Threatened: Book Six, page 1
Threatened
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 Amabel Daniels
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions
Dedication
Daisy
Chapter One
Sand filled my mouth as I rolled over.
Sand?
Hisses, screeches, and roars clashed as soon as I came to.
Oh, my God.
I shifted to my side, blinking my eyes open at the chaos. Griffins and two-headed birds clashed with umibazas. Birds darted, and leopards ran into the waves, snapping at the fat tentacles that slapped at the earth.
I’d been hit. My entire side ached, and I gritted my teeth as sand rubbed in the sliced gash on my arm.
Damn those umibazas. They’d never give up getting to me—
Brody!
It came back to me with a gasp. Just before that tentacle had smacked me to the ground, I’d been lassoing Brody. That punk Aquine elf was causing this stupid, pointless challenge to prove, what? That he was better than me? Such idiocy.
If I could stop him, then his freakish water monsters would have to stop.
Lurching forward, I grabbed the vine I’d commanded to grow. It had been slithering away from me after I’d been knocked out.
I clutched it, wincing at the pain on my side. My neala still glowed a fierce, bright light on this dark beach.
An umibaza gripped my leg, and with the shift toward him, I lost the vine.
“Argh!” I wrestled to get my leg free.
“Ahhh!” Another yell sounded behind me, tracking forward. A long dagger sliced at the sand, severing the umibaza’s arm off. In the light of my stone, the blade reflected a blue stain.
Ivelis stood, whipping her wiry gray hair back with her movement. She took stock of me on the sand and then gasped. Her stare locked on my hand. The neala.
Well, so much for hiding it.
“The stone.” She ducked her head. Like a bow? “You have the stone.”
The stone? The neala was a stone. Was that what she meant?
An umibaza roared, and she spun with amazing dexterity for a woman I’d assume to be in her eighties.
“Back up. Back up.” She gripped a stalk of vine, one of the ever-present strips she kept over her shoulder. Her malachite ring glowed and a stick formed in her hand. Crouching in a fighter’s stance, she tapped the tip to her hip, to a container, and the stick glowed with a bright blue flame. Waving it back and forth, she trained the umibazas away while I scooted further from the water.
“Wait!” I paused my retreat. “That vine.”
I buckled over at the stabbing pain in my leg as I tried to stand. “Get that vine.”
She lowered, snatching the vine, and retreated with me. “What is this?”
“This?”
Jeez. I didn’t know what to call it. War of the land animals versus the sea? Ivelis was a Pure elf but could only control and fully see plants, not animals.
She held the vine higher. “This.”
“That guy—” I hobbled to stand and pointed to the water. “He’s controlling them.”
She nodded once and narrowed her eyes. “Here.”
I took the torch from her. In her hand, the vine thickened immediately. Out in the distance, I could make out the shape of Brody trying to dive into the water to get away from me.
With my neala stone activated, I had to bet I’d have more power to channel than her. Still, I was winded, and I fended off the umibazas as she wrapped Brody in a vine-covered burrito.
“You are drained,” she said as Brody was reeled in closer and closer to us. “Let me help.” She glanced at me, then my illuminated neala.
“Thank you.” Standing straighter, I tugged her sleeve, making sure she backed up for the clashes of violence at the sea.
Brody wobbled as he was brought in, his feet and arms flailing. Ivelis had commanded the vine to cover his mouth, as a gag, and despite the pain, despite the anger, I had to smile.
Smart.
The further we retreated from the beach, allowing the animals on the land and the birds in the air to combat the sea monsters, Brody was dragged along with us.
“He has to stop them.”
Ivelis grunted. “He will listen to you?”
Heck no. But maybe I could browbeat him into calling defeat.
Ivelis directed her energy to the vine, bringing Brody right to our feet.
“If he sleeps…” she said.
If Brody wasn’t awake, he couldn’t actively direct his Aquine energy to the sea monsters he’d sicced on me. He wouldn’t be able to call them off, either.
“The animals will settle it,” Ivelis said. She pointed at the water. “They cannot survive on land. They can only retreat to the depths.”
Hmm. True.
I limped to Brody, smirking as he wiggled.
Ivelis reached into the small leather bag at her waist. “I have a dart—”
I punched him.
Martino hadn’t expanded too much in the lesson about effective offensive tactics, always prioritizing defense in our training. But it seemed I had beginner’s luck here.
Brody’s head snapped back and his eyes closed.
I stood, wincing. I flexed my hand open and closed.
“Ow.” I bit my lip.
Ivelis cocked a brow at me. “You are full of surprises, Layla.”
Rubbing my hand, I glanced back at the beach. All the animals that had answered my call for help snapped and snarled at the sea monsters, keeping them back.
The monstrous mountain of a shape that had encroached toward the shore was gone. That was progress I’d accept.
