Isabel felt defeated. If she made it a few more days at all, she’d be surprised. “What are the Senseti, Amele?”
She heard a gasp behind her. “They’re rare, Isabel, as rare as the Time Sifters. The Senseti can channel others thoughts, and even conform them as they wish once they’re trained long enough. I’ve only known one other in my entire life. Please, please, please tell me you were channeling in Loveryn last night?”
“I don’t know what the hell I was doing. One second Bodhe was saying something to me in your—our—language that I don’t speak yet, and out popped the answer to his question out of my mouth. I didn’t understand what he said, I felt it.” Her head dropped in her hands again. “All of this is just too much.”
“Formequen Lei’ei?”
“Yes of course I understand you, Amele! I need answers, not stupid, retardiculous questions!” Her hands flew up to her mouth and eyes got wide. “I did it again, didn’t I? That wasn’t English by any chance, was it?”
“No, that was very, very far from English. It was the language of the Dragons, almost as ancient as our own.” She settled back against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest with a playful grin toying at the edges of her mouth.
“Bel, do you have any idea how good you’re going to be at kicking ass as a Senseti? You’ll be able to will your opponents into just about anything you want once you’re trained, or you could just play with them and know every single move they’re going to make before they do. That’s one of the best gifts of the Sidhe if you’re a warrior. Halfling, I’m so freaking jealous!”
Isabel began to laugh even though she called her a halfling. How did Amele manage to sound even younger than her when she had centuries more that she had lived?
Amele shot up like lightning all of the sudden. “Isabel! Get dressed in something tight and keep your raka on the outside of your clothes! First lesson in fighting begins now!”
“What the…?”
“Now! The Unseelie are headed for your front door. I’ll call the guard but we need to move fast!” Amele rushed out the door screaming at her to hurry.
Isabel checked the raka strapped to her thigh, and quickly threw a tank top on and yoga shorts.
“I’m under siege in my own flipping house?” She looked around the home that she’d shared with her parents, that she had all of her childhood memories in. Wonderful ones, full of laughter and music and love. Not a chance they were going to come here and destroy this. It was all she had left! Anger rose from the pit of her stomach so black and dark that she wouldn’t have recognized herself in the mirror. Her eyes burned with fury and she gripped the handle of her raka.
She raced down the stairs to the front of the house and saw that they were swarming around as she looked out the bay window. Glass shattered as a rock was thrust through it and she absolutely fumed. Her mother had made the cushions at that window and she’d spent so many hours sitting there reading and writing in her journals. Her eyes glistened with sadness seeing the floral upholstery torn up now from glass ripping into it. There were at least twenty hideous beasts that she could see in the overcast day outside. Their lanky bodies and white eyes came closer, perking up when one of them saw her through the broken glass. He oozed grey gunk from an open sore on his face and if the adrenaline wasn’t pumping so hard she knew she would’ve lost her coffee. Thank goodness that was all she’d consumed so far today.
“What are they doing here and how are we going to take them all?”
An ancient laugh that dripped with something dark erupted from Amele. “Watch and learn, Princess. Oh, and feel free to jump in! It’s a buzz like you’ve never known to send these beasts back to daddy!”
Amele flew out the door and began a graceful dance with her sword, dropping them like flies. Isabel watched from the doorway and readied her Raka, feeling more than inadequate as she watched the smooth almost death-by-ballet moves of her friend. The way she jumped and spun was like a dance, only it was a very bloody one. If that grey oozing matter could be called blood anyway. Out of her peripheral vision she saw one of the nasty things scrambling toward her with death in his starched eyes. It moved in a way that it was upright one moment, then contorted like a freaking spider the next. God, that was unnerving as all hell. Her heart was beating hard and fast in her chest and for the briefest of moments she almost thought she felt sorry for the thing that was racing to kill her. But it was fleeting. As soon as she saw the smile stretching across rotten teeth as he stampeded over her mother’s rosebushes she felt only one thing.
Anger.
