Refuge (20 page)

I put a hand over my head when a Kark flew
close enough to hook my hair with its tiny clawed wings. “So, what
do we do about them?”

Sahir studied the situation. “I have a
sedative that might help slow them down. I’ll go get it, and you
try to keep these people from killing them.”

“Me? How am I supposed to stop them?” I
asked, but Sahir was already running away.

Someone squealed, and I whirled around to see
Olivia batting at two Karks that were zipping around her head while
Jordan was bent over, holding her sides and laughing. Mark,
Terrence, and Josh were running around the hall chasing after the
creatures as a dozen warriors burst into the hall and stopped short
at the pandemonium before them. I saw Chris among them, and his
eyebrows shot up when he spotted me in the middle of the hall. I
shook my head to let him know this one was not my doing.

“What in God’s name is going on here?”
Tristan bellowed, and I looked up to see him on the second floor
landing with Celine. Celine looked down on me with a sneer on her
beautiful face as if I was somehow responsible for the whole thing.
Why the hell did everyone assume I had something to do with
this?

Tristan started down the stairs with Celine
on his heels, and twice they had to stop as Karks fluttered around
them like large white moths. I couldn’t contain my smirk as I
watched Celine swipe at them.

“Who is responsible for this?” Tristan
demanded in a commanding voice that carried through the main hall.
“Where is Sahir?”

“He went to get some kind of sedative to
knock them out,” I told him when no one else answered.

Tristan stared in displeasure at the scene
before him. “How did this happen?”

“Ask them.” I pointed at the other trainees.
“I was with Nikolas.”

Behind Tristan, Celine’s eyes narrowed on me,
but she said nothing. Her hand went to her pocket, and for a few
seconds I half expected her to pull out a knife and come after me
with it.

“It was an accident,” Jordan said. “We laid
all the eggs out after breakfast and turned them as Sahir
instructed. We just went back to turn them again and they were all
hatched.”

Shaking his head, Tristan strode into the
center of the chaos. “I want these things caged before they make an
even bigger mess.” To punctuate his words, a splatter of white
landed in Celine’s straight black hair, and the female warrior
shrieked as if it was acid instead of poop. I almost laughed before
I got a whiff of the kark dung. I immediately slapped a hand over
my mouth and nose at the noxious odor that was a mix of rotten eggs
and dead skunk. If we didn’t round the karks up soon, this place
would reek of it for a month.

My first thought was to use my power to calm
the karks, but common sense told me there was no way I could handle
this many at once. Still, it might work on some of them and that
was better than nothing. At least they weren’t demons, so I could
not hurt them or cause them to go nuts.

Opening my power, I let it saturate the air
around me. After a few minutes, I noticed the karks closest to me
were moving slower than the rest before they began to flutter down
drunkenly to perch on the stair banister, the chandelier, or any
surface nearby. I walked over and picked up one to get a closer
look at it. Its snow white fur was downy soft, and I stroked it
with one finger as I studied the small bat-like ears and teeth and
soft white leathery wings that looked almost fragile enough to
tear.

“They must be getting tired,” Mark said.
“Should we try to catch them now?”

Glancing up, I caught knowing looks from
Nikolas and Tristan. Thankfully, no one else seemed to notice. “Go
find some crates or boxes or whatever you can to put them in,”
Tristan told Mark and Josh, who immediately ran off to do as
ordered.

Nikolas came over to stand by me and spoke so
no one else could hear him. “Are you doing this?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure how long it will work
on them. I hope Sahir gets here soon.”

Tristan walked up to us, followed by Celine
who was still trying to get the sticky kark dung out of her hair.
“Someone needs to be reprimanded for this disaster.” I ignored her
pointed glares in my direction. No matter how much she disliked me,
there was no way she could blame this mess on me.

“Here, we can put some in these.” Michael ran
into the hall carrying two of the mesh equipment bags from the
training rooms. He spotted Tristan and headed for us. “Will these
do?”

“Good idea,” I told him as he opened one of
the bags and I laid the kark inside. “Come on,” I called to the
other trainees. “Help us out here.”

