The Prophecies (The Sentinel Series Book 2) (3 page)

Suddenly that idea sounded so appealing. Not the marriage part, I couldn’t do that until my little job was finished with, but the running away part, just for a few days. Just me and Seth, and no Guardians.

‘Seth, let’s go away, let’s find a beach and lie on it for a few days, just you and me. We can have barbeques on the sand, and drink milk straight from a coconut shell.’

Seth smiled.

‘And we can snorkel every day and dive for scallops, and eat them straight from the shell. And in the afternoons, we can doze in the hammocks, and at night we can walk along the beach under the stars.’

‘Sounds good,’ Seth nodded, indulging me in my fantasy.

‘Seth I’m serious, I want to get away from here, even if it’s just for one night. We could go right now, I could slide us to Mexico, we could sleep on the beach, we wouldn’t even need a hotel.’

‘You are serious aren’t you?’

I nodded into his shoulder. ‘I need a break, just one day. I’ve not stopped since, since you told me all about my destiny. How many months ago was that?’

‘Six.’

‘Six months. Other people at least get weekends off, I’ve not even had that.’

‘You set your own schedule, Eve; no one pushes you to do all this training, only you do that.’

I ignored that. I had to push myself to learn it all, I wouldn’t lose anyone else because I was insufficient in my powers. ‘Just one day and one night away from all of this.’

‘Ok, let me have a word with Eli, we can sort something out…’

‘No. No Eli, no Lucas, no Guardians, just me and you. Technically I’ll still be with a Guardian.’ I sat up, taking his hand. ‘Come on lets go now.’

Seth sighed deeply. ‘Eve, we can’t just let you go gallivanting all over the world and leave you unprotected, especially with so many people wanting you dead, you don’t know how important you are….’

I rolled my eyes. ‘I don’t know how important I am? I’ve had several Guardians die for me, I have people that have dedicated their whole lives to watch over me, I have my best friend who left her home in Wales to befriend me, and has now left her Mum and Dad to come and live with me. My brother basically orphaned himself so he could be with me. I’ve left school, I’ve left my dreams of becoming a doctor, of getting married and having children, I’ve left any chance of a normal life behind so I can train every day, so I’ll be strong enough to fulfil my destiny,’ I stood up angrily. ‘I was made in a petri dish so I could die to save the world, a world where half the population actually wants me dead, so yes I think I have some idea how important I am.’

Seth stood up. ‘Eve, I meant how important you are to me. I don’t care about any of that Sentinel stuff, I just have to keep you safe.’

‘Oh.’

‘Give me a few hours, I’ll get something sorted.’

‘Really?’

He nodded. He caught Caleb’s eye and as Seth walked away, Caleb stepped forward to take up my protection.

I wandered down to the edge of the pool, sitting on the side dipping my toes into the cool waters.

As I stared at the glassy surface, not even the slightest ripple disturbed it. The tiles at the bottom of the pool were black and I strained my eyes against the sun’s glare to see all the way down.

Suddenly I could see a swirl of red like blood at the bottom and I squinted to try to focus on it. The bloody pool spread and I could see a shadow struggling against the water, trying to get to the surface. Someone was down there and they were drowning. I stood up to dive in and help them but as the shadow stopped struggling and sank to the bottom, her face turned towards me and I leapt back in alarm.

Caleb was at my side instantly.

‘What’s wrong?’

I looked at him and then back into the water. The pool was empty, the shadow was gone.

‘Eve?’

I had just watched myself die. There had been no mistaking the face of the person who had looked up at me from the depths of the pool, but there was no way I could explain my brief moment of insanity either. I rubbed the back of my head where a dull ache had appeared.

Seth came jogging back towards me looking pretty pleased with himself. ‘Eli wasn’t happy with the idea of you going away without your guardians but I insisted it was what you needed, so I’ve organised three days in Cyprus. We can leave whenever you’re ready…’ he trailed off at the look on my face. ‘What?

I blinked at him in confusion. ‘You’ve been gone five minutes, how have you organised all that already.’

He looked at his watch and back at me with concern. ‘Eve, I left you four hours ago.’

The sun was much lower in the sky than it had been moments before, how had I lost four hours? Seth’s eyes flicked to Caleb with confusion and there was clearly some unspoken communication as Seth approached me as one might approach a caged animal. ‘What happened?’

