Sentinel Of Khoth

by Brenda Trim

  Step­ping closer to Finn, she scanned the park for dan­ger. “What is that?”

  “Fuck,” Finn cursed as he pulled out a comm unit. “That’s the alarm. We’re un­der at­tack.”

  “What?” Talysia screeched as her body trem­bled with fear. “How is that pos­si­ble? I thought there were spells keep­ing ev­ery­thing out of the city.”

  “They’re com­ing in from the sky. Fucker’s got wakati at­tack­ing from the sky. They’re birds, and the fe­males have glow­ing green beaks. Stay right here. If any make it through the Maa­hes, re­mem­ber their bites aren’t fa­tal un­less they peck you nu­mer­ous times. I’ll be back soon.”

  Finn kissed her quickly then quickly shed his cloth­ing. Talysia was stunned as she watched cit­i­zens run and duck be­side tree trunks and in the al­ley that she could see across from the park.

  Finn cupped her cheek, bring­ing her gaze to his hand­some face. There wasn’t an ounce of fear on his hand­some face, and it was sexy as hell.

  Her eyes trav­eled the length of him, and she got a full view of his naked body. At the ab­so­lute worst time ever her skin tin­gled, and her core tight­ened. All she could think was that she wanted a piece of the sexy dragon. His shaft hard­ened un­der her gaze, mak­ing her eyes widen.

  His fin­ger en­cour­aged her head to tilt back, so she met his gaze. The smirk on his face was as ap­peal­ing as the rest of him. “You’ve got to stop look­ing at me like that, Song­bird. I am needed else­where, or I would give you what you’re crav­ing.”

  Shak­ing her head, she tried to hide the way her face heated. “I can’t help it when you stand there naked in front of me,” she ad­mit­ted with a peck to his lips. “Be care­ful.”

  “Wait for me and I will show you more of my naked body,” Finn teased with a sexy smirk.

  Talysia was sur­prised to find her heart was rapidly beat­ing for an­other rea­son al­to­gether. How this male man­aged to make her for­get Un­seelie forces were at­tack­ing at that very minute was be­yond her.

  Be­fore her next heart­beat, a bright light flashed then a dragon stood next to her. His mas­sive slate gray body was big­ger than the air­planes on Earth. It’s enor­mous head low­ered and she gazed into a faceted eye that was the color of a choco­late di­a­mond, and as big as her fist.

  In his hu­man form, Finn’s eyes had a jewel like qual­ity, but it was so much more pro­nounced now. Run­ning her hand over the side of his skull, she laughed when his hot breath chuffed out of his mouth and blew her hair back from her face.

  Screeches above made Talysia look to­ward the sky. The sec­ond her gaze landed on the blue and red birds she wished she hadn’t. To call those mas­sive things birds was an un­der­state­ment. They were smaller than the drag­ons but were nowhere close to the size of the birds on ei­ther Ca­lypso or Earth.

  Fear coursed through her for Finn and the other Maa­hes, fol­lowed by the urge to flee. She was a sit­ting duck in the mid­dle of the park.

  “Stay hid­den in the trees, Tal. We will keep you safe, but you must stay put so they can’t track you,” Finn sent her us­ing his dragon mind speech. With­out a de­sire to be­come a snack for the Un­seelie, she took off to­ward the trees to hide.

  When Talysia took off, Finn launched him­self into the air and flapped his wings to hide her move­ment from the wakati above. As soon as her foot­steps faded, he was in mo­tion.

  To the South of his po­si­tion, Blaine, Slate and a dozen other Maa­hes were en­gag­ing a cou­ple dozen Un­seelie. The pro­tec­tions were de­signed to keep them away from the city. Why the fuck were they hov­er­ing above a ma­jor park in the mid­dle of Du­a­mutef?

  “Nice of you to join us,” Blaine told Finn in dragon mind speech.

  “I got here faster than if I had been at home, douche dick. How the hell are these crea­tures so close to the city? Are the pro­tec­tions down?” Finn asked.

  Blaine’s mas­sive form swooped low them turned and darted to­ward a cou­ple of wakati. “The Rowan sis­ters changed the scope of the spell. An­gus wanted to test the wa­ters.”

  Finn felt his mouth go slack. What was the king think­ing? Not that he was ques­tion­ing their leader, but he won­dered why make such a move when they re­turned from Ah­scar only an hour ago. None of them rested much the night be­fore. Af­ter nearly col­laps­ing when they reached Ah­scar, they agreed to rest for a few hours be­fore con­tin­u­ing to the cas­tle.