With the help of Olivia, Jordan, and Terrance
we managed to round up at least three dozen karks that were close
enough to reach, but there were still over two hundred of them
whipping around the room with no signs of slowing down. To make
matters worse, more of the creatures decided they had to go potty,
and soon we were all dodging their little stink bombs like we were
in an eighties arcade game. If my nose hadn’t been burning from the
stench, I probably would have burst out laughing at the
ridiculousness of the situation.

“Watch where you’re going,” Celine snapped
when I backed into her to avoid getting hit by a white glob of poo.
Unfortunately, Michael chose that same moment to slip on the stuff
and come barreling into us, sending the three of us tumbling to the
hard marble floor. Lucky for me, Celine broke my fall, but she was
not as happy about that as I was, and I was pretty sure the elbow
she jabbed sharply in my ribs was not by accident. I grunted and
rolled off her and right onto poor Michael, who let out a moan when
the back of my head butted his nose.

“Ah hell,” I muttered when I sat up and saw
the white streaks on my jeans. My eyes watered at the smell. It was
going to take all day to get rid of this stench, and my clothes
were ruined for sure. I spotted a small streak of yellow on my
sleeve and hoped it was not urine. I rolled my eyes. Like a little
spot of pee would make a difference now.

“Need a hand up?” Chris’s voice quivered with
amusement, and I scowled up at him, which only made him burst out
laughing. Tristan joined in, and I glared at both of them before
they each grabbed an arm and pulled me to my feet.

“Ugh!” I groaned when I looked down at
myself. I really didn’t want to know what my hair looked like right
now.

Nikolas helped Celine up, and she clung to
his arm. How was it possible for her to be even filthier than me
and still look ridiculously gorgeous?

“If anyone needs me, I’ll be soaking in my
tub for the next two hours,” Celine declared, and I couldn’t help
but notice the meaningful look she gave Nikolas. I couldn’t see his
face, but I heard his soft chuckle at her blatant invitation.
Annoyance stiffened my limbs, and I stalked away from them. We were
covered in poop with no idea how we were going to bag the two
hundred or so karks whipping around, and those two were flirting
with each other like they were at a cocktail party.

The door opened and Sahir slipped inside with
a respirator mask hanging from his neck and carrying a foot-long
metal canister with a rubber hose attached. On the other end of the
hose was a spray nozzle. “Sorry it took so long. I had to dilute
the sedative and transfer it to a spray canister so it will reach
them.” He lifted the nozzle and sprayed a couple of karks as they
flew by him. At first it appeared to have no effect on them, but
after a minute or so they fluttered to the floor.

I immediately picked them up to make sure
they were still alive, and I smiled at Sahir when I felt their
strong heartbeats. “It worked.”

He turned to Tristan. “I diluted this, but it
still might knock people out if they breathe too much of it. We
should clear the hall before I spray more of it.”

Tristan nodded and ordered everyone to head
to the common areas until Sahir said it was safe to come out. All I
wanted was to find the nearest shower and scrub myself clean, but
as soon as Sahir knocked out all the karks, we’d be needed to bag
them before they woke up again. Dutifully, I trailed behind the
others instead.

“Ouch!” I jerked my head to one side when a
kark flew at my face and nicked my ear with its sharp little teeth.
I put my hand to my ear and frowned when my fingers came away red.
“The little bugger bit me!”

“It must have scratched you by accident.
Karks don’t bite people,” Sahir said, fitting his mask over his
mouth and nose as he waited for everyone to clear out.

Needles of pain stung my forearm, and I
gasped at the white creature latched onto my sleeve, its pointed
teeth digging into my skin. I let out a yelp and grabbed the little
body to yank it from my arm. It squeaked and twisted, frantically
trying to break free from my hand. “What is up with this
thing?”

No sooner had the words left my mouth when
another kark flew into my chest. I batted it away, but it did a one
eighty and came at me again. I snatched it up in my other hand, and
it went nuts like the first one. My first thought was that these
things really were demons and no one had bothered to tell me. Why
else would they be acting so bizarre around me? But if that was the
case, my power would have freaked them out a few minutes ago
instead of putting them to sleep.

