Exile: Sídhí Summer Camp #3

by Jodie B. Cooper

  He nodded his head thoughtfully. “If the trolls fail, we’ll be better off with Chi’Kehra dead than an ally to the council. See to it that she is either killed before the mite poison wears off or that we have her mate as a hostage.”

  Chapter - Mite Poison

  Brianna's pointed question as to how Sarah escaped the mite feeding tube caught Sarah off guard. Not reacting wasn’t easy, but years of training kept Sarah’s face unmoving in an emotionless mask. One wrong step and her house of cards would go tumbling. The worst part of the entire situation was it wouldn't take a very big step, because her cards were starting to look like Swiss cheese.

  “The other vampires still have their claws,” Sarah said calmly.

  Brianna snorted. “Yeah, half an inch on the hand opposite of the silver cuff. When you came out of that tube and started ripping the cocoon off Nick, you had three-inch claws on both hands. Even with silver on, you could kill a shifter in animal form.”

  “I react oddly to poison. It’s possible the mite poison enhanced my Sídhí abilities instead of restricting them.”

  “I agree that mite poison is weird stuff. It causes intense pain and blocks most of our Sídhí abilities, but it doesn’t stop a vampire’s claws or teeth.” She waved to Sarah’s bracelet, saying in an argumentative voice, “that much silver should stop your claws.”

  Sarah glanced down, gazing into Nick's sleeping face. She searched her brain for an answer, but the sluggish thing refused to spit out an answer. She couldn’t very well give Brianna the complete truth. She snorted to herself. No, the truth was not an option. Who would believe her body was flooded with enough synth crystal that her synth-laced blood reacted against the stinger and the natural Sídhí poison, violently shoving the stinger and poison out of her body? Not a soul. At least, not anyone who wouldn't ask dozens of questions and probably guess she was Chi’Kehra.

  Sarah shrugged and knelt beside Nick. She took a deep, steadying breath, rhythmically caressing his silky, black hair. He helped her without his knowledge. She couldn't explain the odd reaction. They hadn't bonded, but touching him calmed her.

  When Sarah didn’t answer, Brianna continued, “The guardians in Haven Valley use hollow point bullets. Each bullet is fairy created and filled with mite juice blended with silver. The shell bursts after the bullet enters the body. Most people take an hour or more to wake-up. The more bullets, the longer it takes.”

  Sarah narrowed her eyes, trying to force her brain to open her mouth, but Brianna wasn't finished.

  “You got hit with stingers filled with concentrated mite juice.” Brianna held up two fingers as she made her next point. “And your shirt is ripped where the stingers entered your back in two different places. Without someone to rip out the stingers, you should still be unconscious.”

  Sarah swallowed a curse. Brianna was proving as methodical as other members of her deadly race.

  Sarah took a deep breath, ready to plunge into her explanation. If her hurried words didn't convince the girl, she'd silence Brianna by making the girl permanently disappear, but it wasn't the solution she preferred.

  She snorted silently. She didn't like the idea, but Mac would love it. He would give up nearly anything for Brianna to be dumped into the restricted Phoenix Valley, anything just as long as they'd have another female phoenix.

  She had never understood why every phoenix was rabid about mating within their race. Perhaps that unusual racial hiccup was why Mac, who was over six-thousand years old, didn’t have a mate. Well, six-thousand physical years but that still counted.

  “I don't know about Haven Valley, but in Trellick Valley, for the last thirty or so years, we've started having unusual gifts pop-up. I don't know why, but the synth crystal in my body is a bit different than most. It reacts to a foreign object in my body and disposes of it.” Sarah hedged her answer the best she could, twisting partial truths with lies. “I guess the synth cleansed me of the poison and I woke-up in the tube.”

  “A foreign object? You mean like a bullet or something or just poison?” Brianna asked, seeming more curious than anything else.

  Sarah sighed, relieved the girl seemed to be accepting her badly scripted lie, but also irritated that she had to embellish the untruth a bit farther. A lie was only good for one thing and that was getting the teller caught up in the deception. “Yes, a stinger or poison, anything like that.”

