Sentinel Of Khoth

by Brenda Trim

  It was Izzy’s duty to get Blaze out of his head. It would do no good for him to sit there think­ing through things as he tried to con­coct a plan to elim­i­nate Cyril once and for all. It was far more dif­fi­cult to elim­i­nate en­e­mies than the pow­er­ful dragon prince knew.

  Lu­cifer, Lord of the Un­der­world, was the bane of her ex­is­tence. Izzy spent weeks in the bow­els of Hell but hadn’t been able to kill the de­mon be­hind her tor­ture. And, she could kill a de­mon with a touch.

  “Life is rarely fair,” Blaze replied. The prince stood there with his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face. “And, your en­e­mies will not go easy on you or give you a chance to fight them off one by one. You need to up your game, buddy.”

  “Fuck you,” Troy hissed and stalked to­ward Blaze, mak­ing Alora and Blaine leave their posts along the edge of the room.

  “That’s enough!” Blaine barked as he stepped be­tween Troy and Blaze. “Blaze, drop and give me fifty. Now,” Blaine barked when Blaze kept glar­ing at Troy.

  When the prince was on the mat push­ing his body up and down with his hands, Blaine turned to Troy. “And you. Fo­cus on your com­bat skills. Blaze is right. You need to tune out what’s around you, and fo­cus only on your en­emy.”

  Troy nod­ded and turned back to Izzy. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Izzy chuck­led and tried to use her pow­ers to knock him off his feet. Af­ter years of train­ing she still didn’t know ex­actly what she was ca­pa­ble of. She could dream share with Dono­van and her par­ents, but it was next to im­pos­si­ble to do with any­one else. She could also tele­port. And, en­cour­age fo­liage to grow. Not that she found the lat­ter su­per use­ful. What good did it do when she was en­gaged in bat­tle? Dis­tract her en­emy with a gift of his or her fa­vorite plant? Not hardly.

  Izzy be­lieved she was tele­ki­netic, as well, but no mat­ter how hard she con­cen­trated she couldn’t man­age to move much be­yond an ar­ti­cle or two of cloth­ing. The other day she tossed a dirty pair of socks at her best friend, Dono­van, when they were in his room talk­ing.

  As her best friend, Izzy went to Dono­van with ev­ery­thing, and when she asked his opin­ion on a new dress, he told her it made her look awk­ward. Hence the socks in the face.

  Izzy be­lieved her mor­ti­fi­ca­tion fu­eled her abil­ity to send the smelly gar­ments fly­ing to­ward Dono­van but couldn’t be sure. Usu­ally, emo­tions pre­sented a chal­lenge to suc­cess­fully ex­e­cut­ing her abil­i­ties.

  Putting on a burst of vam­pire speed, Izzy darted in­side Troy’s space and man­aged to slap him up­side the head. “Like that?” she teased as she danced away.

  “Oh, you’re ask­ing for it now,” Troy warned. She would have wor­ried he was mad, but he was match­ing her smile and seemed to en­joy their ban­ter.

  Jog­ging around the floor, Izzy no­ticed when Ta­tianna opened the door and en­tered the room. Los­ing her step, Izzy tripped over her feet and fell on her face. It was bad enough that she al­lowed her­self to get dis­tracted by the fe­male dragon, but worse since she landed painfully on her nose.

  Winc­ing, Izzy pushed to a kneel­ing po­si­tion and gin­gerly touched her nose. There was a drib­ble of blood that she wiped away with her hand. A hand en­tered her field of vi­sion a sec­ond later and she looked up into Troy’s amused face.

  “You okay?” he asked as she ac­cepted his hand and al­lowed him to help her up. He touched the bridge of her nose, mak­ing her wince. “It’s not bro­ken.”

  “I’m fine,” Izzy in­sisted then glanced to where Ta­tiana stopped next to Blaze.

  “Hey, Tat,” Troy called out. “You here to chal­lenge his high­ness to a duel?”

  Ta­tiana laughed and waved her hand in front of her face. “I’m at­tend­ing the next class. I was hop­ing to catch Dono­van be­fore the les­son started.” The fe­male’s words made Izzy stiffen and want to snarl at her.

  Forc­ing her­self to turn away from the con­ver­sa­tion, Izzy headed to a stack of tow­els and wa­ter bot­tles. Pick­ing up a black cloth, she un­capped the plas­tic con­tainer and poured some on the cloth. As she cleaned her face, she won­dered why she was so mad at the fe­male for want­ing to see Dono­van.

  It wasn’t as if it was any­thing new. The cou­ple started dat­ing ca­su­ally two years ago and ru­mor was that they had re­cently be­come se­ri­ous about one an­other. As Izzy’s stom­ach knot­ted and bile rose in her throat, she won­dered if they’d had sex, and if the fe­male was Dono­van’s Fated Mate.

