Sentinel Of Khoth

by Brenda Trim

  The warm ocean wa­ter was an­other plus. Sirens loved spend­ing as much time as pos­si­ble in the wa­ter. And, the hunky males were an­other point in Khoth’s fa­vor. It seemed as if she was sur­rounded by mus­cu­lar, good look­ing males ev­ery­where she turned in the dragon realm.

  That made her think of the knights at the beach af­ter the ex­plo­sion. She couldn’t get the im­age of one of them shift­ing to hu­man from his dragon. He had a mas­sive tat­too of his beast on his chest with gem-like eyes. She’d love to see if Finn had a sim­i­lar tat­too on his body. His brown eyes would look like choco­late di­a­monds on his flesh.

  Once again, she won­dered why the hell she was go­ing to such lengths to spend more time with Finn. Aside from be­ing po­lite and ask­ing her what she saw at the scene he showed no in­ter­est in her. It had to be her year-long ab­sti­nence from sex that was mak­ing her act out of char­ac­ter.

  Shrug­ging her shoul­ders, she con­tin­ued on her path won­der­ing if she could sug­gest pub­lic trans­porta­tion or cars be in­tro­duced on Khoth. Walk­ing ev­ery­where was great for get­ting her back­side in shape, but it made for long jour­neys to and from ev­ery­where.

  Ex­pect­ing to see torches sur­round­ing the stone struc­ture, she was shocked by the seem­ingly mod­ern light­ing that lit the area as she ap­proached. Lights in Khoth were sim­i­lar to those on Earth, but there were no switches to turn them on. Seemed they were mo­tion ac­ti­vated for the most part.

  An­other dif­fer­ence was the way they con­ducted elec­tric­ity on Khoth. It seemed that most of their tech­nol­ogy was fu­eled by so­lar en­ergy which made sense when the sun al­ways shone high and bright in the sky.

  The mas­sive dou­ble doors opened as she ap­proached the cas­tle and two Maa­hes stood there with stoic ex­pres­sions on their faces. “What busi­ness do you have at Tate­nen?” asked one of the knights.

  Meet­ing his odd red eyes, she once again ques­tioned her san­ity. Hold­ing up the plat­ter of muffins, she pasted on her bright­est smile and jig­gled the fruity baked goods. “I brought Finn some muffins to say thank you for help­ing at the beach the other day. It was an aw­ful sit­u­a­tion that scared the crap out of me, and he was nice enough to take a few min­utes to calm me down.” The stern, sus­pi­cious looks dropped from their faces as she spoke while their stance re­laxed slightly, as well. It was a re­ac­tion she was used to, and she was glad to see that the drag­ons seemed to be less af­fected than hu­mans. She didn’t care for the in­flu­ence her voice had on some in­di­vid­u­als.

  Not that any of that mat­tered at the mo­ment as she stood there bab­bling ner­vously. Clamp­ing her lips to­gether to keep from say­ing any­thing more, she won­dered if they were go­ing to let her in when a brown-haired male pushed be­tween them and gave her a half smile.

  “Well, hello beau­ti­ful,” mur­mured the knight with danc­ing am­ber eyes. The way he canted his body and leaned against the door­jamb spoke of his play­ful na­ture. “Are you sure you want to give those to Finn? Name’s Blaine, and I’m off in fif­teen. Why don’t we take those sherulla muffins to my place, so we can en­joy them for break­fast to­mor­row morn­ing?”

  Talysia liked Blaine. He was un­apolo­getic in his flirt­ing. It didn’t hurt that he was sexy and had a great smile. “Does that smile work with all the fe­males?”

  Af­fect­ing a dra­matic ex­pres­sion, Blaine placed his hand over his chest and fur­rowed his brows. “Ouch, that hurts. I speak from the heart, Beau­ti­ful. And, I didn’t get your name.”

  “Not many bring muffins to the cas­tle? I’m Talysia.”

  Blaine threw his head back and laughed at that. “Touche. The muffins are a first for sure. Plea­sure to meet you, Taly,” he pro­fessed as he lifted her hand and kissed the back of it.

  She liked Blaine’s con­fi­dence and nick­name for her. Aside from her sis­ters, no one ever called her Taly, and she liked it. She had a hunch she was go­ing to be­come great friends with this knight. “Is Finn here?”

  Step­ping aside, Blaine mo­tioned her to en­ter through the doors. The en­trance to the cas­tle was not what she ex­pected. The ru­ins in Scot­land had sim­i­lar struc­tures that all opened to a great room. This one had a large en­trance that im­me­di­ately branched off to a hall that went left and right. The dé­cor was very sim­i­lar to tours she’d taken of some of the re­stored build­ings.

