Dawn of a New Age: A Sons of Satrina Novel (2 page)

She would be better off without him, anyway. At least, she would be better off having him as only a friend. She was too damn good for him. The way that she survived the kidnapping and everything she had done since receiving the mark proved that she only deserved the best. She deserved a man that wasn’t destined for this life, someone that would defend only her. Jackson wanted that for her. However, he didn’t relish the idea of her finding that man all too soon because he knew he’d want to pound the ever living crap out of him.

Hobbling back into his room, holding on to his aching ribs, Jackson grinned when he saw his boys waiting for him. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you guys asleep?”

“We wanted to check on you first. How’re you doing, Jax?” Dylan asked, looking concerned.

“I’m fine.” He waved off their concern and straightened up his stance, holding in a wince at the pain of doing so.

“How’s Aisline doing?” Trey asked, frustrated that they hadn’t been allowed in to see her, hence why they were hiding out in Jackson’s room.

“Better than she was when she came in. She’s still out of it on a lot of pain meds, but I guess that’s a good thing.”

Both boys nodded and fell silent. They had done what they needed to do to put their minds at rest, seeing Jackson up and about. Still, they didn’t make a move to leave just yet. The night had scared them all, reminding them of what they were going to be facing after they graduated from their training. The mood across the whole academy was sombre.

Realising that they weren’t about to go anywhere, Jackson carefully made his way around the room to the bed. He was shattered and needed to lie down. Trying to make it look like he wasn’t in too much pain, Jackson eased himself down onto the bed. The show he was putting on didn’t succeed as they were watching him like hawks and didn’t miss the flinch of pain as he settled into a laying position.

“Do you want us to leave?” Trey asked.

“No, it’s fine. Make yourselves comfortable. I’m just going to close my eyes for a moment…” Exhaustion over took him quickly. He didn’t even hear if they responded as his eyes began to close all of their own accord and sleep took him away from the pain and the stress of the night.

Aisline woke up a short while later. She felt drained, but much more alert this time. Her eyes opened and stayed open after she blinked away the sand that scratched at her eyes. Her thoughts were finally clear and, although her body ached, the pain was now at least manageable.

The only problem was that with a clear mind came clear memories. It all came rushing back to her with such clarity that a violent shudder ran through her. Her skin broke out in goose-bumps and clammy sweat fogged her brow.

So much had happened to her in such a short space of time. Even with her mind free from the drugged out haze, it was difficult for her to process all that had happened to her. Ash already knew that she would never be able to talk about and share the full extent of what had happened to her at the hands of the Mortuorum. No one. It was way too personal. She knew that warrior Kelton would ask her for a full report as soon as she was fit and able, but how much would she be able to tell him? How far would she be willing to go?

Ash could clearly remember every single pain ridden detail of the humiliating ride that the enemy had taken her on. Beaten black and blue, taunted and tormented. Abused and treated like a worthless piece of trash. The death by fire had only been an after-thought when the Mortuorum realised that the Sons of Satrina warriors had found their location. They had planned for something much more up close and personal for her, dragging out her pain and degradation for as long as they could. Death by flames would have been a blessing if the Sons hadn’t been able to get her out of there.

Thinking ‘what it’ was pointless. More to the point, it was too scary to contemplate. So many things could have happened to her. After all that she had been through, you would have thought that would have been the worst of it, but seeing how their minds worked, Aisline knew that she would have been subjected to so much more than she could have ever feared. They were animals. They were her worst nightmare.

As she turned to find a more comfortable position in the ridiculously hard hospital bed, there was a sudden commotion outside her door.

“I don’t care! It’s not like I’m going in there to disturb her. I’m just checking on her. There’s no crime in that.” Jackson said harshly as he opened the door, one of the nurses bustling and scowling behind him.

“It’s okay. I’m awake.” Ash said as soon as they clocked her.

“Hey.” Jackson said quietly as his eyes flicked over her, checking for any signs of pain or anguish. She looked relatively normal to him. Well, that was if you could ignore the assortment of cuts and bruises she was decorating her pale skin. At least she was looking better than when they had first brought her back in.

“You have two minutes.” The nurse said sternly.

Jackson rolled his eyes. “How are you feeling now?”

“I’m here. I’m alive.” Ash quipped.

“That’s all we can ask for.” Jackson grinned.

