The Surien Series Blood Guardian

by Mindy Majors

  Symarah walked down to the water. She loved to stroll along the beach with her feet in the ocean. She stood staring out over the water. She couldn’t get Dane out of her head. Why had she thought he was there, watching her? He had never come to her, not in any of her dreams. She was always an observer, nothing more. She simply did not exist to him, and now he was here for her, watching her. And that kiss, she knew it was just her imagination, still it felt so real. She could still feel him pressed against her, his lips on hers. It’s not possible, she reminded herself. Even if the dreams had changed, the fact remained that she could not be dreaming because she was not asleep.

  “Ah, but you are sleeping Symarah.” The familiar voice came from behind her. She turned to face him. “What are you doing here? You do not exist,” she said, more to convince herself than anything.

  “I exist in your dreams my pet.”

  “I am not your pet and you could not be farther from my dreams,” she spat.

  “Have I not come to you while you’ve slept?” he asked.

  “I’m not sleeping now,” she snapped.

  “Can you be so sure?” he smirked.

  In fact, she wasn’t sure; she’d had a lot to drink at the party. Maybe she had drifted off in the bubble bath and this whole thing had been a dream; after all, it would explain why she was so sure that she had felt Dane watching her from behind the tree earlier. “What do you want? Why are you here?” she asked.

  “I’m here to see you die,” he said coldly.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” she said bravely, “you do not exist.”

  “I’ve told you my pet; I exist in your dreams.”

  “And I’ve told you I am not your pet and you only exist in my nightmares Vaiden.”

  “Nevertheless, I will see you die Symarah.”

  “I told you Vaiden, I’m not afraid of you,” she lied.

  Vaiden sneered at her. “Did you know I can control your mind, I can make you do things against your will?” She was compelled to look into his eyes.

  “I want you to walk into the ocean, he said as he stepped toward her, forcing her to take a step back, and I want you to keep walking until the water steals your breath, your life.” She took another step back. She could not drag her eyes away from his. “I’m not afraid of you,” she repeated. He continued to walk toward her, forcing her to walk back deeper into the ocean.

  “Nightmares cannot kill you,” she said, more to convince herself than him.

  “You are no match for me,” he growled. She stopped walking. The water was almost up to her shoulders now and she was terrified. She vowed not to take another step.

  “You will not win.” He took another step closer but she stood her ground. He spoke to her with his mind. “Walk into the water Symarah,” he commanded.

  “No!” she yelled at him. He heard her voice clearly though she never said a word. She had forced her way into his mind. No human could establish a link to the mind of a god unless that god opened his mind to them first, which Vaiden certainly had not done. He looked deep into her eyes. She held his gaze defiantly. He used all of his power to control her mind. “Walk into the water Symarah.”

  “No Vaiden!” Her mouth didn’t move but he heard her just the same. She took a step toward him. He could not understand how his attempt could possibly have failed. He was a powerful Atlantean god and she was just a pathetic weak human. “You are becoming quite bothersome,” he snarled; “I suppose I’ll just have to do this the old fashioned way.” He grabbed Symarah by her shoulders and pushed her down under the surface of the water. She filled her lungs with air just before she went under. She tried to pry his hands from her shoulders but he was far too strong. She could not get away from him. She never could hold her breath for very long and as it turns out being terrified and struggling against someone much stronger than you doesn’t make it any easier. The air had already slowly slipped away from her body and she was desperately fighting the urge to take a breath. She knew she was going to die. Her mind was reeling. She was frantic, clawing at Vaiden’s hands. She had to take a breath. No, fight it Sym! She was beginning to lose consciousness. Oh God, Oh God!

  “God cannot help you now Symarah, no one can.” His words fluttered in her mind as her body forced her to take a breath. She could taste the salty water as it filled her mouth. She tried to scream but it was too late for that. She could feel the water filling her throat, stealing her last breath. This was it, she was going to die. DAIRE! her mind screamed, just before going unconscious.

