Emma (Dark Fire) (34 page)

After restraining the girl with a set of ties, Guardian Lee pulled-out a cell phone. “Target four down. Transmitter set.”

Without a backward glance, the man trotted into the forest.

Mac had never heard of doing such a thing, not when any Sídhí could snap the thick plastic with a bit of pressure. Curious, he approached the girl and fingered the plastic tie. Understanding was immediate. Some ingenuous person, most likely a fairy, blended synth crystal with plastic, creating a lightweight restraint that would never break.

Mac narrowed his eyes, trying to decide whether to follow Lee or stick near the girl. Lee might take additional victims, but if he stayed with the girl, whoever picked her up might lead him right to a nest of Khr’Vurr.

The last possibility played a dual role, keeping him on Sarah’s good side since monitoring the terrorist organization was part of his duty as head of her security.

^___________

Hours later, Sarah and her cabin mates enjoyed the cool water of a large pool. Actually, it was several interconnecting pools fed by a dozen small waterfalls as they crashed down the side of a mountainous wall of rock.

The moment the group of teens arrived in the small valley - and the glowing hot spring of Big Bertha was nowhere in sight - she'd argued against staying. She'd been out-voted. Everyone except the two shifters voted to spend the night.

She hadn't been surprised when Beth and Brianna left the group in a huff, returning up the same trail that brought them into the valley. Anything Beth said, Brianna automatically agreed with.

Sinking deeper into the refreshing water, pleasure surrounded her.

Her instinct, a constant pressure at the back of her head, kept insisting there was danger, but nothing had jumped them. The peace of the little valley was an appreciated break from Nick’s stony attitude, not that a good workout wouldn’t be just as helpful, but she was hot and hurt all over.

She leaned against the smooth surface of a boulder, a large one that shaded her from the fierce glare of the sun. The cool rock felt wonderful against her burnt skin. Too much time spent under the hot sun had turned her skin pink, tiny blisters had already appeared on the top of her shoulders. Her skin felt like it was on fire.

She watched Katie and Jared leave the pool hand-in-hand to set-up the tents.

Nick surged up out of the water and water flew everywhere as he tried dunking Emily, his younger cousin. They horsed around for several minutes, playing in the sunlit water.

He laughed at something Emily said and glanced toward Sarah. Their eyes met and he frowned. He roughly ran a hand through wet hair and turned away from her. Water glistened across the rippling muscles of his back. A single drip slid down his spine, curving along places she dreamed of touching.

Air shifted. Her instinct screamed danger. Her eyes snapped up, but it was too late. A three-foot creature, a black mite with arched legs, jumped from the high cliffs, aiming a sharp stinger at Nick's head.

All of her training went out the window. Instead of attacking the creature, she threw her body between the deadly mite and her mate.

The sharp stinger slammed into her back. Pain exploded in her body.

The last thing she heard was Nick’s roar of fury.

Black engulfed her as the poison from the stinger raced through her body, knocking her unconscious.

^___________

Sarah stirred, instantly aware of the cold silence surrounding her. She didn’t know how much time had passed. It could have been hours or days.

Idiot, she was an idiot. She had reacted like a baby cadet, not the veteran warrior she was.

She growled and tried to open her eyes. They wouldn't budge. She couldn't move, could barely breathe. Something bound her arms and legs tight against her body. The bloody mites had wrapped her up in a cocoon, keeping her fresh to eat later.

She extended her claws, slashing and wiggling her hand until she could move her arm freely. She worked it back and forth, cutting the shroud that covered her.

A growl of fear rumbled through her and grew harsh. She couldn't smell Nick, didn't know if he lived or not. Fear grew in her belly, sending chills of dread racing through her.

She struggled out of the remaining threads that wrapped around her, yanking them off her face. The darkness remained pitch black. Stale air greeted her.

She was in a crypt. She growled. Her fury grew with each second.

She rolled onto her stomach and slammed her fist into the wall at her head. She knew the feeding habit of mites. They stung their prey then wrapped the paralyzed victims in a fiber that kept them immobile. If that wasn't enough, the spider-like creatures sealed them into feeding tubes.

She hit the end of the tube again, knowing the mites sealed each tube with fiber-laced mud. She heard a crack. Rearing back, she slammed against the mud blocking her exit.