  Ta­pes­tries adorned the walls, along with, oil paint­ings of drag­ons fight­ing in the sky. There was also a ta­ble with a vase full of the ochillo flow­ers unique to Khoth. She loved the var­i­ous col­ors and sizes.

  “Finn is in the throne room,” Blaine in­formed her as he started down the hall to the left. The rough gray stone of the walls held the his­tory of the Cuele­bre drag­ons in their fibers. Talysia got im­pres­sions from ob­jects. Not ex­actly im­ages, but when she touched things, she learned some of its his­tory.

  “What brings you to see Finn?”

  “He helped me the other day at the beach and I wanted to say thank you,” she told the knight.

  Toss­ing her a smirk, Blaine chuck­led low. His voice was deep and pleas­ant. “You mean he piqued your in­ter­est. Are you hop­ing for sexy times with him?”

  Shak­ing her head, she couldn’t wipe the smile off her lips. “No!”

  “Then hope isn’t lost for me. I can show you real sexy times, Beau­ti­ful,” Blaine mur­mured as he lifted one long strand of her hair and rubbed it be­tween his fin­gers.

  Talysia found Blaine at­trac­tive, but he didn’t rev her en­gines like Finn. That was a male that ex­uded con­fi­dence with more than a hint of killer in­stinct. It wasn’t un­til he was talk­ing to her that her body stopped shak­ing from ter­ror. Be­ing sur­rounded by pow­er­ful, fire-breath­ing drag­ons and count­less knights with swords hadn’t made her feel safe, where Finn did.

  “Alas, I’m afraid there is no hope for us.”

  Blaine stag­gered and gasped. “You wound me.”

  Pick­ing up a muf­fin, she of­fered it to Blaine. “Eat this. It’ll make you feel bet­ter.”

  Talysia col­lided with Izzy when she rounded the cor­ner at the same mo­ment she and Blaze did. “Oh. Sorry. Hey,” Izzy said in greet­ing as she grabbed the plat­ter be­fore it fell to the ground. Man, the young fe­male had good re­flexes. Not even one muf­fin was lost in the in­ci­dent. “Good to see you again. I never re­ally said thank you for your help the other day, so thanks.”

  Talysia smiled and ac­cepted the tray. “It was noth­ing. I couldn’t let you guys stay there when dan­ger lurked nearby.”

  “Not ev­ery­one would have ex­posed them­selves to help oth­ers,” Blaze added, draw­ing Talysia’s gaze. The young male she thought was run­ning to­ward them was stand­ing next to the prince. She felt bad for as­sum­ing he meant his friends harm.

  “I did what any­one would’ve done,” she in­sisted. “Any­way, it’s good to see you guys again. I need to get these to Finn.”

  Blaine was teas­ing Talysia as they con­tin­ued walk­ing, but she barely heard him. A face flashed through her mind when she saw the other kid, Troy. The male was an­gry, but she couldn’t re­call many more de­tails about him ex­cept his gray eyes.

  “And, here we are,” Blaine said as he ush­ered her into a large room with his hand at the small of her back.

  She had to blink sev­eral times as she re­al­ized they had gone from more mod­ern light­ing to can­dles and torches. Be­fore she could ques­tion the rea­son for the dras­tic dif­fer­ence, Finn was hur­ry­ing to­ward them.

  “Talysia, what are you do­ing here? Did you re­mem­ber some­thing?”

  “She came to see you, jack­wagon,” Blaine in­ter­jected in a teas­ing tone. “And she brought muffins. They’re damn good, too.”

  The siren was as sexy as he re­called. More so, Finn thought as he no­ticed her face wasn’t sm
eared with soot and grime any­more. Her long hair was silky and straight now, as well.

  “I did bring them for you, but I might have re­mem­bered some­thing, too.” Her dis­trac­tion didn’t fit with Blaine’s in­sin­u­a­tion. Then again, Blaine tried to turn ev­ery­thing to sex when fe­males were in the vicin­ity.

  “What did you re­mem­ber?”

  “A male. He was an­gry and ar­gu­ing with that kid, Troy, I think.”

  Finn grabbed the plat­ter from her and led her to the ta­ble at the side of the room where An­gus and Leg­ette were talk­ing. “When was this? Troy was in the bath­room at the time of the ex­plo­sion.”

  An­gus and Leg­ette looked at them when Finn asked his ques­tion. Talysia hes­i­tated and her eyes went wide when she saw the king. An­gus didn’t wear for­mal cloth­ing like his pre­de­ces­sors, but he was mas­sive and there was no mis­tak­ing his man­tle of power. Finn’s pro­tec­tive in­stincts rose to the sur­face as Talysia started trem­bling slightly.

