Tholan
Mystic Protectors Series Book 6
By
Kathi S. Barton
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
World Castle Publishing, LLC
Pensacola, Florida
Copyright © Kathi S. Barton 2018
Smashwords Edition
Paperback ISBN: 9781949812220
eBook ISBN: 9781949812237
First Edition World Castle Publishing, LLC, October 29, 2018
http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com
Smashwords Licensing Notes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.
Cover: Karen Fuller
Editor: Maxine Bringenberg
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
Tholan watched his charge as she acted and danced on the stage. He knew better than to try and keep up with her—she was beautifully fast skimming over the stage. But she was stunning, and she knew the steps to the music like she did her own name. When the play she was acting in came to an end, he knew that she’d have to go to the back room and change quickly so that no one, not one of the other actors, knew that she was a female, not a male just as they were. Women did not act on the stage, nor did they sing and dance as if they were born to do so.
The men of this time thought it to be dangerous to have a woman act—which to Tholan was just silly. Some of them could and did play better and act better than their male counterparts. But Elizabeth was determined to be out there, showing her skills and having fun. And her father loved that she enjoyed acting as much as he did watching her perform.
When they had taken their final bow, he watched the others around her, making sure that none of them harmed her, and did not guess what secret she was hiding from them. As they walked home, he encouraged her more, telling her that she was brilliant. Her face showed so much happiness for what she had done.
The streets were dirty. Even though there were piles of refuse and spoiled food along her way, she never turned up her nose at those that were digging through it. Some of the patrons of the stage had given her and the other actors hunks of bread and cheese. Even though her father and she could have used a bit of it too, she always shared her wealth with those that she knew needed it more than her. Her way of thinking was, she had someone to love her and a roof over her head.
Tholan wouldn’t rest his protection of her until they were at her home. Her father was a good man, even though he would get into his cups a little too much. But he loved his daughter and the coin that she would bring to him nightly. They were a good pair, the two of them. While he’d never say a word to anyone, Tholan did think that he was in love with the beautiful Bethy, as her father called her.
Supper was the hard, crusty bread that she’d saved a hunk of from today, with tomatoes sliced thick and salted heavily. There was broth too, with just a little of the potato that they’d had last evening, and a bit of fish, left over from the supper the night before that. It smelled good, he supposed, but it wasn’t something that he’d eat.
Poor didn’t describe the way these two lived. They did have food once or maybe twice a day. There was always tea, though there were times when she’d use the leaves over too many times. And wine for her father. It helped, her father told her, with the pains in his legs.
Tholan knew from her father’s protector that he wasn’t long for this world. His legs, both of them in sad condition, were rotting off at the knee. And as there was no coin for the doctor, they lived their life as well as they could.
Taking her father out on the stoop, a chore for one as small as herself, Bethy sat with her father, telling him of all the things that had been in the play. They were the same stories, her changing them up a little for freshness, and she told him that no one, not a single person, knew who she was.
“I’d hate to think what they’d do to someone as delicate as my little flower.” Her father touched his old and callused hand to her cheek. “I’ve heard tell that they stone a woman who would dare breach their rules. You be careful, my Bethy. I should just die without you by my side.”
“I am as safe as you are locked away all day whilst I am gone. And if they find out, I think—nay, I know—that they’d do nothing more to me than to push me aside and have a man take over my role.” She laughed—it sounded like tinkling bells to Tholan. “Though I doubt anyone could do a good job of it. They all sing like men, and the voice that I have is much lighter on the ears.”
At bedtime she tucked her father into his cot. Then she did what she did every night to keep them safe—Bethy put a large stone in front of the door and stoked up the fires. Sleep would come easily for her, Tholan knew. It was exhausting to her to keep up with acting, as well as helping her father around.
The next morning, Tholan was there when she rose up. He whispered to her that it was going to be a grand day. That she would be happy though it was raining hard. Going with her to her father’s bed, Tholan saw her shake him hard, and when he didn’t move, Tholan looked at Michael, who appeared in the room with them.
“He has passed. I’ve come to take him home, as his protector has been assigned to someone else.” Michael came to get all those ready to pass. It was a difficult job—he was forever busy in his role—but Tholan was more concerned with his own charge. She was taking the death of her father very hard.
When the undertaker came to take her father’s body away, Bethy cried harder as he was put in a wagon with the other dead. Tholan’s heart hurt for her. He knew that her own had to be broken badly—her father was all that she’d had in the world.
It was a hard time for so many now, food being in such short supply. The diseases ran through the people quickly and without care to age, or how the ones left behind were to deal with it. There wasn’t any money for a proper burial for most, and Bethy’s father was no different. As she walked behind the wagon, she kept telling her father how much he had meant to her, how she was going to miss him so much.