  The only way one of the God­dess Mor­ri­gan’s cre­ations dis­cov­ered the be­ing that was cre­ated just for them and car­ried half of their soul was by hav­ing sex with that in­di­vid­ual. That wasn’t the case with drag­ons. The Cuele­bre got to choose who they wanted to mate, but once they did, they were mated for life.

  The ques­tion brought up so many oth­ers for Izzy. She knew many other crea­tures had been se­lected by the God­dess to carry part of one of her be­ing’s souls, so it was pos­si­ble for a dragon to be Dono­van’s Fated Mate. Her Aunt Bres­lin’s Fated Mate was a fire de­mon who car­ried part of her soul from the time he was born. Iso­bel heard sto­ries about how Bres­lin al­most died be­cause Rhett wasn’t bound to Bres­lin and had to choose to be mated to her. She couldn’t imag­ine how aw­ful that must’ve been for her aunt.

  “Dono­van is still in the med­i­cal wing. You can find him there,” Troy told Ta­tiana.

  Ta­tiana gasped and her hand flew to cover her open mouth. “He hasn’t healed yet? My poor baby.” Again, Izzy sti­fled a growl at hear­ing the fe­male’s pos­ses­sive state­ment. It took ev­ery­thing in­side not to charge to­ward Ta­tiana, and knock her on her ass.

  Troy shook his head. “No. The gash was pretty deep. He’s lucky it wasn’t a half inch to the right. He could have bled out be­fore get­ting treat­ment.”

  Izzy’s heart raced and her breaths turned shal­low as she re­called what the heal­ers told them when they ar­rived at the palace. They were all bat­tered and bruised, but Dono­van’s leg was sliced open and he was bleed­ing ev­ery­where. Dono­van hadn’t reached the age when he would tran­si­tion from stripling to adult, so he was vul­ner­a­ble to se­vere in­juries. It was a close call for her best friend.

  Be­ing striplings, Izzy and Dono­van weren’t as durable as their par­ents. Once they reached their peak con­di­tion at twenty-five they would sur­vive nearly ev­ery­thing, but in the mean­time they had to be ex­tra care­ful.

  Toss­ing the dirty towel in a ham­per, Izzy headed for the wall of weapons and grabbed two bokken prac­tice swords. Troy said some­thing to Ta­tiana, but Izzy didn’t hear it as she tossed one of the bokken to him.

  Catch­ing it midair, Troy swung and the ac­tion made whoosh­ing noises. “You sure you can han­dle a sword that big, lit­tle one?”

  Izzy’s lip curled and she snarled, “I’ve han­dled big­ger,” then swung the wooden blade at Troy. The ma­te­rial con­nected with his shoul­der, mak­ing his grip loosen on the han­dle.

  In a swift move, Troy danced out of the way and taunted her. “I’ve got some­thing big for you to han­dle.”

  Izzy couldn’t help but laugh aloud. For months, her body had gone through changes and she felt things she didn’t un­der­stand. There was no one she could openly talk to, but she un­der­stood enough about sex to know what Troy was in­sin­u­at­ing. She wasn’t a baby any­more.

  It was still odd for her when she was at­tracted to some­one. The way her stom­ach flipped, and her body tight­ened be­tween her legs. “Meh,” she said dis­mis­sively, not want­ing to en­cour­age Troy too much. Izzy thought the male was very cute, and en­joyed their flir­ta­tion, but she wasn’t sure of any­thing be­yond that. “I’d rather knock you on your ass.”

  “Think­ing about my ass again?” Troy teased with a smirk.

  Izzy was dis­tracted wh
en Ta­tiana told Blaze she was go­ing to see Dono­van. Shak­ing her head as her anger rose once again, Izzy crouched then jumped through the air. When she was at the height of her leap, she sent en­ergy to her mind and tried to send the sword sail­ing to Troy as her body ap­proached from the other an­gle. Sur­prise was the best of­fense. She couldn’t help but won­der what Dono­van was do­ing at that mo­ment.

  Fo­cus, she silently chided her­self.

  To her sur­prise, the bokken darted to­ward Troy with such force that it blew Izzy’s hair back. Putting the im­age in her mind of the blade turn­ing to the side so the flat of the weapon con­nected with Troy’s ribs, Izzy cried out.

  Sud­denly, her body fell like a stone and the bokken veered left and the tip punched into a wall. Lev­er­ing her­self on her el­bows, she blew strands of hair from her eyes and looked at the wooden blade as it vi­brated in the plas­ter.

  “What the hell?’ Troy blurted.

  Blood flushed to her face as Izzy shrugged her shoul­ders. “I lost con­trol, I guess.”