‘Nothing, just…nothing.’ I stared into the water again, but there was nothing there. I really did need a break.

I stared out at the beach with a huge smile on my face. Seth had been true to his word.

Just one hour after I’d seen myself drown in the bottom of the fort pool, I was now standing on the balcony of a private beach house in the grounds of a plush hotel in Cyprus. How Seth had organised all this so quickly, I didn’t know but like with all things, when the man put his mind to something there was no stopping him.

Of course we had slid here and I tried really hard to ignore the fact that the man who had let us into our holiday home was huge with grass green eyes. I was also trying really hard to ignore the sheer number of gardeners and maintenance men who had suddenly found things that needed tending to around the immediate vicinity of our beach house. I was pretty sure I knew two of them, Noah and Jacob from the fort; they must have slid to the beach house whilst I had been inside unpacking. On closer inspection many of the gardeners looked very familiar.

Nothing was going to spoil my mood. I had three days here with just Seth and the waves for company, no training, no Eli with his oppressive rules. I could cope with a few ill-disguised Guardians in situ. I wasn’t stupid; most of the waking world wanted me dead.

It was so much warmer here than it had been in the mountains for the last few months; I could feel it seeping into my bones already.

Seth wrapped his arms around me as I looked out on the view.

It was beautiful. The turquoise sea twinkled in the sun, and the heat of the day not only warmed my skin, as I closed my eyes against it, but it warmed my heart as well. I turned round in Seth’s arms to hug him back.

‘Thank you Seth, this is just what I needed.’ I smiled as I felt him kiss the top of my head, then trailed his hot mouth down my face towards my lips. I was never going to tire of kissing this man. ‘I think I could stay here all day.’

‘We could do that, but then you’d miss the massage that I’ve booked for you in ten minutes time,’ Seth said, kissing me back, so intensely that for a moment I didn’t even hear what he said.

Eventually I pulled away. ‘You’ve booked me a massage?’

‘An all over body massage, with mud and hot stones or something,’ he shrugged.

I squealed with excitement. ‘I’ve never had a massage before.’

‘Thought you’d like it, though I think I could give a decent massage, if you’d let me.’ He grinned mischievously, his hands running up my back, making me shudder.

I pulled away to change into my bikini and quickly yanked my clothes back on over the top. Then we walked across the sand towards the spa centre attached to the hotel.

Seth gave my name, well a fake name, just one of the conditions that Eli had insisted upon. No one was to know my real identity. I felt like Clark Kent; maybe I’d have to look into getting a red cape. I giggled to myself as I imagined wearing my pants over my tights. We followed my beauty therapist, Mia, down the corridor to one of the beauty rooms.

‘Sarah, if you’d like to go in and take off your clothes but leave your bikini on and lie face down on the bed. Sir, if you’d like to wait out here,’ Mia said smiling.

Seth smiled back, though the smile didn’t quite meet his eyes. ‘That’s ok, I’m going to be coming in with her as well.’

Mia’s smile faltered. ‘Sir, that’s not how we do things here, the massage is a time of deep relaxation, we don’t need any distractions.’

‘I won’t be a distraction, I’ll just sit in the corner, out the way.’

Mia turned to me. ‘Sarah, you don’t need to have your boyfriend with you, do you, surely you can be parted from him for an hour.’

I sighed, another of Eli’s conditions was that I was not to be out of Seth’s sight at any point during my trip. I was sure Seth would come with me to the bathroom if I let him.

‘My boyfriend has paid for this so he wants to see me enjoy it,’ I explained, rather weakly. That and he is so over protective that he won’t leave me alone for five minutes let alone an hour.

Mia shook her head, incredulously. ‘Ok, if that’s what you want.’

I went in and left my clothes on the chair, and lay as instructed, face down on the bed, my face in a little hole. Seth sat down, as promised, in the corner of the room. Mia turned down the lights and lit some candles, the flames sending flickering shadows around the room. A few seconds later, I felt her hands on my back, rubbing round the neck and shoulders. I closed my eyes, trying to relax.

I’d never had a massage before, but something told me it shouldn’t be like this. Mia was hardly touching me at all, just rubbing me with her fingertips. Maybe she was building up to it and would use her whole hand shortly. I took my face out of the hole and turned it sideways, resting my head on my arms. I caught sight of Mia’s reflection in the mirror by the bed and it made my heart leap. Her face was filled with revulsion, like touching me made her feel ill or sick. My heart started pounding furiously, and I saw Seth stand up, evidently he could hear it too.

