Frost Fire (Tortured Elements) (5 page)

Hers didn’t.

She made sure to leave her bedroom door closed when she left for the Hall. That was number five of the unspoken rules of the Manor—you want privacy, you make it.

Then it was a two story trudge downstairs. The Hall stood in the very back corner of the Manor’s first floor, which was an odd place for a room so huge and heavily-trafficked. But with Demons of all kinds joining together, and all ignoring clans and racial alliances—the room was just
destined
to be odd.

A young Trident Demon held open the door to the Hall for Allai, meeting her eyes in respect. What was the kid’s name? Archibald, that was it. She nodded at him and gave him a pitying smile. Partially because she knew the grunt-job of holding open a door for the forty-two resident Warriors totally sucked. And partially because his name sucked.

The Hall was set up as usual. Food lined up buffet-style, people lined up beside it domino-style. Tip one over, and they’d all fall flat, too tired to catch themselves. Because, by this time, it was just the younger Manor residents left in the hall. The ones who stayed up until one o’clock, only to be rudely awakened at five every morning.

Allai grabbed a paper plate and began picking food from the buffet, careful to only take from the platters marked ‘H’ for Hunter. They were the only dishes guaranteed to be cooked. All of the others were mostly raw meat and various spices. Because somehow a dash of paprika made raw beef
so
much more appetizing.

“Can someone just close the blinds?” a voice moaned from way back in the line. “The sun is so damn
cheerful
.”

Allai didn’t turn around to see who was talking. She already knew who it was: Some guy that’d been found in the nearest town, a Hunter who’d ended up with human parents through an adoption screw-up. That sort of thing happened rarely, like twice a century. Hunters were a close-knit, secretive bunch, and they didn’t like humans dabbling in their lives.

The kid had been brought back to the Manor as soon as the mistake was discovered. But a screw up is a screw up. He wouldn’t make it. The guy had the genes going for him: lithe muscle, medium-height, a ring of black right in the middle of his irises. A pure Hunter. But word had gotten around that he just didn’t have the heart for the job, and people had already begun taking bets on how soon he’d get killed. Not that the kid noticed. No, the poor guy was oblivious to everything.

Like to unspoken rule number seventeen: Don’t complain unless you can fix the problem yourself.

Allai finished filling her plate and headed for the corner of the room, where she belonged. The Hall was unofficially divided into sections, one for each class. Chargers at the front, Tridents to the right, and Hunters to the left. Anyone else—anyone out-casted, miscellaneous, or human—got to sit in the far, right corner.

Footsteps followed her, loud and sluggish. No member of the Sentinel would be caught dead walking like that, even if they were half-asleep. It had to be the kid.

She took a seat at the end of one of the rows of tables. And when she looked up—low and behold, it wasn’t
really
a kid. He was about seventeen or so, around her age, with blonde hair and bright blue eyes that gave him a lost-puppy-dog look. And, damn, did he look lost.

“Hey.” He shuffled his feet. “Can I… sit here?”

Allai waved her fork in the air, brushing aside his question. “This isn’t middle school. Here you sit wherever you’re welcomed, and wherever you can.”

He looked down at his shoes. “So… Can I sit here?”

She rolled her eyes and nodded.

“Thanks,” he muttered.

He clunked down in the chair, again not bothering with stealth or grace or anything a Hunter should use to move. Allai hoped her pity wasn’t showing on her face. But this guy had been completely ruined.

He cleared his throat and looked up at her. The guy seemed to be waiting for her to say something, and when she didn’t, he hesitantly asked, “So, do you have a name?”

“Allai.” She popped a mouthful of scrambled eggs into her mouth and thought for a moment as she swallowed. Then she added, “Allai Cyren.”

It got the effect she was going for. His face paled and his puppy eyes got impossibly wider. “Cyren? You’re that… that badass head guy’s daughter?”

“Shieldak,” Allai corrected. “My dad’s name is Shieldak Cyren, not ‘Badass Head Guy’.” She didn’t add that he’d probably appreciate being called that.

He mouthed the word ‘whoa’, like saying it out-loud would ruin the effect.

Allai held back a laugh. “So do
you
have a name?”

“Umm… Joseph?”

“You’re sure about that?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I think?”

“Look,” she said, “is your name Joseph or not?”

“Technically it is, I guess. But I’ve always gone by ‘Seph’.”

“Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?”

He rolled his eyes right at her, ignoring the fact that he didn’t even know how powerful or deadly she was. That was something he’d have to learn to control, if he wanted to survive here. “Why do you think? ‘Seph’ doesn’t fit here. Everyone has old names. Allai, Aldrich, Ebenezer—”

“No one here is named Ebenezer. We don’t have any parents living here who are
that
cruel.”

He glared right at her for interrupting his little rant, and Allai almost allowed herself a smile. Maybe the kid had a bit of spunk. Maybe he’d survive a little longer than everyone expected.

Allai ignored his glare and continued, “And not everybody has an old-fashioned name. There’s plenty with modern ones. It just depends on how old the person is, or how old their parents are.”

Seph blinked his puppy-eyes a couple times, absorbing this information. “So then my name might fit?”

A deep laugh came from beside them. Allai turned to see Jareth there. He was tall for a Hunter, handsome, and only a little older than Allai. She used to have a crush on him; he was considered an outcast because of some crime his dad had committed, and he usually ate at the same table Allai did. But her crush had come to an abrupt halt when she realized two things: The guy was born and raised a Hunter, so he’d never be interested in a Nox like her. And he had an alarmingly blunt personality.

She noticed the smirk on Jareth’s lips, and shot him a warning glare. He ignored it.

“You’re worried if your
name
fits in here?” Jareth asked. He chuckled and slid into the chair next to Seph, grinning at Allai like they were sharing some hilarious joke. “Kid, everything about you sticks out like a sore thumb. Your name is the
last
thing you should be worried about.”

Seph blushed to a deep shade of red. It was a little ridiculous, watching a Hunter blush. His kind was supposed to be tough and intimidating and mysterious. She wondered if anyone had told him that yet.

“Give him a break,” Allai said to Jareth. “He’s learning.”

Jareth patted Seph on the back. His bracer, the black one most Hunters wore in tradition, thunked painfully against Seph’s shoulder. He grimaced a little, and Allai wondered how purposeful the blow had been.

“Of course he’s learning,” Jareth said. “I’m his mentor.”

Allai shot him a skeptical look. Jareth grinned back, and Seph offered a hesitant smile.

Yep, he was ruined. If Seph had been given a nineteen-year-old mentor, even her dad didn’t think he stood a chance.

Her pity must have shown a little more than she’d thought, because Seph looked down and cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Did you guys hear about that enemy person they caught?” he asked.

It was an obvious attempt to change the subject, but Allai went with it. Just this once, and just because she didn’t want to think about Seph’s demise any longer. “Yeah,” she said. “It was Drake Rhaize.”

Jareth stole a muffin off Seph’s plate and tore into it. “Drake is an idiot,” he said as he swallowed. “The guy deserved to be captured. What’d he expect, hanging around Sentinel territory?”

For a moment, all she felt was relief. Jareth didn’t seem to know that Drake had saved her life. For some reason, she didn’t want all of the Sentinel knowing that. It somehow seemed… personal.

But then one of Jareth’s words slammed into her.

“Captured?” Allai repeated. She tried to keep her voice calm. Everyone in the Manor knew her history with Drake, but that didn’t mean they needed to know how much it confused or scared her.

“Yeah, Shieldak didn’t kill him.” Jareth paused and raised his eyebrows at her. “You really haven’t heard about this? Really? The guy tried to kill you, you know.”

“Believe me, I know,” Allai snapped. Then she said in a cooler tone, “It’s barely been a day since he was found. It’s not my fault that I didn’t get the news as fast as you did.”

It was a lie. If she had just gone into Shieldak’s office and asked about Drake, she would have known the outcome. But she hadn’t wanted to ask, because she had thought she’d just hear that Drake was dead. And Allai wasn’t sure how she would have reacted to that.

Jareth shook his head, a smirk slowly growing on his lips. “You’re such a Nox, Allai. Always so oblivious.”

She knew it wasn’t meant in jest. Comments like that rarely were. The Warriors of the Sentinel protected humans, but that didn’t mean they wanted any hanging around. She was considered a weakling and a nuisance, and no one pretended otherwise.

But she knew better than to try to defend herself from Jareth, because Shieldak would get after her. He said the Demons and Hunters of the Sentinel had every right to be annoyed by her. She was just one more thing they had to keep safe.