  “Then why didn't the synth shove that arrow out of your shoulder?” Brianna asked. Crossing her arms over her stomach, a look of calculation stuck on her face making her youthful appearance look grim.

  Sarah got to her feet, stepping over Nick until she stood between her defenseless mate and Brianna. The honeycomb towered in front of her, quietly looming behind the girl. “Exactly how did you know I was shot with an arrow?” Sarah said in a very calm, soft voice, keeping her emotions reigned in tightly behind an uncaring mask of ice.

  Brianna shrugged her shoulders carelessly, grinning as she struck a nerve.

  Sarah moved swiftly, her years of experience kicked in as her fingers reached for the girl’s neck.

  Brianna reacted. Slipping out of Sarah’s reach, the short-haired blonde twisted and kicked at Sarah.

  Sarah dodged the well-aimed hit, catching Brianna in the ribs with a return kick.

  Hard striking hits and kicks flew back and forth.

  Seeing an opening, Sarah lunged forward. Ignoring a sharp crack to her ribs, she grasped the girl around her neck.

  Sarah's fingers quickly tightened around the girl’s throat. Her lips twitched, immensely enjoying the physical release of her pent-up emotions.

  Air flowing into the girl stopped. Brianna snapped her mouth open trying to breathe.

  Sarah’s fingers dug deeper, shoving the girl backward until Brianna’s head thumped against the rock wall. She allowed the girl to see a flicker of satisfaction glint through her vivid blue eyes.

  “You will answer me,” Sarah said in a lethal voice that sent a shiver of caution up her own spine.

  She watched Brianna’s eyes turn pure silver. A reaction that might have been deadly had the girl reached the next phase in her twenty-one day puberty cycle.

  Brianna's mouth opened but nothing came out. The girl didn’t give up easily. Moving with precision, she attacked Sarah with her hands and feet, anything that she could move.

  Sarah shifted out of the way, barely missing a knee Brianna thrust at her.

  Brianna punched outward, rapidly taking another shot at Sarah. The heel of Brianna’s right hand hit her square in the side, on the lower edge of her ribs.

  Sarah grunted as pain shot through her body. Her arm deflected a second and third attack. Curling her lip, less in pain than in distaste, she grabbed Brianna's left arm and flipped her, face-first against the wall. Tightening an arm around Brianna, she gripped the girl's soft neck with claw-tipped fingers. Flexing tense fingers, she kept the pressure firm, without breaking the skin.

  Easing forward, she softly repeated her order at the base of the girl’s skull. “I don't play nice and I never bluff. Answer or you'll feel exactly how deep my claws can go. For each minute you don’t answer, my claws will sink-in another little bit until I snap your head off your shoulders.”

  Sarah laughed, intentionally emphasizing her softly spoken words with her trademark lunatic-like laughter.

  Odd, the added twist to her ice queen act had always scared the daylights out of prisoners and friends alike. Even Mac appeared disturbed by her bizarre laughter.

  “Trust me, Brianna, you are Sídhí and that means this little game could last hours.”

  A breeze swirled past Sarah’s cheek, catching her attention. Startled, she leaned down toward a wide opening. The gentle wind grew stronger. The breeze smelled of a thousand scents. Above all, the air smelled of the fresh outdoors. The blending smelled wild, smelling of trees and flowers, of mountains and deserts, and of alien places.

  Confused at the odd mixture, she glanced down the row of tubes. Earlier,
she had been so intent on finding Clarisse she had focused on the mud-encrusted tubes, essentially ignoring the half dozen larger tubes, the tubes with glow moss.

  She moved to the left, getting a better look into one of the large tubes. The perfectly round opening, nearly three feet wide, glowed with a soft whitish-blue intensity. A solid gust of air blew her hair back as the breeze slid past the tube’s smooth inner walls.

  Understanding trickled through her molasses-filled mind.

  Glow moss didn't cover the walls, and the tube was definitely not a dead-end. There was no rear wall. The tube was actually a tunnel, slanting sharply downward, quickly disappearing into the unknown.

  That wasn’t the only deceptive point. The walls were not perfectly smooth. She looked closer, until her nose nearly touched the surface. Swirls of an etched pattern covered the glass-smooth surface. They curled around the tube in a distinctive design.