  They needed her calm enough to re­call de­tails. This was the first time they heard about this mys­tery male. Troy didn’t men­tion it. Set­ting the tray down, Finn in­tro­duced Talysia. “Sire, Leg­ette. This is Talysia. The siren that was work­ing at Medure Eats at the time of the ex­plo­sion. Talysia, this is King An­gus and his sec­ond in com­mand, Leg­ette.”

  “Och, ‘tis nice to meet you, lass. Thank you for as­sist­ing my son and his friends,” An­gus said with a tilt of his head in ac­knowl­edg­ment.

  “Good to meet you, sir,” she replied as she curt­sied. Finn led her to a seat at the ta­ble and of­fered her a glass of wa­ter.

  “Tell me about what you saw,” Finn en­cour­aged her.

  Talysia’s gaze bounced from An­gus to Finn and back again be­fore she set­tled on him. Finn had no doubt she was wait­ing for An­gus to take over the con­ver­sa­tion, but that wasn’t how the king worked.

  “It was a minute or so be­fore the other kids passed by my win­dow so close to the time the bomb went off. I didn’t think any­thing of it un­til I ran into Izzy, Blaze, and Troy in the hall­way. Then an im­age of Troy stand­ing close to the tree line ar­gu­ing with a male popped into my head. All I re­call is the male was older than Troy and had gray eyes. His hair might’ve been blondish-brown, but I’m not cer­tain. I re­mem­ber think­ing his gray eyes re­minded me of a storm at sea be­cause he was mad.”

  “Shite. Do you re­mem­ber what he was wear­ing? Or, if he had any dis­tin­guish­ing fea­tures?” An­gus asked.

  Talysia cocked her head, clearly con­sid­er­ing the ques­tion while she met An­gus’s gaze. “Noth­ing else comes to mind. Sorry. I wasn’t re­ally pay­ing at­ten­tion.” Her voice im­pacted Finn just as strongly now as it had the other day. Ab­so­lutely mag­i­cal.

  “There is noth­ing to be sorry for. You risked your­self to help oth­ers, and now you’ve given us a lead,” An­gus as­sured her. “You’re an as­set to Khoth. If any­thing comes to mind, please let Finn know.”

  Ten­sion Finn didn’t know he car­ried sud­denly loos­ened as he un­der­stood what An­gus wasn’t say­ing. The king ini­tially con­sid­ered Talysia a sus­pect but was now of­fi­cially clear­ing her name from the list.

  Finn picked up a muf­fin and held it in front of his mouth. “You made these for me?”

  Talysia low­ered her head and her cheeks turned bright pink. He no­ticed her hands twist­ing in her lap. With­out look­ing up, she nod­ded her head. “I wanted to, um, thank you for tak­ing the time to re­as­sure me the other day. It was the last thing you had time for, and I ap­pre­ci­ate it.”

  An un­com­fort­able sen­sa­tion filled Finn’s chest. He hadn’t re­ally done any­thing ex­cept ques­tion Talysia and re­as­sure her. Just as he wor­ried about what his king and boss thought, mur­murs started up around them. “I was only do­ing my job. It’s of­ten hard for me to re­mem­ber how it is for oth­ers. Help­ing Cam­bree years ago, I re­call how fright­ened she was when she found her­self in dan­ger, so I make it a point to try and re­as­sure civil­ians.”

  “How do you do your job and not see en­e­mies ev­ery­where you look? If I saw the dregs of so­ci­ety in ev­ery­thing I did, I would lose hope and shut my­self off,” she ad­mit­ted with a shake of her head.

  Finn smiled as he chewed the bite he took of his muf­fin. “Good treats help with that,” he teased. “In see­ing the worst of oth­ers, you get a sense of what evil looks like and what it doesn’t. I know I’m not al­ways right. There are those that hide very well, but I make it a point to never lose sight of the good in life. Like these muffins. Man, they’re de­li­cious. You must be a great cook.”

  “No. I’m def­i­nitely a good cook. There are a hand­ful of things I make very well, but the rest is medi­ocre at best, but thank you,” she said with a smile in her eyes. “So, what do you do in the city for fun? My sis­ter and I just moved here and are al­ways look­ing for rec­om­men­da­tions.”

  Finn cocked his head to the side and won­dered if Talysia was flirt­ing with him. Blaine was be­hind her mak­ing crude ges­tures with his hands and fin­gers. The male re­ally was a sket, but a good Maa­hes, none­the­less.

