The Sword and The Prophet (A Syren Novel) (12 page)

dinner. They’d stopped at a Krystal’s to get something to eat, and driven to a Holiday Inn where Kellen had gotten them two adjoining rooms. She didn’t think she’d ever seen her brother eat faster in her life.

“How many of those have you put down?” She figured he’d eaten at least a dozen of the tiny delicious burgers by now.

“I think about fifteen,” Tyler told her with his mouth full. He’d never eaten a hamburger before, and the ones he’d been scarfing down he could devour in about two bites. His hunger started abating somewhat, and he started to slow down, but he was by no means finished.

“I just got off the phone with the commander at the immigration facility. They’re sending an aeroship tonight. Apparently your father is on his way to earth, but based on what we’ve been experiencing he did not feel it was in your best interest to wait for him to arrive. They should be here in about three hours.” Kellen was relieved that he’d been able to get in touch with the commander so quickly, and that they were sending help. For the first time since he’d met Lily and Tyler they both seemed more relaxed, more certain that they’d be okay.

Kellen looked at his son and tried not to smile as he watched the way Talon moved towards Lily. His desire to be near her was a telling sign that she was possibly his mate. He’d wondered over the years why his son hadn’t found his Heart. Now he knew why. He wasn’t sure how to approach the situation with the King of the Sword, but knew that once they were back on Amatia Prime he would do everything he could to make sure Talon was able to stay with Lily.

“Dad, are we going home?” Timothy approached his father, and Kellen ruffled his shock of bright red hair. At five years old Timothy still had a few years left before he would be ready to be presented at a Fut’uah ceremony. It was a good time to return to Amatia Prime.

“Yes we are squirt. We’re going back to Amatia.” Kellen knew that his son didn’t remember anything about his home world. He’d been an infant when his mother died and Kellen had made the decision to leave Amatia Prime for Earth.

