Zora's Dawn (Defender Book 1) (5 page)

She took a
steadying sip of her coffee, and almost choked on it as the flavour burst on
her tongue. Seeing Axel watching her indulgently, she tried to raise an eyebrow
interrogatingly even as she coughed in a most undignified way. Axel smiled. “It
is taking effect little Zora. You see, your abilities enhance all of your
senses, even those not tied to your defender powers. So you can taste
subtleties in your food you will never have noticed before. That is why Powers
excellent coffee now tastes so much better to you.”

“Better?!
It’s more than better! It’s like ambrosia!” Zora eyed the broken segments of
cake on her plate with deep interest. They seemed to be glistening, each crumb
clearly distinct from the others, and the whole contrasting very nicely with
the gleaming white of the porcelain plate they were resting on. She took another
mouthful of the amazing coffee, more prepared this time for the rich layering
of flavour on her tongue. Cautiously, she picked up the smallest piece of cake
from the plate and popped it into her mouth, but she was unable to stop herself
from groaning in appreciation.

Eyes
closed as she savoured the richness of chocolate cake mingled with the coffee
still on her taste buds Zora did not notice the sudden intense interest
emanating from Powers, or the way his pupils dilated as he watched her. Axel
however did not miss a thing, and smiled a secret smile to himself. It was as
it should be and he was pleased.

Zora
cleaned up the last of the cake from her plate and accepted another coffee from
Powers gratefully. She was a little worried. Apart from her newly enhanced
sense of taste and smell – she could smell the citrus tang and an indefinable
odour of man emanating from Powers even from where he sat some distance away
from her – she didn’t feel that she had connected to any great abilities hiding
within her. She sighed faintly, she had doubted from the start that she was
really the person both Powers and Axel seemed to believe she was. Stealing a
glance at Axel she couldn’t pick any sign of ill ease from him. But he was a
fairy after all, and royalty at that so who knew what he was really thinking.

She
watched moodily as the two men – well neither of them was a man really, but it
was easier to give them the general term – chatted quietly. And they weren’t
even talking about her, they were talking about people she had never met. She
wondered if she would meet all these people now that she was a card carrying
member of this enhanced ability clique. It took a while for her to realise that
at the distance the men were sitting from her she should not be able to hear
anything but a low murmur, but she could hear every word distinctly. Huh, her
hearing must be vastly improved as well. That could be useful.

Staring
around the veranda Zora caught sight of movement at the periphery of her vision.
She turned her head slightly to see better and stared in revulsion at the
creature just emerging from the hedge that lined one side of Powers yard. A
brown snake, she hated snakes. She watched, willing it to just keep on
slithering off to the beach or to go back where it came from. Of course it
didn’t, it kept on coming towards the house with what seemed to be single
minded purpose. Zora sat still, coffee cup frozen on the way to her mouth and tried
to keep her cool. It would be embarrassing to squeal like a girl in front of
royalty.

Remembering
the cup in her hand she slowly placed it on the table, never taking her eyes
off the snake. Then she remembered to let go of the handle. The snake kept on
coming, it was closer to the house now. Zora told herself that it wouldn’t come
onto the veranda, brown snakes couldn’t climb could they? How high off the
ground were they? Not very high, there were only a couple of steps down to the
ground from the front of the veranda. Well surely the snake was heading underneath
the house to go catch mice or rats or something. Zora kept on watching, and
felt herself start to hyperventilate (again) when the snake disappeared from
view as it got closer and the edge of the veranda blocked it from her vision.

She stared
fixedly at where she saw it last, sending frantic mental pictures in that
direction of lovely plump mice running around under the house. There was no
sign of anything and Zora began to relax. Her mind tuned in briefly to what the
men were saying and she caught something about Marcus and vampire and blood
stocks and forgot the snake completely. She swung her eyes to the men and
quickly swung them back. She didn’t want them to know she was listening in case
they stopped talking. She needn’t have bothered because blood curdling shrieks
and catapulting oneself off the veranda in a blind panic is usually more than
sufficient to stop a conversation dead.

