Sentinel Of Khoth

Home > Other > Sentinel Of Khoth > Page 13
Sentinel Of Khoth Page 13

by Brenda Trim


  “Your High­ness,” Talysia replied with a curt bow. When her knees bent, Talysia be­came un­sta­ble and stum­bled for­ward. An­gus and the other male, along with, Keira jumped to their feet.

  “I’ve got you,” Finn re­as­sured her. When the world stopped spin­ning and she could fo­cus again she re­al­ized he was hold­ing her up­right by her shoul­ders.

  “Why doona you come have a seat?” An­gus of­fered. He had his arm around Keira who looked a touch pale.

  “I just need a mo­ment,” she promised the royal fam­i­lies.

  “Sire,” Finn ad­dressed for­mally af­ter he helped her to a sit­ting po­si­tion. He low­ered him­self right be­hind her, so his body acted as sup­port for her. “Do you think it’s pos­si­ble Dyson missed the par­a­site in Talysia’s blood?”

  The Cuele­bre King’s head snapped around. He was bent over as he as­sisted Keira in tak­ing a seat on their blan­ket. The king went to his knees and rubbed a hand across his face. “Shite. Is she show­ing symp­toms?”

  “No,” Talysia in­sisted in a tone that was far an­grier than she in­tended. “I’m just a lit­tle dizzy. I have none of the same symp­toms that the Maa­hes had.”

  “It could be some­thing else,” Keira in­ter­jected.

  “I would won­der if she was preg­nant, but she isna Tuya like you, my love,” An­gus mur­mured with a smile for his mate.

  Keira smiled and shook her head at An­gus. “You might want me to be preg­nant again, Dragon Breath, but I’m not.”

  An­gus placed a gen­tle kiss on Keira’s lips. “Dyson will let us know soon enough.” The sun glinted off light green eyes as he winked at his mate. The clear blue sky seemed to echo the love and af­fec­tion so ob­vi­ous be­tween the two.

  “You didn’t tell me you were preg­nant, Kiki,” the other male in­ter­jected. “And, here I thought I was go­ing to have to pro­vide all the grand­kids for dad.”

  “I am not preg­nant again, Phineas. I’ve felt a touch un­der the weather, but it seems to have passed.”

  The hair on Talysia’s arms stood on end as she heard the queen’s de­nial. It was a bit too fa­mil­iar for her lik­ing. The ques­tion was if the Queen had been ex­posed to the par­a­site like Talysia. There was no way she would sur­vive a bath in magma. Was there an­other way to treat it if she was in fact in­fected?

  “What are the chances of two su­per­nat­u­ral fe­males feel­ing a touch un­der the weather?” Phineas asked. It was clear the queen’s brother was con­cerned about his sis­ter.

  An­gus sank to his back­side and shook his head be­fore pulling a comm from his pocket. “Blu­idy minis­cule. There is verra lit­tle that makes ei­ther sick un­less it in­volves magic of some sort.”

  Finn’s fig­ure went rigid be­hind Talysia. The ten­sion ra­di­at­ing off him set her nerves on edge. Her heart dropped into her shoes when she con­sid­ered that she was wrong about there be­ing noth­ing to worry about.

  “If they don’t have the symp­toms that we had with the par­a­site, are we even look­ing at the same is­sue?” Finn asked. Talysia scooted back and leaned her side against Finn. She needed to com­fort him, but she also needed the re­as­sur­ance his close­ness would pro­vide.

  “That is pre­cisely what I plan on ask­ing Dyson. Keira was no’ ex­posed like Talysia, so she shouldna be in­fected,” An­gus said in a tone that was bor­der­ing on happy. It had to be the fact that he was play­ing with his daugh­ter and he didn’t want to alarm the lit­tle drag­onette.

  “What is hap­pen­ing in our realm?” Phineas asked next. “That’s a beau­ti­ful mer­maid, Josie. One day Un­cle Phineas will take you to see the ones that live near Saqara.”

  “Yay,” Josie clapped her hands. “Let’s go now.”

  “Not now, sweetie,” Keira told her daugh­ter.

  “Not un­til I fig­ure out why the sharks are act­ing so grumpy,” Phineas told the lit­tle girl. Given what the Stoor­worm King said he must be a sea crea­ture of some kind.

  An­gus put a shell on the top of a sand tower Josie cre­ated. “Have more sharks at­tacked?”

  “Not like they did Izzy. But they are very ag­gres­sive lately. It seems as if ev­ery crea­ture in the sea is ir­ri­tated and lash­ing out. I’ve had sev­eral sen­tinels re­turn with jelly fish stings or shocks from eels,” Phineas ex­plained.

