The Gentleman

by H. P. Mallory

  Of course, the memory of the flames igniting from my body continued to niggle the back of my mind. I’d done what I needed to do to protect myself against Jack Jeffers, and I was grateful that my body had protected itself. But I still had no idea how I’d burst into flames or how it was even possible to have done such. And although I wanted to count on that defensive measure, since I didn’t understand it, I couldn’t rely on it.

  With the first disc nestled between my fingers, I threw it up into the air and closed my eyes. I allowed it to disappear among the rows and rows of tree trunks, letting it find a place to hide.

  I slapped the boomerang against my palm, resting my thumb on the top. The most important thing to know when throwing a boomerang is how to get the spin. The grip I used would make it spin as soon as it left my hand.

  Sliding into my fighting stance, I attuned my mind and body. I needed to feel and hear the air surrounding me. There was no wind. The air was calm, which made it easier to control the boomerang. All of my senses were finely calibrated and waiting, anticipating the disc. When I heard a whistling sound off to my right, I opened my eyes at the same moment as I pivoted on my toes. Sure enough, the disc was flying through the air and aimed right at me. It wrapped around a tree before it headed straight for my chest.

  I released the boomerang at a slightly upward angle, ensuring a consistently level flight pattern. Having practiced throwing it in windy and stable conditions, I was well prepared to handle any type of air current. I learned that if the boomerang landed in front of me, I had to throw it higher into the wind. If it landed behind me, I had to throw it lower into the wind.

  The boomerang looped around the disc, connecting to its middle and shattering it into hundreds of jagged pieces. A surge of power combined with grim determination rushed through me.

  I grabbed the next disc and threw it like a baseball—making a line drive between the massive forest trees. This time, I kept my eyes open. I’d loaded this disc with the gift of speed. I watched it closely as it looped around the trees, flying upward and then cutting through the branches on its way down. I released the boomerang and it barely missed the disc by mere millimeters. Throwing myself down onto my knees, I opened my left hand and angled it, slicing the disc in two before it hit me. A slight pain radiated from my hand and all the way up into my arm, but it quickly dissipated.

  Anger raised its ugly head when I realized how close I came to getting nailed in the head by the disc. I should have used better judgment and a keener eye. I should not have missed. And so I tried it again. And again. And again, until I could take down ten discs in a row without missing.

  Although this form of training was inferior compared to training with a vampire who was able to materialize and dematerialize, I couldn’t count on Sinjin, so this would have to do. It was serving more right now as a deterrent to my wandering thoughts and keeping my mind off the growing worry that threatened to consume me.

  As soon as thoughts of Sinjin crept into my brain, I closed my eyes and listened for the next disc. I was studying the way it changed the patterns of air currents as it sliced through the sky. Keeping my eyes shut tightly, I focused solely on the sounds around me. Raising the boomerang, I moved into a fighting stance. I waited, listening to the disc soaring between the trees.

  I heard a sound, but it wasn’t the sound I expected and not that of a disc slicing the air. It was the sound of crunching of leaves underfoot. I opened my eyes but there was nothing, and no one. Seconds ticked by as I suddenly remembered the disc. Hearing the air when it began swishing from immediately behind me, I twirled directly out of its path. That didn’t stop the training weapon from realigning itself and targeting me again.

  I ducked my right shoulder down as it whizzed past my ear. Spinning around, I found myself face to face with a man. I nearly choked on my own dismay as the disc flew right past him, headed for my face. While still facing me, he simply lifted his hand and caught the disc mid-flight. He crushed the disc between his fingers, without removing his eyes from mine.

  FIVE

  Bryn

  “Who are you?” I asked, my voice sounding breathy and hoarse. There was something very familiar about the man standing in front of me—something that I saw in his eyes—they were so kind, yet also strong in their amber depths. He was definitely handsome: an angular face, a strong jaw, and large eyes. His hair was the same color as his eyes—like warm honey. He was probably around thirty, if I had to guess.

