Claiming Excalibur

by LH Nicole

  She watched the boat as it glided over the peaceful water toward the dock. A light flared in the center of the ship and without warning, hot air slammed into her, knocking her onto the hard, wooden deck. The blast brought with it blistering hot shards of metal, glass, and wood that ripped at the skin left bare by her tank top and short shorts. Her arm landed awkwardly underneath her, and searing pain radiated up from her elbow. The hellfire flames seemed to rush toward her, like they wanted to devour her, too.

  The flames died back, and the ringing in her ears faded. She heard the frantic cries of the people around her and the screams drifting over the water. The boat was split into two halves that rapidly sank into the Atlantic. She could make out bodies splashing in the water, shouting for help, while others floated lifelessly amid the still-burning debris of the boat.

  “Mama, Papa!” Aliana pushed to her feet, ignoring the pain in her arm, and dashed toward the end of the dock. She was a good swimmer. She could get out there and help them! A thick pair arms grabbed her, ordering her to back up. She looked at up at the stranger holding her tightly and the woman with him who tried to calm her even as her own tears overflowed.

  “I have to get to them,” Aliana protested, trying to wiggle from the large man’s grasp.

  “You can’t get in the water.” His next words would continue to haunt her for years. “The sharks have already gotten to them.”

  Aliana snapped her tear-filled eyes to the wreckage, straining to see until her vision cleared. The moment it did, she wished it hadn’t. The splashing and frantic cries had cut off, and the unmistakable shape of dorsal fins snaked through the water around the wreckage. How were sharks even possible? Shouldn’t they have been scared away by the blast? “No!” she screamed, again struggling against the tight hold of the stranger. Her legs gave out, and she sank down to the splintered dock, sobs racking her body.

  She was distantly aware of howling sirens. The woman continued trying to comfort her until a medic scooped Aliana’s numb, slack body into his arms and carried her to the back of an ambulance. She never took her eyes from the scene out on the ocean. As she’d watched all those people die, she kept thinking that it should’ve been her, not her parents, in that massacre.

  Cold tears leaked down her cheeks as she pulled herself from the grip of the memory. She wiped the wet streaks away, sniffling as she walked toward the ruined dock, a place she hadn’t stood since that night almost two years ago. “How appropriate,” she whispered to herself as she crossed the hard wood. “I wanted to be alone.”

  She continued staring at the spot of ocean, wondering if the wreckage had ever been pulled from the seabed and if any more of the bodies were ever recovered. In the months following the explosion, she’d stayed with Wade’s and Lacy’s family. Her friends’ parents hadn’t let her watch any of the news coverage or read the newspaper articles about the accident. She’d only heard that many of the bodies hadn’t been recovered and were assumed to have been eaten by marine life in the feeding frenzy that had reportedly carried into the next day. Her parents’ bodies were among those never accounted for. She stood at the edge of the dock, looking into the black ocean and wondering if the same sharks still inhabited these waters or if they’d moved on.

  “Fancy meeting you here.”

  She snapped around at the smug sound of Morgana’s evil voice. Aliana’s anger spiked and she opened her magical senses, calling on the earth and air elements’ powers as well as her own. “What are you doing here, you stupid witch?” she asked through clenched teeth. “And where are Michelle and my Uncle Joe?”

  “Oh, they’re not far.” She flicked her black-gloved hand. The witch had her hair pulled up into a high ponytail, and her blue duster flapped lightly in the night air, revealing her corset top.

  “What is it with you and the slutty anime outfits?” Aliana snapped, hoping to get a rise out of the witch and throw her off balance so she could attack.

  But the blonde only threw her head back and cackled. “I think they suit me rather well. And they do make an impression.”

  “Yeah, a trampy impression.” Aliana threw a ball of cresting magic at Morgana, catching her unaware and knocking her off her feet. Aliana rushed forward, gathering and throwing another blast, but Morgana deflected it and punched her own icy power into the wood beneath them, shaking the deck like a rope bridge. Aliana stumbled, just barely keeping her footing.

