Rise of the Lich Sentinel

by Jessamyn Kingley

  “Arch Lich,” Dra’Kaedan began, “would you explain to this Council the petition filed by the Order of Necromancia?”

  “My pleasure, Grand Warlock,” Chander responded. “Due to the uniqueness of the bylaws of the Order of Necromancia, our elder council can file petitions without my consent. I fear they have grown complacent with the way things have existed between necromancers and sentinels, but I hardly feel it’s fair to the sentinels not to have their independence.”

  “Can we not question the elders for their thoughts on the subject?” Aloisa the Dwyer asked.

  “We will not,” the Emperor stated. “The Arch Lich answers for the Order of Necromancia.”

  “Your Majesty, the exceptional relationship between the elder council and the Arch Lich seems to contradict the laws of this Council,” Artair, leader of the brown bears, said. “I, for one, cannot understand how we can allow anyone to contradict a Fate-chosen leader.”

  “I am of the same mind, Alpha Ursus Arctos,” Chrysander replied. “But the Order of Necromancia was one of the founding races, and their bylaws were instated well before the dragons were added.”

  “It defies fate,” Aloisa the Dwyer declared. “The sentinels are seemingly stuck behind this strange paradox as well. Arch Lich-mate, according to your bylaws—what relationship would the sentinels have with the elder council?”

  “The sentinels would have no relationship at all with the elder council,” Alaric stated. “They belong exclusively to the Order of Necromancia.”

  “Lucky me,” Chander grumbled only loud enough for Alaric to hear.

  “There are few races that can carry weapons. Does the Order of the Fallen Knights object to the stunning daggers the sentinels wear?” Vampyress Irina Volkov inquired.

  “We do not,” Reverent Knight Conley responded. “We fully support the addition of the sentinels to the Council with all their traditions intact, including their poisoned weapons.”

  “Arch Lich-mate, are your sentinels aware of how life works within our Council? If not, how do you plan to prepare them?” Magus Superus Egann asked.

  “We’re in the process of educating them on Council laws and ways,” Alaric explained. “We will not allow them to make lives here until they’re fully prepared. I have been speaking with each man individually as have the Arch Lich’s sentinels and the two D’Vaire sentinels.”

  “Arch Lich-mate, perhaps you might be willing to share why you wish to join our Council now?” Prism Wizard Vadimas requested.

  “Of course, Prism Wizard,” Alaric said. “Our origins are a mystery, but we believe we’re a race which began two thousand years ago. At that time, I was placed under a spell which didn’t allow me to do anything but see to the sentinels inside our compound. Reverent Knight Conley Gylde-Kempe approached the D’Vaire sentinels with the idea of bringing me here to join your Council. They have loved their lives here amongst all of you and wanted to see more of their brethren sharing in the same. I agreed and began the process. Since arriving here, I have been impressed by the caring natures of the Council leaders and their people. I know within your confines, my men can vastly improve the quality of their lives.”

  “Who would cast such a spell?” Vampyress Irina asked.

  “It was the product of dark warlock, wizard, and necromancer magic,” Chander answered. “My mate has no memory of the spell being cast on him but we hope with time away from the compound, he will regain it at some point.”

  “Arch Lich-mate, what relationship is there between your memory and the compound?” the chieftain of the Tristis elves inquired.

  “Our compound is magical,” Alaric replied. “It drains the memory. I don’t fully understand how the building works, but we’re trying to unravel the mysteries surrounding our race.”

  “Arch Lich-mate, we have all heard the stories about the dangers of sentinels. That there have even been necromancers killed by their own sentinels. How dangerous are your people?” the leader of the jaguar shifters asked.

  “My people are elite assassins who train daily. However, we have a strict code of honor. We’re only dangerous when we are ordered by necromancers to do things which are illegal. We have no ability to refuse such an order,” Alaric said. “As to the stories of us harming our own necromancers, there is no proof of that. Here, we would answer to the Order of the Fallen Knights as the rest of you do. I don’t believe we would add to their workload.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we need to move on to the next item on our agenda,” Chrysander announced. “We’ll invite Arch Lich-mate back if there are more questions. Send any requests to my office.”