“How are you feeling?” she asked awkwardly, knowing any injuries he had sustained was because of her. None of them had come away from the mission unscathed. Ash had heard the nurses talking when they thought she was sleeping, saying that they were rushed off their feet dealing with an assortment of cuts, bruises and burns from the fire. That weighed heavily on Ash’s mind. They wouldn’t be hurt if it wasn’t for her.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

They were quiet again for a moment. It wasn’t one of those companionable silences that they used to share. This was plain awkward. Too much needed to be said and neither of them were willing to say it.

Ash hated this. She just wanted things to go back to the way they were before. They had such an easy friendship, before things got complicated. No matter what happened next, she wanted that back more than anything.

Jackson was a pretty quiet guy on the whole, but this was a whole new level of quiet for him. The night before had clearly taken its toll on him, too. Ash had over-heard the nurses talking about what had happened, how he had defied orders to get out of the warehouse. She knew that Jackson would be in for a world of trouble if that was true. No matter the outcome, Kelton would have to punish him for that. Ash hoped that she would get the chance to defend him for his insubordination, seeing as it had the desired effect and he had got her out of there in one piece.

Ash didn’t know what to say to break the silence. It was clear that he didn’t, either. There was a lot that had been left unsaid between then and neither of them were inclined to break that particular silence. That was a path they weren’t ready to go down just yet. The easy quiet that they’d had was out of reach so now they were left in this echoing silence.

The door open abruptly and the stern face of the nurse poked in the doorway. “Right, that’s it. Time’s up. You need to get back to your room now, young man. Someone will be in to see you shortly.” She lingered in the doorway to make sure that Jackson followed her out.

“I’ll come back to check on you later.”

Ash breathed out a sigh of relief when the door shut behind him. She had wanted to see him, the room had seemed very lonely when she had woken up and found the chair next to the bed empty. She wanted to make things right between them, but didn’t know where to start. Their strained silence had left her feeling exhausted.

It didn’t help that they were now reducing the pain meds drastically, relying on her bodies own ability to heal itself. She felt shocking. The black and blue bruising that was rainbowing her skin was starting to ache with a brand new intensity.

Putting her head on the lumpy pillow, she was surprised to feel the creeping fingers of sleep tickling at the corners of her mind. Closing her eyes gratefully, she gave herself up, happy to be away from reality for a little while longer.

Chapter Two.

Everything was coming undone at the seams. Since the death of their beloved leader, Bartholomew, at the hands of their enemy, the Mortuorum, it had just been one problem and disaster after another. And now? It was more than the weight of the world that was balancing on Kelton’s shoulders. He had one too many problems to deal with any of them effectively at the moment.

The last few months weren’t going to be a period that anyone would be able to forget in a very long time. Kelton felt like it was a personal failure. So many things had gone wrong, so many things that he wasn’t able to stop from happening. Never before had they ever had a trainee abducted by the enemy. He knew that the whole field exercise idea was a horribly bad one from the very beginning and he had fought the council on their decision to do so. He and the other warriors had tried their best to stop it, and when that wasn’t enough, they did all they could to ensure the students safety. In the end, it hadn’t been enough. He had failed.

Kelton sighed to himself as he thought of all that had happened. There had been too many things working against them for it to have been a successful exercise. For all their hours of planning, in a perfect world, the trainees and warriors would have all returned to the academy unscathed. He had personally helped to plan their routes meticulously, making sure that each group had back up and sending them out into the areas of the city that the Mortuorum would least likely be frequenting. Still, he had failed to keep them safe. Kelton held himself responsible.

There were so many things that he had to deal with now that he wasn’t sure where to start. The smart thing would be to take on the biggest and most immediate problems and shelve the rest until he had the time to deal with them properly. But, everything seemed to demand his attention and his head was swirling with all that he had to do.

Thankfully, they had Aisline back more or less in one piece. The rescue mission had been a success, getting back their girl and no fatalities on their side. The injuries she had sustained would heal relatively quickly, with the help of the medical staff at the academy. Physically, she would be fighting fit again in no time.

That wasn’t their only concern, though. Kelton and Kayleigh had briefly spoken about the emotional scars that the young girl would bear. Whether she would actually want to go back into the training programme was an entirely different question. No one else would or could tell her what she needed to do to get through this. All they could do was be there for her whatever she decided.

