Sentinel Of Khoth

by Brenda Trim

  The day had gone from bad to ut­terly fucked. Finn needed to see Talysia. There was still work to be done, but af­ter the trauma of the last sev­eral hours he needed to hold his siren and know she was safe.

  * * *

  Chap­ter 20

  Des­pite hav­ing no en­ergy, the urge to pace had Talysia’s legs shift­ing in the bed. Her sis­ter, Tia, turned her head and bright green eyes fo­cused on Talysia with ob­vi­ous con­cern. “Try to re­lax, Tals. Finn will be back be­fore you know it. He and Blaine were suc­cess­ful. They’re bring­ing a cure for ev­ery­one.”

  “But, what if they are too late for Josie or the queen? Some­thing hap­pened not long ago. That com­mo­tion in the hall fol­lowed by the lock­down was not be­cause of a sim­ple event.” Talysia grabbed her sis­ter’s hand on the bed and squeezed as much as her fee­ble strength would al­low.

  Ever since one of the knights stuck his head in the room and in­formed them they were on lock­down, Talysia couldn’t stop her mind from con­jur­ing a mil­lion dif­fer­ent tragic sce­nar­ios. Some­thing ma­jor had oc­curred and now the cas­tle was in an up­roar.

  Her heart hadn’t set­tled since then. What­ever Dyson gave her stopped the cough­ing, but her chest ached and her skin hurt. The heavy weight in her limbs was new as was the throb­bing in her skull.

  Never be­fore had she ap­pre­ci­ated her su­per­nat­u­ral sta­tus more than in that mo­ment. De­spite be­ing born a hy­brid, she loved the fact that she never suf­fered these ail­ments. It seemed ironic when she thought about it. As a young child, she suf­fered less-com­mon ill­nesses than full-bred sirens.

  The nob on the door twisted, gath­er­ing their at­ten­tion. When the panel opened, Finn’s wor­ried face filled the space. “Finn,” she ex­claimed and lifted her hand, only man­ag­ing to lift it a few inches off the bed.

  “Tals,” he replied and crossed to her side. Tak­ing a seat be­side her on the mat­tress, he lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. “I have a treat­ment. You will be feel­ing well in no time. I hope you and your sis­ter talked about our mat­ing cer­e­mony while I was away,” he said with a warm smile.

  “I knew you’d save us,” she gushed.

  Tia snorted and shook her head. “That’s not what you said a minute ago.”

  Talysia rounded on her sis­ter and shot her an if-looks-could-kill glare. “I never doubted Finn. I was sim­ply wor­ried he was too late to heal ev­ery­one be­cause of the lock­down.”

  Finn’s face fell when she men­tioned the lock­down, and Talysia’s heart squeezed painfully in her chest. “Did we lose some­one? What hap­pened?”

  Finn shook his head. “Noth­ing like that. No one sick with the poi­son­ing per­ished. It was Izzy.”

  Talysia gasped. The Vam­pire Princess was a sweet girl and vis­ited them sev­eral times mak­ing sure they had ev­ery­thing they needed. “What hap­pened to her? Is she okay?”

  “She’s alive,” Finn replied. That was an odd way to re­spond. As she opened her mouth to ask ques­tions, he held up his hand. “Trag­i­cally, the lock­down was so no one con­verged on the throne room while they in­ves­ti­gated Troy’s at­tack on Iso­bel.”

  A gasp left Talysia’s mouth and she cov­ered her stom­ach, so she didn’t throw up the soup she ate for lunch. Her gut was in knots over what she sus­pected. “I hope he’s be­ing pun­ished.”

  Finn picked her up and set her on his lap. “He’s dead. Dono­van lost his shit and went too far.”

  Tia growled and Talysia’s head was shak­ing. “That’s not too far. Sounds like the piece of shit de­served to die,” Tia an­nounced.

  “That is not for me to de­cide. The is­sue is far from re­solved, but I’d rather talk about bet­ter things. Jace and Dyson are ready in the throne room to give you the an­ti­dote.”

  Finn stood with her in his arms. “I can try to walk,” she in­sisted.

  “Let me carry you. I no­ticed how dif­fi­cult it was for you to lift your hand.”

  “Don’t be daft,” Tia told her as she climbed to her feet. Her sis­ter was far less af­fected and able to shuf­fle at a slow pace. “You de­serve to be car­ried around. And, yes, Finn, we talked about your mat­ing. Talysia and I plan to go shop­ping for her dress as soon as we can leave.”

  “I hope you pick a sexy num­ber the same color as your eyes. It’s my new fa­vorite color. Who cares about the Cuele­bre cus­tom of match­ing your mate’s eyes? My eyes are bor­ing com­pared to yours,” Finn told her as he walked down the hall.

