The Thorn Chronicles-Books 1-4: Kissed, Destroyed, Secrets, and Lies

by Kimberly Loth

  Puck shifted out from in front of me and I crossed my arms again and clutched at my ribs. Puck stood behind me and pushed me lightly forward. I resisted, knowing the edge of the cliff was less than twelve inches from the tips of my toes. He laid a quiet hand over my heart, reminding me that I was supposed to be listening. I relaxed a little and he extracted my hands from the death grip they had on my sides. He held my arms out about ten inches from my body and faced the palms towards the ocean once again. Then he moved away. I started to shake, not quite sure of what I feared. I took deep breaths and tried to calm my quaking body. The salty air of the ocean soothed my emotions as I listened.

  Energy flowed into me. Even though I couldn’t hear it, I could feel the waves crashing against the rocks. And the smell, it wasn’t exactly salty like I expected, but it had a lemony orange smell. The whole thing felt vibrant and alive.

  As Puck’s hand rested on my cheek, I spoke the word.

  “Exhilaration.”

  He tugged me away from the edge of the cliff. I was reluctant to leave, but I stumbled along behind him. He placed my hands on hot metal and I deduced that we must’ve reached the car. He opened the door and I fell into my seat and fumbled with the seatbelt. Puck had mercy on me and guided my hand to the buckle.

  The sensation of moving was disconcerting. My hair whipped in my face. The feeling out on the road was completely different then standing by the ocean. The car slowed then stopped and Puck once again found my face.

  “Frightening.” Even though I couldn’t hear or see him I know he laughed.

  I unbuckled and waited for Puck to come get me. I didn’t like being completely reliant on him. This time we didn’t walk for long before he took both of my hands placed them on the bark of a tree. I listened. This time I heard things that were different from when I stood in front of the ocean. The tree was quieter and calming and the smell was different than the ocean. Lavender. I’d never noticed before how ordinary objects held such power.

  “Peace,” I said before he asked. Once again, I found that I was reluctant to leave. The calm lingered as he led me back to the car.

  The next time he stopped, he helped me kneel on the ground near the edge of the road and placed my hands in the dirt. I could feel the wind from the cars as they raced by. I tried to ignore them and listened to the earth beneath me. My skin crawled and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I shivered and concentrated. Tears came without warning and I saw my greenhouse, all my roses dead. The smell of decay filled my nose. I stood abruptly and stumbled.

  “Death,” I said as Puck caught me. He led me back to the car and I leaned against the door, facing him. I’m not sure how long we stood there. But I listened hard again, trying to wipe the horrible imagery away from my head.

  He placed both palms on my cheeks this time. There was such concern and warmth coming from him. I could taste his emotion. Like vanilla ice cream and cinnamon. It was strange because usually I associated cinnamon with Kai. I didn’t know if I was supposed to answer or not, but I did anyway.

  “Love,” I murmured. His hands moved to my ears and pulled out the plugs. I staggered with the noise. The birds, the ocean, the cars. I clamped my hands back around my ears. After a few minutes I removed my hands, and tried to get used the loudness of the noise.

  “Alright?” Puck asked.

  “Yeah. It’s loud.”

  “I know, I’m going to take off your blindfold, but you’ll want to close your eyes before I do that and let them get accustomed to the light before you open them. Otherwise, it can be pretty painful.”

  “Okay.”

  I squinted against the sun for a good five minutes before I could fully open my eyes. When I did the first thing I saw was Puck smiling.

  “You did a lot better than I thought you would. I wanted you to notice that the magic is just bursting to get out. Or in. And sometimes the magic is quieter, like the tree. Come here and look at this. I was surprised when you said death. When I went through my training I think I said something like sorrow. But you were more accurate.”

  There on the side of the road was a cross surrounded by flowers. Someone had died here.

  “Who?”

  Puck shrugged, “I’m not sure. As far as we are concerned, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you felt it.”

  “What does this have to do with Kai?”

  “I thought you said you could be patient.”