Kelton wouldn’t put pressure on her either way. Sure, he had been nervous about allowing a female into their ranks, but she had more than proved her worth and strength. She was an excellent warrior and even if she didn’t have the muscle mass that the rest of the male trainees had, she had brought her own kind of special something that kept her right up there with the rest of the guys. If she chose to continue in her fight against the Mortuorum, then they would all be there to support her decision. It wouldn’t be easy, fighting against the warrior mark had proved to be all but impossible in the past, but if she couldn’t face going back out into the field after what she’d been through, then he would do all he could to help her.

There were some other casualties from their mission to raid the Mortuorum nest when they went out to retrieve Aisline, but thankfully, there had been no deaths on their side. The same couldn’t be said of the bastards that had taken her. Kelton and the rest of the warriors had taken out as many of the vile creatures that had been on that site as possible. It had felt good to exact a little revenge at the time. Shame it was never enough.

Kelton felt like banging his head against the wall. The phone in his private office was constantly ringing off the hook, so much so that he had to recruit a couple of the senior trainees to come in and field the calls for him. There were plenty of worried parents calling in to question the safety of their children, which was the last thing he needed to deal with right now. He had no idea how the word had got out about what went down, but it obviously had and it was making his life all the more harder. The families of the injured warriors, including Aisline and Jackson, had already been informed. Frankly, Kelton didn’t have the time to molly-coddle the parents of the other students that hadn’t even been affected. The boys were all here to train. It wasn’t a profession that was without its dangers and the parents knew what their children were letting themselves in for. Sure, they all should have been completely safe during their training period, but still…

The council were also trying to contact him non-stop. Kelton had so far flatly refused to speak to them after his initial contact. He had told them all that they needed to know and he didn’t have the time or the inclination to go over and over it with them. He would forward his report as soon as he could via email, but they clearly weren’t satisfied with that. It wasn’t like any of them were just calling up for a friendly chat, and Kelton didn’t have the time to waste on them. They were the ones that had forced the idea of the field exercise and now he was left cleaning up their mess.

Kelton was far from stupid. He knew that they had used the field exercise as leverage to try and get him to bend and accept their leadership offer. Well, their plan had well and truly backfired on them, in more ways than one. He was perfectly satisfied with his role of Master Warrior and the head of the academy and the warriors as a whole. The last thing he needed in his life was to get caught up in the bullshit politics of the council and everything else that came with leading the Lamia Matris race. For now he was content with being in charge of his own small world. That was enough for him. Kelton didn’t want the whole world at his feet. He already had more than enough to contend with, thank you very much.

Coffee. He needed gallons and gallons of coffee to see him through the next few hours. Dawn was already approaching fast but Kelton knew that sleep would still be a long way off yet. There was no way that he would be able to calm his nerves down enough to relax his mind into a restful sleep state, not while there was still so much to do.

He decided to head out of his office and go and find Kayleigh. It was useless for him to stay in the office when he was refusing to speak to anyone, anyway. He had to keep on moving and knew that she would probably be down in the medical suite, checking on the injured.

Running a hand over his shaven head, Kelton resolutely walked down the long winding corridors, nodding politely to the warriors that he passed, but not stopping to speak to any of them. He wanted to check on Jackson and Aisline himself. The poor girl had looked a complete bloody mess when they had brought her back in. His blood boiled when he thought of all that she had been through. They had beaten her to within an inch of her life. They had tied her up and left her to die in a room that danced with fire. It was mainly with thanks to Jackson and his quick thinking that they had got her out of there still breathing. It had been a close call.

He was pleased that he had made the right call on taking Jackson out on the rescue mission. It had been a tough decision to make, seeing as the boy was still only a trainee, but they might not have managed to get her out of there without him. Of course, there was still the issue of Jackson not following direct orders and assaulting a Master Warrior, but that could all wait. Kelton had managed to clean up most of the blood off his face but his nose still throbbed dully from the kid breaking it with an awesome head-butt. He’d suffered much worse injuries than that in the past, but never at the hands of one of his fellow warriors and certainly not a trainee.

Kelton had to grin to himself when he thought of Jackson. The boy had gone in there like a bull in a china shop, nothing would have ever been able to stop him from getting Aisline out of danger. Sure, he knew that he couldn’t let the boy get away with what he had done, but he certainly respected the boy’s motivation and dedication. If it had been Kayleigh that had been stuck in that burning building, he knew that he would have done the exact same thing. No one and nothing would have been able to stop him from getting to her when she needed him the most.

Speeding up his steps and dodging a group of trainees that were loitering in the dark hallways, Kelton was suddenly filled with the sudden need to see Leigh. She was his anchor. She was what kept him grounded, real and functioning. After the night they had just been through, he needed her now more than ever.

