Tempest, p.1
Tempest, page 1
Tempest
Karen Lynch
Copyright @ 2023 Karen A Lynch
Smashwords Edition
All Rights Reserved
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Disclaimer: The persons, places, things mentioned in this novel are figments of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to anything or anyone living (or dead) is unintentional.
Illustration by @thefairyfinn [insta]
Cover typography and set by The Illustrated Author
For teachers everywhere
A special shout out to the teachers who fostered my
love of literature and writing, and to my other teachers
who had to chide me for reading and writing in class.
About Tempest
All Danielle Danshov has ever wanted is to become a warrior. At eighteen, that dream is within her grasp – if she can get through her final year of training, master her Fae magic, and work with the enigmatic new trainer who challenges her as no one else has.
Outside Westhorne, a sinister new threat is growing, and demons and shifters are disappearing without a trace. As the Mohiri search for answers, danger strikes close to home, and the investigation becomes a race to save someone Dani loves before it’s too late.
When Dani’s world begins to crumble around her, she must find strength she never knew she had, and harness the power inside her. She’ll need both when she faces her enemy and discovers just how much she has to lose.
NOTE TO NEW READERS: Tempest takes place in the Relentless world twenty years after the events in that series. There are numerous references to people, places, events, and creatures from the original series. If you are new to my books, I recommend you read that series (or the first three books) before you read Tempest.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my family and friends for your support and encouragement. Thanks to my beta readers: Anne-Marie, Sarah, Amber, and Irina, and the many people who make this possible.
Chapter 1
I CREPT ALONG the upper level of the old factory, stepping over the bits of debris and broken glass littering the floor. The musty scent of mildew mingling with the smell of rust and small animal scat made my nose twitch, but I ignored it as I trained my ears to pick up sounds in the cavernous building.
Up ahead, the wall on my left ended and a railed catwalk looked out over the main floor. I stopped and went down on my hands and knees to peer around the wall into the darkness below. My eyes had already adjusted to the gloomy interior, and I did two slow scans of the space before I picked up movement at the other end. My eyes followed the dark figure until they moved out of sight, but they were too far away for me to make out whether they were friend or foe.
Pressing my comm button, I whispered, “Check in.”
Silence greeted me, so I pressed the button again. “Dima? Kai?”
Thirty seconds passed, and then a voice whispered back, “Kai’s down. I don’t think they –” He grunted, and the line went quiet.
“Dima?” I didn’t expect him to answer, and my heart began to race with the realization I was on my own. I took a slow deep breath. The odds of making it without my team were slim, but there was no going back.
I retreated a few feet and moved to the wall opposite the railing. Crouching low, I continued across the catwalk, holding my breath until I reached the other end. I swept my gaze across the main floor again. From this position, I had a wider view, which included an office with Plexiglass windows accessible only via a flight of metal stairs.
I studied the darkened office for a long moment. If I needed a defensible position where I could see adversaries coming from all sides, that was where I’d go. You could easily pick off your enemy before they got halfway up those stairs.
From inside the open doorway came a flicker of movement I would have missed if I hadn’t been looking directly at it. I watched the doorway for another five minutes until I was rewarded with a second glimpse of a shape among the shadows.
Gotcha. The thrill of the hunt went through me, but it soon faded when I remembered I was alone, and the hostile in that room was faster and stronger than I was. Coming at them directly was a suicide mission, and there was no other way into the office.
Releasing a quiet sigh, I tilted my head back in thought and stared at the ceiling of the factory, which was supported by metal rafters. My eyes followed the rafters to a beam directly above the office, and I smiled.
I cast another look around and retreated to the other end of the catwalk to study the rafters six feet above my head. It was doable. I’d reached tree branches higher than this. Bending my knees, I leaped straight up into the air until my fingers grasped cold metal. I adjusted my grip and pulled myself onto the beam.
After a few deep breaths, I made my way through the rafters until I was above the office. I stood on the beam and listened until my ears picked up the faintest rustle of clothing below me. My body tingled with nervous excitement as I took a roll of paracord from my pocket, tied one end to the beam, and soundlessly lowered myself to the roof of the office.
Ducking low, I crept to the edge of the roof and listened for sounds within. Silence. I inched forward to peer over the edge and almost jumped when a figure appeared in the doorway. He was dressed completely in black with his face covered, and he outweighed me by at least fifty pounds. I had the element of surprise on my side, but I was going to have to move fast to take him down.
He stood there for a long moment before he turned to go back inside. It was now or never.
Gripping the edge of the roof, I swung out and down in an arc. He spun, but my legs wrapped tightly around his middle, and I used my momentum to knock him off balance. He recovered with superhuman speed, but I had anticipated it. With one deft motion, I drew my knife and pressed the silver blade against his throat.
“Yield,” I uttered in a calm, steady voice.
