Sentinel Of Khoth

by Brenda Trim

  “There’s an en­tire box of ran­dom ob­jects beach­go­ers left be­hind. I think the match­ing san­dal is in there. I wish it was eas­ier to re­con­struct the de­vice,” Blaine com­plained as he took the metal ob­ject from Finn’s hand. “Too many tiny-ass pieces. I doubt we found half of them. So, you think Blaze is go­ing to co­op­er­ate with his pro­tec­tive de­tail?”

  “Hell no, that stub­born kid won’t co­op­er­ate. He wants to prove he’s able to pro­tect him­self. Trust me, his ac­tions will bite us in the ass. As son of the most pow­er­ful dragon in the realm, Blaze be­lieves he’s stronger than any of us. Not a good at­ti­tude to have if you’re sup­posed to have body­guards fol­low­ing you.”

  “That’s what I was think­ing, too. If we can keep him in­side the city lim­its, he’ll at least be safer. No Un­seelie are get­ting through the lev­els of pro­tec­tion we have in place.”

  Finn agreed with Blaine. He was just think­ing about the in­vis­i­ble bub­ble sur­round­ing the city and how the ad­di­tions Isis and Pema put in place made them nearly fool­proof. They couldn’t even bring dead Un­seelie through the bar­rier for sci­en­tists to study.

  “The chances of Blaze stay­ing in Du­a­mutef are slim to none. Don’t you re­mem­ber when your fires burned so hot it made you rest­less?”

  Blaine chuck­led. “I spent most of my time back then in bed with the fe­males. Best way to burn off ex­cess en­ergy.”

  “You haven’t fully tran­si­tioned af­ter hun­dreds of years? That has to be a record. We should tell the el­ders so they can record it in our his­tory,” Finn teased.

  “Don’t hate the player,” Blaine said us­ing his fa­vorite Earth eu­phemism.

  Finn had to ad­mit that Blaine had a point. Sex was great for burn­ing ex­cess en­ergy and ten­sion. His gaze im­me­di­ately trav­eled to Talysia and he watched her smile at a cus­tomer. He would love to re­lieve his stress with the al­lur­ing siren.

  Be­fore he could fur­ther fan­ta­size about the fe­male his comms unit went off in his pocket. Fish­ing it out, he no­ticed Blaine had his in hand, as well. An emer­gency code flashed across the screen.

  Glanc­ing up, Finn looked at Blaine. “Fuck­ing hell. They’re at­tack­ing again.”

  Blaine nod­ded then turned to a group of nearby knights. “Shift and fol­low us to Sor­dette. Un­seelie are at­tack­ing,” he or­dered.

  Gasps had Finn turn­ing away from Blaine. Talysia stood in her shack with her hand cov­er­ing her mouth. He wanted to go to her and re­as­sure her that she was safe. There was no time for him to go to her, but he re­fused to leave with­out telling her and the rest of the crowd they were safe.

  “Don’t panic,” Finn an­nounced loudly while keep­ing his eyes locked with Talysia. “You’re safe here. Slate, Caleb, and Bane will stay here and pro­tect you.”

  The rus­tle of cloth­ing sounded next to Finn and he knew Blaine was strip­ping down to shift into dragon form. Naked­ness wasn’t for­eign to any of them on Khoth, but sud­denly Finn’s skin was jumpy with Talysia’s eyes on him.

  Un­able to glance away, Finn pulled his shirt open and tugged it from un­der the strap across his chest. The weapons belt was mag­i­cally en­hanced to shift sizes with them when they did. Un­for­tu­nately, the shaman of the realm hadn’t man­aged to make their cloth­ing ad­just with them.

  It was just as well. Finn couldn’t imag­ine fly­ing or bat­tling while fab­ric con­stricted his legs, wings or arms. It would limit his range of mo­tion too much. Finn found him­self smil­ing when Talysia’s hand fell away from her mouth and her mouth dropped open.

  Her tongue ran over her lower lip when his hands went to the fly of his pants. At the worst time ever, Finn’s cock filled with blood and stiff­ened in his pants. If he took them off she would see how much he wanted her. Shak­ing his head, Finn rea­soned there was no way she would know his shaft was aching for her.

  ‘Now is not the time, sket.’ He chas­tised his un­ruly cock.

  In one swift move, Finn kicked his shoes off and re­moved his pants. He stood up, straight and tall and met Taly’s turquoise eyes for a split sec­ond be­fore shift­ing into his dragon form.

  He kept his gaze on her as he launched into the sky. The way her eyes grew even wider as she bit her lip made him want to shift back and take her into his arms. Ig­nor­ing his de­sire, Finn flapped his wings and headed for Sor­dette, putting the siren out of his mind.

