Mitry and Weni (2 page)

The times he’d been able to step in were when his boss sent him in to help with a snap of his fingers. He never got any warning or orders from his superior and didn’t know what was about to happen before it did. Sometimes he wished he could read his God’s thoughts and plans so he knew what was going to happen beforehand but if that was the case, he and his warriors would never be tested in the true sense of the word.

Thousands of years ago before Apep had started to build his shadow demon army, Ra had been able to look on the evil snake god whenever he liked, but now he could only see what the evil one was up to every now and then.

He wondered why his God was testing him, too. Surely he’d proven time and time again his faith and love to his deity? He thought he had especially shown his loyalty when his boss ordered that he and Amun merge so that they were way more powerful than Apep. They did so without a quibble or any questioning.

Why would his God merge two lesser gods and then allow them to see and do less than previously? He wished he knew the answer to that question, but suspected he would never really know.

Ra turned his attention back to his sentinels and their mates.

The love they held for each other was unbound and deeper than any other being that existed in all the worlds and inhabitants he’d had the fortune to see.

Ra envied them that. He was a little envious of the way his sentinels and their mates interacted and loved. He had only ever had the gentle touch of a couple of women but one in particular always stayed in the forefront of his mind. She’d been very attracted to him but she hadn’t loved him. While she'd touched his heart in a small way, he hadn't loved her, either. If he'd been able to spend more time with her, he suspected love would have come, but it hadn't been meant to be. There had been such a love for life in her eyes, he hadn't been able to resist her, and they'd spent a couple of wonderful hours together.

He’d tried to seek her out over the years, but apart from a brief glimpse of her a few years after their encounter, he’d never been able to see her again. After what he’d seen of her, maybe that was a good thing. The poor woman had gone down a destructive path, drinking and poisoning her body with drugs. His heart broke for her but her life was her own and out of his hands. He’d never had the loving touch of a woman and wondered what it would be like, but since he was a god he was sure he would never get the chance to experience such a thing.

The physical act had been physically gratifying for a few seconds but none of those women had touched his heart, nor he theirs.

It was only his eight sentinels that had ever touched on his emotions when they stepped in so long ago to save that poor old slave. That was until Zara, Nina, and Lavinia came onto the scene.

A smile tugged at his lips. Mitry and Weni were often making jokes with the other sentinels and telling them that they were pussy whipped, when the females weren’t around of course. And while they boasted about being able to do whatever they wanted since they had no female of their own, they craved what the other demigods had.

The two sentinels had begun spending more and more time hidden away in their apartment or out and about searching out the demonic on their own. Ra wished he could send her into their path, but it was forbidden.

God had told him to tell his warriors about sending them mates and while he hadn’t really doubted his deity, he hadn’t quite believed him either. There had been so many questions he’d wanted to ask but knew he wouldn’t get any answers until his boss was ready to impart with more information. Thankfully the women had asked some of the questions he’d wanted to ask and as soon as they finished asking, the answers flooded his mind.

That his God, the God of all living things, had deigned to answer the women’s questions through Ra, made him wonder if there was more to these innocent, loving females than he’d first suspected, but only time would tell. He wouldn’t have any more answers until God was ready to respond.

He was curious about the barely there angel marks on the women’s shoulder blades but he didn’t have any answers and again knew not to ask. The women and their mates were curious, but how could he respond to their questions when he had no answers?

It was hard being patient and watching when he wanted to jump in and take out the demonic and underworld leader, but if he knew his God, and he was pretty sure he did, there was more to come than what he was currently seeing.

He just wished he knew what it was.

Mit glanced about and sighed with relief when he saw that there were no more shadow demons left. He was tired but not physically. The tiredness which had invaded his body over the last months was all emotional and even though it was hard for him to keep his feelings hidden from the other sentinels, he’d managed to. Or thought he had.

When he saw Set and Sab glance over at him and Wen, he wondered if they knew how he was feeling. He gave a mental shrug and turned his back on the other men and their mates as the warriors made sure their women were unharmed.

Lavinia had taken a blow to the back earlier on in the fight and while she took a sip of Menna’s blood so she could heal, Mit, Wen, and Nehi, or En as he liked to be called, made sure that the demonic weren’t able to get at the pair. The moment Men released Lavinia, En ran his hands over Lavinia and checked out her healing wound to make sure his mate was okay.

“Are you ready to go home?” Wen asked.

Mit immediately shook his head but then changed it to a nod. He didn’t really want to go home and sit at the kitchen table while they all shared the breakfast meal, but he was so tired he couldn’t be bothered going elsewhere. Maybe he would feel a little better after showering and filling his belly. He just hoped that the other sentinels and their mates didn’t display any of the affection they usually did because he wasn’t sure how much more he could take. He was glad that his warrior friends were happy but he also wished he and Wen would find a woman of their own to love.

Sometimes he felt so hard and jaded and wondered if his heart was encased in ice. It was almost impossible not to become cynical and nearly numb of all feeling after fighting for nearly five thousand years with no end of the turmoil in sight.

After Lavinia had been pulled into the bowels of hell and survived to tell her story, Mit began to wonder if Ra and the other gods were sitting up in the heavens having a good laugh at their expense. If Ra had been able to follow Lavinia into hell and kill a cavern full of shadow demons, why the hell couldn’t he just go back and destroy the lot of them? Why were he and the other sentinels needed to fight all the time when his own deity had the power to take them all out?

The other sentinels had asked the same questions but there had never been any answers. Ra was suspiciously quiet although they’d barely had any interaction with the god. He had been more prevalent in their lives since Zara, Nina, and Lavinia had come onto the scene.