“How did you find me? How did you even know I’d be here?”
Ivelis watched the vines as they lengthened, and then she stuck the plant into the ground. Like staking Brody on a wrapped-up leash. Then she dusted her hands off and faced me.
“The animals. They fled the jungle.” She stared at my neala, its light fading now. “I felt the tremor and knew something was wrong.”
Tremor?
Oh. From those huge tentacles smacking down on the earth.
“I borrowed a park bike and followed the animals here.”
I glanced toward the path that led to the parking lot, spotting a beat-up moped.
“Thank you, Ivelis. Thank you.”
Again, she bowed, and the…court-like manner behind it piqued my interest. “You have the stone.”
I fisted the neala, now merely warm instead of hot, humming instead of vibrating. My alexandrite was a stone, yeah, just like the malachite she wore. “It, um, it was my mother’s.”
She nodded, and before I could worry about explaining it or pleading with her to not tell anyone I had it, she said, “This boy? Who is he?”
“From the school.”
Her lips twisted. “I am not surprised.”
“Why?” I sat with a loud exhale.
She dropped to her knees, probing into her small satchel. “The…big man. School. Government. The rulers. I’ve never trusted them. They commissioned the hunters who killed my family. Never trust them.”
Oh, she had no idea how little my trust-o-meter could rise. Except with her, especially as I asked no questions when she spread a salve on my arm, near the slash from the umibaza. Cooling relief traced out instantly.
“See?” she asked, jerking her head toward the water. “The creatures can settle this between themselves.” Umibazas receded into the water, a line of panthers and wild dogs blocking them from approaching the land.
I nodded and sighed.
“What do we do with him?” she asked, closing a lid on a small pot holding the salve.
Do with him? I eyed Brody.
Ivelis was still watching me when I met her gaze. I had to have an answer to that? Never mind her chill and matter-of-fact manner with me, not even asking anything about why she happened to find me in a wicked fight of creatures.
“Nothing,” someone answered from the side.
We looked up at the person coming close. Wolf!
“You’ll let him go,” Wolf said as he staggered further onto the beach, heading for us.
Water sagged his clothes as he marched forward. The blood on his forehead must have been cleaned off in his swim from the boat I’d found him on.
“Who is this?” Ivelis stood, her dagger at the ready, a vine in her other hand, the tendrils already thickening and stretching into a rope.
/>
“Friend or foe?” she asked me as she adopted a fighter’s stance.
Wolf huffed a dark laugh before he hauled a knife from his belt and sliced at the vine trapping Brody to the ground.
Let him go?
I stood now, stunned.
“Friend or foe?” Ivelis repeated, firmer.
I honestly don’t know.
Chapter Two
“Come on, Layla,” Wolf said in his raspy, albeit tired voice. “You know I’m on your side.”
“Then why in the hell would I let him go?” I approached him, taking inventory of his condition.
I hadn’t heard from him for months. Found him captive on a boat, the victim of sedatives and at least one wound. He’d been taken as a way to get to me, and the guilt of that association cut me to the core. I’d been the cause of his situation. I think?
He marched toward me in sync with my pace and pulled me into a fierce hug.
“Damn, kid. Does trouble ever not follow you?” he muttered into my hair.
I choked out a laugh then pushed him back. “Are you okay? What happened?”
He frowned, maneuvering the torch I still held to inspect the wound on my arm. “Are you okay?”
“I have…salve,” Ivelis interjected, her face and stance still untrusting.
Wolf nodded, giving the old woman a critical but brief once-over. “Making friends, Layla?” He smirked at me. “And you were so worried about being such a loner…”
I smacked his shoulder. “Wolf, what the heck is going on? No one’s heard from you for months. You’re—”
“Hiding. I’m going to hide again, Layla.”
I gaped at him.
“Come on. You can’t stay here,” he said, leading me toward the parking lot.
I dug my feet in, not budging.
A low growl sounded, coming nearer, and I sucked in a huge breath of relief at Knightley bounding toward me.
Buddy! Thank God you’re okay.
Behind my grog was the newly recruited one I’d “rescued” for no other reason than to hunt down the elusive friend before me. Lady ran up to us as well. Behind them, I could see a boat nearing the shore.
“Come on,” Wolf insisted. “Both of you.”
“The boy—” Ivelis argued.
“Leave him,” Wolf snapped. He ducked, encouraging us to mimic his pose as we neared a low wall bordering the parking lot.
Leave him? Hell no!
Wolf’s grip on my arm was tight, though, and I could barely stand well to begin with. When Ivelis had opened her mouth to protest as she brought up the rear, Wolf shushed her. The steadfast alarm in his eyes warned me to keep quiet.
“Let Wendy get him out of here,” he whispered as we hunkered down behind the wall, out of sight.
