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

by Kimberly Loth

  It was time to go face the two men whom I both loved and feared. But first, I needed to hide the pictures. I opened the bottom drawer of my dresser. It had several long skirts from my days of no pants. I hid the pictures underneath and pushed them back into the corner.

  I entered the kitchen, which smelled of garlic and chicken. Kai and my dad already sat at the table. Kai smiled. The faded wood table looked like it was about to fall apart. Why, in all the years we’d lived there, had my parents never bought new furniture? We weren’t poor. But judging by our home, we hadn’t had any money since 1970.

  “I was just about to come get you. Are you hungry?” Kai stood up.

  I nodded, and then I looked into my father’s eyes. They were always pale blue and watery. When I was younger, they were mischievous, then they grew hard, and now they just looked tired. My father smiled, and I faked a smile in return. There were four chairs around the table. I could sit across from my father and risk eye contact, or I could sit right next to him. I chose to avoid the eye contact.

  My father patted my hand and I jerked it away, keeping my eyes on Kai. He raised his eyebrows and passed me the grilled chicken.

  “Thank you.” I took a piece of chicken, two rolls, a baked potato, and a few pieces of steamed broccoli. The chicken had been marinated and tasted heavenly.

  “Father, I didn’t know you could cook.” I kept my eyes on my plate. Maybe if I didn’t look at him, I could pretend we were on the phone. But I could sense his energy. His Destroyer energy. It was dark and sad, like a stormy day. It was there, but faint.

  He chuckled. “Sure you did. When you were a child, I did all the cooking. I’m glad I didn’t lose my touch.”

  I thought hard. I had vague memories of my father in the kitchen, but they were fuzzy.

  We ate silently for a few moments. I heaped sour cream onto my potato and looked up at Kai. He winked at me, his easy smile back.

  “What do you think of the greenhouse?” Kai asked.

  “It’s beautiful. I’ll need to find a few more plants.”

  My father set down his fork. “I can take you shopping tomorrow if you’d like. I remember some of the nurseries your grandmother visited.” The eagerness in his voice troubled me.

  “Thank you, Father, but that won’t be necessary. I’d like to order them.”

  He sighed. “I’d prefer if you didn’t call me Father. It reminds me too much of my dark days.”

  Dark days they were. At least he acknowledged it.

  “Of course.”

  I finished my meal and took my plate to the sink. My father followed me. “You don’t have to do that, I can clean up.”

  “No, I want to do the dishes. It gives me something to do.”

  Without meaning too, I put up a shield. A little too forcibly. The salty taste made me gag. I was good at shields, they protected me from energies I didn’t want. Except the ones inside of me.

  My dad stared at me for a second, then backed away. His tired eyes now reflected fear. What did he have to fear from me?

  He and Kai brought me the rest of the dinner plates and I ran hot water in the sink.

  “Can I help?” Kai stood a few feet from me, hands in his pockets. My heart raced. Could I pull this off?

  “Sure, you can rinse.”

  Kai was harder to deal with than my dad. Dad knew I wasn’t comfortable with him, but I had to convince Kai that I was here to love him.

  We worked in silence, then I asked the question that had been bugging me.

  “Why did you have me followed?”

  “Because I missed you. And I couldn’t lose track of where you were. I didn’t like the way I left. I’m sorry. I know that hurt you.”

  “Oh.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Giving me an ultimatum between him and Puck did hurt me, especially right after I’d been almost killed by my mother. I didn’t want to make the choice, so he made it for me by leaving. Ultimately, it made no difference in my actual choice, but I wanted it to be my decision.

  I put the last dish in the sink when there was a knock on the door. Kai looked up, confused.

  “What day of the week is it?” he asked, worry in his eyes.

  “Saturday.”

  “Oh shit.”

  My face flushed and I stared at him for a second. That was totally a Puck phrase.

  “What?”

  “Saturday is poker night.” Kai looked out the small kitchen window, his eyes far away from this room.