He went still, and exhilaration pulsed through me.
It happened so fast my brain had no time to process it. One second, I had him at my mercy, and in the next, I was weaponless and pinned against the wall with a steely hand around my throat. Blood roared in my ears as I stared at the face hidden behind a black ski mask.
A light came on, nearly blinding me. He reached up with his other hand and yanked off the mask. Brown eyes bore into mine. “You’re dead.”
“How did you do that?” I asked when he released me.
Gavin smoothed down his mussed black hair. “I felt your body relax a fraction when you thought you had me. That was all I needed. You can’t let your guard down for even a second.”
I straightened my coat. “I did have you. That should count for something.”
“Nothing counts if you die,” said another voice from behind me.
I turned to see Erik’s perpetually-scowling face. I didn’t think I’d ever seen the Korean warrior smile in all the years I’d known him.
We were interrupted by a muffled shout. I looked past Gavin at the three bound and gagged people sitting on the floor against the far wall. My fellow trainees: Naomi, Sean, and Anna glowered indignantly at us until Gavin walked over to free them.
Feet pounded the stairs, and Dimitri entered the room. His eyes lit up when he saw me. “Not bad, Sis. You almost did it.”
“Almost,” I muttered. “What happened to you guys?”
My twin grimaced. “Erik set a trap, and Kai and I walked right into it.”
“Where is Kai?” I looked around Dimitri to the empty doorway.
“He was right behind me. He’s probably sulking,” Dimitri joked under his breath.
“Dima,” I scolded softly.
Kai appeared in the doorway, and I smiled at the dark-haired trainee as he entered the room. He walked over to stand on my other side, but he barely returned my smile. Across from us, Naomi, Sean, and Anna wore equally sour expressions. Weren’t we a fun bunch?
“You call that a hunt?” Erik’s hard stare moved over each of us. “First year trainees would have done better.”
Kai shifted his weight, and Naomi opened her mouth as if to speak. The rest of us stayed still and waited for what we knew was coming.
Erik looked at Naomi, who had led her team. At six feet tall, the black girl had an inch on him, and she seemed to shrink so as not to remind him of the fact. Everyone at Westhorne knew his height was a sore spot for him, and he was already pissed off enough.
“Your team was disorganized the moment you entered the building. You did not work as a unit, and you were careless, which is why you were taken out immediately. If this had been a real job, I’d be looking at a pile of corpses now.”
Ouch. I flinched with them. The trainer didn’t pull any punches as he spent the next five minutes listing every one of their mistakes. I dreaded his critique of my team’s performance, and I swallowed hard when he turned his attention to Dimitri, Kai, and me.
“Your team showed some promise until one of you missed the clear signs of an ambu sh and led another into it,” Erik said to Dimitri.
I looked from Dimitri to Kai, who stared ahead stonily and refused to meet my eyes. Erik went on, doling out the same harsh criticism he’d given the other team.
Gavin spoke up when Erik finished lambasting us. “Dani, your stealth and speed are impressive. You managed to take me by surprise, but you got sloppy during the attack. You need to work on that because you’ll find yourself in many situations where a second’s hesitation can be a deadly mistake.”
I nodded, replaying the scene in my head.
“That said, you were the only one to breach our lair, so I’m giving your team a narrow win for this exercise,” Gavin said with a small smile.
Dimitri threw an arm around my shoulders. “Way to go.”
Erik glowered at us. “It’s nothing to celebrate. You will all have to perform a lot better than this if you expect to graduate next year.” With that parting shot, he turned and strode from the office.
Gavin picked up the knife I’d lost in the fight and handed it to me as he followed the other warrior. The room was silent until we heard the distant sound of the outer door closing.
“Fecking hell,” Sean burst out in his thick Irish accent. “When is the new trainer supposed to get here?”
I grinned at the normally cheerful redhead. “Next week, I think, but for all we know, he could be worse than Erik.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Dimitri said, earning nods all around.
Grandfather had asked Erik to step in as a temporary trainer while our usual trainer, Callum, was having an extended visit with his family in Scotland. I’d always thought Callum was a tough trainer until our first session with Erik. We had no idea who was coming to replace Erik, but the new trainer had to be better than the ill-tempered warrior.
“This wasn’t a fair test,” Anna griped, tightening her blonde ponytail, which had come loose. “How are we supposed to best two trainers who are faster and stronger, and who knew we were coming?”
“Most hostiles will be stronger than us until we’re older, so we have to be smarter,” Naomi told her. “Dani almost took out Gavin, and she’s smaller than the rest of us.”
“Hey,” I protested.
Erik wasn’t the only one who hated being shorter than his peers. Dimitri and I had inherited our father’s black hair and our mother’s green eyes, but he had Dad’s height and build while mine was closer to Mom’s. I was five eight, three inches taller than her, but still short by Mohiri standards.
