Chapter Twelve

 

Declan paced nervously behind the sofa where Nalini was sitting comfortably and sipping tea with her mother. Though the London home was filled with the brothers who’d been assigned to find the flower with him, Declan was scared to death for Nalini.

As the clock inched closer to midnight, when the daemons would come for her, Declan found himself regretting the decision to let her be bait. A firm hand squeezed Declan’s shoulder, drawing his attention to the winged warrior who appeared on his left.

“Stop worrying. I swear Nalini won’t be harmed. Trust me, brother,” Tristan assured him with a smile.

“I do trust you and our brothers. I just don’t trust anyone else,” Declan only half-joked as he watched Tiernan and Dizarion warily.

“You can trust them the same way you do me,” Tristan whispered when he noticed where Declan was looking. “They’d give their lives for you and your mate. That I swear.”

“I’m not comfortable with their energy,” Declan admitted as he studied the Dark Warrior and the Night Walker.

Tristan chuckled and nodded sympathetically.

“It must be that way for them to travel within the dark realms. Surprisingly enough, I don’t fit in the dark places,” Tristan joked as his eyes glowed with a brilliant white light for a moment.

Declan couldn’t help the laugh that erupted at his baby brother’s antics. Tristan had always been everyone’s favorite brother from the moment each of them had felt the spirit fighting within the infant when Tricia was pregnant.

Each of the Dranovians had known Tristan was different, but none of them had ever imagined the incredible warrior child that he was. It wouldn’t have mattered to any of the brothers if Tristan had stayed that same beautifully innocent and precious child they had thought was autistic.

It was Tristan’s energy that had drawn each of the Dranovians to the boy. It was so pure, innocent and loved unconditionally and without judgment. Though the boy had never been comfortable with any physical interactions, he communicated very well with his energy and still did.

Even now, Declan could feel the confidence and anticipation running through Tristan. Underlying that was the same unconditional love and acceptance his brother had always given to him. Now the loyalty and love that Tristan felt for Declan was extended to Nalini and even her parents. He might question Dizarion and Tiernan, but Declan would never doubt Tristan. 

“Not a scratch,” Declan said as he draped an arm around Tristan and gave him a half hug.

“Not even a hair on her head will be fluffed,” Tristan replied with a hearty laugh.

Tiernan and Dizarion stood and began to pull their swords. Declan was instantly alert as he and Tristan also drew steel. He’d been warned that the Dark Warrior and Night Walker would have sensed the daemons first. Tristan looked over at Declan’s sword, and he grinned.

“Remind me later that I have a mating present for you,” Tristan whispered.

The first shadow descended through the ceiling of the country home, and the warriors remained alert as to where it would materialize. Or if it would when it realized who was waiting for it.

“We got company!” Shane called from another room.

“Me too!” Luca warned.

Chris, Siggy, Grant, and Elias also confirmed through the shengari’ that they had shadows descending on their locations inside and outside of the old home. Declan was listening to the numbers they were calling out when the large shadow in front of them materialized into a well-dressed and groomed man.

He was raven-haired, and his eyes displayed the strange darkness typically found in those of the Daemon Kyn. Declan knew right away by his appearance that this must be one of the queen’s court. Tristan had warned them that those in the court would have the skill in glamour and dark energy that could hide the ugliness which was the outward sign of their evil nature.

All of the daemons Declan had seen up to this point were misshapen and hideous-looking. They’d been the lower class of daemons. Those who hadn’t committed enough horrifying acts or fed from enough souls to achieve the levels of energy needed to look as dignified as the man standing arrogantly in front of them.

“My, my, my. The Dark and Light Warrior. Plus a Dranovian to boot! To what do I owe this honor?” the daemon asked sarcastically.

Another shadow materialized next to him, and this one turned into a beautiful redhead decked out in a leather bustier and black leggings with lace-up combat boots.

“Wow, Harvey, I didn’t know it would be a special party, or I’d have dressed better,” the woman said nervously as she moved closer to the daemon male.

“Deidre, nice of you to join me. However, you were nearby. I have a feeling that’s why they’re here,” Harvey, the daemon male, replied.

“Damn, Tristan, you hear that? They can actually think for themselves!” Tiernan mocked, hoping to anger the daemons. It worked.

“Don’t you dare take that tone with me, you pathetic child! In case you didn’t notice it yet, we’ve already taken this world. You’ve lost and no wonder with a bunch of children at the helm,” Deidre spat, her hatred dripping from her words.