  “Uh, okay. I’ll go hang out in the greenhouse.” I’d never played poker before. Alejandro played poker with his buddies sometimes, but that was strictly boys’ nights.

  “What?” He shook his head. “No, you should stay. We play poker, but that’s not the point. It’s a Destroyer council meeting in disguise.”

  “Well, I don’t know how to play poker.”

  He grinned. “Then I guess it’s time you learned how.”

  Alejandro once took me to visit an old friend who shared his love of roses. The man was highly superstitious and only had roses that could feed his gambling habit. His whole garden was filled with Lady Luck, Lucky Beauty, Poker Chip, and Red Roulette roses. I asked him if they helped. His reply, “If I have a rose from my garden pinned to my lapel, I never lose.” I should’ve thought of that before I played my first game of Poker.

  KAI GRABBED MY HAND AND laced his fingers with mine. I stiffened. He paused for a second. “Hey Bob,” he called, “can you get the door and set up the game? I need to talk to Naomi about a couple of things.” My dad hadn’t been called Bob in years. People used it when I was young, but since I got older everyone always called him Dr. Aren.

  “Sure thing.” The front door opened and the men spoke in low voices. Kai let go of my hand and shut the kitchen door. He sat down at the table.

  Something was off about this.

  “Listen, you need to understand that when I ran off to California to get you, there was a lot of pushback from the council. They couldn’t see why I would abandon my post for a girl. Most Destroyers don’t have romantic relationships. Those who do are considered anomalies. They are envied and despised. It was risky for me to bring you here. But I convinced the council that I absolutely could not live without you. They assumed that the Guardians have poisoned you in some way.

  “We can play this one of two ways. One, we can be sappy and all over each other, which will be difficult without our Guardian energy exploding in the room. Or you can be a reluctant, quiet girlfriend. Act as if you don’t really want to be there.” My heart clenched at the thought of being all sappy with him. We’d never had a public relationship before and I already felt like I was cheating on Puck.

  “I thought you didn’t plan on me coming back with you.”

  He hesitated. “We can talk about that later. Can you just play reluctant girlfriend while the guys are here? I’ll explain the rest tomorrow.”

  He was hiding something. Or a lot of somethings. I crossed my arms and glared at him.

  “I certainly learned how to be a reluctant girlfriend from Dwayne. I guess I could do it with you.” I gagged just thinking about Dwayne’s stench. To think my parents wanted me to marry that disgusting creep.

  Kai grimaced. “Okay, keep your eyes open. See if there is anyone I shouldn’t trust.”

  Yeah, all of them. I bit my tongue. He’d be suspicious if I started bashing all the Destroyers. Why had I come, again?

  Kai grabbed my hand and led me into the living room. My father and four other men pushed the couches to the side and set up a table in the middle of the room. Kai let go of my hand and grabbed a few folding chairs to set around the table. I could sense their energy almost immediately. The dark, stormy, Destroyer energy. Though there was something different about these guys. Most of the Destroyers I ran into felt defeated. These guys were powerful, their energy almost seductive. My hands shook with the force of it. The only time I’d ever felt this much power was at Puck’s council.

  I stood in the doo
rway between the living room and the kitchen watching them, arms folded across my chest. Kai shifted something in his energy. I knew that Kai was the Master Destroyer, but I hadn’t witnessed his Destroyer energy yet. It was mingled with all the other guys, so I couldn’t distinguish it. I shivered. These people were just like my mother. They were evil and vile and I wanted nothing to do with them. Darkness begets darkness. I could feel Mother stirring under my skin. I hoped I wouldn’t do anything stupid.

  The doorbell rang again.

  Kai turned to me and smiled. “Can you get that, Naomi?”

  I nodded without smiling back. The collective power on the other side of the door made my stomach twist. This was different than the men already in the room or other Destroyers I’d met. More vile. I really didn’t want to answer it.

  Four men stood on the porch wearing leather and bandanas. A biker gang. I peeked around the one in front. Sure enough, there were four Harley’s parked in the grass.

