Mortal Sentry (Raina Kirkland Book 2)

by Diana Graves

  “We’re out of that place, Nenet. But, we’re not home free just yet. We need a ride before Mato burns up, and that means I need to grab somebody, anybody with access to a vehicle. I’m not sure I have it in me to hold you and do that at the same time. I’m going to have to let your mind go, so you’re going to have to stay calm and function as best you can. Do you understand?” I felt that she did. My will nearly blanketed every thought in her mind, but I felt a slight push. The fact that she pushed against me just then let me know that she willingly let me take her mind without a fight in the first place.

  I let her go and her face immediately became grim. “Oh, Mato!” she cried. “I’m so sorry.” Mato moved feebly, as though he was trying to comfort her, but he was too weak.

  “Here goes nothing,” I said, and I closed my eyes and focused on reaching out to a mind, any mind. I felt Nenet at first, and then nothing for a long time. I pushed outward but I had a limit and I reached it without anything to show for my efforts. I clasped my hands together in a nervous gesture. All I could do was keep my mind out there and open, like a fisherman with his net waiting patiently. Only, I didn’t have the time for patience. I could smell Mato cooking.

  “Anyone out there?” Nenet asked after a time.

  “No,” I began, but then something entered my limits, two somethings. “Wait, someone’s coming.” I felt their minds, like dipping a toe into a lake. “There are two men. One’s angry and the other is scared.”

  “Scared,” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said with my eyes still closed. “The scared one is driving. The angry one is fiddling around with his gun. Shit. I need to grab both of them and I’m not sure I can.”

  “No,” she said. “Just take the angry one. The scared one will do as he says as long as he doesn’t suspect that it’s not him behind the wheel.”

  I smiled, “Clever thinking.” I plunged into the angry one’s mind and found him to be Bayard. I didn’t take hold of him just yet. I was a fly on the wall, completely undetected. Looking through his eyes I saw Cole driving slowly, looking out the window often.

  “I can’t see them, Ser. You think they hitchhiked out of here already?” he asked.

  Bayard smacked him hard. “On this road? Drive!” he yelled.

  We were someplace along NF-2452, deep in Olympic National Forest. They found Gan and Nanuet’s remains, and were hunting only me and Nenet (believing that Mato couldn’t have made it this far in the sun—they lacked imagination.) They didn’t report their deaths to the other larvae, because without someone to lash out at immediately the larvae would have killed them in anger. No, they had to find us and present both the crime and the criminals at the same time.

  They were coming up on us. I got up and walked to the road again. I saw myself through Bayard, my red hair stood out against the green of the forest.

  “There she is!” Cole shouted.

  “But where’s the other girl?” Bayard asked.

  The hummer slowed to a stop and they jumped out and began shouting at me. “Down! Get down!” Bayard had his gun pointed at my face. Looking through his eyes, he should have known there was something off. I looked too confident and calm for a woman being man handed by two thugs.

  “Where is the other girl?” shouted Cole.

  I didn’t say anything. I looked at Bayard and took hold of him. It wasn’t as easy as it had been with Nenet. He fought, she didn’t. But he wasn’t as strong mentally as he was physically, most bullies aren’t. I spoke through his lips. “Where are they?”

  “Over there,” I answered myself. I wished I could have warned Nenet and Mato that their capture was part of my plan before they were torn from the woods, yelling and fighting as weak as they were, but I just came up with it.

  “I can’t believe the vampire’s alive!” said Cole.

  They forced us into the back of the hummer. Before Cole could take the driver’s seat I put Bayard there. Once Cole was in the passenger seat, Bayard put the hummer into drive and began speeding forward instead of doing a U-turn and taking us back to the larvae mound.

  “Where are we going?” Cole asked.

  Bayard pointed his gun at Cole with one hand and steered with the other. If I really meant to shoot the gun he really wasn’t in the best position for it. “We’re going to Bastion Fatal,” I said through Bayard.