Timothy’s innocence tore at Kellan’s heart. “I think so, buddy. If they don’t have a
soccer team we’re going to have to make sure
we start one. I think the other Syren there will
have fun with it.” Kellen wasn’t sure that was
true as most Syren had abilities that made any
team sport very hard to judge.
“I’m gonna go outside for a little bit,” Tyler
didn’t want to be holed up in the room any
longer. Since he was pretty certain Lily could
defend herself he didn’t feel the need to stay in
the room. He actually believed the implausible
story that they were aliens. He was less sure that
they were royal aliens. He felt safe with Kellen
and Talon. He didn’t know why, but his body
was relaxed around them. He didn’t feel like
they were going to hurt him. That’s what always
troubled him about his mother. He’d always felt
relaxed around her, like he didn’t have to be on guard. It took a lot of years taking her abuse for him to be able to have his guard up around her. He’d never thought of her as an enemy, even
though she was.
Tyler stretched on the bed he was sitting
on and stood up. He couldn’t put it off any
longer. He felt the air thumping around him. He
felt hot, needy. The desire to be outside in the
moonlight was over powering. He’d never
wanted anything more in his life. He’d put off
the need to be in the moonlight all of his life.
He’d felt it when he was younger, calling to
him. He’d tried sneaking outside several times,
but every time he did Mama’d always been right
there. Screaming at him, making him run back
to his room in fear. He knew they weren’t
normal, but didn’t know what to do about it. No one said anything as Tyler left the
room, and for that he was grateful. He didn’t
want anyone telling him it was a bad idea, or
saying that he shouldn’t go out alone. He was
tired of others telling him what to do, and
wasn’t going to be able to meekly do what
someone said ever again. He started to cry, not
tears of pain or hurt, but frustration. Frustration
for all the years he’d put up with his Mama
terrifying him and Lily. Frustration for listening
to her tell his sister that she was dirt, garbage, and wouldn’t amount to anything in her life. Frustration for not lashing out and stopping her from hurting them all those years. He began to run in the hall to the elevator. He stopped and pushed the button for it to go down and waited. He’d been waiting for this moment his entire life. His arms seemed to bulge out, rippling and pulling at the top he was wearing. He wasn’t sure what he was going to wear if he ripped
through the shirt Talon had lent him.
The elevator arrived and Tyler breathed
in deep. Luckily for him it was empty. He
waited the few seconds it took for the elevator
to make it to the bottom floor. He didn’t nod at
anyone. He didn’t politely say excuse me when
he nudged an older man trying to get to the
elevator. He just ran. He sprinted for the doors
leading out to the pool, hoping that no one
would be out there yet. He made it outside and
was frantic to find somewhere to go, somewhere
that he could let the moonlight pour over him. Tyler spied a copse of trees at the edge
of the parking lot, and headed that way. He
knew it was probably not the best place for him
to view the moon, but he couldn’t get to the
roof, and he couldn’t sit out in the open where
anyone could see him. When he reached the tree
line he was breathing hard, his hands trembling. He tore his shirt off, and yelled as his skin came alive. His neck flexed, his back stretched. He felt his skin stretching, and the pain and pleasure of it was excruciating. He fell to his knees, his body taking over. He felt his
shoulders swell, and the bones in his arms seemed to stretch. He screamed out as he felt the moon pulling at him. He was eviscerated in the light. He couldn’t hold himself together any longer. He stood in sharp contrast to the night. His pale skin glistened, rippling with muscles. He spread his arms out, palms flat up towards the sky. He didn’t know if he was going to live through this transformation, but he knew that he couldn’t cower now. He couldn’t back down from what he was experiencing. It was the most divine pain that he’d ever experienced in his
life.
Lily watched from the edge of the tree
line as Tyler transformed. She hadn’t said
anything to him about going outside alone, but
she’d shared a long look with Talon as he’d left
the room and they’d both gotten up to follow
him outside. Whether he was mad or not, Lily
wouldn’t let her twin go outside alone to
transform. She knew what he was about to
experience, but didn’t know what watching him
transform would feel like to her. She felt his muscles growing in her consciousness. She could feel his heart galloping in her chest like it was her own. She sucked in a breath as she watched him raise his face up towards the moon and issue a scream unlike anything she’d ever heard before. She shivered as she watched him transform. He was beautiful. The lean lines of his body were gone and in their place was rock hard muscle. He didn’t look like a body builder, but he didn’t look like he was fifteen any longer either. Since her transformation he’d steadily been growing, but this was different. He looked like a man, not like her twin brother any more. Lily’s breath caught as Tyler’s hair began to shimmer, and change. They’d always had the same color hair, but before her eyes Tyler’s began to darken. It lengthened, growing darker by the second. She didn’t know what color it was, but it wasn’t going to be the light blonde that hers was any longer. She knew that he was at the end of his transformation when he fell to his knees on the ground. He hung his head, and
dug his fingers into the dirt in front of him. Tyler was breathing heavy. He was
covered in sweat, and knew that he had to be
boiling hot to the touch. His skin felt like it was
on fire, but he knew that it would be as pale as it
always was. He wasn’t ready to go back inside just yet. He sat there, kneeling on the ground, hands in the grass in front of him. He felt amazing. He felt at peace. He touched his tongue to his teeth and felt his fangs protruding from his gums. He heard a noise behind him and
sprung up. His senses were on high alert. “Don’t be upset. I didn’t want you to
come outside alone,” Lily slipped from behind
the tree she was standing behind and walked
slowly towards her brother. He was at least six
foot two inches now. She had to tilt her head far
back to look up at him.
“Your hair is black. It’s shaggy, longer
than it was before, but it’s black now.” She was
amazed at his transformation. He looked like a
stranger to her, but she felt exactly the same. He
was her brother, her blood. She reached out and
touched his arm, and peered into his eyes. “Are they black like yours were too?”
Tyler knew they would be but he wanted Lily to
confirm that they were. When she nodded at
him he sighed. He was hoping that he wouldn’t
go into convulsions like Lily had when she’d
gotten back to his room at Evelyne’s house. “You are a Son of the House of Swords,
there can be no doubt.” Talon’s voice came as
little more than a whisper. He was awed at the
transformation. He’d never seen a Syren deprived of moonlight transform. He wasn’t sure anyone had. It was something that he
would never forget.
“Why did you follow me?” Tyler’s voice
was hoarse, ragged from screaming.
“I just wanted to make sure you were
okay,” Lily knew that her voice was shaking but
couldn’t keep the tremor out of it. She was awed
by her brother’s transformation. He looked
completely different. He looked older, more
mature, dangerous.
“Are my eyes black?” Tyler repeated the
question. He wanted to know if he looked like
Lily when he transformed.
“They were, they’re fadin’ now, but
they’re not the same color they were. They’re
still blue but they’re a lot darker.” Lily was
transfixed by how different he looked. She’d
always thought she was looking into a mirror
when she looked at Tyler, and now she felt like
she was looking at someone completely
different. Someone who wasn’t her twin brother
after all.
Tyler sensed Lily’s hesitancy. He didn’t
know if she was scared or if there was
something else wrong with her. He raked his
hand through his hair, feeling the length, and
unsure of why his hair had changed.
“Why did my hair and eye color
change?” Tyler looked at Talon as he asked this. “All Syren change some while they are
transforming. For the most part if you’re born in
one house, you’ll remain the same through your
transformation, but sometimes Amatia has
another path for a soul and you’ll change into
something else entirely. You had Lily’s coloring
before, marking you as a Son of the House of
Dreams, but with your change there can be no
doubt that Amatia wishes for you to be a Sword,
and not a prophet.” Talon tried to give the
shortest and most simple explanation that he
could. He wasn’t used to explaining things to
other Syren, but knew that without his help Lily
and Tyler would be like birds without wings. “We should go back in. I don’t like bein’
out here right now with those people after us.”
Lily was starting to feel something. She felt a
pressing on her chest and wanted to get back to
her room to lay down. She picked up Tyler’s
shirt off the ground and handed to him. She
wasn’t sure she liked how he looked. He didn’t
look like her brother any more. He looked like a
stranger.
All three of them walked back to the
hotel quietly. There wasn’t anything that Tyler
wanted to say. He was more confused than ever. He felt his sister’s sadness coming off of her and was helpless to do anything about it. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to hug her and tell her that everything was fine, but he didn’t know if that was a lie or not. He couldn’t tell her with certainty that they were going to get out of this okay. He looked up at the sky one more time and sent a silent prayer up that where ever his father was, he would get here sooner rather than later. He and Lily could totally use a miracle.