The hard mud shattered.

She reached for the edge, pulling her body out of the tube.

To the side, standing still as statues, appeared to be a rescue party of four startled teenagers. Jared, Katie, Beth, and Brianna held odd blue branches and looked at her as if she had finally flipped out. They weren’t far from wrong. The fear surging through her overwhelmed all other thought. She had to find Nick before she completely lost it.

A sweeping glance and she quickly took in her surroundings. Another wretched cave met her eyes, large and flat. The huge cavern had weird holes in the wall behind her. It looked like a giant honeycomb, a honeycomb that held the living bodies of the mite's victims. Her growl increased. She was growing to hate Dragon Valley and its surplus of wretched caves.

Her eyes dropped lower, taking in the scurrying bodies of a dozen harmless gray mites, a different species from the type that attacked her. Father away, her eyes fell on a single shrouded figure. From the size, she knew it was Nick. Hope surged through her.

Snarling, she extended her claws, killing every little gray mite that got between her and her mate.

Within a minute, she knelt at Nick's black shrouded body. She slashed the fibers, tearing the black silk from his body. Pulling him close, she ripped the stingers out of his back.

The thump of his heart made her shudder and hold him even closer. She'd nearly lost him. She couldn't make it past that horrifying thought. She wanted to port him to safety, but that wasn’t possible, not with Beth and Brianna present.

Mitch and Emily were unconscious, same as Nick. Paralyzed by the mite poison, they would never know if she ported them out of the cave, but the shapeshifters put a kink in her idea. If it weren’t for who Beth was, Sarah would make them permanently disappear. Problem solved.

Forcing herself to calm down, she began listening to the others around her. They had already decided what to do. Sitting back, she let Jared take control of the situation. It wouldn’t hurt anything and would take the spotlight off her dramatic escape from the mite tube.

Jared threw Mitch over his shoulder. Katie and Beth each had one of Emily's arms. “Can you and Brianna drag Nick?” Jared asked Sarah, lips twitching. He was a horrid actor.

Wrapping her hand around Nick’s limp wrist, Sarah nodded her agreement. The teens were halfway to the tunnel leading toward the surface when Sarah smelled Clarisse. It was a fleeting scent, but one she couldn't ignore.

“I caught Clarisse’s scent,” she called out. According to the multiple groans she heard, she wasn’t the only one who had completely forgotten about the red-haired vampire.

“All of you get out of here. I’ll find her and get her out,” Sarah said, gritting her teeth in frustration.

“What about Nick?” Beth questioned her, nodding to the inert figure Sarah protectively stood over.

“I’ll stay,” Brianna offered eagerly. “You can’t do it by yourself. You’ll still need help.”

“I was hoping Nick would wake-up by the time I found Clarisse,” Sarah said, eying the overly eager girl. She’d hoped to get rid of both shifters and port Nick to safety. Then she’d return, find Clarisse and dump the little traitor in a cell under Trellick Castle. The girl’s scent had been all over the trail going into the valley. She had a sneaking suspicion the Clan Vampire had switched the warning signs where the trails split. No doubt, ordered to do so by her superior within the Khr’Vurr. “You have a chance to get out of here, take it while you can.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Brianna said with a grin. The girl glanced at Beth, obviously seeking her friend's approval, before going any farther.

Jared's eyes narrowed at the exchange. He looked at Sarah and was unable to hide a shudder. She quickly smoothed her features, hoping no one else noticed her thirst for action. She was growing tired of the charade. She wanted a few necks to snap. A little deadly force would make her feel better, and be one-step closer to catching the Khr’Vurr.

“If you hear or see anything, leave Clarisse and get out,” Jared said, avoiding eye contact with her.

Yeah, she definitely needed to work on her impassive face. She couldn’t help it; her emotions were running too high.

She disliked staying behind, but had no choice, not after she smelled Clarisse. She didn't like the stuck-up Clan vampire, but she wouldn't leave the girl stuck in one of the mite's feeding tubes either. And since Brianna was tagging along, there’d be no dungeon cell in Clarisse’s near future either.