  Chander leaned over. “You did a wonderful job.”

  “I was rather nervous.”

  He kissed Alaric. “It didn’t show.”

  The rest of the morning flew by and at the end, Chander was yawning. It was time to head home, have lunch, and then take a nap. Afterward he was planning on tugging Alaric into the bedroom for a little afternoon delight. He’d yet to get his mouth on Alaric’s gorgeous cock, and that situation needed to be remedied as soon as possible.

  Chapter 41

  Chander folded up the blanket and arranged it in a semi-presentable way at the end of the bed. He’d just finished his nap and was eager to get to work. He would never have thought he’d begin to enjoy the mundane paperwork that was a part of being the Arch Lich but after being laid up in a hospital, his perspective was different. Grateful to be alive, he wanted to make sure he did the best job he could in case he was gone at some point in the future.

  Sauntering out to the living room, he waved at Victor who was mouthing the words to whatever song was playing in his headphones while he mopped the floor. His sentinels were sprawled over each other and sorting through more of the parchment from Alaric’s office.

  “Hey,” Baxter greeted as he pulled up into a sitting position. “I’ll go get Alaric from the compound.”

  “No, it hasn’t even been an hour since I laid down for my nap,” Chander said. “He could use more time there.”

  “Okay, let me know when you’re ready to have your mate home.”

  “Sure, now where the hell did I leave my laptop?” Chander asked.

  “Office,” Victor yelled and pointed in the general direction of the hallway.

  “How loud is that shit he’s listening to?” Chander asked no one in particular as he headed to his office. Once he recovered his computer and nearly smacked his head on the desk looking for the power cord, he returned to the living room. Shoving the plug into the outlet, he took a seat and balanced the device across his lap. Within a couple of minutes, it was fired up and ready to go. He opened his email and wasn’t surprised to find it overflowing with messages.

  “When are people going to stop welcoming me back?” Chander mumbled. It had been a week since he had attended his first assembly session; he appreciated that he was missed but he didn’t really need three messages from each Council leader. He sent off a bunch of thank-yous and began rifling through things he would need to respond to with lengthier replies when a strange one caught his attention. The sender wasn’t a name he recognized and it seemed they had no last name. It read only Amraphel. He almost deleted it without viewing it but for some reason, he was compelled to click on it.

  With a shrug, he tapped on his touchpad and it opened. There were no words. Instead, he found himself staring at an image. Chander’s blood ran cold. He couldn’t believe his eyes, but he knew this picture would forever be etched in his brain. Almost as quickly as his veins had turned to ice, they heated as shock was replaced by absolute and unforgiving fury. There, in a random email he’d nearly dumped into his trash, was Alaric in bed with his housekeeper. Neither one of them was clothed, and they were in the throes of passion.

  Chander’s mind rejected the idea. Alaric was magickind, they weren’t capable of such acts. But the sentinels had been forced into a compound due to a flaw. Was this it? Had the necromancers who created sentinels discovered somehow they were
capable of cheating? Two thousand years ago, that thought would have been even more abhorrent than it was today. Shifters were still looked down upon by many because of their ability to look outside their matebond for physical satisfaction.

  Had it been Alaric who had exposed the flaw in a life he no longer remembered? Was that why his mind had been wrapped in an unforgiving spell that allowed him no option but to care for his men? It was plausible and as that thought sunk in, so did the devastation. Chander was horrified as he continued to stare at the image of Alaric having sex with another man. This was the man he loved, the man he’d set aside his fear of relationships for—the man who held him tenderly and had held his hand while he lay recovering in some hospital bed.

  Here he sat, a dying man, with his mate not even bothering to wait for his death to move on. Had Chander even been his first? Or had that honor gone to the friendly little cat shifter who was still lip-synching as he cleaned. His heart broke and desolation rained over him.