  “Wait,” Finn in­ter­jected. “Are you a con­sid­ered a wa­ter crea­ture?”

  Talysia looked up and re­al­ized he was talk­ing to her. “I guess you could say that. We can’t breathe un­der wa­ter and as a half-breed I’m not able to hold my breath as long as a full-blood. They can dive deeper, as well.”

  “Och. What are you think­ing, Finn?”

  Finn met the king’s light-green gaze and Talysia no­ticed his shoul­ders go back and his chin tilt up. “I was think­ing about the con­nec­tion be­tween Keira and Talysia and why they would be feel­ing off. Keira is a sea dragon, but I wasn’t sure about Talysia.”

  Phineas sat for­ward. “You might be onto some­thing, Finn. Do you swim in our wa­ters of­ten, Talysia?”

  A lump formed in Taly’s throat, nearly chok­ing her. There was some­thing wrong with her. Ig­nor­ing that for the mo­ment, she vowed to do what­ever she needed to help find an­swers. “I usu­ally ar­rive sev­eral hours be­fore my shift and go for a swim.”

  “There has to be some­thing in the wa­ter. That’s the con­nec­tion,” Phineas in­sisted.

  Keira pulled Josie onto her lap and ran a hand over her daugh­ter’s black hair. “How do you feel, Phin? Is any­one in Saqara sick?”

  “I don’t feel well, mommy,” Josie mur­mured be­fore Phineas could an­swer.

  “Oh, sweetie. What’s wrong?” Keira said then kissed the top of Josie’s head.

  The lit­tle fe­male tilted her head back with a pout on her lips. “My head hurts.”

  An­gus swooped Josie into his arms and cra­dled her close to his mus­cu­lar chest. “Don’t worry, peanut. Dyson is the best Mundunugu we have, and he will make sure the pain stops.” Talysia no­ticed the lit­tle drag­onette had blis­ters on her arms, but they were heal­ing. It looked sim­i­lar to what she had. When Talysia looked at Blaze she no­ticed he had red marks on his lower stom­ach.

  Keira and An­gus’s eyes met over the top of their daugh­ter’s head. The look that passed be­tween them was a mix­ture of fear, anger and de­ter­mi­na­tion. “Who would cast a spell on the wa­ter? And, why aren’t more af­fected by it?” Talysia blurted the ques­tions as they popped into her head.

  “It has to be Cyril,” Finn in­sisted.

  Phineas was shak­ing his head in re­sponse. “Why would Cyril at­tack my do­main? There is noth­ing there for him.”

  “Cyril wants to de­stroy us and, by ex­ten­sion, that in­cludes you,” An­gus told is brother-in-law. “He has in­creased his at­tacks ten­fold. He still isna aware our Maa­hes cured the par­a­site. He might want to in­ca­pac­i­tate any help I might get from you. With my troops down he has to as­sume I would seek help from our clos­est al­lies.”

  “We need to find that Un­seelie piece of trash and,” the male glanced to Josie and took a deep breath, “make him un­der­stand that will not be tol­er­ated,” Phineas ground out. Talysia was cer­tain he wanted to say far more, but held him­self back with his young niece present.

  “We need in­for­ma­tion first,” Keira in­sisted. “Our first pri­or­ity is pro­tect­ing the cit­i­zens and find­ing out what is wrong with us.” Talysia didn’t want to be in­cluded in this, but there was no doubt some­thing hap­pened, and she was af­fected by it.

  An­gus reached for Keira’s hand and squeezed it. “We will, Turquoise. Dyson will do some test­ing as soon as we get back to the cas­tle.”

  “We need to have Dyson de­ter­mine how we can treat them, as well. If this is like the par­a­site this is only the be­gin­ning. It will get worse,�
�� Finn added. That was a mor­bid thought. Talysia’s body trem­bled and her hands shook. How much worse?

  “We will do what­ever is nec­es­sary to en­sure that doesna hap­pen,” An­gus vowed. The in­ten­sity in his voice was chill­ing. There was no doubt in her mind he meant ev­ery word. Cyril was an id­iot for go­ing against An­gus. The Cuele­bre King was go­ing to shred the Un­seelie King when he got his hands on him.

  Talysia watched Izzy, Blaze, and Dono­van as they tossed a ball to each other and talked. Talysia might be see­ing things, but she swore Izzy was limp­ing. “Do you think Izzy is af­fected like us?”

  All eyes shifted in Izzy’s di­rec­tion. “She’s been limp­ing,” Keira ob­served. “But that’s to be ex­pected when she nearly lost her foot.”

  “She’s do­ing fan­tas­tic in the drills. We’ve all no­ticed the way she fa­vors her un­in­jured foot, but she hasn’t shown any signs of be­ing ill,” Finn added.

