“You’re not going anywhere,” he stated.
You could’ve heard a pin drop.
Sarah looked at the man. Nick nearly didn’t hold back a shudder as her icy rage changed into something volatile, deadly. “Are you breaking your oath to me?”
The man’s face curled into a snarl, baring very human teeth. “You are my liege. I will never break that oath, but that doesn’t mean I won’t give you unsought advice.”
A flicker of humor raced through her, touching Nick in a flood of relief.
“Dad, you’ve given me unsought advice since the moment I could talk.”
“True, baby girl,” Lord Trellick said, he face softening. “Once you port the phoenix, and the fresh ground troops began providing support, we will have a handle on pushing the scum out of our valley. If you go out there, and you are recognized, people might start putting two-and-two together.”
She bared her fangs in a growl, finishing the importance of his unspoken words. “And if the elves figure out someone ported the phoenix in, they’ll question how. And we can’t afford to have the elves attack right now.”
Nick felt her simmering fury. He understood. He wanted nothing more than to lay into a few of the dhark soldiers and rip them to pieces with his claws and nothing more.
“I don’t know,” her father said, nodding toward an image of a closed gateway. “Now, that you can do that, I’m half a mind to chunk the entire charade and publically announce that you are Chi’Kehra. I don’t doubt the elves of the Royal Valley will turn against you, but some of the other elvish valleys have very quietly started accepting mixed-race couples.”
The bright red digits on the countdown clock changed to one minute. “We’ll discuss it after this is over, but I love the idea. I’m so sick of all the lies,” she said, repeating what she had told Nick days ago.
Someone handed Sarah a hooded robe. Slipping it around her shoulders, she tugged the hood forward then pulled a matching black facemask around the lower half of her face. Going to her calves, the cape seemed to be made for her. If she had to fight, the cloak’s short length would not get in her way and accidentally trip her.
Clenching his teeth, he stifled a growl. He knew she had to pick-up the phoenix, but he hated her going alone.
Someone touched his shoulder. He turned. The same young woman that had handed Sarah her cloak had an identical one for him. Surprised, he accepted the garment with a word of thanks.
He turned toward his mate with a question in his eyes, not that he disagreed but the move surprised him. He’d been half-afraid she’d try putting him in a glass bubble or in Sarah’s case, a crystal bubble.
“I thought you might like to go with me,” Sarah said softly, adjusting the hood of the cloak around his face. For a moment, her eyes softened.
His midsection - that had been clenched tight with a dozen nameless emotions - relaxed until he felt almost normal. There was no getting around his beloved was a better fighter than he was, but he was vampire. His entire purpose in life was to protect his mate. He grunted to himself, knowing that if he wanted his mate happy, he better re-adjust his overwhelming urge to protect her at all times.
She touched his face with a brief caress before hooking the mask in place. “Thank you. I swear that I’ll try to do the same for you.”
Sharing thoughts was turning out to be better than…
“If you say better than sex, so help me, I’ll throw you in the dungeon,” she said with a twinkle in her beautiful, clear blue eyes.
The clock on the wall hit ten seconds. Curling her hand around his arm, she ported them to the far northern part of North America, appearing in Phoenix Valley.
Sarah appeared on a raised platform, the kind normally seen at music concerts. There was not a chair in sight. A breeze swirled around them, carrying the bright smell of fireweed and mishk on the wind.
Covering the field was a sea of brilliant colored wings, every shade imaginable from bright blue to sea foam green. A second color edged most wings, and a few people had tri-colored wings. Seeing burnt orange edged with bright purple, he quickly decided not all of the secondary colors were complimentary.
Pulling her hood back, Sarah unhooked her mask. Additional phoenix landed. At a guess, there were a lot more than a thousand. More wings appeared on the horizon, flying straight toward them.
From Sarah’s mind, he heard the soft murmur as hundreds of people called to her. “I am coming… Don’t leave without me... I’m hurrying... I’ll be there... Don’t leave me…”
Shock flowed from his mate. As more people called to her, disbelief merged with awe. “I do not deserve such loyalty,” she said to him in a private whisper.