I rolled over and sat up. ‘Do you know what Mia, I’m sorry to waste your time, but I don’t think massages are for me.’ I saw Seth looking at me in concern. ‘We’ll still pay you of course.’

Mia looked at me in confusion, the look of revulsion completely gone. ‘I’m sorry, have I done something to offend you? Was I doing it too hard, too soft?’ She looked genuinely upset.

Was I being completely paranoid? Better to be safe than sorry, I should listen to my gut more often. ‘No, not at all, it’s just….I’m not really enjoying it.’ I shrugged apologetically.

Mia nodded and walked over to the towel on the far side of the room. She picked it up and brought it back to me. ‘Here wipe the oils off with this.’ She passed it to me but as I reached out to take it, she whipped out a black twisted knife from its folds and lunged for me.

I immediately shielded myself but Seth was even quicker. He vaulted over me, over the table, grabbed the knife and threw her into the wall with such force that the sickening crunch sound that accompanied the crash must have been every bone in her body breaking. Then, a split second later, the knife she had been about to use on me landed with sick precision in her throat, pinning her corpse to the wall.

I had forgotten how to breathe as Seth stood there, tense, livid. I reached out tentatively to touch him, wanting him to hold me, to comfort me. Instead he walked away to stand over the corpse. He yanked the knife out of her throat and studied it with a sick fascination. Mia’s crumpled body fell to the floor. Seth picked up my clothes and passed them to me; the skirt was splattered with Mia’s blood.

‘Get dressed,’ Seth said, angrily, not even looking at me.

I hurriedly hopped down from the table, and pulled on the skirt, trying to ignore the blood stains that were soaking into the material. I pulled on my shirt but I fumbled over the buttons, my hands shaking as I tried to force them through the tiny holes. Seth saw me struggling and with his eyes still firmly on the corpse, he did them up for me, his hands not even shaking at all. I looked up at him: my boyfriend, the trained killer, wanting to hug him, wanting him to wrap me in his arms and tell me it was all ok. But at that moment he wasn’t my boyfriend, he was my Guardian and there was a huge difference. He walked away from me to the door, opened it and gave a whistle. I heard running feet and the next second Noah’s undeniable Scottish accent.

‘What’s up bud?’

Seth opened the door further and Noah came in. He took in the bloody corpse and paled.

‘Crap!’

‘Noah?’ I found my voice. So I had been right when I’d spotted him lurking near the trees. His big tangle of black curls was hard not to notice.

‘Erm, yeah hi Eve.’ Noah at least had the grace to look embarrassed at being present on my Guardian-free trip. Seth didn’t look fazed at all. I heard running feet again; Isaac and another Guardian I knew called Jacob appeared in the room. So it had all been a farce, I had only been allowed out of the fort because so many of my Guardians had been sent with me. And the annoying thing was that Eli had been right, I had needed them. There was nowhere that was safe.

Seth turned back to me, but there was no tenderness in his eyes, just cold anger.

‘Eve you need to go home now, slide back to the fort, I’ll be along shortly.’

‘Seth….’ I trailed off. I wanted to ask him to come with me, that I needed him, not to protect me but to be with me, but the anger in his eyes made the words dry up in my mouth. I closed my eyes, imagined my bedroom, back in the fort and stepped through.

Seth had evidently communicated with Lucas, as the next second he burst into the room. He took in my blood stained skirt, my stunned face and he didn’t even hesitate, he quickly crossed the gap between us and took me in his arms, hugging me tight. I hugged him back, the tears that I had held onto, streaming down my cheeks

Why couldn’t Seth feel me like Lucas could, why was Lucas so in tune with how I felt and what I needed, whereas my love, my heart had no clue that after another near attempt on my life I just wanted to be held?

Lucas released me as Quinn burst through the door. He slammed into me so hard he almost knocked me over, holding me tight against him. My brother got it too. Quinn gave the best hugs; big, brotherly, bear hugs that made me feel so safe and loved. It was also something to do with his smell too, kind of salty, like the smell of sea water. He had smelt like that when he was my dog too, so when he hugged me, it was a reminder of his constant presence from my childhood, familiar and safe.