  “I’ll say,” Troy said as he bounced from foot to foot. “You want to stop?”

  “No,” she growled, steel­ing her de­ter­mi­na­tion. She was go­ing to best him one way or an­other. Izzy ran to­ward her spar­ring part­ner and snatched her bokken from the wall as she went.

  Troy darted out of the way ev­ery time she man­aged to get close to him. If she could tele­port be­hind him then she could take him down. Her skills at tele­port­ing were far more re­li­able.

  She reached deep and pulled up that abil­ity. When she was fairly cer­tain she had a men­tal hold on that skill she pushed her­self to dis­ap­pear and re­form be­hind Troy. Prob­lem was she couldn’t stand still long enough to fo­cus on that ex­clu­sively. She sec­tioned off her mind and the poured more en­ergy into the part try­ing to tele­port.

  Sev­eral sec­onds later, Izzy felt her mol­e­cules spread out as she dis­ap­peared. Ex­pect­ing to reap­pear right be­hind Troy, she yelped when she found her­self stand­ing in a hall­way.

  “What the hell?” she whis­pered as she glanced around. Still in­side Tate­nen given the grey stone walls and dragon ta­pes­tries hang­ing on the walls. As she scanned the hall­way in both di­rec­tions, she couldn’t pin­point ex­actly where she was in­side the cas­tle.

  Most of the pas­sages looked the same to her. She never paid enough at­ten­tion to ev­ery ta­pes­try. They were all dif­fer­ent. She sus­pected she could de­ter­mine where she was if she knew where each was hung. Voices drew her to an open door a few feet away.

  Tip­toe­ing across the stone, Izzy paused out of sight and lis­tened. The ac­tion seemed ridicu­lous given that she was al­lowed any­where in the cas­tle, but she didn’t want any­one to know she lost con­trol of her abil­i­ties again.

  “Thank you for com­ing to see me,” Dono­van mur­mured to some­one. She’d bet ten sherulla smooth­ies he was talk­ing to Ta­tiana and that made her want to punch the wall. “You didn’t have to. I’m fine. The doc­tor said I’ll be out of here by din­ner.”

  “I was so wor­ried,” Ta­tiana crooned. Izzy heard the rus­tle of fab­ric and won­dered what was hap­pen­ing. “I heard you were very brave help­ing Izzy to safety de­spite be­ing gravely in­jured your­self.”

  “It was noth­ing,” Dono­van in­sisted.

  “Are you kid­ding me? Troy ran away when he was nowhere near the ex­plo­sion,” the fe­male stated.

  Dono­van’s grunt was cut short and Izzy heard the sound of kiss­ing. Crouch­ing down, she peered around the door jamb and saw Ta­tiana sit­ting on Dono­van’s bed. The two were wrapped in each other’s arms, and their mouths were pressed to­gether.

  An im­me­di­ate urge to in­ter­rupt made Izzy stand up. When Dono­van gripped Ta­tiana’s shoul­der, she took a step for­ward but stopped her­self. She was be­ing ridicu­lous. If he liked the fe­male, she had no right or rea­son to in­ter­fere.

  Izzy wanted Dono­van to be happy, and if Ta­tiana made him happy that was all she needed to know. Tip­toe­ing as qui­etly as pos­si­ble, Izzy passed the door and paused to try and tele­port out of there.

  The sound of lips smack­ing to­gether echoed as if they were right next to her, mak­ing it im­pos­si­ble to con­cen­trate. She closed her eyes, blanked her mind and imag­ined Troy and Blaze in the train­ing room and not Dono­van and Ta­tiana mak­ing out in the next room.

  Un­for­tu­nately, all Izzy man­aged to do was lose a shoe. That was a new one she thought as she gazed down at one pur­ple sock and one pink ten­nis shoe. Shak­ing her head, she tried again and was re­warded with a jack­ham­mer go­ing off in her skull.

  Rub­bing her tem­ples, Izzy re­al­ized she wasn’t go­ing any­where un­less her two feet took her there, so she headed for the stairs that would lead to the third floor. Af­ter years of prac­tic­ing and be­liev­ing she had at least con­quered her abil­ity to tele­port she dis­cov­ered that she was wrong.

  Alora told her many times that emo­tions, es­pe­cially strong ones, wreaked havoc on her pow­ers. She should have known bet­ter than to try and use them when she was worked up to the point she couldn’t con­cen­trate.

  No, she told her­self. She had to keep prac­tic­ing, es­pe­cially when she was ag­i­tated and train­ing. When she was in bat­tle there would be dis­trac­tions aplenty and dan­ger from ev­ery di­rec­tion. If she wasn’t able to con­trol them dur­ing train­ing, then she would never be able to use them when she was fight­ing for real.