Declan was shocked to see that her façade of beauty slipped dramatically as Deidre spewed her vile words at the Dark Warrior. Flashes of her real form were just as hideous as those who weren’t able to hide it. Declan shuddered at how many people were probably under the spell of the creature and the beauty she pretended to be, not realizing the horror of the being within.

“Begin,” Tristan whispered through Declan’s mind and the other Dranovian brothers who were there.

“Castani retarninian . . .” Declan started the ritual words of expulsion.

“You dare try that on me?” Harvey roared, his expression one of laughter but his voice was tinged with worry.

The shadows began to fill the large room, driven there by Chris, Siggy, Dante, Shane, Grant, Elias and Luca who were chanting the ritual words in unison with Declan.

“Sobleki bosarn . . .” the brothers chanted as they kept their swords at the ready.

“Wait! You can’t do this!” Deidre screamed in rage.

“Feeling a little sick, bitch?” Tiernan sneered. “The kids gonna free all those souls you’ve eaten and end your existence?”

“Captavi sonotangi eventi,” the Dranovian brothers continued, fascinated by the change in the daemons as they recited the words.

Deidre shrieked in fear and pain before she launched herself at where Nalini was sitting on the couch with Isabel. The daemon didn’t get one step before Tiernan had his blade around her throat and held her in place against his chest by a steely arm.

“You’re not ending it that fast, bitch. You’re going to suffer like the souls you stole and feed off of,” Tiernan growled in her ear.

Harvey tried to return to his shadow form to escape, but Tristan grabbed hold of him and shook his head.

“You get to stay too,” Tristan said with a grin as the daemon’s glamour slipped.

“Toqori snixion,” the brothers said in unison. Though none of them knew where these words were coming from. They’d never used them before.

Like the words to expulse an anomalous beast, these were also coming from their mouths by instinct. The brothers knew it had to be working since several of the lesser daemons were screaming and writhing on the floor.

“You can’t do this to us! We’re the Queen’s court! She’s going to slaughter you all!” Deidre cried out as tears ran down her now hideous face.

“You first, bitch,” Tiernan snarled in her ear as his tone dripped with disgust.

“Why are you doing this?” Harvey demanded as he struggled uselessly against Tristan’s crushing grip. “The woman isn’t worth the punishment Mastema will deliver when she hears of this!”

“Repartnium sawan baniqua sotamini,” the Dranovians continued.

Declan tried not to get excited as he watched a few more shadowy daemons explode into dust and the glamour permanently disappear from Harvey and Deidre. The ability to destroy those who’d gladly spent millennia torturing his mate was going to be one of those duties Declan would thoroughly enjoy.

“The world weeps at the loss of any good soul, but you and your ilk won’t be missed at all,” Tristan growled to Harvey.

“Don’t do this! Please, I’ll do anything!” Deidre began to plead.

Tiernan grabbed her by the back of the hair and viciously yanked her head back as Deidre yelped in pain.

“Did that work for any of the people whose souls you stole? Did you revel in the pain you were causing as they begged for their souls and life? Did you laugh at the hopelessness and fear you caused? How does it feel now?” Tiernan snapped, his patience with the daemon gone.

“Valtarus stelenar xinimin caftar!” the Dranovians finished.

Declan wasn’t sure what he expected when there were no more words that came to him, and he watched in stunned fascination as Harvey and Deidre began to swell up. Tristan and Tiernan both stepped back from the daemons as their bodies bloated to twice their size.

Pinpoints of light began to erupt all over their mutated forms, and they suddenly exploded into dust as hundreds of tiny sparks rose from the powder and spun around the room like lost fireflies.

“You’re free. Go home now,” Tristan ordered as he waved his hands in a circle and thrust them towards the ceiling.

As if on cue, the hundreds of pinpoints of light swirled around Tristan and flew through the ceiling.

“Did that just work?” Chris asked in surprise as he looked around the room curiously.

“You did it,” Tristan said with a grin as he pulled Chris in for a hug.

Chris picked Tristan up, swung him around and whooped.

“I can’t believe we can do this,” Siggy whispered in shock as he knelt on the floor and sifted through the dust.

“Daemons and anomalous beasts,” Dante said with a stunned expression.

“Where did those words come from? They just started coming out of my mouth,” Shane added, his disbelief evident in his tone.

“The words for beasts came to us the same way when we were kids. We taught them to the rest of you as you came into your power,” Declan explained, still a little stunned at what they’d done.

“Does this mean we can kill the queen?” Chris had to know.

“Yes, but you need more experience with the other daemons before you even think of her,” Tristan warned, not wanting his sometimes cocky brothers to get ahead of themselves.