Amele was tending to the horde so she took a deep breath and jumped over the railing. The creature’s eyes opened a little wider, as if surprised that she was confronting it.
“Seriously, you need to work on your social skills, and for Gods’ sake, get a toothbrush!”
He snarled at her and leapt through the air, gangly outstretched arms reaching for her—all six of them. One of them grabbed her hair and yanked her head down, smashing her forehead in the dirt. She tried to scream as she heard something that sounded way too much like teeth near her ear, but her face was planted in the flowerbed and it came out as a muffled grunt instead. She rolled herself as hard as she could and managed to twist enough to see the white eyes that were in her face and the three rows of teeth that were sharpened to a point and way beyond a toothbrush. No way was some Crest going to fix this grill. Good God, her stomach threatened to empty its contents as she fumbled, trying to get his hand out of her hair.
Guided nearly by itself, her raka found the creature’s gut and she heard a ghastly cry come out of his mouth. Isabel tried to back away from the thing, but he grabbed her and threw her into the side of the house, wood splintering against her back. At least his hand wasn’t in her hair anymore! She hissed as she tried to rise, pain shooting up from her tailbone where she hit the house the hardest.
The damned thing raged toward her again, moving in a way that made it impossible for him to have a spine at all. Groaning, she rolled over just as three of his nasty hands landed on her throat, and she used every ounce of reserves she had to plunge the dagger into him once more. The shadows moved from his eyes as he screamed, his spit—was that even spit?!?—flew into her face.
‘Once wounded, twice dead,’ she remembered Amele saying. And as he fell on her with all of his grey, disgusting weight, knocking every ounce of air from her lungs, she knew it was true.
Shrieking, she rolled him off her and fought the bile rising in her throat. She gazed across the lawn and watched Amele dance with the last two, gracefully taking them both out with one circular move.
Surveying the destruction all around them, she saw that there were definitely more than twenty, but probably less than thirty. She lost track though, because as soon as she got to twenty-two, they began to disintegrate. Now the remnants of the coffee truly began to churn and swell in her stomach, threatening to be released at any second. Their grey skin peeled away, leaving just bones and oozing juice before the wind came and took the rest of them. She shook off the horror of what she’d just witnessed and looked at her friend.
Amele’s eyes were glowing bright yellow now. Grey matter clung to her sword before disintegrating too, and she looked like something out of a medieval war movie. Black leather, straight black hair blowing in the wind, a lethal and shining sword at the ready, and an inner light that was completely outer at the moment made Isabel suck in a breath. Wow, she was impressive. ‘Fierce’ was the only word that came to mind as she stared at her.
Never piss off Amele, check.
Her eyes rose up and stared into hers at that moment, a grin on her face as her stance relaxed a little. “Now, tell me that wasn’t a serious damn rush?”
Isabel smiled even though she didn’t know how it was possible that she was doing so. “It was a serious rush. So, I guess it’s safe to assume the Unseelie know about me at this point?”
“You think?”
“Smartass. So, now what?”
“Now
, we pack your things and hide where they can’t find you until the turning is complete, or you make your choice. After that, they’ll be no match for you, anyway. Not with the realms behind you full force and all your gifts surfacing.”
Isabel let that sink in and walked over to the garden hose. She turned it on and began to wash her dagger, making sure Unseelie bits were good and gone. Amele soon joined her, the fire receding from her eyes a little.
“You did great today. Your mom and dad would be so damn proud of you. All of them.”
“Thanks, Amele, but really, I killed one…just barely…and you got how many? You were like a damn hurricane out here. Shouldn’t I be taking this a bit worse, though? I mean, I’ve never even killed a bug and I just killed that thing without thinking twice. Why does it feel so normal to do something so completely not normal?”
“Because it runs in your blood, in both lines. It would be stranger to me if you didn’t take it as well as you are, actually. With your immortality just on the horizon you’ll be coming into your gifts now, and both of your birthparents were very strong in their own rights. It’s going to be like Christmas every day as you find out what you can do. I can’t wait!” she said with a wicked smile. “Everything is as it should be, sugar. C’mon, we’ve got a lot to do today.”