  There was no room for dis­trac­tion. He had to get his head in the game if he wanted to come out of this fight whole. The sounds of bat­tle reached him be­fore he was able to see the town. Sor­dette was smaller than Du­a­mutef, but highly pop­u­lated, none­the­less.

  Finn screeched and called his fire from his belly. Un­for­tu­nately, he had to sti­fle the flames as he no­ticed the skir­mish was in the mid­dle of the busi­ness dis­trict. There was no way to burn the en­emy with­out dam­ag­ing build­ings and killing civil­ians.

  Finn landed on top of a Bug­gane that had a dozen fe­males cor­nered in an al­ley. The mas­sive Un­seelie howled and clawed at his legs while his talons pierced through grey flesh.

  Some­thing hit one of Finn’s wings, but didn’t go through the thin mem­brane. He turned his head and no­ticed a new crea­ture in the mix. The en­ergy sig­na­ture was dis­tinctly Un­seelie, but it wasn’t some­thing Finn had en­coun­tered be­fore.

  The crea­ture had four arms and a thin body with mot­tled red skin. It was nearly as tall as the Bug­gane’s seven-feet, as well. The flesh was slick and had a wet ap­pear­ance. The tex­ture re­minded him of shark skin. With a flick of his tail, he sent one of them fly­ing through the air.

  “Take that Squidartha,” Lorne called out from fur­ther down the al­ley.

  “Great name for a piece of Un­seelie trash,” Finn told Lorne us­ing dragon mind speech.

  Lorne chuck­led and nod­ded. “My Cam­bree has me watch­ing an Earth movie, Star Wars. These fuck­ers are tough, so keep on your toes.”

  Finn con­sid­ered how Lorne’s life had changed from the somber, al­ways se­ri­ous bach­e­lor he had known for cen­turies. Since meet­ing Cam­bree and hav­ing kids, Lorne told jokes, took va­ca­tions, and was al­most re­laxed.

  Bend­ing down, Finn bit off the head of a Bug­gane. The fla­vor of moldy cheese made him gag, and he spit out the nasty orb as he shook his head. One of the fe­males screamed, mak­ing Finn re­al­ize he’d sent poi­sonous blood spray­ing in their faces.

  “Sorry,” he sent men­tally and headed down the al­ley. A Red Cap used the trash can to vault it­self onto Finn’s back. The tiny fucker was as big as an ant to him in his dragon form, but that bug had teeth. Ra­zor sharp ones that sliced through the mem­brane of his wing.

  When Finn turned his head to snap at the powrie, he no­ticed the fe­males were be­hind him so there was no way to use his flames to elim­i­nate the tick on his back. The knife-like claws dug be­tween his scales and hit flesh. Dragon hide was dif­fi­cult to pierce, but this crea­ture was do­ing a damn good job.

  Rear­ing up on his hind legs, Finn let him­self fall against the brick wall, hop­ing to crush the Red Cap. The fucker was smart and used its teeth to cling to his wing when they flared. Brick dust floated through the air upon im­pact while Finn’s blood dripped to the street be­low.

  Holes ap­peared in his wings and Finn was left with no choice but to fold them up and squash the Red Cap. The sec­ond Finn’s wings were against his back, he slammed his torso against the brick wall again. Brick crum­bled un­der the force and a squeal went silent.

  Shak­ing the now dead powrie from his back, Finn ran to the al­ley open­ing a few feet away. On the street, dozens of Squidartha were fight­ing Maa­hes in hu­man and dragon form.

  Finn re­mained at the mouth of the al­ley to keep en­e­mies from sneak­ing past him and reach­ing the fe­males at the end. He heard them sob­bing in the bac
k­ground as they re­as­sured each other.

  The plate glass win­dow of a store to his right was shat­tered and cloth­ing, shoes and jew­elry scat­tered across the stone side­walk. The sparkle of the fake gems glit­tered in the late morn­ing sun­shine, call­ing to his in­ner dragon.

  Ev­ery dragon had a de­sire to hoard items. The most cov­eted among his kind were gold, sil­ver, and pre­cious gems. Finn started his col­lec­tion when he was a young dragon. His par­ents helped keep his col­lec­tions safe in their hoard for decades un­til he was able to es­tab­lish his own. In many cases, fam­i­lies kept their valu­ables to­gether and passed on the se­cret lo­ca­tion when gen­er­a­tions died. Be­cause of that most had mas­sive hoards.

  Finn fought the urge to snatch the jew­els and fly them away. First, it was the wrong time to get side­tracked by any­thing. Sec­ond, it was fake jew­elry, worth noth­ing.