  Talysia rolled her eyes but couldn’t stop the smile that spread over her face. His eyes were any­thing but bor­ing. “I love you,” she told her soon-to-be-mate.

  They en­tered the somber throne room be­fore Finn could re­ply. Talysia’s heart dropped like a stone when she saw Izzy sit­ting with her par­ents. The fe­male was weep­ing, and she wanted to rush to the young vam­pire and re­as­sure her that ev­ery­thing would be okay. But, would it? Could Izzy ever get past what hap­pened to her.

  Tals chanced a glance in her sis­ter’s di­rec­tion. Tia was rigid with her fists clenched at her sides. “Put me down,” Talysia whis­pered to Finn and tilted her head to­ward her sis­ter. He glanced to­ward Tia and nod­ded his un­der­stand­ing then set Talysia on her feet.

  Em­brac­ing Tia in her arms, Talysia hugged her sis­ter close. Nei­ther of them told any­one what hap­pened to fi­nally prompt them to leave Ca­lypso, and Tals never would. It was her sis­ter’s story to tell, not hers. Thank­fully, Finn didn’t ques­tion any­thing as he led them to the ta­ble.

  Izzy sniffed and looked up when they sat down. The life she’d seen in the young princess’s eyes was dimmed. Some­thing was miss­ing. The vi­va­cious child was no longer vis­i­ble in any fash­ion.

  “Are you here for treat­ment?” Izzy asked with red rimmed, puffy eyes. Nor­mally the child would be all smiles and vi­brat­ing with en­ergy. Now, the power Talysia al­ways felt from her was ab­sent.

  “That’s what I’m told,” Talysia replied with a slight smile. She didn’t want the princess to see pity in her ex­pres­sion, but she knew it was writ­ten all over her face.

  “Jace is the best,” Izzy in­formed them. “Dyson has been great, but Jace heals with a touch leav­ing no ev­i­dence of the hor­ror you just suf­fered.”

  Talysia’s heart broke for the young fe­male. She was near­ing adult­hood and ex­pe­ri­enced one of the hor­rors that leaves deep, last­ing scars. Talysia would never for­get find­ing Tia af­ter the ass­hole, Brad, as­saulted her.

  “Some things can never be healed, but that will never stop me,” Tia mur­mured as she took a seat across from Izzy. The two shared a look that Talysia would never fully un­der­stand. “No mat­ter how much you want to take a breath and crawl un­der the cov­ers for a few days, life goes on. And, I now have one more of the lit­tle things to add to my list of de­lights. I’m crav­ing more of that straw­berry ice cream you brought us.”

  Tears brimmed in Izzy’s eyes while her par­ents re­mained silent and watch­ful. Wip­ing her cheeks with the back of her hand, the ghost of a smile ap­peared on Izzy’s face, but was gone in the next breath. “It’s the best kind, re­ally. Some like choco­late, but noth­ing is bet­ter than straw­berry.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Elsie in­ter­jected. “My fa­vorite is salted caramel. Noth­ing is bet­ter than that.”

  Zan­der leaned over and kissed his mate’s cheek then ruf­fled his son’s dark hair where he slept in Elsie’s arms. “Salted caramel is the way to your heart, a ghra.”

  Phineas was wheeled into the throne room, grab­bing ev­ery­one’s at­ten­tion, and all dis­cus­sion about deserts was for­got­ten. Keira shuf­fled in with An­gus car­ry­ing Josie and Blaze fol­low­ing his par­ents. Blaze im­me­di­ately rushed to Izzy’s side and knelt next to her. The small re­prieve Tia dis­cov­ered with Izzy was gone in that in­stant.

  B
laze never said any­thing as he held her hand and knelt next to her. Zan­der shook his head and lifted one cor­ner of his mouth. Elsie looked ready to re­buke the Cuele­bre Prince, but Izzy stopped them. Putting a hand on each of her par­ents’ shoul­ders, she took a deep breath. “I’m tired. I’d like to go take a nap,” Izzy said, ig­nor­ing Blaze as she pulled her hand free from his grip.

  Talysia watched the vam­pire royal fam­ily leave the room with a heavy heart. There was no anger seep­ing from Izzy. There was very lit­tle ex­cept de­spair em­a­nat­ing from the bro­ken teenager. As she walked, Talysia no­ticed the way Izzy let go of her mom’s hand and looked back at Blaze be­fore she left the room.

  Izzy might be dev­as­tated at the mo­ment, but she would find her way back from this and be stronger for it. The fire she’d seen in­side the Vam­pire Princess wasn’t ex­tin­guished en­tirely.

  “Are we ready to test this?” Jace asked as he and Dyson car­ried over trays. Talysia no­ticed sev­eral sy­ringes with a yel­low­ish liq­uid in­side.