Tholan was beside her with each step, telling her that she’d be all right, that time would heal this wound for her. He could not touch her, could not do what he wanted to do more than anything. And that was to take her into his arms, under his wings, and hold her until the world, her world, was a much better place.
That evening he tried to tell her not to go to the theater—a grand name for such a hovel—and that they would not miss her for one night. But he also feared that if she did not go, she would sit in the house and not eat or drink. The things that she did there, on the small stage, made her happy, and for that, he supposed, it would be a good thing for her to do.
Her face was swollen, and Tholan told her to say that she’d had a cold. No one would question her about her father—they all thought her to live alone. That like them, she had no one. When she dressed herself in her garb, Tholan told her how lovely she looked, whispered
that there were none prettier than her, and their voices were not nearly as nice.
The play went on. Mistakes were made—they happened every night. But when it was over, instead of going to the pub with them, to celebrate another night of merriment, Bethy gathered her things, all of them, and made her way home.
The roads were slightly cleaner than they had been on the way in. The rain, hard and driving at times, had washed the worst of the dirt and trash away. But it was slippery, the stones and mud making her step very cautiously as she walked along.
The wagon for the dead was making its way along the streets again. She moved to walk to the other side of the road to avoid it. But as she was making her way across the wet stones, she lost her footing and tumbled down. Tholan was reaching for her—to do what, he had no idea—when she sat up.
“I have fallen.” The people roaming the streets just stared at her while she laughed, and when Bethy stood up, still holding onto the wagon that was near her, she started crying. “I wish it to be me in this cart this night.”
Her hand came from the cart to her head. That was when Tholan noticed that her hand was covered in blood. Standing close to her, trying to see if she’d been hurt badly enough to need help, she looked at him. Tholan stood very still when he thought her eyes were staring directly at him.
“Hello.” He nodded. “I’ve fallen down. I think that I’ve rattled my head. Do you suppose you could help me along? I don’t wish to be alone tonight. I might join my father, and I do not wish to die alone.”
Before he could tell her that he had her, someone moved through him. A man, tall and big, grabbed her hand and tossed her to the road. The blood that poured from her head this time was pooling beneath it.
Scooping her up so that her soul could be taken now, Tholan made his way to the other realm. He didn’t want her to hurt, but it was much too late for that. As soon as he summoned Michael, he knew that something more had happened.
“What have you done, Tholan?” He explained to Michael that he’d brought her himself. “But she wasn’t to die. Not yet, at least. She has many years to go. Children to birth. Generations to bring to the world. You have taken her too soon.”
Boss came to see him as he stood there, her lifeless soul in his arms. He took her from him, his anger so strong that Tholan flinched back from him. The woman had not died, that was all that his mind could center on.
“You have taken her too soon. Do you know the repercussions that you have caused this day? The things that have to be changed, children that will not be born? What will happen now, Tholan? What of the generations and generations of children that were to come from this woman and her husband?” He asked if she could be taken back. “Nay, it is much too late for that. The man that you took her from, she was meeting him today. He would care for her in her need, and they would love like none other. You have done her and the world a misdeed that will be felt forever. You must explain to her what you have done.”
“I cannot.” Boss woke the soul in his arms. The woman looked at them all but didn’t say anything. “You must be able to take her back. You are all powerful.”
“In this, I cannot. You have— Words fail me on this. You must tell her what you have done to her.” Tholan backed away. His own heart was broken too. “Michael, take care of him. I shall have to see what I can do to rectify this for her. But the timeline for her, it is forever broken.”
When he disappeared with Bethy, Tholan lay on the ground, his wings spread out over him. It was his death that awaited him. Michael would surely kill him now. And when nothing happened, he looked up and saw that not only had Michael drawn his sword, but he looked ready to use it on him.
“You must die as well.” Tholan nodded, his heart, his mind no longer able to function. “You have killed a human. One that was set to be the mother to a great many special people. Do you have any idea what must be done to fix this? If there is even a fix?”
“No, my lord, I do not. I thought her dead. There was so much blood under her. The man, he threw her to the road and he—”
“His fingers slipped. He was helping her to rise. Her mate—that was her mate for all time, and you have done them all a misjustice, Tholan. All generations, not just theirs, will feel this forever. You deserve to die.”
“I do.” He waited for the blow, the one that would remove his head. It was no less than he deserved.
Tholan thought of the woman. Bethy was no longer. He had no idea how Boss was going to make it so that she could go back, but it would never be the same for her, or for the man who had only wanted to help her.
