Proditor : Book 5 of the Heku Series (51 page)

“
Who actually hit her?”
Kyle asked.

“
That we don’t know, all
six are saying someone else did it,” Aaron said.

“
I feel funny,” Emily said
softly, and Kyle caught her before she fell to the floor. He picked
her up and turned to the others.

“
Sorry, the doctor doesn’t
want her up running around, and this was all we could think of,”
William said.

Kyle handed Emily off to Chevalier, and he
slowly walked her up the stairs and laid her back in bed. He
covered her with blankets and watched her for a few minutes before
going out into the hallway.

Early the next morning, the heku heard Emily
moving around in her room. They heard her go in and take a shower,
and then they waited in silence while she got dressed. She talked
to herself in the bedroom, commenting on the black circles under
her eyes.

Emily opened the door and ran into
Chevalier, falling back onto her butt on the hard wooden floor. He
reached down and helped her to her feet.

“
What are you doing here?”
Emily asked, adjusting her shirt.

“
You know who I am?”
Chevalier asked.

Emily frowned, “Of course I do. Where are my
guards though?”

“
How much do you remember?”
Kyle asked her.

Emily looked at each of their faces
suspiciously, “What’s going on?”

“
Do you know where you
are?”

“
Yes, what I don’t know is
why you are all here.”

“
How’s your head?” Bachman
asked.

Emily frowned, “Ok, you, I don’t know.”

Bachman smiled, “I’m a doctor… how is your
head?”

Emily took a step away from him, “Get away
from me.”

William nodded to Bachman, and he blurred
away.

“
How’s your head, Em?”
Chevalier asked, looking down at her.

“
It hurts,” Emily said, and
sighed. “What’s going on?”

“
Your guards got into a
fight. You somehow got in the middle of it and got knocked into a
wall,” Chevalier told her. “You have a skull fracture and your
memory’s been sketchy.”

Emily looked around, “I don’t remember a
fight.”

“
It may come back to
you.”

“
That doesn’t explain why
you are all here,” Emily said.

“
I came to deal with my
guards,” Sotomar told her.

“
I came to take care of the
Equites,” Kyle said.

Chevalier smiled slightly, “You know why I
came.”

“
When was this?” Emily
asked.

“
Three nights ago, after
the ball,” William said.

“
Did I go to the
ball?”

“
Yes, you did.”

“
Hmm,” Emily turned and
went back into the bedroom, followed by Chevalier. He shut the door
behind her.

“
We’d like to take you back
to the island. The doctor here wants you to take it easy for a few
weeks,” Chevalier told her.

“
Is it rude to leave the
Encala early?” Emily asked.

“
No, they will understand,”
Chevalier said. “I also want to get the guards back to
Mark.”

“
I don’t want anything bad
to happen to them,” Emily said. “I don’t think they wanted to be
here in the first place.”

“
It doesn’t matter. They
drank while on duty and ended up in a fight that you were injured
in.”

“
They were
drinking?”

“
Yes, while you were up
here asleep.”

Emily pressed her palms into her eyes and
Chevalier wrapped his arms around her. She turned toward him and
buried her face in his chest.

“
Pretty bad?” he asked her
softly.

Emily nodded.

“
Let’s get you back to the
island. You can relax there.”

Emily nodded again and pulled away from him.
She watched Chevalier pick up her bags and carry them out into the
hallway.

“
We ready to go?” Chevalier
asked.

Kyle nodded, “I’ll have the guards in the
helicopter in 5 minutes.”

“
As will I,” Sotomar said,
and both of them blurred away.

“
I do hope you will
consider coming again,” William said. “Had it not been for the
misbehaving guards, we had a lot of things planned.”

“
We did?” Emily
asked.

William smiled, “Yes, and I’ll hold you to
come back and do them with us.”

“
I’d love to come back,
thank you,” Emily said, and Chevalier led her up to the helicopter.
She crawled in and buckled the seat belt. While they waited for the
guards to arrive, she leaned her head back against the seat and
shut her eyes.

Emily slept most of the way to the island,
ignoring the glares and scowls from the Elders to their disobedient
guards. The helicopter landed softly on the roof of the castle and
Island Coven guards poured out of the doors and formed a line up to
the helicopter. Emily got out first and winced when she saw Mark
standing in the doorway with a furious look on his face. The other
two Valle Elders were standing beside him and looked equally
angry.

Emily took Chevalier’s hand, and they walked
past Mark and the Valle, and went into her room. She immediately
laid down on the bed as Chevalier pulled the curtains closed and
kissed her softly before leaving her room. He heard the Valle’s
helicopter take off as he headed down the stairs to the courtroom,
where the others waited for him.