  “Driveway not good enough for you?” I asked without thinking.

  The first man, tall with a short gray beard and a craggy face, sneered at me. “Last time I parked in the driveway that punk Frankie nearly ran over my bike, so you’ll have to live with me parked on your grass.”

  I nodded, proud that I could stand up to the scary biker dudes.

  He and his buddies pushed past me, smelling of cigarettes and garlic. I followed them into the living room.

  Kai looked up from the table where he sat. He slammed a deck of cards down.

  “For the love of…I said you couldn’t bring friends.”

  The man scowled and straightened up. “These ain’t friends. They’re bodyguards. They’ll be staying with me.”

  “Bodyguards? You were the one who started the fight with Frankie. And it doesn’t matter that they’re civilians. They can’t stay.” Kai was right, the only Destroyer in the group was the guy who spoke. His energy was overwhelming, but nasty.

  “He threatened my bike.”

  “So what? This is a council meeting. No one else is allowed.”

  The man sat down at the table. He hitched his fingers in his belt loops and stretched out his long legs. His bodyguards stood directly behind him.

  “What about your girlfriend?” He took out a knife and began filing dirt out from under his fingernails. “She’s not on the council, is she?” He took the knife and stabbed it into the table. I tried to get a sense of the man’s energy. I listened carefully with my whole body, just like Puck taught me to. The smell was faint, but reminiscent of a dump; it tasted like cough syrup, and my ears rang with a high-pitched screech. He was looking for a fight.

  “Irrelevant. They need to leave or you aren’t welcome,” said Kai.

  The man stood up, his hand on the hilt of his knife. “Oh yeah. Make me.” Oh, crap, was he going to stab Kai?

  Kai stood up and faced him. “I don’t think you want to do that, old man.”

  If only he would just leave. Kai could probably hold his own in a fight, but the man was large and had bodyguards. I wasn’t sure if the others on the council would help Kai or not. Either way, a fight in my living room was not the homecoming I imagined. Not that I really cared about what happened to the house. The walls still bore the marks of my father’s frequent violent outbursts. Maybe if they damaged it enough, Kai and I would leave and go live somewhere else—without my father tagging along.

  The man inched closer to Kai. His comrades closed in. Just leave, I thought. My insides were twisting and turning. I did not like where this was going. I sent out the smell of spearmint, hoping they’d cooperate.

  The man snarled and spit chewing tobacco at Kai’s feet. Then he turned around and stormed out the front door, followed by his three bodyguards. I couldn’t take the tension in the room so I escaped back into the kitchen to look for a rag to clean up the floor, but my father beat me to it.

  “I’ll take care of this,” he said.

  “Are you sure? Won’t it look bad if the supposed Master Destroyer is cleaning up messes?”

  “All these men know I’m not the Master Destroyer.” His cheeks reddened. He’d fallen so far.

  “So did the man who just left. What if he talks?”

  My father shrugged. “Maybe, but no one will believe him.”

  He left the kitchen, dishrag in hand, and I followed him. Kai was already in deep conversation with the men at the table.

  I took a seat next to him. He had a suitcase open on the table. The energy around the table was overwhelming, like just before a thunderstorm, when you can feel the electricity in the air. It hummed and crackled and tasted a lot like red wine. I hid my hands under the table to conceal that they were shaking.

  “What do we have left? Oh yes, Frankie, I found a bottle of Screaming Eagle Cabernet from Napa Valley.

  He handed Frankie the bottle.

  Frankie’s eyes widened. “You know, Destroyers don’t usually give gifts to each other. Especially ones like this.”

  Kai shut the suitcase. “Don’t consider it a gift, consider it a bribe. I’ll expect a favor in return.”

  Frankie smiled and reached in his other pocket and pulled out a deck of cards.

  A few weeks ago, I sat in another circle with Puck and his council. That meeting changed my life. It was the reason I was sitting here today with Kai, instead of running around Vegas with Puck.