  “I was.”

  Puck drove as he talked.

  “The magic is all around you. You felt it and most people can on some level. You seem pretty talented at sensing it. That’s odd, because most of the time the only ones who can do that are like us.”

  “What are Guardians?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Hold your thoughts for just a little longer. We’re here and I want to set up before it gets dark.”

  The campground was pretty isolated. It was right on the beach. There were other campers, but not many. Once the tent was up, Puck grabbed my hand and we walked down to the beach as he talked.

  “Everything has an energy. The oceans, the trees, even the car. Everything, and everyone, has a different energy. What you were listening for today was that energy. It is what fuels our magic. You felt that the ocean and the tree were distinctly different as well as the place where some poor soul met his end. Most people feel it on some level. When you say some guy is creepy even though he didn’t do anything to you, it is because of an energy he put out. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah.” It made perfect sense. Each of my flowers felt different to me too. We sat down on the sand about thirty feet from a family building a sandcastle. A little boy laughed as he splashed water on his mom.

  “Now, most energy can put into one of two categories. Positive and negative. As Guardians we use positive energy. Most of it comes from the world around us. We tend to stick to coasts and places with a lot of nature. Vegas is not a natural place for us, but we decided we’d have a harder time being caught if we centralized our efforts in a place that the Destroyers wouldn’t expect. Plus, we have other ways of collecting energy.”

  Suddenly, I had more questions than I had answers. The ocean roared in front of us, but I couldn’t seem to coherently collect my thoughts.

  “What do you do?” I asked, finally finding my voice.

  “We manipulate energy and try to change the feelings of those around us. We make people happy.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “That’s it? You make people happy.”

  He glowered at me for a second. “Watch. I’m going to snap my fingers so you know when I act.” He pointed at the family on the beach. The little boy was in a tussle with his sister. They both had hold of a pail and did not want to share. Their shrieks were loud enough for the entire beach to hear. Mom and dad seemed to be purposefully ignoring them.

  Puck snapped his fingers and the shrieking stopped instantly. The boy handed his sister the pail and toddled back to his mom and dad where several more pails lay. Then he joined his sister down at the water and they helped each other fill the pails with water.

  “What’d you do?”

  “I shifted their energy. Each was being selfish. I changed the energy to charity, which essentially means that they now care more about the other’s happiness rather than their own.”

  “How?”

  At once, blood rushed to my head and butterflies buzzed around my stomach.

  “Holy smokes, how did you do that?”

  “I can create the emotion and send it to whoever I want. Most of the time though, I only use it to make people feel some form of happiness.”

  I snorted. “So you just go around making people sing kum ba yah and love each other.”

  “You make it seem so trivial. We have huge influences in governments and corporations. We are the reason that the world doesn’t completely go to shit.”

  “I’m trying to understand.”

  He stood up and offered to help me. “Yeah, sometimes I
don’t completely understand it myself.”

  We walked along the beach as he talked.

  “Wait,” I said. “This doesn’t make sense at all. Look at my hands.”

  Puck held my hands and examined them.

  “Do you see any scars?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Before I met Kai, they were covered in tiny scars from rose thorns. Now they are gone. How do you explain that?”

  He sighed. “Our powers extend to physical manipulations as well but only on humans. I can’t cure cats or move mountains. And some of us are better than others.”

  My mind was spinning with information, but I’d felt like I’d only scratched the surface. And he hadn’t explained anything about Kai.

  “What about Kai?”

  He hedged. “Kai is a unique situation.”

  I sighed. Why did everything have to be so complex? “Yeah, so. That doesn’t explain anything.”

  “Within the Guardians there is a hierarchy. Most of us are minor Guardians and we all answer to a major Guardian. A major Guardian is usually responsible for a large city or whole state. Above the major Guardian is a head Guardian. Some countries, like ours, have their own head, but some heads are over several countries. The entire continent of Europe only has two head Guardians. Then there is the Master Guardian and his council. Each Master Guardian can choose how many he wants in his inner circle. The current one has exactly three, and they are called council Guardians. Did you follow that?”