  “Chand, you okay?” he heard someone say. He couldn’t identify the voice, it sounded a million miles away. Darkness, so much his companion in life, swept over him. Agony tore through him, and his eyes welled with tears. As potent as his sadness was, it was not the only emotion settling into the marrow of his bones. Rage was beginning to boil just beneath his skin. He’d vaulted over obstacles of his own making to form a relationship with Alaric and the whole time, he had been plotting so much more than a monogamous matebond.

  Fury as he’d never known stole over him, and he welcomed it. With open arms, he embraced it. It was so much better than the sorrow. The grief and despair couldn’t touch the storm brewing inside. His chest ached as his magic, unused for so many weeks, began to flow outward. Slamming the laptop closed, he saw black smoke surrounding his hands. He gathered more of it and incinerated the computer in less than a second.

  “Chand, what the fuck?” Baxter demanded. “You aren’t supposed to use magic. I’m going to go get Alaric.”

  “No, you aren’t,” Chander said. His voice was deeper, so malignant was his anger.

  “What the fuck, Chand?”

  The pain grew in his chest and Chander knew the precarious organ that lay beneath his ribs wasn’t in any shape to handle the tempest brewing inside him. He stood and threw his head back. He embraced the stinging hurt and somewhere in the pit of himself, a mysterious force grew. It layered over the rising wrath Alaric’s actions had caused. Chander was being sucked into something beyond his understanding and he surrendered to it.

  “What is going on? Chand, you’re panting,” Baxter yelled. “Settle the fuck down. Let me go and get Alaric.”

  “No, you will not.” The order was guttural and he knew his sentinel could not refuse it. It no longer mattered; his heart was pounding so hard he knew it wasn’t capable of handling the pressure. He could feel the light magic wrapped around it being ripped apart. It began shooting out of him in bright streaks and he could hear his sentinels shouting but their words were incomprehensible.

  Chander was being consumed by his own rage, or so he thought. It was a living beast creeping through him. Then all the physical pain in his body disappeared. The agony of betrayal was ripe and so was the entity inside. It seeped into every pore, and Chander was becoming something more, something so different from the necromancer he thought he was. Sensation rippled over his back and the muscles were pushed outward.

  He heard a sound like wind being whipped through the air and looked to his left. Over his shoulder a black matte wing was emerging, it seemed, from him. To his right, he saw a second one. Black magic, strong but not malevolent, was cast out. It seared the furniture and he saw the men in the room jump back out of the way as dark fire swept over the wooden floors.

  A stinging sensation hit his eyes and his gums before a set of fangs punched through. Then stillness settled over both him and the room. Wonder punched through his fury for a few seconds. The Grand Summoner had been right—he was a hybrid, but he had no clue what the fuck his other half was.

  “Chand?” Benton asked warily.

  “Yesth?” Chander lisped through his new fangs.

  “What the actual fuck?” Benton screamed. “Your eyes are fucking red and you’ve got wings.”

  Chander didn’t have time for mysteries. He turned to Victor. “Get out. Pack your shit and get out. Now.”

  “Chand, what the hell?”

  Victor looked frightened, but Chander couldn’t care less. He didn’t blame him for wrecking his matebond—that was all on Alaric—but he was not innocent, and Chander couldn’t bear to look at him.

  “Get him the fuck out of here,” Chander roared and the three men tore down the hall to Victor’s room. Chander surveyed the living room. It was destroyed. Everything in it scorched except for Conley’s box. Even his other half knew of its importance and had protected it. It would be coming with him when he left. He would not stay here. Tossing what was left of his shirt to the floor, Chander pulled his new wings close. Then he marched to his bedroom and with a whisper of dark smoke, torched the bed Alaric had fucked another man in. His magic, so much stronger now, was ridiculously potent.