chair listening to the voice traffic come through his headset. He’d been listening to pertinent voice traffic for the past four hours in
expectation of their arrival on Earth. He knew that he looked devilishly weary. He didn’t think he’d slept any since they’d left Amatia Prime.

“How much longer until we’re in airspace above Charleston?” Jackson’s voice was edged with anger. His rage had never left him, merely abated for a time. He didn’t know what he’d find when he arrived on Earth, but he prayed that his children were still alive. According to Asrah they were both timid and distrustful. He hoped that their natural
inclination to distrust people would help them survive.

“We’re nearly there, Highness,” the captain swiveled around in his chair to look at Jackson. “If I time it just right we’ll land at full moon. I don’t want to arrive too early as I think the arrival of a large space ship would be noted by the human population below.”

Jackson grunted in response. The voice monitor beeped, and a communication came through loud and clear. “Earth immigration contacting Star Commander Morell. Please respond.”

The captain turned his chair back to the main control panel. “This is Commander Morell confirming and acknowledging transmission.” His face was focused, concentrating hard on the monitor.

“Earth immigration has a status red priority transport. Subjects are in Asheville, North Carolina in the United States. Reported by Syren Kellen Tedor, an immigrant of four cycles of life. He reported that his son
discovered two unaccompanied Syren matching the description of the missing Prince and Princess of the Kingdom of the Sword. They have taken evasive maneuvers against a status red threat. A transport ship is in flight at this time to take possession of them. Further assistance may be required.” The transportation ended and color left the Commander’s face. He looked behind him at Jackson’s face, and knew at once that they had a new destination.