  “So, One Master Guardian with a council of three. The Master and councilors are over the Heads who oversees the Majors. Underneath the Majors are Minors. And you are a minor, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  I shivered at the word Master. That reminded me of the Master at church.

  “What is Kai?”

  “Kai is a council Guardian. He has no distinct territory and answers only to the Master Guardian. I don’t know much, but I do know that he is stuck in some podunk town in Arkansas and that he’s not allowed to leave. He doesn’t even come to the council meetings. Rumor is that he works some undercover mission to overthrow the Master Destroyer. But what that has to do with the hick town is beyond me.”

  The sun had set and we were finally back to our tent. Puck climbed in first and wiggled into his sleeping bag.

  I lay down as well, but I stared at him. After a few minutes he rolled over and faced me. He didn’t seem surprised that I was still awake.

  “Is Kai okay?” he asked.

  “He was the last time I saw him. Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Did you know him?” I asked and yawned.

  “He’s my brother. And I haven’t seen him in three years.”

  Kaiser Wilhelm + Tuscany Superb = Heartache

  PUCK ROLLED OVER AFTER THAT and wouldn’t answer me when I tried to get his attention, but my head spun with the implications. Puck was Kai’s brother. As in, he grew up with him. He knew all about him.

  Puck rolled back over, but I could tell that he was fast asleep. His eyelids twitched a little and his breath was deep and even. Kai and Puck were so different, yet now, I could see slight resemblances. The shape of their eyes and they had the same nose. I watched Puck for a while, then the waves lulled me into dreamland.

  The next morning Puck was already gone when I woke. I found him on the beach watching the waves. He spoke before I could even ask a question.

  “When Kai and I were little I never knew our life was odd. We lived in east L.A. Gang country. My dad was hard-core. He always talked about how Kai and I would follow in his footsteps. Be a leader in the street gangs. He died when I was eight, so I don’t really remember much about him. I was kinda a mama’s boy anyway.”

  He laughed and blushed. I could tell this was hard for him. I reached for his hand and he wove his fingers through mine.

  “But Kai followed him around like a puppy dog. Hung on his every word. Kai was there when he was murdered. It wasn’t even a drive by or anything. Whoever wanted him dead did it execution style. Shot him right in the back of the head. Kai never talked about it.

  “Mom couldn’t handle the death, plus she felt like we were in danger so she brought us to Alejandro six months after the funeral. He lived close to here at the time, in Santa Barbara. While we lived with him we learned the truth about who we were and our dad.”

  He stopped speaking.

  “You mean that he was a Guardian? Was he one of those council Guardians?”

  Puck snorted. “Hardly. Dad was a Destroyer. In fact he was the Master Destroyer.”

  I shivered again. I hated that word. Master.

  “What’s a Destroyer?”

  “They are the opposite of us. They seek to bring misery and pain to the world. And they do a damn good job of it. They also have a twisted way of dealing with their leadership. See, Destroyers don’t follow their leader because they want to, or follow because they think he knows what’s best for their kind. They follow because they have to. A Master Destroyer helps keep their power at bay. He actually makes it harder for them to do what they want.”

  “Why?” I asked, perplexed.

  “Because of power. Guardians actually give up power fairly easily. We want the most powerful of our kind in charge and if one comes along that is more powerful than the current Master Guardian, they take over. No questions asked. But a Master Destroyer has the opposite intention. He wants to hang on to his power, so he makes it harder for those who follow him to exercise anything other than minor power. It’s a good thing, actually. Well for us anyway.

  “Sometimes though, a Master Destroyer becomes a little lax in their rules. When they do, the world goes to shit quickly. That’s the only time we intervene.”

  Something seemed odd about that statement. “Wait,” I said. “Is that what Kai’s doing? Intervening?”

  “Probably. Come on, I’m done talking for a while. We’ll talk later.” He picked up a surfboard next to him and pointed to the waves.