  When Daire arrived back at Symarah’s house he did not see her but he knew where she was. She was in the ocean just under the surface of the water. He had felt her scream his name. He had immediately transported himself to her. He pulled her from the water and laid her in the sand. He performed CPR on her and turned her head to the side as she began to cough up water. When he was sure she was okay, he carried her up the stone path toward her home. Daire was confused. How had he been able to hear her call to him? She had entered his mind without him initiating it; no human could do that. He had entered her mind when he first got to the house that night but that link had been broken for quite some time. He hadn’t just heard her when she called, he saw her, felt her terror. He could feel the water sliding down her throat, choking her. She had screamed his name in her mind just before she passed out; his name, Daire, not Dane. This situation just keeps getting stranger by the minute he thought to himself.

  “You saved me,” Symarah said. “I wasn’t sure you would come.” She could barely speak, her throat was so sore from coughing up the salty ocean water.

  “I couldn’t just let you die,” he stated. Who was this woman, he wondered. She didn’t seem to be surprised that he was here and she wasn’t acting like someone who had just almost drowned. She didn’t seem frightened at all.

  “You can’t die in a dream, Symarah laughed, “didn’t you know that?” She rather liked this dream. It was nice to have him talking to her for a change, to be a part of the dream instead of being just an observer. She could get used to this.

  “What makes you so sure this is just a dream?” he questioned.

  “Well, since you don’t really exist, I’m either sleeping or dead, and I’m pretty sure they don’t have vampires in heaven,” she joked.

  He was amused by her logical explanation and relieved by the fact that she truly believed that he did not exist, but that still didn’t explain how she knew so much about him and his life. “Maybe you’re not in heaven,” he argued, with a smirk.

  “Hell never looked this good,” she smiled, tracing his full lips with her fingertip. She couldn’t understand what made her act this way with him. She was not normally so flirtatious. It wasn’t like her to fall for a handsome face. She had been surrounded by gorgeous men as far back as she could remember. Looks had no effect on her. So what was it about this fantasy man that made her act like a high school girl with a crush?

  Her touch was so light it sent shivers through his entire body. He had almost kissed the tip of her finger but fought the urge. What was it about this woman that made him want to do things to her that he hadn’t done in hundreds of years? Not to say that he hadn’t had sex in hundreds of years, he had, but those times were just to satisfy a basic need. This was different. This was a feeling that he hadn’t felt since he met his fiancée Meissen on Atlantis. That was a whole different life to him now.

  They had reached the back of her house now and he carried her up the spiral stairway to her balcony and into her bedroom. “We need to get you out of these wet clothes,” he said. He put her down and headed for the closet to get something dry for her to wear. He returned with a black satin nightgown, a soft fluffy black robe and two huge bath towels. “You have a lot of black in there,” he remarked as he placed the nightgown and robe on her bed and handed her the towels.

  “I like black, she stated, it’s mysterious and slimming.” She started to peel off her wet clothes and was suddenly very aware of the fact that the
re was a man in her bedroom. She turned to see him looking at her. “Well?” she said, glaring at him.

  “Well what?” he said, utterly confused.

  “Am I going to let you watch me undress?” she said sarcastically. “Turn around.”

  “I’m not real, remember; this is just a dream,” he smirked.

  “Yeah, well it’s a PG dream at best, not an X-rated one, so turn around lover boy,” she scolded.

  He couldn’t help but smile as he turned around to give her some privacy. He liked her sarcastic sense of humor.

  She stripped off her wet clothes and used the towels to dry herself off. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure he wasn’t peeking and then put on her nightgown and fluffy robe. “Okay, you can turn around now.”

  He turned to see her dressed in the gown and robe he had picked out. Her hair was wet and tousled but other than that she looked warm and dry. In fact, she looked stunning standing there in her short satin gown that barely skimmed her creamy thighs. Her muscular legs seemed impossibly long and she had the smallest feet he had ever seen on a grown woman. His eyes slid up her body admiring the way the satin clung to her curvy hips. He could just make out her nipples under the gown.

  “All right, you’ve seen more than enough,” she snapped as she pulled her robe shut and tied it for good measure.

  What was it about this woman that made him want her so much? Why was he acting like a horny teenager?

  “What were you doing in the ocean in the middle of the night anyway,” he asked, desperately needing a change of subject.

  “I was wading in the water, looking at the moon and stars and then….” Her voice trailed off. “And then what?” he nudged. She looked confused. Symarah searched her mind but for the life of her she could not remember what had happened.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “One minute I was strolling the beach, and the next I was choking on ocean water.”