“Would you not take your last breath defending them?” he asked her.
“Of course, I would. They are my people just as much as those who live in Trellick Valley are my people.”
“They know that,” he said, gently squeezing her arm. “This is not simple loyalty, this is love.”
She gave a slight nod, accepting his comment. He thought her to be speechless. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
“My people, time is of the essence. I must take those gathered, but I will return.” Verbally and mentally, her words literally boomed across the sky. He realized she must be forcing power into her speech.
Damn, his girl amazed him every time he turned around.
“When I called, you came. You are mine, and I am yours, but the honor you give me this day is beyond compare.” Beside him, he felt her take a deep breath, and she shouted in a half snarl, half scream of fury, “Today, we fight! Today, we throw off the chains of evil!”
The rumble of voices meeting her words echoed across the beautiful Kenai landscape, becoming a deafening roar. “Today, we become a nation without the taint of the Dhark Empire! Today, we will destroy our enemies!”
She raised her hand, the one scared with living crystal. Crystal flowed from the thin, nearly invisible scar, in a billowing cloud of tiny sparkling shards. The cloud moved outward, above the raging throng of warriors. The frosty cloud of power dispersed into a mist and rained down; synth crystal enveloped each person on the field.
As she started gathering power for the port, he felt every strand of hair rise up. It felt like he was standing too near a naked electric line as the energy sizzled across his skin. He tensed, expecting pain to strike next, but he should have known his mate better than that.
Curling her arm around his, she soaked up the stray flickers of power.
Realizing she planned to port, he flipped her hood up and secured her mask.
“Thanks, I forgot,” she said almost sheepishly. The emotion was so at odds with her powerful stance that he stopped watching the gathered phoenix and simply savored the genuine emotion coming from her.
His arm snaked around her tiny waist.
Smooth as breathing, Sarah ported him and well over a thousand screaming phoenix high into the air above the now closed Hot Springs gateway.
He felt them falling through the air, and his arms tightened around her body. They didn’t drop very far before the sky disappeared, and they appeared at Whitehorse. A roar of welcome greeted them. When she greeted the phoenix with a raised sword but didn’t speak, he realized she had projected her speech a lot farther than he first thought.
She didn’t pause before porting the waiting warriors to West Coast Metro. The next group of warriors she sent to Red Oak, the next to Gila Cliffs.
The entire process took less than ten minutes. Once again, the two of them appeared on a raised platform at Kenai. Hundreds more had gathered, but most of the waiting phoenix were not armed.
Pausing, they watched people rush across the area.
He shoved his hood back and turned to Sarah who was concentrating on the growing crowd.
“Hey,” he said. Gaining her attention, he gently tugged her hood down. Coal black orbs looked up into his.
“I didn’t plan that speech, it just happened,” she said rapidly,
sucking in several deep breaths. Too quick to be seen, a flicker of something passed through her eyes. It didn’t matter. He could feel her burning self-doubt.
Something close to satisfaction filled him as he realized he was the only person on earth who could see the true person beyond her glacial mask, not that he approved of her current emotion.
“You were perfect,” he growled, trying to destroy the lingering insecurity he saw deep in her eyes.
Leaning into his embrace, she smiled. “You would say that if I promised each person a head of cabbage and a dollar a day.”
“Not cabbages,” he said, laughing at her analogy. He lightly kissed her pinched features. He doubted if anyone else would see anything but her ice princess mask, but he knew her much better. “You wouldn’t have said what you did if you hadn’t meant it.”
“I meant every word, but I hadn’t planned such a public separation from the empire. I just hope the repercussions aren’t as bad as I fear.”
“I don’t think it can get much worse. Anyway, your dad agreed with you.” He paused before asking, “Who all did you send that speech too?”
“Ah,” sounding strangled, she turned light pink.
“Sarah?” he asked, intrigued by her reaction.
“I didn’t send the whole thing,” she said, sounding as if she might be hedging her answer. Her face turned a deeper shade of red. “I sent the entire speech to everyone in Phoenix Valley.”
