Exile: Sídhí Summer Camp #3 (3 page)

Sarah rolled her eyes in resignation.

Honestly, the entire day had been a disaster.
What else could go wrong? Her cool demeanor didn't flicker. She
mentally ordered a thin cord of synth crystal around the ankles of
the three people in front of her. A split-second later, she ported
Jared, Katie, and Guardian Alexander to the teenager's cabin, which
was located inside the summer camp's main campground area.

She didn't wait to see if they faired okay.
She instantly ported to where she had left her obstinate mate, the
mate who refused to bond with her, who essentially hated everything
about her.

Every Sídhí had a single chance to find his
or her mate, the one person who was their perfect soul mate. Nick
was hers. Too bad, he didn't want her.

Less than a heartbeat later, she appeared
below a steep cliff, next to a cave. The rocky tunnel appeared
empty. Pebbles and dirt rained down the side of the mountain,
bouncing and tumbling across the clearing.

Sarah sucked in a deep breath through her
nose, smelling hundreds of scents in the mountain air. She searched
for a single scent, Nick’s spicy, mouth-watering scent. She got a
nose full of dust for her troubles.

She sneezed and backed hastily away from the
small cave as a thumb-sized pebble hit her in the thigh. Fear
trembled in her belly, making her hand shake. After she left to
help Katie and Jared, Nick might have gone back into the dark
opening. Snarling, she mentally reached for the synth crystal,
planning to build a protective covering over her head and search
the tunnel for her missing mate.

A deep voice, coming from the tree line,
stopped her in her tracks. "Dang it, Sarah, get away from
there."

His voice, harsh with anger, sent a tremor of
longing through her. From the bottom of her soul, she strengthened
her resolve. She refused to spill her guts to him. She prayed her
resolve held. She couldn't reveal her secrets until he bonded with
her. Too many lives depended on her steel control.

At that moment, she hated what she was. She
hated being the long awaited Chi’Kehra. All powerful, except where
her mate was concerned.

For several months, long before summer camp
started, Nick had unwillingly invaded her dreams. The Sídhí
scientists called it Mate Dreaming, shared dreams between two
un-bonded mates, dreams that pulled destined mates together.

Sarah’s nightly mate dream with Nick didn’t
have the same outcome as most Sídhí couples, not when each dream
had ended with Nick’s claws ripping her throat out.

Freezing her face into a mask, she turned
calmly toward him.

In a familiar gesture of frustration, he
shoved his hand through midnight colored hair. The rough movement
created an oddly spiked style. The harsh scowl on his face
registered in her gut like bits of glass cutting her to pieces.

Her heart twisted. She clenched her teeth,
obstinately refusing to let him see how much she loved him. She
would’ve spread the world at his feet if he’d let her. The very
thought frightened her, sending a shiver of dread racing down her
spine, because if anyone was capable of conquering the world, it
was her. The power she controlled was terrifying, even to her,
especially to her.

His face, clenched in anger, filled her
vision. He grabbed her arm, pulling her away from the falling
debris. The sun beat down on them as he hustled her away from the
tumbling mountainside. After several minutes of silence, they
neared a smooth flowing stream.

"That's far enough, don't you think," she
said softly.

He jerked her to a stop.

Raising her hand, she automatically shielded
her face, which was burning under the scorching rays of sunshine.
As a blood-drinking vampire, an Exile, the sunlight not only turned
her vivid blue eyes ruby red, the yellow ball of flame also burned
her pale skin at an incredible rate.

"Tell me you weren't stupid enough to even
think about heading back in there," he demanded, waving his free
hand toward the mountain. "I'd say a little sunburn is better than
getting crushed. What the bloody hell were you thinking?"

Her face flushed with anger. Unconsciously,
she angled her hand to better shield herself against the sun, not
too sure that she agreed with his assessment. The brilliant ball of
fire gave her the mother of all migraines. Leave it to Nick to
belittle every move she made. She was so sick of his attitude. When
he wasn’t snapping at her, he was taking a swing at her or calling
her vile names.

Of course, he didn’t know the type of person
she was really like.