It was too surreal. Too fast of blurred chaos. One minute, I was hanging on the best I could in an otherworldly fight between creatures and beasts. The next, I was holding my breath in the calm quiet, listening as Wendy roused Brody to get free of the vine and get on the boat.
Only once the boat’s engine zoomed them away did Wolf speak. An explanation would be nice.
“What…” I pressed my hand to my hip, grimacing at the pain from being slammed to the beach.
“She caught me following a lead,” he began.
“On Stu?”
He licked his lips. “Yeah.”
I cocked my head.
“Then that punk decided I might be a good way to reach you.”
“For what?”
“The stone,” Ivelis answered. “You guard the stone.”
Wolf nodded, narrowing his eyes at her, perhaps second-guessing his faith in her helping me. A stranger to him.
“Thought they told you to hide it,” Wolf said with a snort.
“I had been hiding it!” I sat up more, letting Knightley nudge at me, checking me. “Then that Aquine idiot decided to call war and I needed it to—”
“War?” Wolf shook his head. “Don’t jinx us.”
“Why did you let him go?”
He smirked at me. “What would we have done with him?” The way he posed the question was starkly different from when Ivelis had asked it. She probably had sneaky ideas of controlling the jerk. Wolf…he sounded mocking.
“Well…we…”
“Nothing. His family would have bailed him out of any human jail, and what the hell would you have even told them?”
I licked my lips, hating his valid points. But to just let him go?
“The Valdens are no joke. And who they know is no joke.”
“So, you surrender to the big man?” Ivelis retorted.
Wolf sighed. “He got what he wanted. He saw how powerful you are.” He flicked a crumpled-up bandage at the ground. “Transdermal sedative. That’s what Wendy gave me. As soon as Knight untied me, I put it on her, but it didn’t last long. I watched your…fight, all of it.” His stare unnerved me, but his grin egged me into a smile. “You’re…you’re good, Layla. Really good.”
After such an adrenaline roller coaster of fighting for my life, I couldn’t bask in his compliment for long. “He got what he wanted?”
“He knows how powerful you are.” He pointed at the stone I’d set back in my locket and strung on my necklace once more. “He knows you have that.”
“So?” I crossed my arms. “So, now what?”
“Now he knows how much of a threat you are.”
Oh, come on. Riddles from you, too? Brody knew I had a neala. Whoops. He knew I was powerful. Okay. “So…”
“So, you get the hell out of here.”
Away from Brody? Out of Costa Rica? What would happen if I didn’t?
He must have seen the flurry of questions from my face because he held up a hand. “You need to report to the council about what happened here.”
That sounded way too much like a dismissal.
Marcy had asked me to keep an eye on Wolf, in case he needed me while he snooped for leads on Stu. Well, I’d found him now, in a questionable and not-so-safe setting.
“And you’re going to be right there with me.”
He shook his head, standing and offering me a hand to rise as well. “I can’t.”
“Wolf!”
He shook his head. “I’m too close. I was so damn close to finding Stu when Wendy pulled me out here for Brody’s little bait idea. To get to you and know how much of a threat you might be.”
“A threat to who?” I fisted my hand, not so beaten and fatigued to boil with frustration. “Why?”
“For several people. Brody’s just the tip of the iceberg, kid. And the more you stick near him in school, the more I can go after Stu.”
“Wolf!” I said as he started to head toward the parking lot. “You can’t just go!” Again!
I needed answers! He owed the council answers! He owed Marcy…well, something. A reassurance he wasn’t dead, at least.
He shook his head once more and ran off, calling back, “Don’t let him out of your sight!”
Don’t let Brody out of my sight? He’d just told me to let Wendy get Brody away!
Talk about a see-saw of mixed signals. I had no clue where to stand, what to do.
There was no way I could chase after Wolf, not with my hip and leg so sore.
Once he was far enough that he couldn’t hear me, I whispered, “Follow him.”
Lady trotted off after him, and I only hoped she’d listen to my order and stick to him even if he tried to lose her.
Ivelis and I stood together, staring at Wolf running toward the city.
“Never trust the men,” she muttered.
I could only laugh once.
If you can’t cry, laugh?
“This council,” Ivelis said.
“He means at the school. Up north.” I gestured toward where Wolf disappeared. “He—Wolf—he works there. Or he did. He was my boss. A friend.”
“Is this council… Are they good?”
I huffed out a sigh. Most of them were. Glorian wasn’t. Hell, I didn’t know, but I bet none of them were going to be happy with my failure to hide the neala like I’d promised I would.
So much for promising not to use it, huh?
“I see,” she said after a moment of my silence as I debated how to answer.
“I can trust some of them…”
“You can trust me, as well.” Peering back at the now-calm waves, she stared at the waves unseeing. “Because neither of us can trust those who seek violence with the earth.”