  “More than ready,” the Stoor­worm King rasped. Of all those af­fected, Phineas seemed to be the most ef­fected. From what Jace ex­plained to them dur­ing his test­ing, the com­pound was in­deed di­rected to­ward some­thing in a be­ing’s DNA that made them wa­ter-based crea­tures. Finn didn’t un­der­stand the sci­ence be­hind it.

  From the ex­pla­na­tion, Blaze and Talysia were im­pacted more than his mother and sis­ter and the rest due to their prox­im­ity to the bomb when it ex­ploded. And, Phineas even more be­cause the com­pound was de­signed to flour­ish in the wa­ter.

  Jace swiped the Stoor­worm King’s up­per arm and in­jected him be­fore re­peat­ing the process with the rest of the af­fected in the room. Talysia ex­pected to feel bet­ter right away and was dis­ap­pointed when the aches lin­gered.

  “How do you feel, Song­bird?” She was glad to note the at­mos­phere lifted from somber to far more up­beat. There was hope in the air. The cure was dis­trib­uted and An­gus and his Maa­hes thwarted yet an­other of Cyril’s plans.

  Talysia gazed up at her soon-to-be mate with a smile. “Not that great yet. I imag­ine it’ll take some time.”

  “We have time to shop for your mat­ing dress,” her sis­ter re­as­sured her. “What else do we need to plan?”

  “There is usu­ally a party,” Finn in­ter­jected. “But I’m sure Keira can give us ad­vice on what’s usu­ally done. Speak­ing of, can we have the cel­e­bra­tion here at Tate­nen?” Finn asked An­gus.

  “Och, I would con­sider it an honor. We could all use a cel­e­bra­tion af­ter the month we’ve had,” the Cuele­bre King replied.

  “Is there any­thing from your tra­di­tions you want to in­cor­po­rate in the cer­e­mony,” Keira asked.

  Talysia looked to her sis­ter and con­sid­ered what she wanted to do. Her par­ents con­cocted their own cer­e­mony from a mish­mash of their two cul­tures. “My mom and dad cre­ated their own ice sculp­ture dur­ing their cer­e­mony. My mom called the wa­ter and my dad froze it in the shape of the tree of life. I’d like to do the same thing.”

  “Won­der­ful,” Keira ex­claimed. “Is there any­thing spe­cial you need?”

  “Just wa­ter. I can do the rest.”

  “Good thing we have the an­ti­dote to heal the oceans of the poi­son,” Finn pointed out.

  “Aye. Do you want to wait for the next Civappu?” An­gus asked Finn.

  “No. Talysia is mine re­gard­less of whether or not the Gods de­cide to give us chil­dren,” Finn replied.

  Tears burned Talysia’s eyes. Be­com­ing a mother never crossed her mind. She’d love to give Finn lit­tle baby drag­ons, but the fact that he loved her re­gard­less of her re­ceiv­ing the Gods’ Tuya bless­ing made her fall in love with him that much more.

  “I love you, Sen­tinel.”

  “I love you, too, Song­bird.”

  Talysia lost her­self in his kiss, happy to note her body felt bet­ter by the minute. She needed him to take her home be­fore she em­bar­rassed her­self and climbed into his lap.

  * * *

  Chap­ter 21

  “Are you sure about this, T?” Talysia asked her sis­ter Tia as she glanced in the mir­ror.

  Her sis­ters, Tavie and Tu­ana, looked up from the mir­ror they were us­ing to ap­ply their makeup. “You’re smokin’ hot in that dress, Tals,” Tu­ana said.

  Tavie smirked in the ex­act same way as her twin, Tu­ana did as she nod­ded. “You’re hot­ter than any mer­maid on Ca­lypso.”

  “I don’t know about all that,” Talysia coun­tered.

  But­ter­flies flut­tered in her stom­ach and her heart was rac­ing. Tia re­turned to Ca­lypso to in­form their fam­ily about the mat­ing cer­e­mony so Talysia had her par­ents there with them. Talysia couldn’t have asked for more from Tia. For her to set aside her fear and re­turn with­out sup­port took more courage than Talysia pos­sessed.

  Nei­ther she nor Finn wanted to wait for their mat­ing cer­e­mony. Cyril’s at­tacks slowed, but not by much. He con­tin­ued his re­lent­less vol­ley of small skir­mishes. Seemed Finn was right when he told the king he sus­pected Cyril was sys­tem­at­i­cally try­ing to weaken An­gus lit­tle by lit­tle. When you lost small frac­tions at a time it of­ten went un­no­ticed. Ef­fort was di­verted to fight­ing rather than heal­ing or re­pair­ing any of the dam­age.