  No one wanted to leave the city and royal fam­ily un­pro­tected for any length of time. There was no doubt Cyril was plan­ning a ma­jor strike and they all wanted to be on hand if they were needed.

  A sud­den stab of pain in his lower ab­domen made Finn bel­low and blow out a stream of fire as he low­ered his head. The snarl left his mouth when he saw the fe­male wakati that flew un­der­neath his body. Their bel­lies were their most vul­ner­a­ble por­tion.

  It was cov­ered in soft scales whereas the rest of their hide was cov­ered in nearly im­pen­e­tra­ble flesh. Blood trick­led from a wound on his stom­ach. Finn swiped his talons to­ward the fe­male. The sharp­ened edge cut through the wakati’s wing and the bird tum­bled through the air.

  Finn shot a fire­ball at the fall­ing form and was re­lieved to see the wakati bounce off an in­vis­i­ble bar­rier. “It’s a fuck­ing dome.”

  “And it’ll fry these fuck­ers the more they touch it,” Blaine replied to Finn’s thought with an al­most ma­ni­a­cal laugh. Sud­denly, the king’s ac­tion made sense. He wanted Cyril to think they were weak­ened.

  Even now, Finn no­ticed not many knights were sent to re­spond to the in­cur­sion into the city’s airspace. Let the ass­hole think they weren’t able to muster more. It would lull him into a false sense of su­pe­ri­or­ity.

  The worry weigh­ing on Finn melted away when he re­al­ized that Talysia and the other res­i­dents be­low them were not at risk. He hadn’t re­al­ized how much it wor­ried him to have so many in­no­cents be­low them in the line of fire.

  With re­newed vigor, Finn an­gled his body to the left and shot sev­eral balls of fire at the male birds at­tack­ing Slate from be­hind. Three man­aged to smack into the back of one of them while an­other fire ball shot right past the group and headed through the bar­rier.

  “Dammit,” Finn cursed as he watched the fire­ball ex­plode against a tree in the park. He didn’t have time to apol­o­gize to the fe­male and her kids as they screamed and ran from the area that was now on fire. He had big­ger prob­lems, he ac­knowl­edged as the re­main­ing wakati turned their at­ten­tion to­ward him.

  “Use your flames, not fire­balls,” Finn warned his fel­low Maa­hes. “They go through the pro­tec­tive bar­rier.”

  One of his wings dipped as an en­emy landed on the out­stretched limb, drown­ing out any­one’s re­sponse to his warn­ing. The wakati clung to the leath­ery skin, dig­ging its smaller claws through the sen­si­tive hide. Like a fish out of wa­ter, Finn flopped and flapped try­ing to dis­lodge the limpet stuck to him, but noth­ing worked.

  When some­thing col­lided with the side of his head, he de­cided to ig­nore the class five clinger and re­main fo­cused on the re­main­ing en­e­mies. Call­ing his flames from his belly, he let them loose at the beast that rammed his skull mo­ments ago.

  The wakati took off but wasn’t able to avoid the fire that licked its tail feath­ers. Leav­ing the flames to do their magic on the crea­ture, Finn fo­cused on a fe­male bird peck­ing the back of Blaine’s neck.

  “Seems like you drive fe­males of all species mad,” Finn teased as he pulled up and used his talons to grab hold of the bright green beak. Clutched in his dragon fist, Finn pressed with as much force as he could.

  A high-pitched scream left the wakati’s throat and a crack­ing sound echoed through­out sky around them. When his talons held only pieces of bright green bone, Finn re­al­ized he crushed its beak.

  Re
­leas­ing a stream of fire, Finn di­rected it to­ward the bleed­ing Un­seelie flap­ping weakly be­low him. The fe­male bird sank lower and lower and Finn fol­lowed. His dipped his wing, try­ing again to dis­lodge the fucker claw­ing at him.

  It wasn’t un­til Blaine flew next to him and grabbed the male that Finn got any re­lief. His wing ached and sweat broke across his brow. Not get­ting enough rest af­ter the par­a­site and magma bath, Finn was tir­ing far faster than he an­tic­i­pated.

  There were still six or seven wakati in the skies. They couldn’t slow their at­tack yet. It would leave them to come at them again in the fu­ture. “Con­verge on the re­main­ing Un­seelie,” Blaine or­dered at that mo­ment.

  Finn im­me­di­ately fell back and hov­ered next to Caleb in their cir­cle. The wakati started screech­ing and try­ing to fly away as soon as they re­al­ized they were sur­rounded. Play­ing with the Un­seelie, Finn charged those that flew up with Blaine and Locke join­ing him from the sides while Caleb, Slate and other darted af­ter the ones fly­ing down.