  Daire thought back to the moment when he had heard her call to him. He had felt what she was feeling, he could see through her eyes. She had been struggling with someone. He could feel strong hands on her shoulders holding her under the water and she was clawing at his hands and arms. He couldn’t see who the man was. All he could see was a figure above the water that was not clear, but one thing was very clear, someone had tried to kill her, and almost succeeded. This whole thing was very strange. Why would anyone want to kill her? Did it have something to do with her books about him and the movie? He knew Athena would be angry if she knew, but she would never hurt a human and she certainly wouldn’t drown anyone, it just wasn’t her style. Athena was far too sophisticated for something so messy, and besides, with her powers all she would have to do is think of you being dead and you would be, simple as that. No, this definitely wasn’t Athena’s doing.

  “Is something wrong Daire?” Symarah asked.

  He felt the familiar tingling that warned him that another of his kind was near. He went out onto the balcony just in time to see a black shadow disappear into the night. Now he was convinced that this had everything to do with her writings about his life. Had someone ordered her death to stop her from exposing the suriens? It seemed a bit extreme to kill a human when they could just use their powers to erase her knowledge. The whole situation was getting very complicated. An hour ago he was just going to watch her for a bit, probe her mind and see if he could find out what she knows about him and how; now he was going to have to stick around until just before dawn to make sure there was not another attempt on her life. It was not a good idea to be this close to her considering the strong feelings she seemed to stir in him, but what choice did he have?

  “Is everything okay Daire?” Symarah asked again. He decided not to tell her any of these new revelations so as not to scare her. She thought this whole thing was a dream and Daire thought it better to keep it that way as long as possible, for her own sake as well as his.

  “Everything is fine,” he smiled as he walked back into the bedroom and closed and locked the balcony doors.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Where the hell have you been?” Jareth exploded as Daire walked past him into the living room.

  “Don’t piss me off old man, I’ve had a rough night,” Daire snapped.

  “You should have called me,” Jareth stated.

  “I told you I didn’t want to drag you into this unless I had to, but it’s not looking promising.” Daire sighed in frustration.

  “Well, did you at least find out how she knows so much about you?”

  “No, but I did find out that someone is trying to kill her.”

  “What would lead you to believe that someone is trying to kill her?” Jareth asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that someone tried to fucking drown her last night.”

  “That is pretty compelling evidence; do you know who it was?”

  “No, but he came back after she was safe just to make sure I knew he was one of us; that’s why I had to stay all night, to make sure she stayed safe. Whoever this is, I think they were trying to send me a message.”

  “What makes you say that?” Jareth questioned.

  “Why else would they come back to the scene of the crime, especially when he knew I would sense who or at least what he is.”

  “Good point,” Jareth agreed. “So you spent the night with her?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry,” Daire said, sensing his friend’s concern, “she thought the whole thing was a dream. She believes that I’m not real, so I used my powers to make her sleep,” Daire explained, hoping his old friend wouldn’t ask any questions. He would rather gouge out his own eyes with a fork than to explain his feelings for this strange woman to Jareth.

  “So what’s your plan then?” Jareth asked.

  “I don’t know, but I can’t let her be killed. I may need your help with this after all. She thinks I’m not real, so I can’t let her see me while she is awake, but she doesn’t know who you are so I might need you to help me keep her safe. I will go to her while she sleeps and try to get information and I’ll watch over her from afar when she is awake, but if there is another attempt on her life I will need you to save her.”

  “Well, if the person who wants her dead is truly one of us then he can’t strike in daylight so this should work, but how are you planning to get information from her?” Jareth asked.

  “People always talk more when they think they are dreaming, so all I have to do is ask.”

  “Well, it looks like you’ve got this all figured out then so let’s get some sleep.”

  Daire wasn’t as confident in his plan as his friend was. He still didn’t understand why a virtual stranger would evoke such feelings in him or how she could have called to him psychically when their link had already been broken. And how did she know so much about him but still think that he was not real? He couldn’t stop asking these same questions over and over in his head as he drifted off to sleep thinking of her.