“Ow! What the hell?” I yelled as, from out of
nowhere, five or six karks dive-bombed me, and I had to throw up my
arms to protect my head. “Sahir, will you spray these things before
they try to eat me.”

“I told you, karks don’t – ” Sahir broke off
when dozens of the creatures flew at me from every direction like a
swarm of angry hornets. I cried out and tried to run for cover, but
I could not see past the mass of white bodies around me. Over the
squeaking and flapping wings, I heard Sahir yelling, but I was too
busy fending off his
harmless
karks to pay much attention to what he was
saying.

A few seconds later, something large collided
with me and I flew backward. Instead of hitting the floor, I found
myself circled by a pair of arms and pulled against a hard body,
bracing me from the impact. My rescuer and I rolled over once,
ending with me on the floor and his body covering mine. I didn’t
need the flutter in my head to tell me who was holding me tight
against him and shielding my body from attack with his own. I
suddenly found it hard to breathe, and to my dismay I was pretty
sure it wasn’t from the fall.

“I don’t give a damn. Just do it,” Nikolas
barked at someone, and I felt the angry rumble deep in his chest.
He lowered his head, and his warm breath fanned my cheek. “Cover
your mouth and nose. Sahir is going to spray around us.”

I pressed my face into the crook of his
shoulder, acutely aware of his body against mine and the fact that
I had never been
this
close to a man before. Unless you counted that
time I healed Roland, but I didn’t think holding a half-crazed
werewolf fell into the same category.

“There are too many of them,” Sahir said a
minute later in a muffled voice.

“Keep spraying us,” Nikolas ordered.

“I can’t. It’ll poison you two if I spray
more around you.” I heard Sahir move away. “I’ll do what I can to
reduce their numbers. What the hell is wrong with them? Why are
they only going after her?”

“I don’t know.” Nikolas shifted his weight
and surprised me by leaning in and sniffing at my hair first and
then my hoodie. How he expected to smell anything over the stench
was beyond me. “Something smells off here.”

I could not contain my snort. “You
think?”

Instead of smiling like I expected him to, he
reached down and grabbed the bottom of my hoodie. “What are you
doing?” I demanded in a panic when he started to lift it up.

“I think something on your clothes is making
the karks behave like this,” he explained without stopping. “I can
detect something that doesn’t smell like you or their
droppings.”

He knows my scent?
That revelation shocked me so
much I forgot to protest further, and Nikolas used that opportunity
to quickly yank the hoodie over my head and fling it away from us.
Despite his body heat, I shivered as cold from the marble floor
seeped through the back of my T-shirt. A few karks used the
opportunity to squeeze beneath him and latch onto my hoodie, but as
soon as the piece of clothing flew away, they followed it.

“Jesus, look at that.” Buried beneath
Nikolas, I couldn’t see what Sahir was referring to, but his tone
sent another chill through me. “They’re still trying to get to her.
Whatever it is, it has to be on her T-shirt, too.”

“I know.” Nikolas lifted his head again, and
his eyes were dark and apologetic when they met mine. “Sara – ”

“No way! Forget it.” There was no way in hell
I was stripping in front of him and everyone else. “We can make a
run for it.”

“There are too many of them. As soon as I get
off you, they’ll attack you.”

“I don’t care. I am not taking off my
clothes.” The very thought of it made my stomach clench.

Nikolas sighed roughly. “I’m sorry but this
is no time for modesty. It’s just your shirt, and I’ll cover
you.”

That’s supposed to make me feel better?
My throat
was dry, and I averted my eyes from his as my trembling hands
pushed between us to reach the hem of my T-shirt. Why did this shit
keep happening to me?

“Stand back, boys. Time for the girls to show
you how it’s done,” Jordan yelled above the racket. “Let her rip,
Liv.”

I barely had time to wonder what the girls
were up to before Nikolas and I were hit with a blast of cold water
that soaked the two of us within seconds. Coughing, I turned my
face into his chest to keep from drowning in the onslaught. A
minute later, a deep rumbling started in his chest and I pulled
away when I realized he was laughing.