  Finn caught a male in his talons and started shred­ding it. Blaine re­leased fire to dec­i­mate the blood be­fore it dripped more than a few feet. Finn tossed pieces to Locke and grabbed for an­other one that tried to get away.

  Within mo­ments, Finn and his fel­low Maa­hes had cleared the skies of all en­e­mies. For sev­eral min­utes they hov­ered and searched the skies for an­other at­tack. Finn strug­gled to be­lieve this was it and flew sev­eral miles away from the city then back while scan­ning the ground.

  Once sat­is­fied there was noth­ing more com­ing, Finn headed back to the park. As soon as he landed, Talysia came run­ning from the cover of the trees. Adren­a­line was still flood­ing his sys­tem, ramp­ing him up.

  “Are you okay?” she asked when she reached him.

  “I’m good,” he replied as he grabbed his pants.

  “This hap­pens a lot, doesn’t it?”

  Finn’s stom­ach clenched when he heard her ques­tion. It did hap­pen to him of­ten. He was a Maa­hes and his life would al­ways be filled with fight­ing and dan­ger. For the first time since meet­ing her, he wor­ried she might not be up for his life­style.

  Step­ping into his pants, he winced as his back pinched with pain. Try­ing to hide his dis­com­fort, he fo­cused on Talysia and tried to be hon­est while not mak­ing his life sound ter­ri­bly dan­ger­ous. “Yes. As a Maa­hes I am of­ten in bat­tles. Our dates might be in­ter­rupted, but I prom­ise I will come back to fin­ish them.” Shov­ing his feet into his boots, he watched her closely.

  “How can you think about sex when your back is a mess? I know it has to hurt,” she replied.

  “I can hardly think of any­thing else when I’m around you, Song­bird. You are the sex­i­est fe­male in the realm,” he told her hon­estly. A surge of guilt made his breath catch in his throat. He shouldn’t lie to her. It wasn’t fair to ei­ther of them if he was dis­hon­est. When he opened his mouth to take it back, he re­al­ized he wasn’t try­ing to ma­nip­u­late her.

  Talysia was the sex­i­est fe­male. He had no idea what he wanted out of a re­la­tion­ship with her. He’d thought about a mate be­fore and wasn’t at that point. All he knew at the mo­ment was that she had brought him to life when he was around her. He couldn’t stop think­ing about her and want­ing her around.

  “I’d ask if that was a bat in your pocket, but I know you’re happy to see me,” she teased as she handed him his shirt. “Let’s get that cof­fee and then I can treat that rash that’s ap­pear­ing on your back.”

  “I see how you are. Get­ting your cof­fee be­fore stop­ping my bleed­ing.”

  Go­ing to her tip­toes she placed a gen­tle kiss against his lips be­fore laugh­ing. “You’re right. I need a bagel, too.”

  Laugh­ing, Finn joined Talysia and twined his fin­gers with hers as they headed to one of Nolan’s cof­fee stands. This was a far bet­ter way to come down from bat­tle than be­ing back at the cas­tle with the oth­ers.

  Next time he wanted to have Talysia wait­ing naked in his bed.

  * * *

  Chap­ter 12

  Worms wig­gled in Izzy’s stom­ach as Troy twined his fin­gers with hers. At nearly eigh­teen years old, she had yet to go on her first date and wasn’t in­ti­mately fa­mil­iar with males. Most of her friends were ac­tu­ally males so she never talked to them about what dat­ing or any­thing was like.

  The few fe­male friends she had were ei­ther younger or dat­ing her best friend Dono­van and ask­ing what it was like to kiss him was just awk­ward, and made her stom­ach up­set. She didn’t want to hear that.

  When she asked Troy to go with her for ice cream, she hadn’t in­tended for it to be any­thing se­ri­ous, but it seemed he had other thoughts in his head.

  Troy’s voice star­tled her out of her silent mus­ings. “Are you on the ro­ta­tion for drills to­day?”

  “What? Oh, uh, yeah, I am. I’m on through the week­end. Have you heard what we can ex­pect?”

  Shak­ing his head, Troy’s hair fell into his eyes. There were times he was ea­ger and in­volved in train­ing and other times it seemed as if he didn’t care. It made her won­der if he was only fol­low­ing in his dad’s foot­steps.

  “No one gave us specifics, but this morn­ing Blaine told me to keep my com­mu­ni­ca­tor on,” he replied.