  “You must guard yourself,” he whispered, and his voice was deep and sultry.

  “Guard myself?” I repeated with a frown, but then I figured he meant I should guard myself against the disc that nearly collided with my head. I threw my hands on my hips and scowled at him. I wasn’t sure why I wasn’t afraid of him, knowing that we were alone in the forest. “I would have done a better job if you hadn’t interrupted me.” I kept my feet shoulder width apart in a fighting stance. Gripping the boomerang tightly between my thumb and forefinger, I prepared to launch it at the stranger if he made a wrong move. “Speaking of which, who are you and what do you want?”

  “Guard your mind, Bryn,” he responded coolly, without making any indication of approaching me. He continued to stand there, towering over me with his impressive height. His build was equally striking—broad shoulders that tapered down to a narrowed waist and long, well-shaped legs. He was wearing dark pants with a white cotton, long-sleeved thermal jersey that failed to hide the outline of his pecs, biceps, and muscular forearms. Despite his casual dress, for some reason, I got the feeling he was anything but casual.

  “How do you know my name?” I demanded as I continued to study him. I was anxiously waiting for my mind to kick in and inform me why he seemed so familiar. “Who are you?”

  “Luce is powerful,” the man replied, completely ignoring my questions. It seemed as if he’d never heard me even ask them in the first place. “You must guard yourself against him. Don’t let him in.”

  “How do you know about Luce?” I asked, taking a step closer to him as I lifted the boomerang slightly. I wanted him to see that I was armed and not afraid to use it. “Who are you? And don’t make me ask you again.”

  “You know who I am,” he answered with little interest. “And you know I’m a friend not a foe.”

  “Then why won’t you tell me your name?”

  “You will learn it soon enough,” he answered, a secretive smile pulling up the corners of his mouth to reveal white, straight teeth. Yeah, this guy was hot and then some. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t out to kill me. Hot didn’t mean anything substantial or significant in my book. Then again, he didn’t look like he wanted to kill me …

  “What does that mean?” I demanded, my heart rate rapidly increasing. I doubted that his refusal to answer any of my questions could be a good sign.

  “None of that matters right now,” he retorted, the smile dropping off his face. “What does matter is this: you need to buffer your magic. Your aura is much weaker than it should be.”

  “My aura?”

  “Tone the muscles of your magic, Bryn. Reinforce the barrier between you and Luce, because he’s searching for you.”

  I shook my head. “How do you know that?”

  “Bryn!” a female voiced called out from behind me, startling me and making me jump.

  “Damn it, Betta!” I yelled as soon as I wheeled around and recognized her. “You should know better than to sneak up on me when I’m training!”

  “Sorry,” she answered with a little, embarrassed smile. “Who were you talking to?”

  That was when I remembered I wasn’t alone. I turned back around to face the man but saw nothing except the trees. He was gone! I immediately looked to my left and then to my right, trying to see if I could find him hastily retreating into the foliage, but there was nothing. He might as well have never been there at all—like a ghost or something.

  “I,” I started but slowly shook my head as I wondered if I just imagined the whole enc
ounter. But, no, I was sure I didn’t. I couldn’t have!

  “What are you doing out here?” Betta asked, switching my confused mind back to her.

  “I … uh … I was training,” I replied, glancing down at the ground and shaking my head, still wondering how the man could just vanish into thin air. And how did he know about Luce? And how could he see my aura? What did he mean by saying I needed to buffer it? Who the hell was this man?

  “Oh, sorry,” Betta said, reminding me that she was still there.

  My mind, however, was not on her. No, I was still trying to unravel the mystery of the stranger. And then, like an ice pick straight through my ears, it dawned on me.

  “He’s the man in my dreams,” I whispered out loud, even though I didn’t mean to.

  “What?” Betta asked.