  Sud­denly, a multi-armed beast ran to­ward him. A swipe of his wing and Finn found him­self spin­ning wildly. He ex­pected to slam into the body so had put as much force be­hind the move­ment as pos­si­ble, but the Squidartha ducked at the last minute and kicked out. The hit to his back made his dragon turn faster. Land­ing awk­wardly on his side, Finn was stunned into im­mo­bil­ity from shock.

  The red crea­ture felt wet as it sat on his in­jured wing and two of its arms stabbed at his other wing while the other two arms slammed fists into the back of his head. Finn wanted to duck down the al­ley and hide from his fel­low Maa­hes. The fact that a crea­ture got the best of him so thor­oughly and so quickly made him feel like he was on his first mis­sion again.

  He re­called get­ting his ass kicked by Bug­gane when Leg­ette first sent him out to a bat­tle. Then it was be­cause of his in­ex­pe­ri­ence and anx­i­ety. Now, it was pure stu­pid­ity. Never un­der­es­ti­mate an op­po­nent. That was the first mes­sage drilled in their heads when they went through train­ing.

  Keep­ing one eye on his sur­round­ings, Finn flipped to his back, tak­ing the Squidartha with him. The noise it made re­minded him of a branch scratch­ing a win­dow dur­ing a storm. Kick­ing a foot out, Finn de­flected an­other en­emy while bounc­ing a few times to dis­lodge the fucker un­der him.

  Get­ting to his feet again, Finn felt like he’d been through the ringer. And, his right wing was killing him. Lift­ing his ap­pendages in the air to keep them away from en­e­mies, Finn called up his fires and blasted the one on the ground with his flames.

  Fire ex­ploded be­tween his legs and set the oth­ers try­ing to at­tack him back sev­eral feet. Lorne was em­broiled in a fight a few feet away. Looked like he had things un­der con­trol as he swung his sword and sliced arms from the thin body.

  Finn swiped one hand through the air and talons tore through flesh. Red limbs flew in all di­rec­tions as Finn kept at it. Sev­eral en­e­mies were try­ing to run away, and Finn was tempted to give chase. In­stead, he blew sev­eral bursts of fire at them. Three balls of flame hit their mark and had sev­eral Squidartha scream­ing and flail­ing.

  Un­for­tu­nately, a rogue fire ball sailed through the miss­ing win­dow and burst against a dis­play case in the store. Finn hur­ried to the open­ing and stuck his wing in­side the shop. It was the wing the last Squidartha had stabbed and pain nearly stole his breath when he moved it rapidly.

  Ac­cus­tomed to fight­ing while in­jured, Finn used his wing to ex­tin­guish the flames be­fore they de­stroyed ev­ery­thing while us­ing one gi­ant paw to take out a Red Cap try­ing to sneak down the al­ley.

  Once the flames were out, Finn po­si­tioned him­self near the al­ley and slashed through as many en­e­mies as he could reach. He was tir­ing fast as blood drib­bled from his wounds and his wing con­tin­ued to scream at him.

  Within min­utes they’d man­aged to kill all the Un­seelie in the area. Finn stayed put while sev­eral other Maa­hes scouted the area from the air and ground.

  Lorne ap­proached Finn and sheathed his sword on his back. “You want me to take that out, buddy?”

  Finn swiveled his ser­pen­tine head around and caught sight of what Lorne was re­fer­ring to. The small weapon the Squidartha stabbed his wing with was em­bed­ded deep in his ap­pendage. No fuck­ing won­der it hurt so much, he thought.

  “Fuck­ing hell. Yes. I think it’s lodged in the bone,” he replied to his friend us­ing dragon-mind speech.

  Finn low­ered his body and ex­tended his wing as much as he could with the agony. Lorne grabbed hold of the han­dle and kept his hand on Finn’s shoul­der. “I’m not sur­prised it’s buried in the bone with the way you bat­ted out those flames. This is go­ing to hurt,” his friend warned. “On the count of three. One, two…”

  Finn tossed his head back and screeched as Lorne pulled it be­fore he ever got to three. “Douche dick,” Finn cursed at his friend.

  “Stop be­ing a baby and start burn­ing these bod­ies. I want to get home to my mate and kids be­fore night­fall,” Lorne in­structed Finn.

  Nod­ding, Finn kicked the bod­ies and body parts away from the bro­ken win­dow and into the mid­dle of the street while his fel­low knights helped. The fe­males ex­ited the al­ley and thanked him for sav­ing them then en­tered the store and started clean­ing up.

  Once all the bod­ies were piled in the street, Finn called his fires from his belly and to­gether with Blaine they torched the new­est Un­seelie, along with, their long-time arch neme­ses. A foul-smelling odor filled the af­ter­noon sky, but Finn didn’t bother stick­ing around to choke on his bile.