  The shaking stopped and the blonde rushed her, throwing charged punches and kicks. Aliana blocked them, grateful for all the training she’d done with the guys. She threw her own pink-infused punches and kicks. All she had time to do was react and let her instincts guide her. She ducked a kick and threw out her own, sweeping Morgana’s feet from under her. The witch hit the dock hard.

  Gathering her ruby’s magic, Aliana readied herself to strike but paused when movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention. She looked up to see the knights, Lacy, Dawn, and Dagg rushing toward her. Morgana took advantage of the distraction and shot a blast of icy cold magic into Aliana’s gut. She screamed in pain, clutching her stomach. The witch flipped herself to her feet and rushed forward. Dagg flew in front of her, hissing out a powerful stream of Dragon fire.

  The attack hit Morgana square in the face, knocking the evil girl back. She shrieked in fury and lashed out with a whip of icy blue power that smacked into Dagg, knocking him to the side. Aliana cried out, feeling the blow as if it had been delivered to her and not the silver creature.

  “How interesting,” Morgana taunted. “Hurt one and you hurt the other.”

  “Give me back my godfather and Dawn’s mother!” Aliana struggled to her feet, trying not to smile when she saw the guys creeping up behind Morgana drawing their weapons and spreading out to attack. Moving together as an invincible unit, they were like a living piece of legendary photo art. The knights were fierce, hot, and ready to kick bad guy butt.

  “No,” Morgana hissed. “I think I’ll kill them like I did your parents.”

  “What?” Aliana backed up a step in shock. “You couldn’t have.” Aliana instinctively sought out her guardian only to find him lying several feet away, struggling to rise onto his legs.

  The guys rushed forward. Morgana turned quicker than lightning and blasted them with her icy power, pushing them back. Merlin threw a spear of orange, but the witch deflected it and created a wall of burning blue fire in front of the knights. This fire didn’t crackle or hiss. It was deadly silent with cold waves of sweltering energy wafting from its flames.

  “What do you mean you killed my parents?” Aliana gathered the ruby’s magic in her clenched fists, but she’d hold off the attack until she got answers. “They were killed on a boat.”

  Morgana raised her shrill voice. “And why were they on that boat, Destined One?”

  Aliana stared back in terrified silence.

  “Come, come now. Speak up.” The blonde’s satisfied, cruel eyes crinkled at the corners before she turned her focus to Aliana’s friends. “Or don’t you want them to realize that their precious, perfect Destined One is responsible for killing her own parents?”

  “That’s not true!” Owen shouted.

  “She’s trying to get in your head!” Lancelot insisted.

  “Don’t listen to her,” Arthur ordered.

  “She’s lying!” the girls screamed.

  Aliana felt the blood drain from her face, and she knew that she had to shut Morgana up before all her friends hated her as much as she hated herself. She screamed in fury and launched the twin orbs of ruby magic. They sailed through the air, but Morgana summoned a shield and deflected the power back at her, forcing her to dive to the side to avoid her own attack.

  Morgana turned her head slightly, her cold gaze stuck on Aliana. “What she won’t tell you all is that she gave her parents her own tickets. She told them to go on that boat instead of her.”

  “Shut up, you bitch!” Aliana didn’t want to hear any more of the cruel truth, and she certainly
didn’t want her friends to either.

  “She doesn’t deny it,” the witch taunted. Aliana got to her feet and summoned her bow, but Morgana’s words were out before she could stop them. “She sent her parents out on the boat that exploded, and she just stood there on the dock watching while they died.”

  “Enough of this, Morgana!” Arthur commanded. Aliana met his golden gaze through the blue fire. “You said yourself that you killed them, which means none of this is her fault! Don’t let her manipulate you with her twisted words, Aliana.”

  But how could Arthur believe that? How could she believe that? “It was supposed to be me,” she confessed, her voice cracking.

  “Yes,” Morgana hissed. “I set that boat to explode so that you’d be killed. When I realized you weren’t there, I commanded the fire to consume you. Either that or the sharks, whichever got to you first.” She snarled and said, “If that blasted human hadn’t stopped you from entering the water, you would’ve been finished off. But I must say it was satisfying to watch you eat yourself up with guilt, knowing all this time it should’ve been you who died.” Morgana advanced on a trembling Aliana, but she didn’t take more than a step before she was viciously thrown from the pier onto the rocks. She was only inches from falling over the steep edge into the ocean below.