  I shook my head. “That looks fun and all, but I haven’t been swimming in nine years. And I don’t think I’ll have enough balance to stay on the board. Let’s talk more about the kissing thing.”

  He sighed impatiently. “What about it?”

  “Why do you sneak into girls houses and kiss them at night?”

  “Well, I don’t. Not yet. But kissing is an amazing source of positive energy. We do it to build up our stores.”

  “But,” I started when he interrupted.

  He shook his head. “I told you, I’m done talking. Go change. I’ll wait here.”

  On the way back to the tent the truth behind Puck’s words hit me. Kai didn’t love me at all. He had used me to build up his energy so he could do whatever it was he needed to with the Master Destroyer or whatever. I changed quickly and headed back out to the beach. I needed a distraction because I couldn’t stand thinking about Kai.

  Three hours later, I dragged the board onto the sand and collapsed. Surfing was not my thing. I swallowed enough salt water to make a jellyfish happy. The sand warmed me for a while and Puck showed no indication of coming back in. The beach curved around a cliff and when I was out on the board it looked like there were some interesting rocks on the other side. I left the board on the sand and wandered around the cliff. Not a soul was in sight. The rocks were enormous. Coal black and taller than me. A few rocks had handholds to climb up with. I found a rock that looked like it had a nice flat top. From that view I would be able to see Puck.

  As I reached up a hand seized my arm. His touch burned. I spun, expecting to see Mother or Father, and found myself facing a dirty old man.

  He had deep lines etched into his face and his breath smelled of rotting gums and onions. His tattered clothes hung loosely on his shoulders. The sun showed bright in the late morning sky.

  “Been lookin’ for a pretty one like you. All alone.”

  “Let me go.” I squirmed against his grip and moved back toward the water. The waves lap
ped up against my heels. Fear sliced across my insides. I panicked and tried to think of how I could fight him, cause him pain so he would let go. I tasted blood again and explosions filled my ears.

  The man jerked his hand away and looked at me with surprise.

  “Didn’t know they were recruitin’ little girls. This is my territory, you’ll need to go find someplace else to haunt.”

  “Naomi, you okay?” Puck stood a few feet away, dripping wet, and I moved quickly toward him.

  The old man groaned. “Effin’ Guardian gettin’ in the way.”

  “You know the rules, no physical contact with your victims. Or are you too stupid to remember that?”

  “Ah, now well, the rules is changin’ ain’t they. We can touch ‘em if we want to. Besides she ain’t no victim, she’s like me. So I can touch her all I like, ‘cept she hurts me. Never felt a sting that strong. Course I don’t go accostin’ my own very often, ain’t worth the trouble. Now git outta here, both of ya’s or I might hafta do somethin’ dumb.”

  “What do you mean one of your own?” Puck asked.

  “You too green to spot one of us when you see one?”

  The old man cackled as Puck grabbed my hand and dragged me back to the campsite. He tore down the tent and packed up the car, barking instructions to me every once in a while. Then he pulled out of the parking lot so fast I thought he was going to hit the gate. Mercifully he missed it and before I knew it we were back on the freeway.

  “What did he mean I was like him?”

  Puck squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. “No idea. He was accusing you of being a Destroyer, but if you were Alejandro and I would’ve known. What did you do to him?”

  I shrugged, honestly baffled.

  Puck took a different route home through the desert instead of along the coast. It was dead boring.

  “Puck, can we talk?”

  He shrugged. “I can’t answer any questions about that old man. I honestly don’t know what he was talking about.”

  “What about Kai?”

  He sighed. “Alejandro started training us while we were very young. Both Kai and I were talented. It was inevitable given who our father was. Three years ago, a new Master Guardian ascended to power and Kai was chosen to be on his council. It was around that time we became aware that the Master Destroyer wasn’t following the rules. You saw how that man grabbed you. Five, ten years ago he wouldn’t have been allowed to do that. He could’ve influenced a civilian to do it, but he couldn’t touch you on his own.