  In­stead, he launched him­self into the air and won­dered what it would be like to have a fe­male wait­ing at home. He never con­tem­plated hav­ing a mate, but lately it was on his mind more than he cared to ad­mit.

  The fact that Talysia’s smile and al­lur­ing voice popped into his head at that mo­ment meant noth­ing. Sure, he was at­tracted to her, but there was noth­ing more there aside from lust. Al­though, that de­sire was so strong he nearly sought her out in­stead of re­turn­ing to the cas­tle.

  * * *

  Chap­ter 6

  The mu­sic thumped so loud it vi­brated Finn’s chest as he en­tered Club Toxic. The sen­sa­tion was fa­mil­iar and had his shoul­ders re­lax­ing as soon as he crossed the thresh­old. Blood raced through his veins and his fire stirred in his stom­ach. It was heady and wel­comed.

  It had been way too fuck­ing long since he’d taken a night off to un­wind and en­joy him­self. Be­tween the con­stant vig­i­lance and fight­ing, cou­pled with the way Talysia’s pres­ence af­fected him, Finn needed to get laid in a bad way. The phys­i­cal re­lease would go a long way to equal­ize his sys­tem.

  Damn, if his thoughts didn’t make him sound like a sket. Finn loved fe­male com­pany and los­ing him­self in­side a warm, will­ing body, but he never thought he pro­lif­i­cally slept around. His mother would roll over in her grave if she thought he was pro­mis­cu­ous. As a fe­male, she was sen­si­tive to how he treated other fe­males and drilled into his head that he must value them as an in­di­vid­ual and treat them with care and re­spect.

  Hit­ting it and quit­ting it wasn’t re­spect­ful in the least.

  “Ah, come to daddy,” Blaine mur­mured next to him.

  Finn glanced side­ways at his friend. This was pre­cisely the type of male his mother did not want him to be­come. The Maa­hes was a known player, but Finn had never seen him treat fe­males with any­thing less than care and re­spect. Even when they were beg­ging him for more than a few nights.

  “Fuck, bro. Don’t say that. I can’t imag­ine you as any­one’s dad,” Finn cringed.

  ‘It’s an Earth say­ing, scrote,” Blaine said as they tra­versed the crowded bar. Small ta­bles were stuffed to the left as they en­tered. Most of the ta­bles were bar height mak­ing it easy for peo­ple to stand and en­joy their drinks. The tall bar stools were largely un­oc­cu­pied. Along the wall, in the dar
k­ened edges of the room, there were low ta­bles that sat only two or three each. It was de­signed for a more in­ti­mate con­ver­sa­tion set back from the heav­ier crowds, but it was so loud in the place there was lit­tle in­ti­macy to be had.

  “Fe­males love me. My dick is my gift to the world,” Blaine de­clared with a wave of his hand in front of his pants while he gave a group of fe­males lin­ger­ing nearby a hun­dred-watt smile. “There’s noth­ing but plea­sure to be found in my bed.”

  “And yet, that at­ti­tude works for you. I’m stunned that fe­males don’t see right through your bull­shit,” Finn told his friend. Blaine headed for the shiny black bar to the right. Finn scanned the dance floor as he fol­lowed be­hind his friend.

  “They want what they see,” Blaine replied be­fore he turned to the bar­tender with a smile. “Dragon’s piss, please. Finn?”

  “Same. Thanks,” he told the bar­tender then turned back to sur­vey the crowded dance floor.

  “Here you go,” the fe­male quipped, draw­ing Finn’s at­ten­tion. Turn­ing around he picked up the or­ange-am­ber liq­uid and took a sip. The al­co­hol burned as it went down, adding to the fires stir­ring in his belly.

  Two fe­males were al­ready hang­ing off Blaine’s ev­ery word. The way the male worked faster than light­en­ing made Finn ques­tion what he was do­ing wrong. They’d been in the bar less than five min­utes and the dragon had two po­ten­tial dates for the night.

  Per­haps he was closed off, Finn thought. It took one glimpse of Blaine and there was no doubt he was open, will­ing, and ready to give any fe­male the night of her life. Con­sciously de­cid­ing to be open to any­thing, Finn smiled and swiveled to face the dance floor.

  Bod­ies writhed and moved with the mu­sic. Upon first glance, Finn thought the scene looked like a gi­ant orgy with fe­males and males grind­ing against one an­other. As he fo­cused on in­di­vid­u­als, he saw friends hav­ing fun with each other and cou­ples so into each other that they were obliv­i­ous to their sur­round­ings.