He knew that they were all walking a fine line between entrapping the daemons to execute them and openly declaring war. Though Tristan needed his brothers to help them, it had to be done with a lot more finesse than the Dranovians were used to.

“I gotta tell you, I thought you guys were pulling my leg over the daemon exorcise thing but damn, that was incredible. It sure beats hunting flowers and waiting for Satalis to pop up while snagging the stray anomalous we encounter along the way,” Shane muttered to no one in particular.

All Declan could see was Nalini’s beaming face from across the room. True to his word, Tristan hadn’t allowed anyone close enough to fluff her hair. She still looked as gorgeous as when she first sat down on the sofa. Her long, straight hair was pulled back into a bun. The severe style only accentuated her high cheekbones, delicate neck and a stubborn chin.

“What was the total?” Elias asked.

“Nine and two lower court members,” Tiernan replied, sounding none too happy about the numbers.

“That’s not good?” Luca asked incredulously. He wasn’t sure why the Dark Warrior didn’t seem pleased when he’d thought they had done well.

“It’s a good haul. We were just hoping for a few more court members.” Tristan was looking at Tiernan as he spoke.

“What’s the deal?” Chris demanded.

He knew something was wrong with the way Tristan and Tiernan were acting. He’d learned more than he cared to admit from his time with Dizarion and Asha but it was paying off now.

“We should have attracted a lot more. This particular location is riddled with Ralidina members only 20 miles away in the nearest city. Half the daemons possessing the people in that town should have been here as well as the court members that oversee them,” Tiernan admitted.

He didn’t have Tristan’s qualms about telling them what was going on. Tiernan knew they needed the Dranovians help to achieve their goals and he wanted them to know exactly what they were dealing with.

Tristan didn’t see the things that Tiernan was forced to deal with in the dark realms and Tiernan didn’t have the heart to tell his friend how bad things really were. Not yet. Not when Tristan was still struggling to awaken fully.

Tiernan and Dizarion had been doing as much as they could, but if Tristan was going to bring his brothers into the fight, then he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity for the extra help.

“So why didn’t they show up?” Declan asked with concern as he moved closer to Nalini.

“They aren’t coming back. Don’t fear for Nalini anymore this night,” Tristan promised. “The others didn’t come because Harvey and Deidre were a scouting party for higher court members in the area. With everyone dead, we’ve just tipped our hand.”

“They know Nalini is a trap?” Declan hoped like hell he was right.

Tiernan and Tristan nodded in unison, and Declan’s heart soared at the news. He couldn’t help but turn a brilliant smile to Nalini which faded the moment he saw the crestfallen look on her face.

“They won’t come back for me?” Nalini seemed curiously upset about it.

“Word will get around pretty quick, and those who are strong enough will resist the compulsion of the curse. Mastema will find out about this trap and look for Tristan and me.” Tiernan spoke casually about a powerful Daemon Kyn queen coming for him.

It grated on Declan’s nerves that Tiernan and Tristan were far too used to this kind of thing. He wanted to take the little boy that truly was his brother and hide him out somewhere safe. Tristan’s laugh and the hand on his shoulder brought Declan from his thoughts.  

“I’m more the warrior you see now than the boy. I love that you care so deeply, as do I, but don’t mistake the weakness of the boy’s form I wear with a weakness of the mind or spirit. Even when I appear weak, I am sometimes at my strongest,” Tristan said with a small smile.

“I even worry about you in this form, you idiot,” Declan said with a snort as he playfully punched Tristan in the shoulder.

Chris whistled loudly to get everyone’s attention.

“Can we get back to the hoard of daemon’s running amok on our planet? So how do we find them if we can’t draw them to us?” Chris asked, wanting to do something, anything to rid his world of those evil bastards.

“We can still hunt. We just have to teach you how to do it,” Tiernan said with a cryptic smile.

The Dranovians groaned and looked at one another as if they knew this wasn’t going to be good.

“It will not be as bad as you are assuming. It’s mostly how to detect the daemons amongst the humans and beast species,” Tristan assured his unhappy siblings.

“And how to fight the daemons while exorcising them. Don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s like the beast. It’s a different kind of evil. More pervasive and dark than you can imagine. The higher you go in the court, the worse it’s going to be,” Tiernan warned.

He didn’t want the Dranovians to think it was going to be anything like dealing with the anomalous and rogue beast species. Tiernan had seen the evil committed by the rogue and anomalous and so far nothing had compared to what he’d seen by the Daemon Kyn.

Not this time anyway, Tiernan thought with a sigh.

“Yeah, the energy I felt from Harvey and Deidre made me physically sick to my stomach,” Shane admitted.