“And?” he pushed for a straight answer.
A delighted laugh erupted from directly behind him. “The world,” Bea said smugly. “She sent it to everyone in the entire world! Teach those filthy dhark lords to keep their grubby hands to themselves.”
Turning, he found the wind-blown phoenix folding her wings against her back. The curved tops arched a good two feet above her head.
He tried to swallow his humor, but it turned into an outright chuckle. “The entire world, as in Earth and all the valleys heard you?”
Sarah’s beautiful face turned brilliant red. Groaning, she thumped her forehead against his shoulder. “I’ve screwed-up major. Everyone will know I’m Chi’Kehra.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so,” Bea said, glancing across the milling phoenix one last time, before focusing her entire attention on Sarah. “The only thing most people heard was, ‘Today, we fight! Today, we throw off the chains of evil! Today, we become a nation without the taint of the Dhark Empire! Today, we will destroy our enemies!’”
“In my voice,” Sarah grumbled. She poked him in the chest. “Stop laughing.”
“I didn’t say anything,” he said, with a small shake of his head.
She snorted. “You don’t need to say anything for me to feel your humor.”
“Okay, so I admit, I love seeing you filled with emotion, any kind of emotion. And you have to admit, it is funny. You never lose your cool, but when you do, it’s a magnificent sight.”
“It didn’t sound like you,” Bea said, interrupting them.
“Come again?” Sarah questioned.
“You rarely raise your voice,” Nick said, immediately understanding.
“Yes,” Bea hissed in triumph, “exactly. You were yelling and snarling. It no more sounded like you than a house cat sounds like a wild khatt.”
Nodding her head in understanding, Sarah waved toward the growing crowd and changed the subject. “Most of them aren’t armed. What’s going on?”
“With the influx of phoenix, I’d say the fighting will quickly turn into a victory. When the other side realizes they are as good as dead men walking, most of our warriors will spend more time chasing dhark soldiers as they try to escape Trellick Valley.”
The Dhark Empire would never stage a rescue mission for their men; they would abandon every soldier caught behind enemy lines. A gut-deep knowledge told him it was completely opposite of how Sarah would react to losing even one of her men.
Out-of-the-blue, Bea stated, “When they first entered the valley, the soldiers targeted populated areas.”
A growl rumbled from Sarah. “I know. I already sent warriors in to assist the worst hit areas.”
Bea nodded, but her frown deepened. “I figured you would, but even if the dark armies are stopped immediately there will be a lot of damage.”
“And thousands injured,” Sarah said softly. Her jaw clenched, and a shaft of Sarah’s pain rammed through Nick’s chest. “There are thousands of small communities and secluded houses that need to be checked.”
She glanced toward the growing number of phoenix that filled the area, and understanding flickered across her face. “You sent out a call for rescue workers?”
As soon as she asked, the sea of red clothing registered to Nick. In one way or another, each person on the field wore a red shirt or a strip of red cloth pinned to their clothing. Red was the universal color all Sídhí connected with rescue workers. On most battlefields, a rescue worker was untouchable, but he didn’t trust their enemies to honor that unspoken agreement.
“Yes, covering the towns with enough volunteers will be difficult, but even with the large number of workers arriving, I’m afraid it could take weeks to check on all the outlying homes,” Bea said. “It’s going to take me a few hours to really get everything moving, but I’m organizing each rescue party to have at least one warrior to stand watch for every group of ten or so workers.”
He grunted in approval. It seemed Sarah’s general agreed with him. This one, he could work with.
“Sounds good,” Sarah said with a nod of approval. “We’ll be back in a couple of hours, and I’ll start porting them to different locations.”
____________
Sarah leaned into Nick’s hold. With the crystal embedded in his skull, she didn’t need touch to port him, but her hunger for his touch was at an all-time high.
They appeared in the War Room, near a row of stacked servers, an area that Timothy guarded with the fierce protectiveness of a werewolf guarding newborn pups. It was the one place in the room she knew would be empty of people.