  He heard doors slamming and hoped that cat shifter was out of his fucking house. Baxter peeked his head into the room. “I’ll get Alaric.”

  “No,” Chander said. “Call and find out if I have any properties empty. We need to move.”

  “Huh?”

  “Do it,” Chander ordered as he walked to the bathroom. He could barely fit both him and the giant wings in but he wanted to see them before he figured out how to sheath them. Over the centuries, he’d read plenty of shifter books and knew it was a simple process of focusing on his normal form. His reflection was different when he clapped eyes on the mirror. His hair was a few shades darker and not as curly. As Benton had yelled out, his irises were crimson and brimming with fury. His face was more refined, all the boyish curves smoothed out into sharp, masculine planes. It seemed he’d finally grown up.

  Concentrating on the wings, Chander imagined them no longer visible and he watched as they slowly retracted behind him. His gums tingled as his fangs rose out of view and his gaze was now his normal gray hue. The giant canines explained how his matebond hadn’t snapped into place the way he’d thought it would at their ceremony, his other half obviously needed to bite Alaric to complete it. He was glad he hadn’t known about his hybrid side; the last thing he wanted was more of a connection to Alaric.

  “Chand?” Baxter called out. Chander walked out of the bathroom and met him in the destroyed bedroom. “There’s a two-story condo empty. It’s the penthouse in this building. It’s in the middle of renovations though.”

  “It’s perfect,” Chander said. “If you plan on living with me, I suggest you pack your things. We’re moving now.”

  “What in the hell is going on?”

  “Baxter, do it,” Chander demanded.

  His sentinel couldn’t refuse a direct order, and so he strode out angrily. Chander gathered power and was surprised again by how quickly it responded. He created a huge bubble and tossed all his belongings in it. Clothes, books, and even Conley’s box were soon caged. Teleporting upstairs, Chander surveyed the half-finished condo. It was absolutely enormous and could easily house a few dozen people. There was a kitchen and he could see two bedrooms completed amid the construction. The upstairs was nothing more than a giant open space with a few naked wall studs dotting the expanse. It would do. They could worry about aesthetics later. He transported his bubble there and then returned to his former home to await his sentinels. They better hurry, he had Alaric to confront and then he never wanted to see his lying, cheating face again. He planned to ride this wave of fury as long as it lasted. Chander knew if he did not, he’d have to face his ruined heart. His new half may have fixed the physical problems that had plagued him, but no one could fix the damage Alaric had wrought.

  It was a hurt so deep and vast Chander knew he would never be the same. And that voice, the o
ne that had been beating him down for centuries, reminded him it was no more than he deserved. He was not worthy of happiness, and he’d earned a life without the mate he loved. After all, he’d torn apart a loving matebond centuries ago. It was a sad fact that Alaric’s actions were a justified punishment. The maelstrom inside him swirled and Chander hated Alaric for what he had done. And he hated himself even more.

  Chapter 42

  Alaric was striding toward his office when he saw Baxter appear.

  “Hey, my Chand awake?”

  “You could say that,” Baxter said. “I have to warn you some shit went down while you were here.”

  “What do you mean? Is Chand all right?”

  “He’s not hurt,” Baxter replied. “But it seems Dre’Kariston was right. He’s a hybrid. His other half, I don’t know what the fuck it is, he’s got black wings and fangs. He torched most of the apartment and kicked out Victor.”

  “Victor? Why?”

  “No clue, he’s over at Evergreen’s. I didn’t know what else to do. Chand also packed up his shit and moved it to another condo.”

  Alaric was shocked. “Moved?”

  “Yeah, I think you need to talk some sense into him. Maybe his new half has made him temporarily insane or some shit.”

  “Let’s go talk to my mate.” Alaric wasted no time pulling on his cloak and teleporting home. He found Chander standing in the living room, which was charred to a crisp. Chander looked different; his face was more refined. It made him even more handsome. His eyes were molten pewter and his arms were crossed over his chest. Chander was furious.