with fabricated hysteria, pointing at the real princess. "Please don’t kill me, she’s the princess! Kill her!"

The princess's mouth drops. “Irina! How could you?!”

I almost smile at this, she has called me by her name. I am so proud. The Lunarii hesitate, and in that fleeting instant, I strike. Hands bound, I kick the Lunarrii behind me down, then lunge at Irina’s attacker. I bring my elbows to my side with a strength I knew I would snap bone, but I don't care. The rope breaks, as well as my wrist, but Irina is safe and we are bolting towards the door.

We are safe.

"Wingleader safe," I say into my communications bracelet. We have to get the princess to an evacuation ship and let our armies disintegrate the threat. We've done this what feels like a hundred times before. It barely gets to me anymore.

 From the age of five, I have been the princess's bodyguard. One of her four. My life is tied to the princess, if she dies, I die. My whole life has been protecting her. 

"Nice job," comes Amaya's voice, one of Irina's four bodyguards. "Get her to West Gate and I'll take over from there--"

Amaya is cut off by the whizz of a fast dagger. I curse, grabbing Irina from my left and shielding her with my own body. The blade sticks in my back with a cruel thud, sinking into my skin and bone. At least it's not as big as the last time I took a blade to my back for her.

I keep moving her towards the door. The blade is close to my spine, and every step ignites fresh surges of pain.

A stab in the spine, this bastard attacker is going to die.

I push Irina into the hall, commanding her to run. With a groan, I pull the blade from my back. With a click of my health bracelet, the wound is already beginning to heal. But before the technology can even begin to close the wound, I turn and hurl the dagger back at the being that wishes for death.

What a foolish Lunnarrii, I think. To challenge one of the Astran princess's bodyguards. Doesn't he know we've been trained from the age of five? Doesn't he know that we only fight to the death?

The attacker is wearing a dark robe, concealing his face. He must be an individual spy, much like my role in Astreaus. He fights alone, just like me, and it's clear he is foolishly confident. 

He has caught my dagger with one hand, inches from his heart. His hand is gloved, leather.

Wait a second. It couldn't be.

 He raises his head and my heart stops. 

  I thought his kind were all dead. 

There is only one kind in the six worlds that hates Astrans more than Lunarrii's.

Kaimari.

There is nothing worse than a Kaimari.

He is a warrior as ancient as time itself. A man garbed head to toe in not steel, not gold, but iridium armor, the rarest element of our realm. His presence is as enigmatic as the night, both silent and loud, helmet terrifying and powerful. But his confidence, his skill, is as impenetrable as the element he bore. 

He does not move yet is moving, calculating his hunt and my next twelve steps. He is serene, and it is clear he has seen horror known to man, and I am nothing but a little girl. 

A good warrior knows a good warrior. And I am an excellent one. Even from under his armor, I understand, he can kill me in a heartbeat. I have no chance.

I reach to my sides and pull my twin blades, but instead of drawing them, I turn my back to the skilled warrior and place them between the two door handles leading to the princess. I am going to die today, and I know it. But I am going to die protecting Irina. 

I open my mouth to speak but quickly shut it. The Kaimari Warrior and I do not need to speak, everything we need to say to one another has already been spoken. I am nothing more than a human shield, a bodyguard, and he is enough a warrior to recognize this himself.

I am nothing more than a door for him to push past. I am the sacrifice.

 He pulls his own twin blades and advances. For my own choice of weapon, I reach to my leg and pull the blade that he had sunk into my flesh. I will attempt to pierce his armor with the blade he had pierced me with. It is the only death of honor. 

His first strike narrowly misses my shoulder. I roll underneath him and do not dare to counterattack. He is better than me, smarter than me. An eyeless creature behind the helmet but I can see right through him, he lives and bleeds death. 

I need to scan my health bracelet, throw on my shields, heal and protect my body as much as I can, but something about his stance tells me in the half second it would take my hand to press the button, I will end up dead. He is a real warrior, stance full of hatred and experience with life or death, nothing the Dawnlight Masters I sparred with growing up. 

He is simply death.

 The second violence targets my wrist, narrowly missing my health bracelet. It shatters bone. I hold back a scream with a strength that rivales the gods, wanting nothing more than to yell in the Kaimari’s face, tell him truths we both know are not true; that I am not afraid and he will not win. But I bite my tongue, maybe if I fight as decent prey he will grant me a quick death. 

My wrist is impaled to the ground by his left blade, his right one rises to slice my throat. He does not falter as it hovers near my skin, but neither did I. Kill me already, I wish to scream at him. Stop stalling and end it fast.