  This council was around the same size as Puck’s. I listened for names and things, knowing that would be important for the Guardians. The men didn’t say anything to me, so I pretended to ignore them.

  Cards and money flew around the table. Kai reached for my hand once and I pulled it away. He looked hurt, but I thought I was supposed to act like that. Every once in a while, one of the Destroyers would look at me with a scowl. A few didn’t speak at all, but their eyes continually flicked toward me. They didn’t trust me.

  The men all knew that Kai was in charge but most of them deferred to my dad. Both Kai and Father were good card players. After a few hands, the conversation turned to the problems at hand.

  “My Major Destroyers are undermining my authority.”

  “Jeremy is trying to take over my territory.”

  “Many women are being attacked in New Orleans.”

  “A few Minor Destroyers in California were killed last week.”

  Finally, Frankie took a long sip of beer and said what I think the rest of them wanted to say. “Kai, we’ve lost control. No one listens to us anymore.”

  I leaned forward, curious how Kai would handle that. I kept my eyes down, so it didn’t look like I was listening too hard. That was my job though, wasn’t it? To listen and report back to Puck. Well, at least according to the Guardian Council it was.

  “I’m working on that. It’s not as easy as I thought it would be.” He leaned back in the chair, his hands on the back of his head.

  “Fix it fast or the Guardians are going to overthrow us. This would be a prime time to do it. You need to get things under control. Your father never had this problem.”

  Kai stiffened. He leaned forward and placed his hands on the table. “My father also didn’t inherit a mess like this.”

  Another man spoke. He was harelipped and spoke with a slight accent.

  “Speaking of your father, he always had a pretty girl on his arm too. Though this one looks a little too clean. Like a Guardian. I suppose that’s expected since she’s been hanging out with them.”

  Before anyone could respond, my dad laid down his cards. “Full house boys, read ’em and weep.” He grinned.

  A series of grumbles around the table and the men all threw down their cards. I thought my dad had done a pretty good job at distracting them, but the man with the harelip was not to be deterred.

  “Maybe if you spend more time trying to control the Destroyers and less time worrying about your girlfriend, stuff might actually get done.”

  Something about his energy bothered me. He was definitely a Destroyer and he had no shield up, but h
e was hiding something. He put off the smell of sour grapes, but I couldn’t remember what that meant. I concentrated harder and tasted Blue cheese. Deceit. Cheat.

  He had both hands under the table. I’d only lived in Vegas for a few months, but Puck and I spent one afternoon wandering around a casino and studying various Destroyers. I learned a ton.

  I stood up.

  “I’m going to bed.” I looked straight at the harelipped man. “You are a cheat. You’re only saying those things to distract everyone while you pull cards out of your sleeve.”

  I had no idea if it was true or not, but I saw that trick all over the casinos. Combined with the type of energy he was giving off, I figured I had pretty good shot at being right. Ultimately, it didn’t matter if he had any cards hidden or not, the rest of the council all thought he did. I walked out of the room and didn’t look back, but I could hear them arguing behind me. I had an urge to join the fight, my mother and Dwayne itching for a place to demonstrate their power. But they weren’t me, and I was able to control them long enough to get to my bedroom.

  With shaking hands, I picked up the vase of Dark Nights and inhaled. The sweet smell drove down those two lurkers who were taking over. I had no idea how strong they were until now. The Guardian energy must’ve kept them at bay while I was with Puck.

  I unzipped my suitcase, pulled out a nightgown, changed, and climbed into my bed. My pillow smelled like Kai. My body betrayed me, and I shivered. He’d been sleeping in my bed while I was gone.

  He loved me. His feelings radiated off him when he was close to me, they tasted of cinnamon and honey. Why? He didn’t even know me. But he’d come back for me. While I tried to fall asleep, I thought about my mission. Watch Kai and bring him back to the Guardians. For Puck.

  I woke in the middle of the night. It was pitch black outside my window, but there was light coming from under the door. Was Kai still awake?