Michael ordered him to stand and Tholan, confused, did so.
“You will go to your cell and stay there. No contact with anyone, not on Earth or in this realm, for a period of one thousand years. And when you return, if I allow it, you will not be a protector as you have been until such time that our Lord feels you have paid the price for what you have done. Go. Get yourself out of my sight. You have nothing to say that I wish to hear.”
Michael, his friend, turned his back on him. It hurt him more, Tholan thought, than if Michael had removed his head. Willing himself to his cell, he laid upon his cot. His life, his life as a protector, was finished.
~*~
Thousands of years later
PJ and her da loved watching old movies—the older the better. And when there was a marathon with their favorite actors, they would binge on them until they were cross-eyed exhausted. But they had each other, and they were happy. And PJ loved her da more than she did anyone in the world.
“Angela said that she was going to go and get her hair done. That was two days ago. I wonder what sort of fluff and cut they do on dogs such as herself.” They both laughed. Da had married Angela six years ago, when PJ had been a teenager. Now they just tolerated her, both of them. “I will have to do something about her soon, I think. She has made things difficult for me at the board.”
“Like what?” PJ knew that she was to take over the company when her da retired—if he ever retired. “I was in there yesterday and got caught up on the paperwork, by the way. And you should know that I’ve also invested in the school that we talked about.”
He nodded. Da, Parker Daniel Brooks, was a hell of a businessman. And in turn, she had learned from the best. The business that he’d purchased for a song before she’d been born had turned into a multibillion-dollar industry, leaving them both room to make more investments and even more money for them—not that they needed it. But they were very generous with it, and that was why they continued to make more.
“I guess she told Milton, and you know how he can be, that when I passed away, she’d be taking over and he’d be gone. He told me that he didn’t think she’d do a good job, not as good as you would.” PJ was already shaking her head. “You have to take it, PJ. You want her to spend all our hard-earned money on getting her nails done and other men?”
“No, but I also have enough on my plate for now. And besides, Da, you’re going to be around for a very long time.” They both laughed. When the doorbell rang, neither of them moved. “You and I, we have plenty of time for us to make any kind of decisions on what is going to happen. You won’t leave me anytime soon, will you?”
“I hope not.”
PJ stood up when someone cleared their throat. It was the police, and they looked like they meant business. “Can we help you, officers?”
“Mr. Brooks, we’re here to arrest you for armed robbery and murder.” PJ looked at her father, a man confined to a wheelchair since she’d been born. “You have the right to remain—”
“Hang on there, young man. I don’t know what’s happening here, but as you can tell, I’ve no way of robbing anyone, much less holding a gun. I don’t own one, and wouldn’t know how to use it if I did.”
But they took him in, with her following the cruiser closely. Angela had come in just as they were leaving, and was pissed as well.
Booking him for a crime that he’d not done, nor could possib
ly have committed, took nearly three hours. By then they’d shuffled her da from one end of the station to the next. Each place they’d gone, someone had asked him about the chair, and every time they told them that he’d been in it for years.
The next morning, they told her that he was going to go to trial. It seemed to her that things were being rushed through, and Da’s attorney was trying his best to get them to understand that her da didn’t do this. All the while, PJ stayed by his side until they took him to his cell.
“They’re ramming this through, PJ, and I haven’t any idea what I’m supposed to do. And if they’re doing this to him now, I can’t imagine what they’re going to do to him during the trial. I cannot get anyone to tell me where this thing occurred or how it happened. I’m worried for his safety.” Joseph March, her father’s attorney, looked as if he’d aged several years over the last twenty-four hours. “It’s as if they’re trying to blame this on him for some reason that I can’t fathom.”
“Will he go to prison?” Joseph told her that it was looking more and more like that all the time. “You mean before the trial. They’ll get him to prison and what? Forget about him? This is all Angela, isn’t it? She’s doing this so that she’ll somehow end up with Da’s money.”
“I didn’t want to say that before, honey. But to me this has the markings of someone desperate.” He looked around and then leaned into her. “I don’t know what is going on with her, but your father told me that he thinks she’s put out a hit on him. If this is her way of getting him alone, then she couldn’t have worked it out better for herself. And if he’s convicted, she can perhaps get out of the pre-nup that she had to sign. She’ll be able to say that he lied to her or some such nonsense, and that will be the end of Brooks.”
Her father had worked hard on making his way in the world. She knew as well as anyone how much he’d given up, how much he’d scrimped and saved to make this work for the family. And now this. Looking around the jail, she asked Joseph how many years he thought her father would get—if he were to make it to the trial.
Tholan: Mystic Protectors: An Angelic Paranormal Erotica Page 1