  “What? Why?”

  “Don’t ask questions,” he said.

  Cole gave him a questioning look, but he let it go. He was quiet, just staring out of the windshield. After a time he cleared his throat before asking, “How long are you going to pretend to be Bayard?”

  Shit. How did he know? “What are you talking about,” Bayard asked.

  Cole scoffed. He looked back, first at Mato, then Nenet and then me, and the moment our eyes met he knew it was me. I underestimated him. I mistook fearful for dumb. I brought the hummer to a screeching halt in the middle of the road and brought Bayard’s gun to his head, holding it with both hands this time. I didn’t want to have to kill him, but I wasn’t sure I could control two people at once.

  Cole’s hands shot up the moment the gun came out. “The gun isn’t necessary!”

  “Isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Who do you think has been planting those bodies all over Washington? Larvae aren’t that messy.”

  Bayard dropped the gun. “Why would you do that?” I asked.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Enlighten me,” I said.

  He licked his lips and took in a deep breath. “When I was just a boy I was taken from my bed at night. I was so young that I don’t even remember where home was. I just remember my mother’s face and the sound of her singing. I was taught to fight and kill and I did. But, when I became too old, I was sold as food to the larvae. Gan bought me, but he didn’t eat me. He placed me in his guard.” His voice became an octave lower. “The things they do, Miss. Kirkland, they chill the blood. I put the bodies out there to bring the police. To stop the larvae.”

  I shook my head, “Why am I always first on the scene before the cops?” It was a rhetorical question and I didn’t wait for a response. “We’re heading to Bastion Fatal so the vampire can get medical attention. I’m going to call EI when I get there. I’m sure they’d love to talk to you.”

  “I want to help in any way I can. These things are evil,” he said.

  I smiled, “Then let’s stop wasting time.” I patted Bayard on the shoulder. “Put the pedal to the metal my good man.” I felt his anger and frustration flare, but it did little more than make me chuckle at his weak attempts.

  OWNING YOU

  IT WAS STRANGE to see Mato and Nick lying on hospital beds in the same cold dark room, both being fed blood through tubes. The man I used to love and the man I can’t stop loving. I stared at them for a time. Nick was in worse shape. The few parts of his skin not covered in gauze were red and raw. Mato looked normal save for the feeding tube in his arm. He was in his own clothes and everything. He looked as though he was sleeping. I was pissed when Gabriel told me one of his staff members placed them in the same room by mistake, but he assured me that Mato wouldn’t know who his roommate was, and with ninety percent of Nick covered, and the other bits charred, he was right.

  Mato stirred when I entered the room. “Raina?” he asked, trying to sit up in bed.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “How is Nenet?” he asked.

  I scoffed, “She’s doing great.”

  “Are you angry?” he asked. I’d come to ask a favor of him, not fight about his betrayal, but I guess I couldn’t keep my feelings off of my face. I guess I didn’t really want to.

  I looked at the floor and then back up at him. “You’re sleeping with Nenet.”

  “Yes,” he said

  I gave him a stern look. “And, me.”

  “And, others,” he said. I gasped. “Raina,” he began, but I cut him off.

  “I don’t want to hear any excuses.”

  “You must, beca
use you are angry with me, and you should not be.”

  “Really?”

  He gestured for me to take a seat on his bed. I must have still cared for him a little, or maybe I was just curious of what he’d say. Either way, I sat down and crossed my arms across my chest.

  “I believe two things, Raina. I believe it is entirely possible to love more than one person at one time. The things I love about you are some of the same things I love about Nenet, and others, yet you are all different and I love those differences. And, I believe no one can own a person. I do not claim ownership over you, and I ask you not to claim ownership over me.”

  “You see monogamy as ownership?”

  “Yes, I see it as a promise. One I cannot fulfill. A monogamous relationship is the perquisite to marriage.”

  “Is that such a bad thing?”