After checking on both Aisline and Jackson several times, Kayleigh spent some time with one of the other warriors that had been injured in the line of duty. He was now asleep, which wasn’t all too surprising after all they had been through. She stayed with him a little while longer after he had drifted off, enjoying the peace of the moment. It was the one place that she wasn’t disturbed by people asking her various questions that she didn’t have the answers to.

Making her way back up to Kelton’s office, she wanted to see if there was anything that she could do for him. All of this had been very hard on him and she wanted to do all she could to help ease that burden. At the very least, she was sure that he would be in need of emotional support. Kelton may be a big, badass warrior, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t feel. She knew all too well how much he had taken to heart what happened to Ash.

Kayleigh had only caught a very brief glimpse of him on his way back into the academy with the rest of the warriors, looking as battered and bruised as the rest of them. At least he was back in one piece. That short glimpse of him had given her reassurance.

She needed to see him. To touch him. He was her life and it killed her every single time that he went out into the field. This had been a stressful time for her. Waiting had been a killer.

The warrior life wasn’t easy on her. Waiting around for him to come back from hunting the enemy and worrying if he was going to make it back, it was all hard on her to deal with. Of course, she never had any doubt of his skills as a fighter, but there was always the chance of something else going wrong that was beyond his control.

However, she had entered into this life and their relationship knowing full well what she was getting herself into. All she could do was pray for him and his comrade and deal quietly with the heartache that his profession caused her.

When she finally got to his office, it was full to brimming with too many bodies. She couldn’t see Kelton among them. Where was he? Was he alright? All she could see was a mass of limbs, unidentifiable from one another, save for the odd ink design here and there. Pushing her way through the warriors and trainees, she saw Sol and waved.

“You’re kidding me?” she said when the warrior directed her out to the front reception of the academy. That was the first place she should have actually looked. Seeing the sea of bodies and the constant loud hum of noise, she should have known that he would have been hiding out of the way of the constant phone calls and harassment. Smiling sympathetically at Sol as he rolled his eyes and answered the phone on the desk, she rushed back out of the office.

There wasn’t any point in sticking around the office and getting in the way. The warriors seemed to have everything in hand. Plus, the council very rarely lowered themselves to actually talk to her. Kayleigh didn’t hold any position of authority at the academy and therefore, she didn’t exist in their eyes.

Moving quickly through the corridors, she sucked in a breath when she finally saw him. He was stood with his shoulders hunched over, watching the security cameras intently. What remained of his clothes were torn to tatters and streaked with dirt and blood. Bruising was already starting to spread across his bare back, all those defined muscles were tensed to attention. She felt a surge of guilt as her body warmed at the sight of him. He may have looked more than a little dishevelled and battle weary, but the mere sight of him sent waves of longing rushing through her veins.

“Hey.” She said quietly, smiling at the relief of seeing him in one piece. Yes, he was battered and bruised, but he wasn’t broken.

“Hey, you.” Kelton turned to face her at the sound of her voice. Smiling even before he’d set eyes on her, he leaned down to kiss her gently on the cheek. With a quick grin, he raised a finger to wipe a smudge of soot that his lips had left on her skin.

Running a hand softly over his swollen cheek, she saw him wince.

“Don’t worry. It’s nothing. Just a broken nose. It’ll be good again in no time. It’s just feeling a little tender right now.” He explained. Kayleigh glanced at the remains of the dried blood on his face in concern.

Turning back to the monitor, “What the hell?” Kelton leaned forward to look more closely at the screen which displayed the image of the exterior of the building. A large Audi S8 had just pulled up directly outside their doors and the driver had already gotten out of the car and was walking around to open up the back door.

“Great. This is just what I don’t need.” Kelton muttered.

Kayleigh leaned over to try and see what was going on. “What’s up? Who is it?” She was unable to see anything passed Kelton’s considerable frame.

“Mr Kellerman, I presume. I recognise the car and number plate from when they dumped Aisline here.” Kelton’s voice was grim. He wasn’t relishing meeting this man face to face.

He knew that this meeting could have gone a lot worse. Kelton had already called the family to tell them the good news, that they had got Aisline back with them. He had done his duty over the phone and wasn’t looking forward to an up close confrontation with this man. He’d had a problem with this guy since the moment he had abandoned his daughter, and his attitude problem sucked.