  “You disobeyed my orders, cousin.” Mordrid appeared in an electric flash of gray lightning. “I told you the Destined One was never to be killed.”

  Morgana whimpered under the heavy weight of Mordrid’s anger. “She’s too dangerous to our plans!”

  Hot sparks of black power fell from the livid dark wizard. “You know nothing! You live by my will. You do what I say and nothing more!”

  Mordrid seemed solely focused on his cousin, so Aliana took the opportunity to edge around him toward her friends. She got within feet of Morgana’s dying blue fire when it blasted out, hitting the knights with a violent ferocity. They moaned and shouted in pain as they were pinned to the earth.

  Aliana ran toward them, but electric gray clouds whipped around her, pulling her back to the wizard. She stared into his turbulent black eyes. “I’m sorry for what she did,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll be sure she’s severely punished for her actions.”

  A thrill of satisfaction uncoiled inside Aliana, and she knew instantly that Mordrid had noticed it. “That won’t bring them back.”

  “No,” he admitted, “but when I rule, if you stand by my side, we’ll have absolute power over all the realms, including the Underworld. You can give your parents their lives back.”

  Aliana’s eyes widened, her body going slack at the dark promise. Her mind instantly went to the cave where she’d found Arthur. Titania had offered to bring her parents back, and turning her down had been one of the hardest things Aliana had ever done. Now she had another chance to be with her family again. Mordrid’s cloud bands loosened their hold on her and disappeared.

  “Don’t listen to him, Aliana!” Lacy shouted.

  “Do not let him distract you. He’s not telling you the truth!” Dagg said in her mind.

  Aliana’s eyes cut to her Dragon.

  He crouched low on the sand, slowly inching his way toward her and Mordrid. “Nothing like that is simple or would come without a heavy price. You should know this by now.”

  Aliana jerked her eyes away from him to Morgana so she wouldn’t alert the evil duo that Dagg wasn’t trapped by whatever magic held down the knights and her sisters.

  The witch slowly got to her feet. “Forgive me, cousin.” Morgana’s shoulders slumped, and blood ran down the side of her face. “I only wished for our plans to succeed.”

  Mordrid sneered. “I’ve promised Aliana you’ll be properly punished for your crimes against her. I won’t go back on my word to my Destined One.” He wrapped his arm around Aliana’s waist. Her body locked. She wanted to rip herself from his evil grasp, but if she did, she was afraid he’d attack her friends again. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dagg take flight.

  “Aliana!” Galahad cried. He broke free of the electric force and used his super speed to rush Mordrid. Morgana blasted him with her icy magic.

  “Galahad!” Aliana cried, horrified as he skidded onto the hard pavement of the old parking lot. She tried to go to him but Mordrid’s grip tightened to the point of pain. A hail of purple Dragon fire rained down from above, allowing her to escape her enemy, but Morgana was suddenly next to her and backhanded Aliana so hard she fell onto her side. Her head struck the wooden planks, and her arm and leg dangled over the edge of the decaying dock.

  Her vision blurred and danced, her head too hazy to even touch her magic. She blinked her vision into focus, staring down at the water. She watched as the dorsal fin of a shark broke the surface right beneath her. She scrambled back, splinters of wood cutting her as she did. Mordrid and the guys roared in fury. Aliana turned toward Morgana just at blasts of gray electric and orange rays of magic hit the witch from both sides. The evil girl screamed in agony.

  Dagg came to Aliana’s side. The instant his scaly body touched hers, she was filled with enough magic to block out her injuries. She opened her magical senses wide and sought the evil energy caging her friends, drawing it all into herself with a hard yank. Her friends were on their feet seconds later. Aliana edged her way toward them, but Mordrid had other ideas.

  He shot a blast of power into Dagg, sending the Dragon sailing through the air until he landed at the feet of the knights. Aliana screamed, falling to her knees as pain rushed through her. Breathing hard, she saw Dawn scoop the motionless Dragon into her arms.