It was Seph who broke the awkward silence. “What’s a Nox?”

“A Nox is a human who knows about paranormals. Allai is one of them,” Jareth said, nodding to her.

Seph peered at Allai and frowned. “But you have silver eyes. Isn’t that a paranormal thing? Or do you just wear contacts?”

Allai opened her mouth to respond, but Jareth replied before her. She wanted to kick him. There was no reason she shouldn’t be the one answering Seph’s questions.

“It means she has traces of Demon blood somewhere in her history,” Jareth said. “Probably a great-great-great uncle or something. Because she obviously has no Demon powers.”

Did he really think she needed to be reminded? She shot him a glare and then changed the subject. “So what happened with Drake? You said he was captured.”

Jareth smirked at her, but went along with the change of topic. “Yeah. He’s being held hostage. Shieldak is still trying to contact Rhaize to see what kind of ransom he’ll pay.”

So Drake was alive and probably in this building. Part of her wanted to laugh in relief, but the other part wanted to sprint out of the Manor and never, ever come back. She closed her eyes for a fleeting second, wishing she were alone. That way she could just take some time to think about this situation and not worry what emotions came bubbling up.

Seph nudged Jareth with his elbow. “Who is this Rhaize guy, anyway?”

“He’s one of the leaders of the Keepers,” Jareth said, smacking away Seph’s arm. When Seph didn’t respond to that, Jareth sighed and said, “You
do
know who the Keepers are, don’t you?”

Allai saved Seph from the embarrassment of answering. “The Keepers are an enemy of the Sentinel,” she explained. “They’re a group of Demons and Mages who think they should have the right to feed off humans.”

Seph grimaced. “Why the hell would they want to do that?”

Jareth muttered something and looked to the ceiling in exasperation, but Allai calmly answered him. “Human blood enhances Demon and Mage powers. And, as long as it’s fresh, it can even lengthen their lifespan. But to be fresh, it has to be right from the source. Like, directly. Drawing blood with needles somehow ruins it.

“So that means paranormals have to injure or kill people to get it. Which the Sentinel is against, of course.”

“So we’re in a war?” Seph asked. “I mean, the Sentinel and the Keepers?”

“Exactly,” Allai said with a nod. “We’ve been fighting for over two centuries now. Rhaize has been a key player since the beginning. And then there’s the three Caedes Mages…”

She trailed off and shot Jareth an uncertain look. Unspoken rule number three declared that it wasn’t appropriate to talk about the three remaining Caedes Mages. They were Shieldak’s failures. He’d worked for centuries to eradicate the Caedes species, and he’d been mostly successful. Mostly.

To her surprise, Jareth picked up where she’d left off. “Caedes magic manipulates the elements, which makes it the most powerful type. Shieldak killed off most of the Caedes Mages, but there’s still three left. And they’re powerful enough to be a major threat.”

He paused to glance around, making sure no one in the Hall was listening in on their conversation. “Flacks and Corinth are the oldest Caedes and the main leaders of the Keepers. There also used to be a younger Caedes Mage, Matthias. Everyone said he was going to destroy the Sentinel, because he was crazy powerful. But then he disappeared about twenty years ago. No one knows what happened to him, but Flacks and Corinth claim he’s still alive.”

Seph’s face had paled, as if he was just realizing that there were real threats against the Sentinel. He swallowed hard.

Allai smiled slightly at Seph, and said in a reassuring tone, “In some ways, it’s a good thing the Caedes run the Keepers. If they didn’t control it, then Rhaize would. And the Caedes Mages are creepy, but Rhaize is, well…”

“Psychopathic,” Jareth supplied. “That dude is messed up. And everyone says his sons are just as evil as he is.” He nodded to Allai. “You can tell him about that, right?”

She nodded a little too quickly. “Yeah. Yeah, his sons are pretty much evil, too.”

“Pretty much?” Jareth repeated. “Are you getting soft on me, Cyren?”

“No,” she snapped.

Jareth smirked. “You sure about that?”

Allai shoved her chair away from the table, standing abruptly. “I’m going to finish breakfast in my room. Okay?” She snatched her plate and turned to leave.

“Are you alright?” Seph asked.

She shook her head and just walked away. Seph also hadn’t learned rule number one: never ask if someone was alright, because that’d only lead to someone dumping problems on you. And everyone in the Sentinel had enough problems of their own.