“As evil as Satalis is, even he felt different. Why?” Elias asked, looking to Tristan to answer.

“Daemons have no souls. Even Satalis and the Relians have souls although it doesn’t seem like it by their deeds. As far as the hierarchy goes right now, daemons are the top of the food chain,” Tristan admitted, drawing a couple of shocked gasps from his brothers.

“What about Satalis?” Luca asked, preferring someone spell it out for him.

“He’s number two. Consider the Relians next, since your father is covering that. The Triad is last because, by the time they get here, there won’t be a world to worry about if you don’t fix the first three.” Tiernan was disturbingly calm as he rattled off the list and it took a few minutes for it to sink into the Dranovian brothers.

“Wait, we’re to leave the Relians alone?” That didn’t sit well with Siggy.

“Hell no,” Tristan said with a laugh. “It just means you only go after them if they cross your path. Just like you do now.”

“How do we tell this to the others? We’re still divided up to help dad before Alderic finds out,” Dante wondered aloud.

“Stay divided,” Tristan immediately suggested. “I will explain this to Mikal, and we’ll rotate his team back here when they’re done with Macc training. You guys will go to the Tri-Worlds, and Mikal’s team will be taught what we will teach you.”

“What about my guys?” Chris asked for the brothers that seemed to be left behind in all these new developments.

“We’ll rotate them last since Satalis is the next big thing to worry about after the daemons and we need to find him,” Tristan admitted, unwilling to take the resources looking for the Dark Prime.

Declan was the first to note the change in Tristan when he spoke of Satalis, and he couldn’t help but wonder what bothered his brother.

“What worries you about the Dark Prime?” Declan studied his brother carefully for the things Tristan wouldn’t say.

“He is a dangerous evil on this planet. One that is wrecking the balance as surely as the Daemon Kyn. When the Kyn fall, he will be right there to take their place.” Tristan’s eyes glowed white for a moment. “Make no mistake. There are many heads to the serpent of evil we’re fighting on this world. Because one is more poisonous than the others, doesn’t make the rest less deadly.”

It wasn’t only Tristan’s words that sent chills up Declan’s spine, it was the rage in his voice and the doubt in his body language. As he looked at his brother’s, Declan realized they noticed it too.

“As far as inspirational speeches go, that really sucked ass, bro,” Shane only half-joked.

Nervous laughter echoed through the room at Shane’s joke, but Declan noted that Tristan, Tiernan, Asha, and Dizarion didn’t share in it. All four of them appeared to be a lot less confident than when they started the evening.

“What aren’t you telling us this time?” Declan demanded. He was damn sick of the secrets and wasn’t putting up with any more of them.

Tiernan shrugged. “Tristan is afraid that you aren’t prepared for what you’re facing. He fears it will take its toll on you psychologically and thinks a few of you are nowhere near stable enough to handle this mission.”

When Tristan remained silent and only glared at Tiernan, the brothers began shifting nervously and staring at one another in shock.

“Stable enough? Are you fucking kidding me?” Shane assumed he was being lumped into the category of being unstable.

“Tiernan is being overly dramatic,” Tristan countered as he glared at the Dark Warrior. “I know you’re capable, or you wouldn’t be here, but I am concerned about all of you. What we’re asking will put you in greater danger. . .”

Tristan didn’t get to finish before Nalini stood in fury and began shaking her finger at him.

“Again with the emotional garbage!” Nalini accused with blazing eyes. “Do your damn job and let them do theirs! We must! All of us. No one should be exempt because of the love we feel for someone else. It is no deeper or more important than what is felt by those we will save.”

Declan saw her turn her eyes to him, challenging him to discount her words or prove her wrong and it chapped his ass that he couldn’t. She was right. The only way they would succeed was to stop thinking of themselves and consider only what their mission was.

“She’s right. We’re not just your brothers, we’re the only thing you got to change the balance. Teach us what we need to know and let us do our job.” Declan’s voice held a stubborn edge as he stared down his baby brother.

“I will be glad to lend my abilities and power in my father’s stead.” Nalini stood with determination and pride, daring anyone to deny her the right.

The words were like a dagger through Declan’s heart, and he closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before he looked over at her expectant face and nodded. Her answering smile and the pride in her energy made him grin back for a second then turn to Tristan.

The brothers stood firm, each waiting for Tristan to say something while he and Tiernan stared at one another. Declan expected to have to continue arguing his point and was surprised by Tristan’s next words.

“Go with Tiernan to the Talunaha. He will teach you how to detect the daemons amongst the humans and how to seek them out. I must speak with Mikal, and retrieve something we need,” Tristan ordered and disappeared without another word.