  The guys rushed forward with swords raised and fury like she’d never seen from them. Icy cold energy gathered behind her, and she knew instantly what Morgana was planning. With strength she didn’t know she had, Aliana blocked out all of her pain and instinctively lunged to her feet, throwing herself into the path of the witch’s deadly magic. It hit her full force in the chest, and she shrieked so loudly she thought her eardrums might rupture. She barely felt her body roll across the dock, hardly heard the frantic cries of her friends and the roared, “No!” that she somehow knew came from Mordrid.

  She locked her jaw tight, holding in the piercing cry of agony. Her lungs felt like they were being slowly overrun with freezing water. She coughed and gagged, and then the pressure suddenly lifted, replaced by orange rays of brightness. The rays warmed her lungs until she could breathe again. She had a split second to see Merlin stagger and her friends rush to her. They were stopped when a wall of impenetrable gray lightning snapped to life in front of them. Aliana looked up, groaning in pain, and met the wide, disbelieving eyes of Mordrid.

  “Why did you do that?” he raged, his black eyes frantically searching her green ones for understanding.

  “I’ve already let two people I love die because of me.” Her voice cracked. “I’ll do that every time—” She coughed, tasting the coppery flavor of her own blood in her mouth. “I’ll happily give my life if it means the people I care about will live.”

  Mordrid’s brow pinched together and he frowned in confused anger. “You stupid girl!” Yet the dark wizard’s words didn’t sound angry. He lifted her wrecked body with a shocking gentleness. His electrical power surrounded her, dulling her aching pain as he got to his feet. “Enough of this foolishness.”

  Aliana was slowly losing all feeling in her body. Her mind was too overloaded to use her bubbling magic to counteract Mordrid’s. It took all the strength she had to turn her eyes to her friends as Mordrid raged at them. She couldn’t hear his words, only saw the livid and terrified faces of the members of her Round Table. Percy held a sobbing Lacy. Lancelot, Leo, and Wade held back Galahad, whose face twisted with anger and fear. Owen cradled Dawn as she clutched Dagg, still unmoving. Merlin held back Arthur, whispering something to the king.

  The Druid released him and Arthur raised Excalibur, bringing the Dragon-forged sword down on the wall of black lightning. The barrier shattered like panes of glass, falling away in
a blink. The guys instantly charged. Galahad fast approached but then the world went fuzzy. Hot waves of magic poured through Aliana but didn’t hurt her ravaged body. She knew instantly that she was being taken away—away from her friends, her new family.

  24

  I don’t know what to do or think. One moment I finally have Aliana in my arms, finally know the sweet softness of her mouth. Now she’s gone. And at Mordrid’s mercy. I want to blame Galahad for this. If he hadn’t lost his senses, she wouldn’t have disappeared from the beach. For the first time in my life, I don’t know if I can trust my knight. He told me what Aliana did for him, why he’d lost his control…the whole story this time. The crux of it all is that no matter what, Aliana wouldn’t want discord between me and him. If…when we get her back, what if she forgives him? That doesn’t matter now. I will save her, and Mordrid and Morgana will answer to me.

  ~Arthur

  WHY DOES MY HEAD HURT SO MUCH? Aliana thought as she gingerly turned onto her side, her face burying into a feather pillow. Did Merlin beat my butt again in magic training?

  Images of the knights and her two best friends, frantic and pissed off, flashed across her closed eyelids. She saw the still body of her guardian cradled in Dawn’s arms. Her eyes snapped open as she jerked up. Immediately regretting the sudden movement, she took deep breath after deep breath to manage the bone deep pain. When her vision stopped spinning, she looked around and took in the shadow-filled room. A tall changing screen spread out along one wall next to a large, wooden wardrobe. The bed she was on took up most of the room. Its heavy curtains were tied to each post with a braided cord. Everything about this place screamed rich, medieval castle of a high lord.

  “Where in the stars am I?” she whispered, looking down at her right hand. Her ruby gauntlet was still there, as pristine as ever, but then she saw the hideous bruises climbing up her arm. A small one on her wrist highlighted the Druid-Celtic pattern that was normally invisible. It was the mark Merlin had given each of them so they’d never be lost to each other. Like now. She knew she wasn’t with the knights. This place felt too dark, too evil to for that.