  No one thought Cyril would let up any­time soon. Chances were high that Finn could be in­jured again if they de­layed their union. Talysia didn’t want to wait an­other minute to be bonded to her dragon.

  “You are gor­geous, Tals. Ca­lypso is smil­ing down upon you,” her mother, Tanya, told her.

  Tears filled her eyes and she quickly fanned her face, so they didn’t fall and ruin her makeup. “Aww, mom. I hope you’re right. With Finn’s po­si­tion as a Cuele­bre knight we need all the bless­ings we can get.”

  Finn’s job ter­ri­fied her, but she would never ask her Sen­tinel to stop do­ing what he loved. She lived with a rac­ing heart ev­ery sec­ond he was out on mis­sions. That was an­other rea­son to get mated right away.

  Once their bond ce­mented, she would feel him, and he might talk tele­path­i­cally to her. She could send him her en­ergy if he ever needed a boost. Or, at least she hoped she could.

  No one ever told her that was a pos­si­bil­ity, but she be­lieved such a con­nec­tion ex­isted for a rea­son and she was will­ing to do what­ever it took to make sure Finn al­ways re­turned to her.

  “Is ev­ery­one ready?” her fa­ther asked from the door­way.

  “Yes, dear,” her mom replied. “Just fin­ish­ing up our makeup.”

  The door creaked open and her fa­ther’s fa­mil­iar smile popped around the panel. “Oh, sweetie. Ca­lypso is surely smil­ing down on you,” Turner mur­mured as he en­tered the room. Since meet­ing their mom, her dad adopted the siren way of liv­ing and em­braced it fully. She rarely heard him talk about his home realm of Sa­tine or his fam­ily. What Talysia knew she didn’t like.

  Her dad’s fam­ily pre­ferred us­ing their pow­ers to sub­ju­gate oth­ers and rarely ap­proached any­one with an open mind. If ice demons main­tained use of their full pow­ers off of Sa­tine her dad’s fam­ily would have tried to take over too many realms to think about.

  “See­ing you happy fills me with joy,” her dad mur­mured. The faint blue hue to his skin glowed to­day. It was proof of the truth of his words. “All I have ever wanted for my girls is to find love like I did with your mother. There is noth­ing more pow­er­ful in the uni­verse than a true love match. Speak­ing of which, I think your mate is anx­ious to see you.”

  “Not you, too, dad,” she said with teary eyes.

  “She’s try­ing to keep her mas­cara from run­ning down her cheeks,” Tia said with a laugh.

  “I have missed my girls,” Tanya whis­pered as she sur­rep­ti­tiously pat­
ted her eyes and climbed to her feet. Their dad wrapped his arm around their mom’s waist and held her close. “I was go­ing to ask if you’d be com­ing home, but I can see now that won’t hap­pen.”

  “No, but you can visit Khoth when­ever you’d like, and we will come to you. Won’t we, T?”

  “Def­i­nitely. I’ll take you to the beach to­mor­row while Tals is holed up with her dragon,” Tia promised with a wink.

  “Oh,” Tavie squealed. “Are there mer­men here?”

  “No, but there are sexy sea drag­ons,” Tia replied. “Speak­ing of sexy drag­ons, let’s get Tals to hers.”

  The ban­ter be­tween her sis­ter’s dis­tracted Talysia enough that she was laugh­ing un­til the court­yard came into view. Talysia still couldn’t be­lieve her mat­ing cer­e­mony was in the same place where King An­gus and Queen Keira were mated. The site had be­come some­thing of a tra­di­tion among the Maa­hes.

  The staff out­did them­selves, she thought as she scanned the area. The en­tire space was dec­o­rated ex­trav­a­gantly. Silk and flow­ers were ev­ery­where, along with, thou­sands of sprites glow­ing in the night sky. The laven­der hue of the moon en­hanced the am­biance. Talysia choked up when she saw Izzy with her hand on the ground where the gar­den was in full bloom. She wanted to run up and give the young vam­pire a hug, but the sight of Finn side­tracked her.

  Her heart raced and her body tight­ened with need. Her hand­some Sen­tinel stood there in for­mal wear with his arms crossed over his chest. His face switched from vig­i­lant to awed when his gaze met hers. She beamed at him from ear to ear. An­gus and Leg­ette stood next to him, and both grabbed his shoul­ders when he started in her di­rec­tion.

  Finn’s fight­ing leathers were hot, but the suit he wore was be­yond de­lec­ta­ble. She wanted to rip open the white but­ton-down shirt and run her hands over his sculpted chest. His ass looked scrump­tious in the black slacks. She couldn’t imag­ine a sex­ier male. He was the stuff fe­males dreamed about. And, he be­longed to Talysia.