  He just looked at me with his beautiful honey eyes as though I should get it. I did, but I pretended I didn’t, because I didn’t want what he was saying to make sense. I wanted to be angry with him.

  “I am a vampire. I cannot put a child in your belly, I cannot share your days with you. If you want these things then look to another man. If you do not want them, what is the point in marriage? Why can I not share love with other women? Why only you? I did not ask you to shut yourself off from finding love where you can.”

  Slowly I stood from his bed. “No, you didn’t.”

  “Raina, I do love you.”

  “I didn’t come here to talk about this.”

  “No?” he asked. He didn’t believe me and neither did I.

  “Okay, I didn’t come only to talk to you about your lovers—I came to ask you for something.”

  He gave me suspicious eyes. “What do I have that you want?”

  “You can fly, right? That’s how you got through my window the other night, my second story window, you flew.”

  He sat up straighter and planted his feet on the floor. “You want me to fly you somewhere. Not, home I take it? No, it is dark out. I can feel it. That means Master Alistair is up and he has plans for the larvae, plans that you are not part of…”

  “Stop,” I spat. Normally, I would have felt bad for such an outburst, but not in that moment. “I want you to fly me back to the larvae mound.”

  “Oh, Raina,” he said lying back down with a smile that pissed me off. “You are full of no surprises. You want to make sure the larvae are all killed, right? You want see them die to be sure of it.”

  I bottled my anger. I couldn’t think straight with red in my sight. If I learned anything from my tussle with Jed it was that I needed a calm head to make good decisions. I sat back down. “For peace of mind, I wouldn’t mind it. I guess that is my MO. But, no, that’s not my reason. Alistair invited all the preternatural leaders of the Olympic region here to discuss the larvae infestation and they’ve agreed to destroy the mound.”

  “How?”

  “Case it in iron and seal it. Turn their home into a tomb.”

  “And, you have a problem with this why?”

  I looked at Mato, really looked at him. I didn’t know him very well. I thought I did, but I was wrong. He was just a cliché sort of vampire; pretty, dangerous and slutty. Though, I’d always thought of him as compassionate, too. He was a cop after all. His job was to serve and protect, so maybe he’d be on my side.

  I let out a breath. “I came in on the tail end of the discussion. Their plans were set and they wouldn’t hear me out. Alistair tried a little to at least entertain the idea, but in the end only Damon was on my side.”

  “On your side?”

  “You know the larvae have been harvesting young women and children, forcing them into slavery. You saw it. Now, they want to kill those people along with the larvae, Mato. They say that there’s no way to save them, but I think I can.”

  “How can you fight through a mound of larvae, when not even the whole host of Darkness could stop them?”

  “That’s what they said. But, I don’t mean to go into the mound; I mean to call them out.”

  “How? With your mind, as you controlled Nenet, and Bayard?” he asked.

  “Yes.” That was what I couldn’t explain to the others. Alistair and Damon alone knew what I meant to do; the others seemed to assume I knew some witch’s spell. Though, Gretchen, (the high priestess of the Western Witches or WW), was there, and she was sure to let everyone know what a dud I was in that department.

  “The fae will not go without a fight. There is sure to be a battle. Even if you could call them all out, you would be walking them to their deaths.”

  “No, you see. Damon and I have a plan. Damon’s already there with the legion from Bastion. They’re fighting alongside the Olympic trolls, Western Witches and the legion of Dread Dredge. Alistair wouldn’t let me come, though. Not even to help with the fire that would seal the mound.”

  “So, you want me to defy a master vampire and fly you to the mound so that you and Damon can risk your lives, and the lives of those young ones?”

  “Alistair is not your master, Mato. And hell yes I’m willing to risk my life on even a slim chance that I can save them.”

  “Raina…” he began.