  Phineas tossed a rock into the wa­ter that was ten feet away. His fore­head was creased, and his mouth was pursed. He was as an­gry as the rest of the males. “Given that she was gravely in­jured in the ocean, shouldn’t she be af­fected, as well?”

  An­gus cocked his head, keep­ing his gaze on the Vam­pire Princess. “It seems to me that what­ever magic Cyril used should be caus­ing her dif­fi­cul­ties. We must have Dyson test her blood, too. Per­haps it’s slower act­ing in her sys­tem. Un­til we have fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, I want her ex­cused from any drills.”

  “She’s not go­ing to like that,” Finn mum­bled.

  “Nay, she won’t,” An­gus agreed.

  “We will meet you back at the cas­tle, Sire,” Finn said as he got to his feet. Reach­ing down, he helped Talysia to her feet. “Want to fly on my back?”

  More than any­thing, Talysia thought. Prob­lem was she didn’t trust her­self to main­tain her hold while fly­ing. “Can you carry me?”

  “Any­thing you want, Song­bird,” Finn agreed be­fore he quickly shed his clothes and shifted into his dragon. Talysia oc­cu­pied her­self with think­ing about Finn’s sexy body and how quickly they could sub­mit to test­ing and be alone.

  No mat­ter what an­swers she got from the healer, she wasn’t go­ing to let a lit­tle dizzi­ness keep her from fi­nally be­ing with Finn. She wanted to know what it felt like to make love to the gor­geous dragon.

  * * *

  Chap­ter 14

  “What do you mean there’s noth­ing you can do?” An­gus de­manded as he glared at Dyson.

  Finn felt bad for the Mundunugu, but he un­der­stood the king’s worry. Aside from Keira, oth­ers were show­ing signs of lethargy and dizzi­ness. Phineas, Blaze and Josie suc­cumbed to the same symp­toms shortly af­ter the queen.

  Finn was wor­ried about Talysia, but he wasn’t mated to her and they had no chil­dren to­gether so he could only imag­ine the King’s level of un­ease.

  “Pre­cisely what I said, Sire. There is no sign of in­fec­tion of any kind in their blood. I see no par­a­sites and there is no in­di­ca­tion a virus is af­fect­ing them. Their white blood count is low, in­di­cat­ing their im­mune sys­tems have yet to kick in which hap­pens when there is a for­eign body to fight,” Dyson replied as he held his head high. “Your the­ory that it is mag­i­cal in na­ture should be in­ves­ti­gated.”

  “We can cast a spell on the wa­ter you brought back,” Pema in­ter­jected.

  A trem­ble next to him drew Finn’s gaze down to Talysia. She was shak­ing next to him, and he was help­less to make her bet­ter. “It’s go­ing to be okay,” he as­sured her.

  Her head lifted and his heart twisted at the fear in her turquoise eyes. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and shield her from ev­ery­thing. He hated that she was in this po­si­tion. It was a sign of the way he and his fel­low Maa­hes failed not only her, but the royal fam­ily, as well. Hell, they failed the en­tire realm, if he were hon­est.

  An­gus’s voice in­ter­rupted Finn’s dark thoughts. “What do you need?”

  Isis joined Pema, and their mates stood be­hind the sis­ters. When Pema moved her hands as she spoke, Finn no­ticed the blue gem em­bed­ded in her palm and the tribal bear claw on her left fore­arm. He re­called ask­ing the witch why they’d done that and was shocked when she said that their God­dess was re­spon­si­ble. One was their mate mark­ing and the other their mat­ing stone.

  Finn wit­nessed first­hand the im­por­tance of mat­ing stones. His mind im­me­di­ately con­jured when one of the gnomes from the Tehrex Realm vis­ited Izzy. The small crea­ture had taken the mat­ing stones from Zeum as a gift for the Vam­pire Princess. That act, while not ma­li­cious in na­ture, had se­ri­ous con­se­quences that nearly cost Elsie and Zan­der their baby and Mack her life.

  “We need the con­tainer of ocean wa­ter. Oth­er­wise, we have the rest of the sup­plies in our room,” Pema told the King then turned to her mate.

  Ro­nan was a big male with curly brown hair and brown eyes. On the sur­face, he seemed easy-go­ing and re­laxed, but that was de­cep­tive. The hulk­ing male was a bear shifter and, from what Finn had heard, had a tem­per that matched his in­ner an­i­mal.

  “Babe, can you get our crys­tals, the can­dles, and the salt mix­ture from our room?” Pema asked her mate.