  The bluish-white glow coming from the narrow tunnel took on an entirely new meaning. She gazed into the tunnel with growing awe. The entire tube was made of synth crystal, glowing with suppressed energy.

  A burst of excitement exploded through her chest taking her breath away. She glanced around the cavern, wishing she had time to inspect the honeycomb a bit closer. The archways near the far end of the cavern took on an entirely new light.

  She wondered if the dragons had any clue what lay hidden within their valley. She doubted they knew. Either that or they didn't understand the significance of the honeycomb. At first, she hadn't either and she had been searching for one of the Ancient ruins for years.

  Well, her dad had been.

  The little, mud-crusted tubes had thrown her off. The smaller tubes must’ve been added later, because there was no reference to them in the dead Chi’Kehra’s journal. If she could just interpret the notes in the journal and harness the power of the ruin, she had a chance to protect her valley against the empire.

  She snorted. One small problem, the ruins were located in Dragon Valley, not Trellick Valley.

  Brianna squirmed, pulling her attention to the girl.

  The girl’s face looked slightly blue, while her eyes were solid silver. Her struggle had turned frantic. Not surprising, considering her lack of oxygen

  “I asked you a question,” she said coolly.

  She shook the girl, but when that didn't work to loosen the girl's tongue she slowly extended her claws, carefully puncturing the girl's neck a hair-width from a major artery. She didn't want the girl passed-out from lack of blood, simply talkative.

  It didn't take a genius to understand Sarah's anger. Only the original cabin members, the dragon guardians, and Sarah's attacker knew about the arrow. That left two options: Brianna was either working with the Khr'Vurr or she had watched the attack take place several days earlier.

  Well, maybe a third. It was possible one of the others told Brianna about the attack, but she didn't think so. Nick had clammed up tight. Mitch hated the shifters. Katie and Jared knew too much and didn't talk about what they knew. And even though Emily talked non-stop, the shifters had rebuffed her attempts at friendliness. No, she didn't think anyone was talking about the attack.

  She automatically placed Brianna in the worst category.

  Life within a Sídhí valley wasn't a democracy. The girl needed to convince Sarah that she wasn't a member of the Khr'Vurr, not the other way around. She wondered if Beth was a member of the Khr'Vurr as well.

  The idea was not an enjoyable one, and she had to stifle a shudder before the physical response had time to ripple down her back.

  The Dhark Empire didn't support the so-called Freedom Fighters, but several of the dhark lords did. That was bad enough, but Haven Valley was large and very powerful. The secretive valley was literally a sleeping giant. Having that much power supporting the Khr'Vurr created a nightmare of possibilities.

  The average person thought the Khr'Vurr was strictly a dragon-based organization, freedom fighters who struggled against the domineering Dragon Council. The majority of people would be wrong. Over the last few decades, the Khr'Vurr had been indiscriminately adding members from every known valley.

  The Khr'Vurr’s deadly strategy had appeared slowly before her family’s watchful gaze. Sarah knew the dragons planned to do more than simply overthrow the Dragon Council. She just wished she knew what those plans entailed.

  The hair on Sarah's neck prickled. She hissed through her teeth at the instinctive warning of danger.

  Inhaling through her nose, she sorted through the various scents and froze. She caught a trace of Clarisse, and even worse, she smelled rotten eggs. Trolls!

  She glanced behind her. No trolls. No movement. The cavern remained empty. Something didn't feel right. She felt like she stood behind a glass wall watching an undefined danger approach, while hoping the danger wouldn't smash through the thin barrier. She shook her head, trying to clear it of the cottony feel that persisted. The movement didn't help.

  Her instinct screamed louder, urging her to fight but darned if she could figure out why.

  Brianna squirmed, but stayed securely against the wall.

  Quiet as a tomb, the lack of noise within the vast cave continued uninterrupted.

  She rolled her head side-to-side, popping her neck. Nothing helped stop the building sense of doom.

  She hissed slowly through her teeth. Doom? She was getting as melodramatic as Emily.