He only knew her reputation, a rep she had
spent a lifetime building, a vile rep that included death and
torture. Creating such an evil rep had not been easy. She had her
family and loyal guard to thank. Without them, setting up intense
torture sessions would have been impossible. As it was, the
memories made her blood run cold, memories that included her insane
laughter as victims screamed in agony. Each performance built her
guise, creating her evil mask to the world.

Looking into Nick’s face, she realized that
perhaps she had done too good of a job.

She sneezed again. Keeping a haughty demeanor
and sneezing didn't go together, ratcheting up her frustration over
the entire situation. One thing at a time was her motto, but today
had been one irritation after another.

Nick’s attitude shouldn’t bother her, but it
did. For pity sake, how could her own synth-laced blood not attract
a loving mate to her side? Instead, she ended up with a gorgeous
young man who hated her.

He was the most frustrating, hardheaded… a
third sneeze interrupted her internal monologue.

At the constant sneezing, Nick’s hand
loosened its steely grip on her arm.

She jerked her arm from his grasp, quickly
putting several feet between them. She glared at him through the
tumble of her hair and sucked in a calming breath. Three little
sentences and he brought out the beast in her, a nasty temper she
preferred not to have.

Oh yes, she had a temper, not that anyone
except her closest family and guard ever guessed the truth. Her
reaction to Nick bordered on insanity.

The word ‘insanity’ stopped her cold. Could
she be falling into a psychotic state? It was a well-known fact
that older Sídhí, those wretched souls without bonded mates, often
went insane. She was only nineteen, but she wasn't what anyone
would ever describe as normal. Synth crystal flooded her body like
no other person alive. She was a walking, talking synth spring of
pure energy.

She couldn’t fail, but the thought of
insanity frightened her. She wanted to scream at the injustice of
it all, not that screaming or crying ever helped.

She fought a silent struggle to regain her
inner peace. It wasn’t easy, but as always, her desires, her
emotions didn't matter. From her first shaky steps as a toddler,
people submitted to her demands, her leadership. She simply had too
many people depending on her mental stability.

She stiffened her spine, knowing she didn't
have the luxury to feel fear for herself, much less take time for a
pity party.

Shoving the palest of blonde hair out of her
eyes, she glared at him. Looking him in the eyes, she refused to
let him see exactly how much his words had hurt her, cutting into
her spirit. Like a synth crystal knife that cut through metal, his
hurtful words and actions destroyed her soul a tiny bit more each
time they clashed. She wasn't about to tell him how terrified she'd
been that he was in the cave, that she’d rather die roasting under
the sun in the Sahara desert than to lose him forever.

"A bit of dust and pebbles, the after-shock
wasn't that bad." She flipped her slender hand carelessly toward
the mountainside. Arrogantly tilting her head, she reinforced the
callous image of a cold, heartless exile. If he didn't want her,
she couldn't risk his seeing her true face. "You, Mr.
Self-Righteous Clan Vampire, always overreact."

He hissed, baring his slightly lengthened
fangs. "And you don’t consider the consequences of your actions or
how many innocents die because of them," he said in a growling
voice, glaring at her with solid black eyes as the sun beat down on
them. The black eyes of a clan vampire, a valley full of vampires
who refused to drink blood except as a type of recreation.

He thought the worst of her.

Grief clenched her heart in an unrelenting
knot, and she barely concealed a body-length shudder. Clan vampires
were the poster children of do-good vampires. They had fought
against the Dhark Empire for thousands of years.

Arrogantly, she raised a single eyebrow in
question. "I always consider the pros and cons," she said coolly,
intentionally misunderstanding his statement. Before she could ease
him away from the topic of high morals that every clan vampire
boasted about, he plowed ahead.

“And the people you kill? What do you
consider? That you killed some innocent person who questioned the
powerful dhark lords? Do you even consider the grieving families?
That you’ve committed murder?” he asked in a rapid fire of heated
questions.

For a second her heart stopped. From his
heated words, he might have guessed one of her darkest secrets.