Naomi raised her hands. “I meant that as a compliment. You use your smaller size to your advantage, and you play to your strengths, such as being able to move as quietly as a shadow.”
“And you treat every training exercise like it’s real,” Sean added.
Dimitri grinned. “Dani’s always been like that. Playtime was brutal when we were little.”
The others chuckled, and I felt a prick of pain as an old memory tried to surface. I poked Dimitri’s ribs playfully. “When your brother is an overachiever, you have to compensate somehow.”
“Erik and Gavin are waiting for us. We should go,” said Kai, who wasn’t laughing with the rest of us.
He walked out of the office, and we filed out after him. No one said much as we exited the dark building into the midafternoon sun. In the parking lot, two dark SUVs sat with their engines running. Dimitri, Kai, and I headed for one while the other trainees went to the second vehicle.
Dimitri climbed into the front with Erik, and Kai and I took the back. As soon as we pulled out of the lot, Dimitri began grilling the trainer about his mistakes in the exercise and what he should have done differently.
I settled back in my seat and watched the streets of Boise go by, occasionally flicking a glance at Kai, who stared silently out his window. After we passed the city limit sign, I reached over and touched his arm, and he swung his head in my direction.
“It was only a training exercise,” I said in a low voice. “They expect us to make mistakes.”
His lips parted as if he was going to speak, but he faced the window again. I frowned at the back of his head and turned to my own window. If he wanted to sulk, I wasn’t going to waste my breath trying to talk to him.
The drive home took an hour, and my irritation was at a low simmer by the time we passed through the gates of Westhorne. Erik parked outside the garage, and we got out as the other SUV pulled in beside us.
Dimitri and I called our goodbyes to the others as they headed to the manor. We started toward the woods, and we’d walked about ten feet when Kai called my name. I stopped and looked back at him.
“Are we still going to a movie tomorrow night?” he asked as if he hadn’t spent the past hour ignoring me.
I lifted my eyebrows. “Are you going to be in a better mood by then?”
He smiled contritely. “Yeah.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.” I turned back to Dimitri, and we resumed our walk.
He was quiet until we reached the gravel road to the lake. As soon as we entered the woods, he said, “I still can’t believe you’re dating Kai. What do you see in him?”
“He’s fun to be with, and it’s not serious.”
Dimitri scoffed. He and I had few secrets between us, so I already knew he didn’t care for Kai, though he’d never let anyone but me see it.
I hid my smile. “You don’t like him because he’s your closest competitor in class. He did try to be your friend.”
“He probably hoped he could get to hang out with Dad.”
“So what? Not everyone is lucky enough to grow up as Nikolas Danshov’s kid.” I slanted a look at my brother. From this angle, he was almost a mirror image of our father, whom he idolized. He had spent countless hours learning Dad’s fighting techniques and sparring with him. He even rode a Ducati like Dad.
Dimitri’s lip curled. “Kai’s arrogant.”
“So are you.”
He glared at me. “And he’s a sore loser.”
I couldn’t deny Kai’s moodiness annoyed me. It wasn’t as if he was the only one Erik had raked over the coals. But I saw a different Kai outside of training, so I was willing to give him a pass this time. I shrugged one shoulder. “No one’s perfect, Dima, not even you.”
He made a pained sound. “I thought you were going to stop calling me that.”
“But I like it.” Dima was the nickname our Russian grandmother had given him when we were babies, and I’d grown up calling him by that name. I gave him a sly grin. “I’ll tell you what. If you can beat me to the house, I’ll stop using it.”
His face brightened. “You’re on.”
We raced side by side down the road. We’d gone a quarter of a mile when I caught a blur of movement on my left. I skidded to a stop as a huge black shape leaped from the woods and landed directly in my path. His big head swung toward me and fetid breath washed over me as his long tongue lashed at my face.
“Woolf!” I sputtered, wrapping an arm around his thick neck to restrain him.
The hellhound gave my chin another lick and pressed his body against my side. I scratched between his ears and looked behind me at Dimitri, who was rolling on the ground with Woolf’s brother Hugo.
“Need some help?” I called to him.
Dimitri turned his head to the side and grimaced as Hugo slobbered over him. It took him almost a minute to push the hellhound off him and scramble to his feet. The hair on one side of his head was wet and stuck to his face, and he was covered in damp leaves and pine needles.
My lips twitched. “If Erik was here, he’d say you need to work on your reaction time.”
He shot me a dark look as he stomped back to the road. I couldn’t hold in a laugh when he ran his fingers through his hair, leaving behind a leaf stuck to his cheek. Hugo, trying to be helpful, began washing Dimitri’s face like an overexuberant puppy.
“Okay, boy, that’s enough,” Dimitri said, but Hugo didn’t let up.