But the Kaimari does not slice my neck, he is enjoying this. Seeing if, like so many others he had surely killed, if I would break at the last second before death. Cry or sob for mercy. Call upon his creed of honor or pray to gods who will not come. No, I abandoned faith when my parents died. Honors is my only companion now.

Suddenly, shrieks echo through the hall—my princess, Irina.

It's desperate and horrifying, but I am only focused on catching the Kaimari off guard. All I need is one second, one second of his shoulders tensing, a slight reaction to what is going on in the hall.

 But he doesn't look. The warrior doesn't even flinch. 

The hesitation and distraction that I so often rely on from opponents are completely lost on him. But I move anyway, this may be my only chance. He too, knows this. 

I lean over and try to pull his left blade from my shattered wrist bone. But before I can move, he swiftly catches my second hand with his other blade. The second blade pierces through the smack middle of my palm. I am on my back, my right wrist stabbed by one blade, my palm stabbed by the other.

I'm pinned to the ground like a damn dead butterfly. Like a macabre tableau to the cold stone floor.

I only have my legs now. We both know this. He expects me to use my legs, I expect myself to use my legs. I want nothing more in the six worlds to kick him between his armor and see if he has protected his balls. But I can't be foolish, I cannot lose this game we have named ten steps ahead.

So against all my instincts, I tense and hold my breath.

Time seems to stop as I pull my arms, hard and fast, from the Kaimari's blades. One from my wrist, one from my palm. My flesh tears, hard and sickeningly. Never, ever, under twelve years of torture training could have prepared me for the mental and physical pain of tearing my own bone.

I think I'm vomiting as I sprint away from him to the door at the end of the halls that lead to my princess. I hurl my only weapon at him with the palm that is not broken, right where his eyes would have been.

I hear the blade hit his helmet and fall to the floor. I have no chance.

The button, I need to press the button. I barely manage to press my shields and health before I half-smack into the door. My hands are nothing less than mutilated, so I kick the blades to the left and the right. I would arrive at Irina weaponless, but if the healing works quickly, at least I will have my own two fists. 

Last Chapters

You Might Like 😍

The mafia princess return

The mafia princess return

917.5k Views · Completed · Tonje Unosen
Talia have been living with her mother, stepsister and Stepfather for years. One day she finally get away from them. Suddenly she learn she have more family out there and she have many people that actually love her, something she have never felt before! At least not as she can remember. She have to learn to trust others, get her new brothers to accept her for who she is!
Omega Bound

Omega Bound

2.4m Views · Completed · Veronica White
Ayla Frost is a beautiful, rare omega. Kidnapped, tortured, and trafficked to rogue clans and corrupt alphas to do with as they pleased.  Kept alive in her cage, broken and abandoned by her wolf, she becomes mute and has given up on hope for a better life until one explosion changes everything. 

Thane Knight is the alpha of the Midnight Pack of the La Plata Mountain Range, the largest wolf shifter pack in the world. He is an alpha by day and hunts the shifter trafficking ring with his group of mercenaries by night. His hunt for vengeance leads to one raid that changes his life. 

Tropes:
Touch her and die/Slow burn romance/Fated Mates/Found family twist/Close circle betrayal/Cinnamon roll for only her/Traumatized heroine/Rare wolf/Hidden powers/Knotting/Nesting/Heats/Luna/Attempted assassination
From Substitute To Queen

From Substitute To Queen

1.7m Views · Completed · Hannah Moore
For three years, Sable loved Alpha Darrell with everything she had, spending her salary to support their household while being called an orphan and gold-digger. But just as Darrell was about to mark her as his Luna, his ex-girlfriend returned, texting: "I'm not wearing underwear. My plane lands soon—pick me up and fuck me immediately."

Heartbroken, Sable discovered Darrell having sex with his ex in their bed, while secretly transferring hundreds of thousands to support that woman.

Even worse was overhearing Darrell laugh to his friends: "She's useful—obedient, doesn't cause trouble, handles housework, and I can fuck her whenever I need relief. She's basically a live-in maid with benefits." He made crude thrusting gestures, sending his friends into laughter.

In despair, Sable left, reclaimed her true identity, and married her childhood neighbor—Lycan King Caelan, nine years her senior and her fated mate. Now Darrell desperately tries to win her back. How will her revenge unfold?