  “No!” I shot. “When they seal that mound, those women and children are nothing but rations, they’re worse than dead, worse than a quick meal. Those larvae will feed from them slowly and painfully, until their bodies finally, thankfully give out. It might take weeks, or months, but eventually they’ll die and their hell will end, and the larvae will die shortly after the last of them go. So yeah, if I fail and they die right then and there, I’ve done them a favor. If I succeed, they get to spend the rest of their natural lives healing from their trauma. It’s a win-win.”

  Mato said nothing for a time. He looked at me and he looked sad. “I do love you.”

  “Is that a yes?” I asked, my voice cold, my mind focused on one goal.

  “I am weak, but yes. I will take you to the mound. Do you think you can promise me you will not die?”

  I smiled weakly. “No.”

  WAR

  MATO AND I stood on the edge of the clearing looking up at the larvae mound. The forest was dark and silent, but I knew there was a whole army gathering, preparing for a battle. In every part of the world larvae were deadly pests, and they were dealt with as such. In a short time that fairy mound would forever be a barren rocky tomb. But, before that happened Damon and I needed to get the women and children out of there. In the pitch dark of the woods surrounding the mound I feared I wouldn’t be able to find him in time, but I didn’t have to. Damon found me. He and Mato exchanged a look, and from Mato’s expression I gathered that it wasn’t exactly a friendly one. Damon didn’t want me to come, but he said he knew I’d find a way and I did.

  “You should get back to the VCC,” Damon said to Mato. “You look terrible.”

  I looked at Mato and he was right. His skin was already blue again. He needed more blood, and more rest.

  “I think you are right,” he said. “But I will head to my own in Darkness.” He turned to me, “I hope I will see you soon, Raina.” and with that Mato was gone in a gush of wind.

  I made my way down to the mound, unseen thanks to Damon. With him at my back no one could see me leaving the woods, or coming dangerously close to the mound’s entrance. He kept me hidden as I threw my power out and reached far corners. I found hidden places full of humanoid minds; their guards, their wives and their infant children. I pulled on all of them at once, drawing them toward me like an ambitious dog walker holding far too many leashes. The wives grabbed up their babies and came to me with hardly a nudge, but most of the guards would have none of it. I physically stumbled forward when their minds fought me. I struggled to reel them in, but eventually I had to let them go so I could save those who wanted to be saved. I surprised myself, though it was no great feat to hold so many minds at once. Most of them were already broken by the larvae.

  Through their eyes I saw the larvae sleeping soundly. I sent ou
t a single thought to all the minds in my grasp, to be quiet and stealthy about their exit. It wasn’t long before they were standing before us, their faces blank of all expression. Many of them were hurt badly, walking with a limp and in need of medical care. It was clear some had just been noshed on a bit, their limbs withered and dry. They would probably have to be amputated.

  Damon became a large winged creature and positioned himself over the group, covering all of us in shadow as we walked toward the woods. I focused hard on keeping the babies silent in their mother’s arms as we progressed past the larvae’s guarded patrol, past the hordes of hidden trolls waiting to pounce, past the witches and vampires. The vampires could hear us, smell us, but they could not see us. I heard them mumbling their suspicions among themselves, and I quickened our pace.

  When we reached the road where the two buses that brought Bastion’s legion were parked, Damon became his usual self and turned back to the forest with a quick goodbye, and good luck. I let go of the minds I could trust not to be hysterical, but some were a tad more fragile than others. I needed to keep their minds safe like I had done for Nenet.

  There were still Bastion vampires waiting at the buses, but they weren’t surprised to see us, and that was strange. If a whole group of people just appeared before you from the dark of the forest, you’re supposed to be at least a little startled. But, they weren’t and when Alistair stepped out of the closest bus with a smile on his face I could guess why. He’d known I’d save them. Maybe he knew me that well, maybe Damon told him of our plan. Either way he smiled and greeted everyone. He ushered them onto the buses with eyes full of sympathy. Whether it was genuine or for their benefit alone, it made me think better of him. I was beginning to really like this new and fully improved Alistair. He started to make his way back toward the mound when I grabbed his arm.