Mit sighed again and with a thought transported himself back to the apartment he shared with Weni in the underground, underwater bunker-type home they lived in. Ra had supplied the home for them millennia ago and although it was modern and he loved the place, sometimes he felt as if he were suffocating. Lately the only time he felt like he could really breathe was when he was outside fighting the shadow demons or sitting in Ra’s temple soaking up the sun’s rays. Something had to give soon because if it didn’t, Mit was worried that it would be him.

Weni threw himself onto the sofa and, without glancing at Mit, grabbed the TV remote and flicked the television on. Mit hurried toward his room and adjoining bathroom, hoping he would feel more at ease after a hot shower, but he wasn’t going to hold his breath.

* * * *

Krysta twitched and moaned as the dream plagued her once more. Each night was the same but she’d learned to go with it instead of fighting it. In the beginning she’d been terrified but now she just watched the scene play out as she distanced herself from the emotions.

She no longer shivered or cowered when the black wispy evil shadows floated toward her. Nor when the soulless man ran at her. The pain in her chest was no longer excruciating agony but more of a small annoyance. At first she’d thought she was going insane but after she’d encountered the creatures in her dreams while she was lucid and awake she knew otherwise. Once the dream played out she opened her eyes, pleased she no longer felt terror or gasped for breath. With a sigh of resignation, she flung the covers back and rose from the bed. Experience told her it would be useless to try and go back to sleep, so she pulled on a robe and headed for the kitchen, intent on making a cup of tea.

The first few times she’d encountered the nightmare she’d awoken gasping for breath, her chest aching with tears running down her face. However, when the dream returned night after night she began to get pissed.

That anger she’d begun to embrace had been a godsend because it had spurred her into action. She’d spent night after night researching the evil shadows and was astounded by the amount of information she’d found on the internet. And then she’d begun to prepare.

It had taken her months to sculpt her body until she was fitter and healthier than she’d ever been and then she searched out someone to teach her how to wield a sword. At first she’d felt clumsy and inept but her hired trainer pushed and cajoled until the sword felt as if it were an extension of her arm. Persistence or pure stubbornness on her behalf paid off and she began to fight back.

First she battled the beings in her sleep and then she battled them for real. Night after night, she'd driven around Nevada searching for those feelings of evil. She'd followed the dark, oily feeling until she was so close, she could almost taste the acrid disgusting sulfur on her tongue. She wasn't giving up until she'd eradicated as many of the shadows as she could. The moment she felt those evil beings she got out of her car, sword in hand, and waited. She had no idea how they found her but they always did.

Sometimes she felt as if she was a honing beacon to evil and while that worried her, she was also glad. Those evil shadows came to her and she was able to take them out one after the other. She didn’t care that she ended up with cuts on her body if they touched her or that her blood seeped out to soak into the black or dark clothes she wore. All she cared about was making sure none of those evil beings escaped to terrorize another person, the way they had her.

After finishing her cup of tea, she perused her sword and then picked up the sharpening stone.

Krysta ran the whetstone over the edge of the blade, honing the edge until it was razor sharp. When she was done she tested it with the pad of a finger and sighed with satisfaction. She then cleaned the sword with a soft cloth, getting rid of the small shavings of metal from the steel.

She reached for the bottle of holy water she’d stolen from a church font and trickled it over first one side of the sword and then the other. This time she didn’t wipe the cloth over the steel blade, leaving it on the table to air dry. She always made sure to not touch the steel blade of her sword after she covered it in holy water. She’d learnt the hard way that if any part of the blade was touched by her or another person, that the holy water was somehow wiped off. Luckily for her she’d been able to slash the black shadow with the other side of her sword when the first slash she’d made hadn’t seemed to injure it.

The last time she'd fought those shadows, she'd been wounded. It took her over a week to heal from her injury and blood loss, but as soon as she was fit enough to fight again, she was out searching to take those evil beings down.

Krysta had first thought she was the only person aware of the evil trying to kill innocent people, but one night she’d been standing on the edge of a copse of trees waiting for the shadows to find her when all of a sudden eight tall, muscular men and three women appeared out of nowhere. Two of them made her breath catch in her throat. Their muscular bodies had moved with such a fierce grace and strength, she’d been almost mesmerized. What had surprised her though was when her body reacted to them. She’d never felt arousal before and she’d been a little shocked, but no matter how hard she tried to look away from them, she wasn’t able to.

She’d watched them fight and destroy the evil ones from behind the trunk of a large tree, sagging with relief that she didn’t have to go to their aid. She had no idea where they’d come from or what they were, but she knew they weren’t just ordinary human beings. No human could move as fast as they could. She lost sight of the group countless times until one of the women cried out in pain and fell to her knees. What happened then made her curious. She watched the injured woman’s teeth elongate and then she sunk her fangs into the neck of the bald, handsome man who lifted her up into his arms.

The most amazing thing had been when the woman’s injury healed and then both she and her male partner dove back into the melee to fight until all those shadows were particles of ash floating on the gentle breeze, which thankfully had been blowing toward her instead of away from her. She had a feeling if the wind had been blowing the other way she would have been discovered.

As fast as they appeared, they disappeared again and though she wished they had hung around so she could speak to them and maybe join their little group, Krysta knew she was better off working alone.

She’d never been a people person and often got annoyed easily by the stupidity of some people. Krysta had learned to love her own company and became decidedly agitated when surrounded by others, except for a select few. Maybe that was because her mother had been an alcoholic and a drug addict. Her mother had died when she was young and she'd taken to the streets. She had no idea who her father was since her mom had never mentioned him. She'd often wondered if he knew she existed, but doubted it. Her mom had spent most of her time in drug and alcoholic stupors, and though Krysta had tried to find out who the man was that had donated sperm to create her, there had been no name on her birth certificate.