Zora
forced herself to stop shrieking as the men stared at her in alarm. Clearly
they were deficient as predator and/or animal as they still hadn’t seen the
snake, now on the veranda, still slithering towards them. It stopped
momentarily when the madwoman that was Zora hurtled past it shrieking like a
banshee, but it soon started its forward momentum again. Zora managed to form
words and screamed at the two idiots on the veranda. “Snake! Coming right at
you!”

Eyebrows
raised, Powers looked around casually, spotted the snake and hissed at it in a
most inhuman way. The snake stopped, tongue flicking out to test the air. Powers
hissed again, and growled a little, a sound that raised the hairs on Zora’s
arms and the back of her neck. The snake hesitated, confused, head swaying a
little. Axel, looking slightly amused, waved a hand at it in a shoo gesture and
to Zora’s astonishment the snake meekly turned around and went back the way it
came. The men continued their conversation as though they had never been
menaced by a deadly reptile. Well, Zora supposed, they hadn’t been.

Feeling a
little foolish she began to walk back and only then did she realise how far she
had come in her panicked dash. Funny, she didn’t think she’d taken that many
steps but she was almost onto the beach path. Brow pleated in a puzzled frown
she measured the distance to the veranda. Wow, adrenalin sure did give you
wings.

“That’s
not exactly it, little Zora.” Axel had come to the steps and was smiling at her,
easily reading the confusion on her face. “Since you may have to engage with a
supernatural being, you have enhanced physical abilities. You are stronger and
faster than you were, you will find yourself astonished by what you can do
quite often until you adjust.”

Zora came
back up the stairs and accepted her coffee from Powers with hands that shook
only a little. After taking a big gulp she turned to Axel. “There’s one thing I
don’t understand about all of this. Why did you have to unlock my abilities?
Why haven’t I had them on tap all of my life?”

Axel
smiled gently at her. “Untrained, your abilities could be dangerous. We the
fairies took steps to block them from you, although we have always intended
that you come into your heritage around about now. Even though there has been
no threat for two generations your line is strong and we would not like it to
end with you. We had however planned on doing it with and through Powers and we
thought we would have the luxury of training you properly.”

Zora
thought it through, and turned to Powers. “Did you know this?”

Powers met
her gaze levelly. “I knew you had no idea who you are or what you are capable
of, but I didn’t know your abilities had been blocked by the fairies. I thought
you had done that yourself. People are in general very good at denial. I
thought that you may have done one or two things that scared you a little and
you blocked them out.”

It all sounded
very plausible, except for one thing. “Axel, your highness, whatever I should
call you, how exactly did the fairies block my abilities? I think I would have
remembered a visit from a stranger carrying a staff.”

Axel
smiled that indulgent smile. “Very astute little Zora, and please, call me Axel.
In truth, I do not really need the staff, but it is useful and it does like to
feel important. Once we had made the decision it was very easy for one of us to
visit you in the guise of a child in the playground. You are tied to our family
through your bloodline, so my sister was sent and it was very easy for her to touch
you in the course of play and block your abilities.”

Zora was
silent as she absorbed all of this. There was a lot of information to digest in
one short paragraph. The fairies could change their appearance at will it
seemed, Axel had a sister and she had met said sister, he did not need his
staff to perform magic and the staff seemed to have feelings so she assumed
that in some way it was self-aware. Since Axel seemed to be waiting for
something she asked the only questions she could think of. “What is your
sister’s name, and does she look like she did when I met her? And does your
staff have a name, should I have greeted it?”

Her second
question surprised a snort from Powers and a full blown grin from Axel. My, he
was a very handsome man/fairy when he smiled like that. As though he knew her
reaction his smile widened before he replied with a thread of amusement making
his voice suddenly very seductive. “My sister simply used a younger version of
herself so you will probably recognise her when you see her, and her name is
Tianna. The staff does have a name but only I know it, and it would enjoy if
you greet it next time you see it.”