  Symarah woke feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. She had a very busy day ahead of her and she was eager to get started. First on her agenda was to visit Lakeview Elementary, home of the Lancers. She had a soft spot in her heart for the grade school where she used to teach, and the people there were like family to her. She had intended to continue her teaching career and just do her writing in her spare time, but then it all just got too big. The deadlines and book signings took up a lot of her time, and she was barely able to finish grading papers and preparing lesson plans as it was, but when the movie deal came up she knew she had to choose. It was one of the hardest decisions she had ever had to make and she often worried in the beginning that she had made the wrong choice. It had been almost three years now since she resigned, and she couldn’t be happier with her decision. She was on the school board and volunteered at Lakeview a few times a week. She enjoyed how much more free time she had now, to do things she didn’t have time for before. One of her favorite ways to spend some of that spare time was to help Kassie out at her magic sh
op. Kass usually ran the shop herself three or four nights a week, not because she couldn’t afford help, but because she genuinely enjoyed it. Symarah loved spending time with Kassie at the magic shop, and that is exactly what she would be doing this evening. As she climbed into the driver’s seat of her GMC Acadia and headed toward the grade school, she couldn’t help but think of the dream she had last night. It was the first time that Dane had ever interacted with her in any of her dreams. In all her other dreams she was just an observer, but not last night. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. Why were her dreams changing after all this time? She had conflicting feelings about these new dreams. Obviously she didn’t like the ones where Vaiden kills her, but she could definitely get used to Dane saving her life and spending time with her. It was an amazing dream and she couldn’t wait to tell Kassaundra all about it. As she pulled into the school parking lot and walked into the building, she tried to put the whole dream issue out of her mind. She was glad to be back at the school teaching again, even if it was just on a volunteer basis. She came every week and taught a reading class for kids who were having trouble learning to read or reading below their grade level. She really enjoyed teaching these classes, and she loved interacting with the kids. When she opened the door to her classroom all thoughts of Vaiden and the nightmares and even the dreams of Dane were immediately forgotten as she was rushed by a gaggle of grade school kids and locked in a group hug. She truly adored these kids. They were so filled with wonder and exuberance, you couldn’t help but feel the same; their excitement and zest for life was infectious. In a way she thought of these kids as her nieces and nephews, some even as her own children. “Okay guys, let’s get settled in, we’re starting on a new book today. This one is called The Witch Herself, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. This is the third book in the Witch Saga, and since you all loved the first two books so much I thought we could continue with the series.” The kids cheered, they really seemed to enjoy these books, which made Symarah very happy. Seeing the kids get so excited over learning and reading was an amazing feeling, and the fact that it was the witch saga made it even better because these were her favorite books when she was a child. She was in the sixth grade when she’d found the first book, and they were being forced to read a book from the school library and write a book report on it, which was something they had to do every other week. Symarah had always loved to read but was never a big fan of writing book reports. “If the teacher wanted to know what the book was about, she should read it herself, why should I have to write her a book report about it?” she would always complain. She also didn’t like the fact that the book had to come from the school library. The books only went to the sixth grade reading level, and she could read at college level by the time she was in the fourth grade. Add to that the fact that they never had anything good to read in the school library, and it took her an entire class searching for something tolerable before she would finally give up and just grab something, so it was understandable why she would not like these bi-weekly assignments. She would have preferred to find a book from the real library, and even begged her teacher to let her do just that, but her teacher refused. She usually just picked out something funny if she could find it, but she would have rather been reading about things beyond the normal level of an average 12-year-old. She enjoyed books about the supernatural world, like witchcraft and vampires and gods and goddesses. She was obsessed with books on the lost city of Atlantis, but there was never anything like that in the school library, until one day she actually found something that seemed interesting, and now what seemed like a lifetime later here she was reading that same book with her own class. She spent 45 minutes listening to the kids read, and reminding them to sound out the word by the letters and see if it sounded like a word they knew. Then, they spent the last 15 minutes of class having their traditional who can make the silliest face contest. Some of the ridiculous faces these kids would come up with were pretty hilarious. They always begged Symarah to do “the ugly face” and eventually she would cave and do the face and they would all fall over laughing. After the laughter subsided, they would pick a winner and that person got to pick a prize from the grab box, which was filled with small trinkets like stickers, pens and pencils, and little notebooks. This week the winner was Jenna, with a very silly and somewhat disturbing face. She picked out her prize, a small notebook with little pink mustaches all over it. Symarah reluctantly said goodbye to the kids and headed off to meet her publisher and run some errands. She finally arrived at Kassie’s magic shop a little before 6 pm.