  Brianna started snapping her teeth together, which didn't make a darn bit of sense. If the girl wanted to communicate, she could say the words telepathically. Her teeth chomping accomplished nothing, except to create a small irritating noise in the dead silence. The silly movement also shifted Sarah's claws a bit deeper into the young girl's neck.

  Young? Well, crap! Her thoughts screeched to a halt.

  Sarah sheathed her claws and loosened her steel-fingered grasp.

  Brianna sucked in a huge gulp of air. Choking, her shoulders shuddered as she coughed and gasped in quick succession.

  The blood dripping down Brianna's neck turned Sarah's fingers red. The rich color seemed to criticize her lack of intelligence, especially when the small wounds lining the nineteen year olds neck didn't start healing.

  Sarah grumbled silently, berating herself. She knew better. As far as outward appearances went, Brianna was past puberty. Tall, blonde, and as Sarah's brother would say, ‘she had a killer body’.

  Looks were deceiving. Sarah continued hammering herself. She had already figured out Brianna was in her puberty cycle so it stood-to-reason the girl might not be old enough to mentally answer.

  Releasing her hold, Brianna dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

  The girl rocked back and forth, clutching her abused neck. Her rasping groans continued for several moments. When the muscles along her shoulders and legs tightened, Sarah knew the girl was faking it.

  Arching a single eyebrow, she watched dispassionately. The girl remained kneeling on all fours as she struggled to breathe in a convincing manner. “I never thought a phoenix would join the Khr'Vurr.”

  “Phoenix? Khr'Vurr?” Brianna rasped in question. Shaking her head, she stopped play-acting and glared up. Her eyes didn’t focus on Sarah. Instead, her pale blue eyes slid past Sarah’s waiting gaze, growing huge.

  The girl uttered a shriek of pure terror.

  At Brianna’s blood-curdling scream, Sarah snapped her head upward toward the high ceiling. Her ice-cold features contorted and she bared her fangs in a warning growl.

  Several dozen cave trolls swiftly crawled across the ceiling in a flow of movement.

  Nearly hairless, dark burgundy bodies dotted the ceiling. Ropes of thick muscle bulged as the large, ape-like trolls used long, black claws to anchor themselves to the rocky surface.

  She locked eyes with the largest troll. A single fight for dominance was better than having all of them attack at once. Boldly, she stepped across Nick and roared a challenge.

  The troll’s wide jaws dropped open and the crea
ture howled at her, baring inch-long, yellow fangs. The sound changed, going from a deep-throated howler monkey sound into a hyena-like laughter.

  Like a lone, brass trumpet issuing a charge on a battlefield, the single shriek echoed through the chamber.

  The troll’s long, pointed ears swiveled around, seeking a second answer to Sarah’s challenge. When the other trolls remained quiet, the large beast dropped thirty feet straight down, landing on all fours. The dangerous animal squatted within a dozen feet of Nick's unconscious body.

  The troll’s large head sat atop a thick, muscle-wrapped neck. The bulging neck had to be incredibly strong to hold up the weight of his sharp, black horns. The twisted horns, combined with clawed feet, gave the large troll a demonic appearance.

  Burning, black eyes glanced at Nick's prone form. The troll straightened, bulging muscles rippled up long legs. The dark reddish-purple creature screamed another laughing challenge at her, flaunting long fangs and claws. The big male hopped from foot-to-foot in a dance of aggression. Straggling curls of black hair, covering its back and lower stomach, bobbed in sync with its laughing-howls.

  Sarah’s nose twisted in distaste. A troll’s scent glands grew in their mouth, releasing a putrid odor akin to rotten eggs whenever they howled. No matter the specific subspecies, trolls spelled trouble. Eating their young when food got scarce, the nasty creatures were well-known cannibals.

  She snarled a warning at the eight-foot monster and stepped forward. Secrets be damned, she'd not let anything harm her mate. She reached for the synth simmering in her blood and met a blank wall. Shock rippled through her. She mentally hammered at the barrier blocking access to the power in her blood, but the blockage refused to budge an inch.

  She stepped forward another foot, never hesitating. Any hint of weakness and the entire nest of trolls would attack. She might kill half-a-dozen, perhaps more, but not while protecting Nick.