  “Same here. Leg­ette said they could text us at any mo­ment and we have to re­spond right away. Are you ner­vous?”

  “Nah. I’m ready. I can do any­thing the knights can,” Troy boasted as he puffed his chest out. Izzy had to sti­fle her laugh­ter.

  Troy was al­ways brag­ging. His con­fi­dence was the one thing she didn’t like about him. No one could beat ev­ery en­emy and she was afraid that would come back to bite him in the butt one day. His over­con­fi­dence might just get him hurt, or worse.

  “I’m afraid. The rea­son they’re push­ing our class to be ready faster is be­cause Cyril is plan­ning some­thing. At least that’s what An­gus thinks. If they need us we have to be ready. That’s a lot of pres­sure,” she ad­mit­ted.

  Troy squeezed her fin­gers, and Izzy thought he was try­ing to com­fort her but when she cocked her head to the side, she saw the way his mouth was pursed, and his eyes nar­rowed.

  “The Maa­hes don’t know what Cyril is plan­ning. How can they? They haven’t heard any ru­mors, have they?” he asked.

  “No. At least not that I’m aware. I don’t know who they would have heard in­for­ma­tion from. Most Un­seelie don’t talk, and those that do are too busy at­tack­ing to share their or­ders,” Izzy ex­plained.

  “Red Caps and Bug­ganes are sin­gled-minded crea­tures for sure. Don’t worry about the at­tacks. I’ll pro­tect you,” Troy promised. The sen­ti­ment was sweet and made her think he did see this as a date.

  She should clar­ify, but she wasn’t sure how to do that with­out seem­ing like she was mak­ing as­sump­tions. Once again, she wished her mom was there to give her ad­vice. “Thanks for com­ing with me to get ice cream. Af­ter the bomb and shark at­tack, I didn’t want to make the trek alone,” she in­formed Troy, hop­ing that clar­i­fied the sit­u­a­tion.

  “I’d go any­where with you, Iz. Be­sides, I want to try the mocha choco­late fla­vor Nolan just added. I sup­pose you’re get­ting the straw­berry fla­vor. Again,” he teased with a smile.

  Smil­ing, Izzy nod­ded her head. “Of course. Straw­berry is my fav. I just hope Nolan still has some of the last batch of berries. He said that would be it un­til a new crop comes in.”

  Troy held the door open for her and she tugged her hand free to en­ter the shop. “Izzy,” Nolan called out. “How’s my fa­vorite vam­pire?”

  “I’m good. Please tell me you have some straw­berry ice cream left,” she replied.

  “Sure do. What’ll you have, Troy?”

  “The new mocha choco­late, please
,” Troy said as he dug money from his pocket, and placed it on the counter as Izzy ac­cepted a cup from Nolan.

  The mo­ment Troy paid, their comms beeped in their pock­ets. Swal­low­ing the bite she just put in her mouth, Izzy read the screen.

  “Crap. We have to be at an apart­ment build­ing in fif­teen min­utes,” she said aloud.

  Look­ing for­lornly at her cup of melt­ing desert, she was about to toss it into the trash­can when Troy stopped her with a hand on her arm. “You can eat it on the way. It’s a good eight blocks from here.”

  “Good idea,” she said as she fol­lowed him out the door. Spoon­ing the treat into her mouth as she ran wasn’t nearly as easy as she ex­pected and, af­ter eat­ing half of it, she tossed the con­tainer into a trash­can.

  She checked the weapons strapped un­der her coat. There were two small blades, un­like Troy who had a broad sword at­tached to his back un­der his jacket. The large weapon was too big for her to eas­ily wield. She did far bet­ter with the knives. When she was in con­trol she could tele­port and sneak up be­hind en­e­mies.

  “Do you know if the Maa­hes are fight­ing us to­day?”

  They were run­ning down the street, and while she was out of breath and sweat­ing, Troy wasn’t winded at all. “I imag­ine so. Oth­er­wise, we won’t learn to think on our feet.”

  “Then we shouldn’t use our weapons,” she de­cided.

  “Why not? We are sup­posed to in­ca­pac­i­tate our en­e­mies.”

  “But we shouldn’t kill them,” she prac­ti­cally shrieked.

  “We aren’t deal­ing with novices. These are trained Maa­hes who will be able to dodge any blow and avoid in­jury.”

  Izzy wasn’t so sure, and they had no more time to dis­cuss strat­egy. They were at the build­ing and rac­ing up the stairs. Not want­ing her jacket in the way of re­triev­ing her weapons, Izzy re­moved it and dropped it on the steps.