So, it felt normal killing creatures that she couldn’t even conjure in her wildest dreams, and it was beginning to feel normal to be devoured by two men she hardly knew. Great. What else was going to feel normal before this was all over? Isabel carefully tucked her raka in her sheath and looked out at the calm yard that was anything but a few moments ago.
Amele smiled at her. “You’ll be mega surprised in yourself before this is all said and done, I promise. Now pack your things, the guard are coming soon. Too bad there’s nothing left for them to clean up,” she said with a snort of laughter. “They get bored here, you know. Away from their partners and children, the guard never mind a battle to let a little steam off too.”
She nodded and trudged back into the house. Isabel sealed off the gaping hole in the window with cardboard and duct tape, and then went to pack a bag. At least they wouldn’t come near the happiness of her home again. Bright side—that was the bright side. Her mom had always taught her that there was a bright side to everything. Only, it looked pretty dark everywhere right now, and not just because of the storms on the horizon. She had a feeling that it was going to be a very long day and even longer night.
CHAPTER TEN
Old Home-New Memories
THE SIDHE GUARD escorted them to a house on the outskirts of the city. It was an enormous old mansion and she wondered how they’d found it. She also wondered why she’d never seen it before. Didn’t she know every house in this little town? Apparently all but this one. The house loomed like an ancient, forgotten tomb and was creepy as hell as they pulled up the drive. Were it not for the lights on inside she would have assumed that it was abandoned. It might have seemed like an eerie old house, but it looked much more like a fortress than her pansy filled yard and yellow painted home, complete with white trimmed shutters. This place was as gloomy as a cloud-filled sky, its cracked paint and overgrown weeds for a yard were long overdue for some affection.
There may have been a time when that large, wrap around porch was home to laughter and children playing, but that day had come and gone. In fact, this looked like the kind of home that she could’ve seen herself having a family in, once upon a time, minus the creep factor of its current state. Big windows from the upstairs section seemed to watch her with glowing eyes, witnessing each step she took toward the massive oak doors of the entry.
The large pines and oak trees surrounding it only made it that more isolated. Even in the daylight there were parts of the woods that were pitch black. There would be no picnics and reading on a blanket out there under the shade of an oak tree, that she was certain of. There was only one thing that Isabel felt looking at this place, and it was a chill. The kind of chill you get when someone walks over your grave, as they say. But better the ghosts within, than the Uglies, aka the Unseelie, without. She took a deep breath and followed Amele inside. As they entered, all of the guard bowed low and hushed their chatter.
Why did they keep bowing to her? It was a bit annoying. What if she chose wrong? Would they come after her like the Unseelie had? Would the bowing stop and the destruction of her short existence begin? Her fists balled in her hands, irritated and unsure of her place in the madness that had become her life. No, Amele would never let them hurt her. Her mother, as absent as she was, wouldn’t feed her to a den of wolves. At least she didn’t think so.
Isabel shuddered just thinking about the grey things that had disintegrated in her once beautifully manicured yard. Her garden had always looked lovely but she doubted she would ever see it the same way again. She sighed and let her mind drift to the happier, less complicated days of her life before all of this happened. Gratingly, even her mind rebelled and all she could think of is yummy number one and delicious number two. May God help her through the coming days.
They got settled in, Amele taking the bedroom right across the hall from hers. After a quick dinner of pizza and salad delivery, Isabel decided to soak in a bath to clear her head. Lavender salts seemed to soothe her for a few seconds before her internal chatter started up again. The guards had devoured twenty-seven large pizzas downstairs, and some were still grumbling about being hungry. Apparently, they loved pizza as much as Amele loved her Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.
Funny, you would think that you wouldn’t take as much pleasure in eating after being alive so long. Did they have pizza places in the realms? It suddenly hit her that she may be alive for another few hundred years. Holy shit. Would she still even like her favorite foods after that long? Isabel groaned and dipped her head beneath the water to diminish the sound of boots stomping around downstairs. Would she even make it another year? If she chose wrong, her death could come sooner than if she had never had to deal with this at all. Would she become the Uglie’s pizza of choice? The Isabel Supreme, all you can eat!