From substitute to queen—her revenge has just begun!
Bound By Power, Torn By Love

Bound By Power, Torn By Love

2.1k Views · Ongoing · Cynthia Adama
She is the only daughter of a notorious mafia boss, but she is forced by her father to marry a hateful bastard in a contract marriage. To avenge her father, she has a one-night stand with a charming man, but unexpectedly falls into the trap of another terrible man, who is her father's enemy and another mafia boss. His mission is to make her father disappear.
She regards him as her only salvation, but he regards her as a pawn for revenge. When two enemies dance on the sharp knife, what will be the final outcome?
Rise of the Banished She-Wolf

Rise of the Banished She-Wolf

425.3k Views · Completed · Lily
"White wolf! Kill that monster!"
That roar stole my eighteenth birthday and shattered my world. My first shift should have been glory—blood turned blessing into shame. By dawn they'd branded me "cursed": cast out by my pack, abandoned by family, stripped of my nature. My father didn't defend me—he sent me to a forsaken island where wolfless outcasts were forged into weapons, forced to kill each other until only one could leave.
On that island I learned the darkest edges of humanity and how to bury terror in bone. Countless times I wanted to surrender—dive into the waves and never surface—but the accusing faces that haunted my dreams pushed me back toward something colder than survival: revenge. I escaped, and for three years I hid among humans, collecting secrets, learning to move like a shadow, sharpening patience into precision—becoming a blade.
Then, under a full moon, I touched a bleeding stranger—and my wolf returned with a violence that made me whole. Who was he? Why could he wake what I'd thought dead?
One thing I know: now is the time.
I have waited three years for this. I will make everyone who destroyed me pay—and take back everything that was stolen from me.
The Dragon's Last Fae Queen

The Dragon's Last Fae Queen

6.7k Views · Ongoing · Sylvia Sylvester
Hidden all her life in the slums of Emberveil, Aerith has one rule: never let the dragons see her eyes. Fae are extinct, hunted, burned, and erased from the kingdom. Or so everyone believes. But on the night of her eighteenth birthday, when her forbidden magic stirs awake and her grandmother falls deathly ill, Aerith breaks the one rule meant to keep her safe. She enters the royal dragon pharmacy… and collides with a werewolf princess who drags her straight to the dungeon. There, in the deepest shadows of the palace, the youngest dragon prince sees her glowing eyes and instantly knows what she is. A fae. A secret the entire kingdom would kill for. What would be her fate? Another dead Fae? Or the Last Dragon's Fae Queen?

“Prince? Dickhead? Asshole? Or stalker?” A slow, dangerous smile curved his lips. “Maybe I should show you the one title I want you to use.” Before I could react, his hand closed around my chin, tilting my face up. His lips crashed into mine, hard, claiming, breath-stealing. When he finally pulled back, his voice was a rough whisper against my lips. “You could call me yours… because you are mine.”
After the Affair: Falling into a Billionaire's Arms

After the Affair: Falling into a Billionaire's Arms

1.5m Views · Ongoing · Louisa
Dear readers, this novel is coming to an end soon. I highly recommend another fantastic story of the same genre:


I’d appreciate all your support, thank you so much!
From first crush to wedding vows, George Capulet and I had been inseparable. But in our seventh year of marriage, he began an affair with his secretary.

On my birthday, he took her on vacation. On our anniversary, he brought her to our home and made love to her in our bed...

Heartbroken, I tricked him into signing divorce papers.

George remained unconcerned, convinced I would never leave him.

His deceptions continued until the day the divorce was finalized. I threw the papers in his face: "George Capulet, from this moment on, get out of my life!"

Only then did panic flood his eyes as he begged me to stay.

When his calls bombarded my phone later that night, it wasn't me who answered, but my new boyfriend Julian.

"Don't you know," Julian chuckled into the receiver, "that a proper ex-boyfriend should be as quiet as the dead?"

George seethed through gritted teeth: "Put her on the phone!"

"I'm afraid that's impossible."

Julian dropped a gentle kiss on my sleeping form nestled against him. "She's exhausted. She just fell asleep."
Taste of Fate: The Vampire King's Human Mate

Taste of Fate: The Vampire King's Human Mate

3.6k Views · Ongoing · Miranda Carr
I never knew my blood could kill a king—until I met one. Sebastian, the ruthless and immortal King, rules with precision. For centuries, he's ruled with ruthless precision, his heart as cold as the stone throne beneath him. One moment, I'm nothing. The next, I'm his obsession. His touch burns like ice fire. His stare follows me through shadows. And when he feeds from me—God help me—it feels like drowning in darkness and craving more. He tells me my blood is unlike any he's tasted, that my scent drives him to the edge of madness.