“Get away from there,” Timothy said with a snarl, turning toward her as his fingers continued dancing across a keyboard. His eyes popped open, and he stuttered an apology.
“No worries,” she soothed, stepping away from the essential equipment.
From across the room, her dad waved for her to join him and a dozen others as they stood around a large wall map. The map was actually a combination of a dry wall board and a map. The permanent image of Trellick Valley covered a ten-foot span of wall detailing towns, roads, gateways, and other critical points.
Two of her dad’s aides were hastily adding and removing information such as troop movement, new attacks, and requests for help.
Passing in front of the wall of monitors, she heard Nick snarl under his breath. She agreed. The raw footage of the on-going battle was horrifying, but it was easy to see the tide was rapidly turning in their favor.
She felt pulled. She wanted nothing more than to port into one of the battles and start hacking her enemies to small pieces. Unfortunately, being the one in charge meant utilizing her ability where it would do the most good.
“What happened to ‘we will talk about it when I get back’?” her dad asked, his eyebrow quirking up in a very familiar manner.
“No comment,” she said coolly.
When he folded his arms and just stared at her, she chuckled. “All right, I might have gotten carried away.”
Wrapping her in a one-armed hug, he snorted. “You think so?”
“Maybe,” she said, unable to keep her lips from twitching in amusement. It didn’t help that Nick thought the whole thing was awesome and kept teasing her about it. Glancing at the board, she asked for a verbal report, “Status?”
“The empire’s army at West Coast Metro has disbanded, but not in a good way. When the phoenix started their attack, units of approximately one hundred men scattered. At least a thousand escaped the pincer move,” he said, pointing to the North American west coas
t, indicating the sprawling metropolis.
“Roughly, we’ve lost thirty-five hundred warriors. The death count among our civilians is estimated at seven thousand.” At Sarah’s hiss, he paused. “Once the invaders were inside the valley, units of vampires ported into urban areas. They brought in thousands of werewolves and sasquatch and released them in heavily populated areas. The bloody empire has been running live footage of the attack.”
“They want it to be a warning to other valleys,” Sarah said slowly, feeling her lip curl into a snarl. She growled in fury. The people around her echoed her response, which only increased her urge to do something reckless.
Nick’s hand touched her shoulder. His eyes burned bright with unspoken emotion, and his words rumbled with heat; his fury burned through her brain. “I want them as dead as you do, but if you lose your head it might mean more death, not less.”
“Agreed, the empire deserves nothing less than to be crushed,” her dad said as he gestured to the map, “but let’s work on this before we destroy the dhark lords that ordered this done.”
“No.” Sarah sucked in a breath, trying to calm down. It didn’t help. “We can’t let the attack go unpunished. We need an immediate response. If we don’t retaliate, even with the gateways closed, we risk the empire as seeing us as weak.”
“If they think we’re an easy target, they’ll latch onto the idea of trying to crush us like a bug,” Nick said, his face told the entire story. He wanted retribution as much as she did.
“Do we know which dhark lords were behind the invasion?” Sarah asked, walking toward a second whiteboard, one depicting the various valleys that created the Dhark Empire.
“Yesterday, about noon, Lord PhñDick and Lord Trenton called an emergency council session at Dhark Plaza,” her dad said sourly. “I was not invited. Two of our spies within the PhñDick household broke their cover to bring me the rumors of an imminent attack.”
Several low growls sounded through the room. Her dad nodded, as if acknowledging their anger. “When the first man tried to leave, he made the mistake of trying to help a young blood slave escape at the same time. I can’t blame him. The boy was not much more than a toddler. General PuckinKnück, Lord PhñDick’s trained bully, caught them. He had our man beaten near to death.” He paused, clenching his fist around the hilt of his sword. “They didn’t kill him, because they wanted our spy to be alive when the boy was thrown into a sasquatch pen. The beast - according to our second man on the inside - had been starved for several weeks.”
Exile: Sídhí Summer Camp #3 Page 23