  I shook my head and brought my wide-eyed gaze to hers. “It was the man in my dreams,” I said again, mystified and shocked at the realization. How could that even be possible? That man was no more than a figment of my imagination, something created by my subconscious, sleeping self to soothe me during my challenging teen years.

  “What man of your dreams?” Betta repeated, frowning at me. “Who are you talking about?”

  “The man that was just here,” I responded absentmindedly. The mystery was uppermost in my thoughts. How could a figment of my imagination actually have been standing not five feet from me? And having a conversation with me?

  “There wasn’t anyone here with you,” Betta said, looking concerned.

  I felt my eyes narrowing as I glared at her. “What are you talking about?” I nearly yelled at her. “The man that I was talking to before you interrupted me!”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I heard you the first time,” she replied. “And I’m sorry to tell you but there wasn’t anyone here with you.” She took a quick breath. “That’s why I asked you who you were talking to.”

  I didn’t know what to think. And the longer I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I was hallucinating and (hopefully) not losing my mind.

  But he was so real! I argued with my inner self.

  “Are you sure?” I asked as I faced Betta again. “You’re sure there wasn’t anyone standing right here? Maybe he was already hidden in the trees by the time you got here?”

  “No, Bryn,” Betta said, and her visible concern was deepening the creases in her forehead. “I saw you standing here talking to no one. No one left, and no one was in the forest. You were here all by your yourself.”

  He wasn’t real?

  “I don’t understand,” I said as I turned around and searched the line of the trees. If I could have I would have gone down on my knees and started begging them to explain what just happened. Had I really only imagined him?

  “It’s okay,” Betta said as she took a step nearer to me. “You’ve been under a lot of stress lately,” she continued, but I shook my head.

  “Please don’t tell anyone about this,” I requested.

  “I won’t.”

  “I mean it, Betta, I’m taking you at your word. Promise me you won’t mention this to anyone.”

  I was scared to death what could happen if it got out. If people heard I was hallucinating and seeing random men in the woods, everyone would think I’d lost my mind. As it was, I couldn’t be sure that wasn’t the case …

  “You have my word, Bryn,” Betta said.

  I nodded my thanks and took a deep breath as I tried to shelve the last three minutes of my life. Instead, I tried very hard to pay attention to Betta. “What do you want?” I knew my voice was a tad short, but I needed to be training right now more than anything else. I needed to get out all the pent-up energy that was making me see things that weren’t really there.

  “I wanted to check on you.” She took a few steps toward me and smiled more broadly. “So tell me about the person you thought you were talking to?”

  “There was no one,” I answered while inwardly cursing Betta. She was as nosy as ever. Couldn’t a girl keep her own neurosis to herself? Wiping off the sweat on my forehead, I placed my hands on my hips and narrowed my eyes at her. “Why did you come out to check on me?”

  “The queen said you got upset and took off by yourself,” she shrugged. “We were both worried about you so I decided to investigate because I’m a good friend.” She smiled again as if that were welcome information. It wasn’t. “She’s worried about you, Bryn.”

  “Why? There’s no reason for anyone to worry about me. I’m perfectly fine,” I insisted, even though I had my own doubts about what I was saying. If I were having conversations with men who weren’t actually there, I supposed I wasn’t fine. “If either of you need someone to worry about, then worry about Sinjin.”

  “Sinjin can take care of himself.”

  “And I can’t?” I retorted.

  She cocked her head to the side and wore a guilty expression. I was sure her current lack of faith in me and my abilities was because of what happened to me at Luce’s camp. It seemed that ever since I’d come back to Kinloch, everyone was treating me differently. They acted like they didn’t know how to relate to me after what I’d gone through. It was frustrating, to say the least.

  “It’s not that,” she started. “Your sister just wants you to be safe, and we were all a little concerned about you.”

  “Concerned about me, like how?” Betta had only been at Kinloch for a short time, so it irritated me to see she felt comfortable enough to speak to my sister before coming out here to tell me what I already knew.