  “This to­tally sucks,” she mum­bled as she climbed the stairs and headed to­ward her room.

  “There you are,” Troy called out as he handed her the shoe she lost.

  Heat filled her cheeks as she looked at the male and ac­cepted the sneaker. “Thanks.”

  “Where’d you end up this time?” Troy asked as he walked be­side her.

  “Some ran­dom hall,” she replied re­fus­ing to tell him she saw Ta­tiana and Dono­van kiss­ing. It would be more pleas­ant to slam her fin­gers in a door than give Troy fuel to tease Dono­van.

  Izzy jumped when a warm weight set­tled across her shoul­ders. “Don’t worry,” Troy re­as­sured her as he squeezed her shoul­der while they walked. “You’ll get the hang of it. I know you will.”

  She nod­ded and smiled when he kissed the top of her head. She was lucky to have such great friends that never stopped be­liev­ing in her no mat­ter how many times they ended up in odd places when she prac­ticed her pow­ers.

  Her em­bar­rass­ment wasn’t enough to stop her from prac­tic­ing. One day she was go­ing to mas­ter her abil­i­ties no mat­ter how long and hard she had to work at it.

  * * *

  Chap­ter 5

  Talysia had the best fuck­ing smile, Finn thought. And, her voice was that of an an­gel. As sappy as it sounded, he could sit there and lis­ten to her talk for hours. It wasn’t only the mu­si­cal qual­ity. Her tone soothed his frayed nerves.

  In his cen­turies of serv­ing the crown as a Maa­hes, he’d faced count­less en­e­mies and helped fight many bat­tles. Lately, the an­i­mos­ity was wear­ing on him. There were years of rel­a­tive peace right af­ter An­gus re­turned with Cyril only pop­ping up ev­ery once in a while.

  For some rea­son, Finn’s gut told him this time was dif­fer­ent. There was no strate­gic rea­son for at­tack­ing a bunch of peo­ple vis­it­ing a lo­cal beach, ex­cept to tar­get Blaze. This was the first time since kid­nap­ping Keira that the Un­seelie King had at­tacked the royal fam­ily di­rectly.

  The gen­tle breeze kicked up and the long, black locks fall­ing over Talysia’s shoul­ders flut­tered around her jaw. For sev­eral sec­onds, Finn stood trans­fixed as he pon­dered her beauty. In­evitably, his mind con­jured up the fact that this beau­ti­ful siren was al­most an­other of Cyril’s vic­tims.

  As it stood, three fe­males and one male had died in the ex­plo
­sion. All were in­no­cent and had noth­ing to do with the dis­agree­ment be­tween the two rulers. And the lat­est were added to a long list.

  It wasn’t only liv­ing be­ings that were suf­fer­ing dam­age and loss. At one point, nearly half of the land on Khoth was sucked dry and de­stroyed by the Bug­gane. The Cuele­bre were re­claim­ing land and heal­ing it mile by mile, but it was a long, slow process.

  And, now it seemed they needed to add Ray­nah Beach to the list given the dev­as­ta­tion on the beach. The edge of the for­est on the left side was no longer dot­ted with dense veg­e­ta­tion. The ground cover was com­pletely gone and most of the trees were piled up in pieces. The rich soil was now cov­ered in the fine sand of the beach, as well.

  The right side still looked the same as be­fore with the rich soil and veg­e­ta­tion meet­ing the fine white grains of sand that led to the wa­ter. The grad­ual slope of the sandy area was now a sig­nif­i­cant step down from the board­walk. The con­tin­gent of knights that re­mained be­hind last night spent hours smooth­ing the grains to cre­ate an even space.

  Finn thought more was dam­aged yes­ter­day but was happy to see it looked worse with a mas­sive hole in the ground and limbs scat­tered ev­ery­where. Sev­eral of the shops and restau­rants were dam­aged, but thank­fully none were de­stroyed.

  Medure Eats was one of three food es­tab­lish­ments and was far enough away that they were open for busi­ness al­ready. In fact, Talysia had a line four deep de­spite the early hour.

  Finn was sur­prised to see so many vis­i­tors to the area. Sure, it was far less than a nor­mal day, but he hadn’t ex­pected to see any­one near the beach. He fig­ured with the lives lost most would stay away even with the Maa­hes present to en­sure their safety. Mass panic was usu­ally a pre­dictable phe­nom­e­non.

  “Hey, Blaine,” Finn called out. “Find any­thing new?”

  “Not yet. You? Or, are you too busy star­ing at the sexy siren?”

  A flash of anger surged through Finn. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to deck his friend or laugh at the way he wag­gled his eye­brows sug­ges­tively. “I found a small teal san­dal and an­other piece of the bomb, but noth­ing else.”