The memory of her first assassination target
was vivid in her mind. Nick had been there. She didn’t know if he
recognized her from that day at the fairgrounds or not. She prayed
he had not, hoping he had been too far away to see her clearly.

She tried slowing her rapid heartbeat,
knowing that even if he had seen her, it had been nearly seven
years earlier.

She would never forget that night, one
stamped vividly in her brain for all time. Dusk fast approached as
she slid behind her assassination target. She glanced around. Her
eyes landed on Nick who was a dozen yards away. Her body’s synth
crystal sang for a solid hour after seeing him. Without a single
doubt in her mind, she knew Nick was her destined mate. It made
confronting her assassination target so much harder, but she
steeled her nerve and completed the critical mission.

She thrust her sword through an innocent
man’s heart as the beautiful synth mating song hummed through her
body. The man’s life-blood poured over her hands, condemning her
actions.

She shuddered, once again praying Nick had
not clearly seen her that day.

Jerking herself back into the present, she
shrugged her shoulders. She knew the movement was jerky, but grace
wasn’t possible as fear pummeled her body. “I do what must be done
for my people.” She looked him straight in the eyes and sucked up
her courage. “If you'd promise, on your honor, not to breathe a
word of what I say, I'll tell you every secret I have even before
we bond.”

He glared at her. The strong lines of his
face clenched. A few seconds turned into a minute. She was losing
him, but she was at a loss. She didn't know how to win him over. If
she told him outright that she was Chi’Kehra, every full-blooded
vampire’s boogieman, he’d try to gut her right then and there.

She grimaced against the sun’s sharp glare
but maintained eye contact with him as the burning ball of flame
seemed to grow brighter every second.

“I’ll be so glad when your eyes are a normal
black,” he said, moving to stand between her and the blazing ball
of fire, contradicting his harsh words with the simple act of
kindness.

“For me, my eyes are normal,” she said
quietly. She continued holding his gaze, hoping this once he'd
listen to reason. She took a deep breath and tried to reason with
him one more time.

“Nick, you’re everything to me, but my
people’s lives are in my hands. If you said one wrong word, even in
joking, your words could end up getting thousands, possibly
millions of people killed,” she said earnestly, lightly touching
his bare arm with the tips of her fingers. A ripple of electric
recognition surged through her body.

His eyes narrowed into black slits. “If you
have to hide behind lies why should I listen?”

She sighed with a pent-up hiss of
exasperation, throwing her hands up in the air. “Because this isn't
just about you and me, my lies, as you put it, keep my people
safe.”

He glared at her, but she refused to go any
further. If he wanted her then he could bend at least a little
bit.

“Safe? An exile worried about keeping people
safe? What about the people who die?” He demanded in a snarl. “Did
you know a filthy exile killed my brother?”

Blood drained from her face.

The loud roar of a dragon drowned Nick’s
rumbling growl of fury.

She'd never been so glad to see a dragon in
her entire life.

A dark
blue dragon questioned Nick and Sarah about their missing cabin
mates then flew them both to another location several miles
away.

A feeling of dread built in the middle of
Nick’s chest. He was determined to confront Sarah, but after they
landed at the new campsite, she avoided him like the plague. The
few times he managed to catch her eyes, she looked quickly
away.

He was vampire, a predator. He knew how to
stalk prey. He eased off hunting her, letting her grow complacent
as they spent the night with cabin twenty-four's campers.

The next day, a different dragon arrived with
Mitch and Emily. He breathed a sigh of relief that the burly
halfling, who was Katie's twin, and the female vampire, who was
Jared's younger sister, and his baby cousin, had escaped from the
monsters hidden within the mountains.

Late that night, after tossing and turning
for several hours, he muttered a soft curse. Escaping the confines
of the tent he shared with Mitch, he headed toward the middle of
camp.

The darkness, not a hindrance to his enhance
Sídhí senses, appeared as gentle shades of gray. A midnight breeze
ruffled his hair, bringing with it a hundred smells. A single smell
caught his attention, bright and sharp the scent teased him. Still
as a statue, he inhaled Sarah’s fragrance, sucking it in like a
drowning man gasping for air.