  “You’ve been having nightmares again,” Betta started. “Jolie told me about the most recent one.”

  I eyed her with a frown. “It was just a dream! A dream that doesn’t mean anything.” As far as I could tell, my nightmare was already forgotten. Neither Jolie nor Mathilda had approached me about it again, which I figured had to mean they weren’t too worried about it. Which was just as well because I was beginning to believe it wasn’t anything more than my overactive imagination either.

  “The point is that you’re stressed out, you’re not sleeping, you never finish your meals, and you’re training way too hard.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “No one knows what you’re going through or if you’re okay,” she continued. “Because you don’t ever let anyone in.”

  “What’s wrong with that? I’m a private person. You knew that.”

  “Yes,” she answered as she watched me prep the next disc. This time, I threw it as far as I could to give me ample time to prepare to hit it. “But sometimes it’s important to talk about things so someone else can help you through whatever you’re going through.”

  “I’m not going through anything!” I was too busy watching the training plate moving rapidly through the forest, sweeping downward and under a pile of leaves before shooting up and over a large tree branch. I waited in my fighting stance.

  “Jolie was worried that you might internalize this whole thing about Sinjin missing.”

  “Sinjin can take care of himself—you said so already.” As the disc locked in on my chest, I released the boomerang. It spun through the air, catching the ceramic disc right in the middle and shattering it instantly.

  “Well done,” Betta said with a little clap of applause. “I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of watching you train.”

  “Well, maybe next time I’ll actually invite you,” I spat out. I was irritated and didn’t intend to sound so rude, but I couldn’t seem to help it. I hated being the subject of anyone’s pity or worry or whatever the hell Betta and Jolie did towards me. I just wanted them and everyone else to mind their own damn business and leave me be!

  “You aren’t alone anymore, Bryn,” Betta continued, apparently ignoring my jab. Maybe she hadn’t even realized it was a jab to begin with. “You have friends and family now, people who genuinely care about you.”

  I turned to face her, now far beyond irritated. “Look, Betta, I appreciate your concern. Really, I do. But you and my siste
r don’t realize that I’m not like either one of you. I’m a warrior. I don’t need to discuss my feelings.”

  “But they are there all the same.”

  I sighed, exasperated. “Okay, are we done here?” I asked as I stomped my foot impatiently. “Because these discs aren’t going to throw themselves.”

  “We’re almost done,” she answered, shrugging at me, like it wasn’t her fault that she couldn’t leave me the hell alone. Taking a deep breath, “I never told you this before,” she started.

  “Told me what?” I answered but turned my back to her. Reaching into the box, I grabbed a disc and threw it into the air. She could talk all she wanted, but I wasn’t paying attention. I had plenty of training to do and I fully intended to do it.

  “A long, long time ago, when we both were just girls and we didn’t know each other, I would watch you training from the kitchen window. It was while I used to prepare all the meals for the camp.”

  The disc came sailing around the trunk of the tree and unexpectedly shot right, then left before doubling over itself and coming for me directly. I ducked out of the way and shoved Betta forward to keep her from getting in the missile’s trajectory.

  “I remember watching you train relentlessly, and your poor body would take such a beating,” she continued. She seemed completely oblivious that there was an errant disc on the loose. Having lost all sight of it, I searched the surrounding forest, worried that it would take me by surprise or worse, attack Betta.

  “I just felt so sad for you. There was one day in particular that I watched you collapse into a heap on the ground and cry.”

  I swallowed hard. How nice to know someone else had witnessed one of the moments that broke me, even if they were few and far between. “I always went far away from the camp whenever I needed to lose myself,” I said as I turned to face her.

  She nodded like that wasn’t news. “There were a few times that I followed you, just to make sure you were okay.” She shrugged. “Of course, being human and hired as the help meant I couldn’t do much for you; but I did try to help you whenever and however I could.”