Zora
frowned, she didn’t remember anyone called Tianna, but then she supposed if a
fairy was sent to block her abilities she would not exactly be calling
attention to herself. She filed that bit of information away and briefly gave
consideration to the idea a staff could be considered an entity, and that in
this surreal life she found herself it no longer seemed like that big of a
deal.

Back to
business. “So now that my abilities are unlocked, what do I have to do to learn
how to use them? Actually, apart from the enhanced physical abilities, what can
I do?”

“Come
little one, let us sit and I will tell you, and then we will begin the physical
exercises to make it easier for you to use your abilities. First though, know
that you have the knowledge on an instinctual level. If the need arises, even
if I have not taught you, you will know what to do.” Axel’s eyes fixed intently
on her as he said that and Zora shifted uncomfortably under his gaze until he
continued. “But the exercises will help you to assimilate these abilities
better, and of course your physical fitness even though enhanced, could be
better.” He frowned slightly in disapproval as he said the last sentence,
probably deserved since Zora did not believe in exercise unless it was running
to her car in the rain.

“You can
sense a werewolf in the same way you can sense the other supernaturals when
they are around. However you can also sense a rogue werewolf when you are at
the place where it has committed a murder, or some other atrocity. The violence
leaves an echo and you can pick up on it. You are very strong little Zora, I
think you will pick up far more than any other defender. Now that your
abilities are unblocked we will take you back to the site and see what you
feel. Although it is best to go to a site within 12 hours, I believe you will
still pick up a useful amount of information. That you picked up anything at
all earlier is astounding.”

Zora
nodded nervously, feeling like a student about to be put on the spot and asked
to give an oral presentation in a foreign language.

Axel
continued, “You also have the useful ability of being able to cause a werewolf
to combust if you and it are present within eyeshot at dawn. I will show you
how to do it, it is very simple.”

Zora
nodded again, like a marionette. Causing someone – or something – to combust
was a simple thing to do. Right, in this alternate universe in which she now
lived she guessed it was.

Axel smiled
as though he had read her thoughts – maybe he had, after all her mind was
apparently open like a book. He continued, “Your six senses are enhanced, your
sight, smell, taste, hearing, touch and your, um, shall we say your intuition.
By this I mean you will quite easily be able to sense other supernaturals, and
you will also find you can more easily pick up on the intentions of the humans
you come into contact with. You are faster and stronger and we will work on
that so you learn your new limitations. It is important to know your limitation
little Zora because you will feel invincible and against a supernatural you
certainly are not. But you will heal faster should you get hurt, which is
useful.”

Zora
nodded for the third time, her mind screaming a protest at the thought of
fighting a supernatural being and getting hurt but hey, she would heal faster
so it’s all good. She was trying to assimilate the information she had just
received when she realised that Axel was speaking again. “You can see my aura
right down to the colour, I wonder if you can see the tells of the other
supernaturals.”

Intrigued,
Zora was about to ask what he meant when her attention was caught by an odd
blurring in the garden directly in her line of vision. She squinted a little –
it wasn’t blurring exactly, it looked more like mist or fog. But it was too
small to be fog. Yet even as she watched it coalesced into a small cloud.
Zora’s eyes widened and Axel followed her line of vision.

“Ah,” he
said. “Immaculate timing.”

Zora
glanced briefly at him, wondering what on earth he was talking about. She
looked back and understood, kind of. The cloud had gone and a man now stood in
the garden. Oddly, he did not seem to be damp at all, at least his gorgeous
shoulder length blonde hair was dry and perfect. In fact the whole man was
perfect, tall and handsome with glowing golden skin and impossibly blue eyes.

As she
watched he smiled revealing perfect white teeth and a cute dimple in his left
cheek. She knew if she had not already witnessed some pretty bizarre things
that her eyes would be bugging out. However her other senses were working just
fine. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck were standing erect, and
her pendant burned coldly against her skin. She clutched it reflexively as she
stared at the newcomer, clearly a supernatural but which type?