  Ro­nan kissed Pema on the mouth, lin­ger­ing a lit­tle too long for Finn’s com­fort. It made him want to take Talysia to his place and rav­age her as promised. He grabbed Taly’s hand, and squeezed, hop­ing she was think­ing the same sala­cious thoughts.

  “You need all the can­dles?” Ro­nan’s bari­tone voice in­truded, break­ing Finn’s fan­tasy about the sexy siren by his side.

  “Yes please,” Pema replied breath­lessly.

  “And, bring the athame,” Isis in­ter­jected, re­fer­ring to the knife used for mag­i­cal cer­e­monies.

  Fi­nally dis­en­gag­ing from Pema, Ro­nan nod­ded and ex­ited the throne room. To Finn’s sur­prise Isis’s mate, Brae­den, ap­proached her with a broom in hand.

  “They’re sweep­ing?” Talysia blurted, ask­ing what he was think­ing.

  Isis looked up from her work with a chuckle. “Tech­ni­cally, yes. We’re cleans­ing the space. Nor­mally, we use a be­som, but this will do.”

  “I don’t know much about witch­craft,” Talysia ad­mit­ted. “We had some visit Ca­lypso, but they never spoke to me.”

  “It’s not all po­tions and spells,” Isis shared as she worked. Ro­nan re­turned and he and Pema started set­ting things around the room. “There’s a lot of steps to do­ing magic prop­erly. Now, if you will all keep quiet and step to the edges of the room.”

  Finn fol­lowed the pro­ces­sion to the wall and out of the way. He watched with fas­ci­na­tion as the witches worked fast and ef­fi­ciently. An­gus wrapped his arms around his mate’s waist and held her close. “At least they’re no’ do­ing the spell naked.”

  “What?” Keira sput­tered as she looked over her shoul­der at An­gus. Finn’s as­ton­ish­ment matched the queen’s. He’d watched them per­form spells sev­eral times since they moved to Khoth, but he’d never seen or heard that about the witches.

  An­gus shrugged and was about to an­swer when Pema cut him off. “Witches per­form magic best when sky-clad, to bet­ter draw en­ergy from the moon. We also har­ness the most magic when sex­ual el­e­ments are in­volved in our cer­e­monies. But we won’t need to use such dras­tic mea­sures. Our power is as strong as it gets.”

  With those words Pema took the salt mix­ture and walked clock­wise in a cir­cle. Finn had seen them do this be­fore and knew what they were do­ing. “They’re cast­ing the cir­cle,” he whis­pered in Talysia’s ear. He en­joyed the way her body shiv­ered against his while they watched. Af­ter com­plet­ing the first cir­cuit white light pro­jected from the salt.

  On her sec­ond turn, Pema chanted, “I cast this cir­cle to keep us free of all en�
�er­gies that are not of The Light. I al­low within this cir­cle only the en­er­gies that are of The Light. So Mote It Be.”

  Isis grabbed white can­dles carved with odd char­ac­ters and placed them in var­i­ous po­si­tions on the ta­ble and lit the wicks. The sis­ters were po­si­tioned close to the knife and con­tainer of ocean wa­ter brought in by Ro­nan be­fore the rit­ual be­gan. Next, Brae­den handed Isis crys­tals, and she me­thod­i­cally ar­ranged them on the ta­ble.

  Finn tried to re­mem­ber what they told him re­gard­ing the crys­tals and their func­tion in the process. He thought they ex­plained that the stones har­nessed en­ergy from the moon and that power was used to help fuel their spells.

  Finn thought De­clan, An­gus’s per­sonal as­sis­tant, was go­ing to blow a gas­ket when Pema picked up a white piece of chalk and scribed a pen­ta­cle on the wood floor. The room served as the place where cit­i­zens of Khoth came to seek an au­di­ence with the king for as long as the cas­tle ex­isted. Many still viewed it in that light and felt it should re­main a for­mal gath­er­ing place with for­mal at­tire and in­ter­ac­tions. An­gus had no de­sire to be so re­moved from his sub­jects.

  Hell, the King served in a ca­pac­ity much like De­clan in the Vam­pire King’s house­hold in the Tehrex Realm for cen­turies. His re­la­tion­ship with his sub­jects had changed upon his re­turn. He un­der­stood how hard they worked and the tri­als they went through. And, had held a new ap­pre­ci­a­tion for ev­ery sin­gle be­ing un­der his rule. He made the fi­nal de­ci­sions, but he val­ued ev­ery­one’s in­put and let them know it.

  Pema con­tin­ued un­per­turbed by De­clan’s apoplexy. Finn wasn’t cer­tain, but she seemed to be in­vok­ing a dif­fer­ent el­e­ment each time she stood near an­other sec­tion of the pen­ta­gram.

 

‹ Prev