  “De­pends on what you like to do. If you’re into mu­sic, the club Toxic is a great place to hang out. We have movies and shows from Earth, but we don’t have a movie the­ater like you find there. Some lo­ca­tions fea­ture plays from time to time if you’re into that sort of thing. And, then there’s the mar­ket if you like eat­ing out­doors and find­ing unique gifts.” Finn en­joyed talk­ing with Talysia. There was no dis­com­fort or awk­ward si­lences be­tween them. In some ways he felt as if he’d known her for a long time.

  “I’ll have to tell my sis­ter about the club. We love danc­ing. So, do you think it’s safe to re­turn to work to­mor­row? I’m sched­uled to go in, but afraid of some­thing hap­pen­ing again.”

  “You will be per­fectly safe. An­gus is plac­ing a knight on pa­trol there to help pre­vent an at­tack like this again,” Finn re­as­sured her.

  “Oh, thank good­ness,” she said as she re­leased a sigh. “I can’t af­ford to miss any shifts, but my gut clenches when I think about go­ing back there.”

  Finn hated hear­ing her so afraid. “I’m happy to es­cort you to­mor­row, if that helps.”

  Talysia laughed and lightly hit his shoul­der. “I’m not that much of a chicken but thank you. Well, I bet­ter get go­ing. En­joy the muffins.”

  Finn got up to walk her to the door, won­der­ing how he could ask her out on a date. It wasn’t as if she was a client and it was for­bid­den. What would An­gus and Leg­ette say if he asked per­mis­sion to take her out?

  Talysia was out the door and gone be­fore he mus­tered up the courage to do any­thing but pon­der, and he wanted to kick his own ass for his stu­pid­ity.

  * * *

  Chap­ter 4

  Sweat dripped into her eyes, and Izzy swiped her fore­head with the back of her hand. Head throb­bing, she tracked Troy as he cir­cled her. Her life had been one bat­tle af­ter an­other from the time she was born. Sev­en­teen long years of fight­ing and train­ing, and some­times she was just tired of it all.

  She wanted to be like the rest of the fe­males her age. Wor­ried about whether a cute male would ask her to go out Fri­day night, or if he liked the new out­fit she bought in hopes of draw­ing his at­ten­tion. It was dif­fi­cult to carry the weight of two realms on her shoul­ders.

  Granted, she wasn’t en­tirely re­spon­si­ble for both Khoth and the Tehrex Realm, but she was the daugh­ter of the Vam­pire King of the Tehrex Realm and she was ba­si­cally the adopted daugh­ter of the King of Khoth. When one added that Izzy was the man­i­fes­ta­tion of the God­dess Mor­ri­gan, it made her a con­stant tar­get of one crea­ture or an­other. There was lit­tle room for nor­mal teenage ac­tiv­i­ties.

  Not that she could imag­in
e or re­ally wanted her life any other way. It was just hard know­ing her best friend couldn’t train be­cause he was re­cov­er­ing from in­juries he suf­fered from the bomb­ing in­ci­dent. Plus, she missed her par­ents. She couldn’t help but won­der if she was a big sis­ter yet.

  Time passed far faster on Khoth than in the Tehrex Realm so what was a few months for her par­ents was about a year for her. The last time Izzy saw her mother she was very preg­nant and glowed with the vi­tal­ity of the new life grow­ing in­side her. Of course, her mother said she looked like a beached whale, but Izzy thought she was more beau­ti­ful than ever.

  “C’mon Blaze,” she coaxed as she jabbed a fist to­ward Troy. “Join the fight. Let’s make this in­ter­est­ing.”

  “No way,” Troy coun­tered and glanced to­ward Blaze.

  Tak­ing ad­van­tage of his loss of con­cen­tra­tion, Izzy jumped and landed a round­house kick to the side of Troy’s head. “What’s the mat­ter? Afraid I’ll beat you?”

  Troy growled from his po­si­tion on the mat. She wanted to jump for joy over the fact she’d man­aged to knock her friend on his ass. “No. It’s against the rules, and you know it. Fight fair, Iz.”

  Blaze stood up­right from where he was lean­ing against the wall as he watched them with dis­pas­sion­ate eyes. Izzy knew what the fur­rowed brow meant. Blaze was ag­o­niz­ing over the in­ci­dent at the beach. Izzy un­der­stood how he felt.

  For the first time Blaze was be­ing mon­i­tored by knights around the clock be­cause ev­ery­one be­lieved he was a tar­get of the Un­seelie King. It wasn’t easy be­ing in the crosshairs and hav­ing an evil be­ing hunt­ing you. Blaze was al­ready a tough fighter, but this robbed him of the re­main­ing few years he had to be a young adult. Be­ing forced to grow up too fast hard­ened you and erased most of your pos­i­tive out­look. She re­lated to that all too well.