The cavern swallowed the small scraping sounds as the other teens escaped the confining area. Without a backward glance, the group disappeared into the tunnel leading to a small valley. Sarah fervently hoped the teens didn't run into any mites. She couldn't race to save Jared and Katie, not this time, not with witnesses around.

Briefly, she considered calling Mac to assist them.

Her slightly insane friend, and personal guard, would’ve hurried to her side at a moment’s notice, but as usual too many factors kept her silent. Mac had the ability to hide what he truly was, but another – more important – reason for not calling the phoenix was his aptitude for finding trouble where none existed. Even the princeling admitted to being a magnet that attracted turmoil.

Sarah held her body stiff, standing pre-naturally still, silently ranting against her lack of options. Nothing new in that choice, she stayed hidden in plain sight. False truths surrounded her life, keeping her identity as Chi’Kehra a secret and not exposing Trellick Valley’s mysterious wonders of nature.

She was so sick of hiding. Unfortunately, she wasn’t experienced enough to confront the dhark lords of the Empire, not if she wanted to win the war of all wars, a war that hovered on the horizon. She knew a deadly confrontation approached. One of her guard’s – a two-thousand-year old phoenix by the name of Morgan – had a powerful gift of foresight.

The man had foreseen the Sídhí war over-flow into the mundane world. The glimpse of that blood soaked foretelling never wandered far from her mind.

Shoving her problems to the back of her brain, she gave Brianna a cold glance. She trusted the shapeshifter less than a rattlesnake, which was not at all.

Chapter - Lost Prey

“Well?” Clarabelle demanded of the wrinkly-faced gnome.

Less than three feet tall, the yellow-eyed man was a carbon copy of the small Sídhí race of people. The bug-eating, cave dwelling society was legendary for their practical jokes and sick humor. For the most part, she tolerated them. With the correct incentive, they were easily controlled. Complete obedience of the lesser race was all that mattered to her.

As Clarabelle’s large head neared his trembling form, she curled her lips in revulsion. Folds of the gnome’s pale, pasty colored skin quivered in fear. The little man ducked his head, showing her the proper respect she was due.

By reporting his failure, he showed a hint more intelligence than she believed him capable. She’d rather know if a plan needed readjusting before it was too late, not that she wouldn’t punish him for his failure. Fear was a great motivator.

Smoke billowed from her nostrils as she considered what his botched mission meant to her plans. Her intentional slip of control had the wrinkled gnome crouching beside the squirming troll, looking almost like a man-shaped Shar Pei puppy.

When the little man didn’t run from her show of displeasure, surprise rippled through her big body. At sixty-odd pounds, the gnome would be less than a pre-meal snack for her, not that she ate gnomes. Well, only a few and that was years earlier. The unfortunate incident happened after one of the silly creatures cut her beautiful hair too short.

The laughing howl of a troll cut off her train of thought.

Clarabelle’s foot pressed a little harder, squishing the flopping dark, red body of the troll under her giant claws. The troll bellowed in fury. Its long yellow teeth gnawed on one of her claws in a wasted attempt to free itself. The big male’s grunts and howls seemed to be a barbarian language, but she knew the noise was only the animal’s attempt to frighten her away.

Trolls, like werewolves or khatts, were very smart animals. Notoriously short tempered and difficult to control, most people never wasted their time training the brutish creatures. Clarabelle, on the other hand, saw the opportunity they presented.

Under her fierce glare, the troll’s handler hunched his scrawny shoulders. “I tries to teach ‘em Mistress, but I’s don’t always makes ‘em understand. I really tries!” the little gnome squalled under her harsh glare.

 “It’s nots my fault that them mites attacked too soon. I swears it!” the stinky little gnome continued his rambling excuses as Clarabelle rearranged her strategy.

She didn’t want excuses; she wanted results. She wanted Nick, the Chi’Kehra’s lifeMate, alive and in shackles before the night was over. Having Chi’Kehra as her personal lapdog would not only guarantee success against the dragon council, but the girl was critical to Clarabelle’s ultimate goal of returning Dragon Valley to the Sídhí home world.

“You will hunt them down. I want the boy captured, not dead. Do you hear me? You will bring him to me alive. He won’t be any good to me dead. He dies and you and every miserable gnome within Dragon Valley will die by my dragonfire.”