Her head began pounding beneath the weight of the choice to come. How could she, just a normal girl, decide a fate so important? She didn’t like Morkain, even hated him for lying to her, but her body didn’t. Not at all. Hate is such a strong word. What if he had been waiting all these years for her? Sure, he was pretty pushy, but hell, thousands of years? And now having to compete for her affections? Yeah, if the tables were turned she wouldn’t exactly be thrilled either. She couldn’t even be in the same room with her ex and his new flavor of the week without drinking herself into oblivion, so she could only imagine the torment they must feel. He was still a liar, but what if he was trying to protect her?
Water splashed over the side of the claw foot tub as she repositioned herself, pinching the bridge of her nose to make the pending headache back off. Laying there, she closed her eyes and imagined her time with Bodhe in Loveryn and the way Toressa had flown her all over the valley. Why did her mother run away with her? Why didn’t she let her be raised there and why couldn’t anyone tell her in depth what this prophecy and curse was all about? Did she really have to go see that liar tonight? Only one mate, my ass. Still, she wasn’t sure what to think about either of them. Why couldn’t she go to Bodhe again tonight and just skip Morkain as punishment? At least Bodhe didn’t outright lie to her. Perhaps he’d had other lovers, but he didn’t try to pass it off any other way. He did claim her as his partner, and partners stayed together forever. Morkain had offered the same thing, but he lied to her first. Why? Oh holy shit, what was she going to do about these men?
At least she had Amele to help her through this. There wasn’t much time left, and as the days grew to a close faster than ever before in her life, she noticed the changes not only around her but within her as well. Was she really going to be a princess of one of these lands? It was still unfathomable. She couldn’t even rule her coffee maker most mornings, how the hell was she going to ma
nage this? Mom, I could really use some advice right now.
Sliding down lower in the warm water she let it cover her hair and face, nothing but quiet all around her again as she held her breath beneath the warm, steamy heaven. There wouldn’t be quiet for her much longer tonight, though. Oh no, if she had to see him, he was going to get a few choice words before the ‘I want to go home’ ones.
Sighing, she dragged herself from the warm water to towel off and decided against pajamas for once. They wouldn’t matter anyway. Crawling beneath the heavy blankets she closed her eyes, surprised at how easily sleep came with so much on her mind.
************
Isabel opened her eyes to dusk falling in Albequen. Seated on a lounge in a beautiful gold pavilion, she nearly forgot that she was here to tear Morkain a new one.
“Welcome back, Beauty,” he purred from her side.
She scowled with all the brute force she could muster. “Beauty, my ass. You’re a liar!” she hissed at him.
Calm and aloof, he peered at her through lowered lids. Damn if he wasn’t still just as beautiful as last time, his long dark hair braided at his back and ocean blue eyes staring at her. If she wasn’t so mad she would’ve had to admire the way he dressed today, straight off the cover of some medieval, smexy romance novel. Dark leather bands circled his arms, and his long muscled chest was bare. The same dark leather fashioned his pants as well and it was a perfect contrast with his deeply tanned skin. A smirk appeared on his lips as her eyes finally reached his face, which set her anger on a new high.
Ugh! I will not ogle, I will not ogle!
“Be careful of your tongue, Beauty, for I don’t lie.”
She sat up and looked at her own clothes, or lack of them actually. His choice for her today? Leather straps that crisscrossed over her breasts and back, barely covering anything at all. Add to that matching pants with a kilt-like skirt and brown, knee high boots. She also had the arm bands similar to his and if she wasn’t so busy being angry, she might’ve had to admire this new warrior look in herself. She guessed that it was pretty hot the way his nostrils kept flaring as he looked her over. This outfit was so Amele.
Immortal Dreams (Immortal Realms Book 1) Page 13