He reached for the back of my head and pulled me up just enough to reach my neck. When his fangs slid into me, the pain was instant, electric. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. My hands found his shoulders, clawing for something to hold. My legs kicked. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

He moaned against my throat as he drank, and the sound was devastating.
Where The Ice Gives Way

Where The Ice Gives Way

30.8k Views · Ongoing · Sheridan Hartin
Charlotte Pierce is used to surviving in motion. New towns, new schools, the same old house on the edge of nowhere, and the same rule that keeps her standing. Keep her twin brother, Charlie safe. Keep his hockey dream alive. Keep her own needs quiet. She works too much, sleeps too little, and saves the one thing that still feels like hers for the middle of the night, when she can lace up her worn skates and carve freedom into dangerous frozen ice. Charlotte and Charlie shifted once, years ago, and never understood what it meant. They had no pack, no guidance and no protection. Just two twins clinging to each other and pretending the voice in their heads was stress, imagination, or loneliness. Then they move to Wellington.
Blake Atlas scents his mate the moment Charlotte arrives. The bond hits hard and unmistakable, but Charlotte doesn’t recognise it. She doesn’t know why her chest keeps pulling toward the one boy she absolutely cannot afford to want. Blake is Charlie’s new hockey captain. Charlie’s chance at making something good. Charlie makes it clear; his sister is off-limits and Blake tries to do the right thing, but secrets don’t stay buried forever. Rogues prowl the edges of town. The ice cracks. The bond tightens. Then Charlotte’s rare white wolf awakens, the very thing that makes her powerful, also makes her a target.
Shanti needs Shakti. (Peace needs strength.)

Where the Ice Gives Way is a slow-burn YA paranormal romance filled with fated mates, protective alpha energy, fierce sibling loyalty, found family pack bonds, hurt/comfort, and quiet, aching tension. It’s a story about first belonging, learning to be cared for, and what happens when the girl who has always held everyone else up finally falls, and someone catches her.
Game of Destiny

Game of Destiny

1.2m Views · Completed · Dripping Creativity
Amie's wolf hasn't shown herself. But who cares? She has a good pack, best friends and a family who loves her. Everyone, including the Alpha, is telling her she is perfect just the way she is. That is until she finds her mate and he rejects her. Heartbroken Amie flees from everything and start over. No more werewolves, no more packs.

When Finlay finds her, she is living among humans. He is smitten by the stubborn wolf that refuse to acknowledge his existence. She may not be his mate, but he wants her to be a part of his pack, latent wolf or not.

Amie cant resist the Alpha that comes into her life and drags her back into pack life. Not only does she find herself happier than she has been in a long time, her wolf finally comes to her. Finlay isn't her mate, but he becomes her best friend. Together with the other top wolves in the pack, they work to create the best and strongest pack.

When it's time for the pack games, the event that decides the packs rank for the coming ten year, Amie needs to face her old pack. When she sees the man that rejected her for the first time in ten years, everything she thought she knew is turned around. Amie and Finlay need to adapt to the new reality and find a way forward for their pack. But will the curve ball split them apart?
LOVING MY BILLIONAIRE STEPSON

LOVING MY BILLIONAIRE STEPSON

2k Views · Completed · Michael UDE
Before meeting Elliot Winter, Michelle’s life was a routine of beatings from her drunk dad to juggling part-time jobs. He was handsome, loaded, and had a smile that could melt ice.

There was also a twenty-year age gap between them, Michelle didn't care because their relationship was the only ray of sunshine in her rather bleak world. And when he popped the question she was more than happy to say yes. Michelle thought she had found her happily ever after, but she couldn't have been more wrong. With each year that passed Elliot became more of a stranger and less of the man she had fallen for, neglecting her and looking the other way when his mother treated her poorly, that was until the day their 5th anniversary rolled around, she caught him in bed with her sister.

Her love is replaced by hate, a swooning affection now burning rage. Well, two could play that game. That night, she dials her stepson's number with a single text that will change their lives forever.

‘I need you tonight’
The Family Books 1-3 (A Mafia romance)

The Family Books 1-3 (A Mafia romance)

2.1k Views · Completed · Emma Mountford
Saints and Sinners- She was the light to my dark.
The saint to my sinner. with her innocent eyes and devilish curves.
A Madonna that was meant to be admired but never touched.
Until someone took that innocence from her.
She left.
The darkness in my heart was finally complete.
I avenged her, I killed for her, but she never came back.
Until I saw her again. An angel dancing around a pole for money.
She didn’t know I owned that club. She didn’t know I was watching.
This time I won’t let her escape.
I will make her back into the girl I knew.
Whether she likes it or not.
2/ Judge and Jury- I can’t stop watching her.

I’m not even sure I want to.

Taylor Lawson, blonde, beautiful, and totally oblivious to how much dangers she’s in.

She’s also the one juror in my upcoming murder trial that hasn’t been bought.

The one who can put me behind bars for a very long time.

I know I should execute her.
After all that’s what I do.

I am the Judge.
I eliminate threats to The Family.
And Taylor is a threat.
But I don’t want to kill her.
Possessing her, making her love me seems like a much better plan for this particular Juror.

3/ Rags and Ritches-