Chevalier walked into the small courtroom
and sat down in his seat at the front. Quinn and Zohn were seated
at Chevalier’s sides, while Mark and Kyle stood down with Russ and
JV in the trial area.

“
This should be quick,”
Chevalier said. “Do you have anything to say for
yourselves?”

“
Emily told us to go back
to the party while she ate. Then William came and told us she’d
gone to bed,” Russ said quickly.

“
So you made sure she was
safe in bed before going to the party…”

“
Not really, she went to
eat after a few dances,” JV said. “We got word from William that
she had gone to bed and said we could stay at the
party.”

“
Are you kidding me?!” Mark
yelled at him. “Did it ever cross your minds that the Encala could
have kidnapped her and fed you a line while you disobeyed Elder’s
orders and left her unprotected?”

JV looked down at the ground, “No, Sir.”

“
You were too busy breaking
a direct ‘no drinking’ order while you were outnumbered thousands
to 1 by the enemy faction,” Mark growled angrily.

“
It was only a few drinks,”
Russ said, watching the Elders.

Mark appeared at his back and had his head
turned dangerously far to the side in an instant.

“
Stop,” Chevalier said to
Mark, who slowly let the guard go.

“
We aren’t done with him.
This’ll be more painful of a punishment than that,” Quinn said
angrily. Quinn was even tempered, and his rage was more terrifying
to the guards than that of the other Elders because of the rarity
of it.

Chevalier took a deep breath, “So once you
decided to return to your post… you opted to start a fight instead
of going back inside to make sure Emily was ok?”

“
We could hear her
breathing… and we didn’t start the fight,” Russ said.

Chevalier slammed his fists onto the desk,
“I don’t care if you started it or not. If you hadn’t been
drinking, the fight wouldn’t have started. If you had been in the
room protecting Emily, she wouldn’t have gotten into a fight and
ended up with a skull fracture.”

“
The Valle hit her,” Russ
said. He was thrown to the ground by a hard backhand from Mark. He
looked up from the floor as blood dripped from his fast healing
mouth.

“
It doesn’t matter what the
Encala or the Valle were doing, if you had been in her room
protecting her, she wouldn’t have gotten into the fight,” Mark
growled.

Russ finally got his feet, “Yes, Sir.”

“
I expect each of our
guards to be able to protect any member of the Council that we ask
them to,” Zohn said. “It’s disturbing how easily you neglected your
duties and broke several of the Equites rules.”

“
Kyle?” Chevalier
hissed.

“
Yes, Sir?” Kyle asked,
staring at the guards.

“
Get them out of my sight
and make it hurt.”

“
Yes, Sir,” Kyle said, and
grinned. He and Mark hauled the guards out of the
courtroom.

“
How is she?” Quinn
asked.

“
Her head hurts pretty
badly because of the skull fracture,” Chevalier told
him.

“
Is her memory back
then?”

“
Not all the way, but at
least she remembers me,” Chevalier said, and grinned. “She told me
I had strange teeth and if they were longer I could be a vampire
for Halloween.”

Zohn chuckled, “Had to be interesting.”

“
The odd thing was she
hooked onto Sotomar, wouldn’t let anyone else near her.”

“
Sotomar?” Quinn asked,
surprised.

“
Are we losing our edge?”
Chevalier asked angrily. “Our guards keep breaking the
rules.”

“
I know, but I don’t think
it’s too late to change it,” Zohn said. “Without the Valle and
Encala attacks all the time, I think they are slacking.”

Quinn nodded, “I agree, they are lax because
nothing ever happens. How do we change that?”

“
Harsher punishments and
more responsibility,” Chevalier said. “Drills… surprise
inspections…”

“
That’s all good. It will
keep them on their toes,” Quinn said.

Emily floated on top of the warm water,
letting it block out any noise from the castle and relax her. Time
alone was what she needed. Alexis was falling into Allen’s old
pattern of wanting nothing to do with her family. She preferred to
spend all of her time with Allen, and worshiped everything he did.
Since coming back from the Encala Palace a month ago, Emily’s
headaches hadn’t gotten any better, and Dr. Cook was following her
all over the castle trying to get her to go to a hospital.

She took a deep breath and stood up in the
pool to check her fingers. They were severely pruned and it was
time to get out, so she swam to the ladder and then glanced back at
the pool. She wanted to go back and float, but promised Chevalier
they would go out together for a walk later. He’d spent the last
month on the island with her, and she knew that he expected her to
fall over dead at any moment from the head injury.

Emily crawled out of the water and wrapped
in a towel. She shut her eyes tightly against the headache, and
then headed for the door. Silas opened the door before she got to
it.

“
I was about to come in to
see if you drowned,” Silas chuckled.

“
I’m ok,” Emily said
softly. The castle staff noticed a drastic change in Emily since
her trip to the Encala. She was quiet and calm, and liked to spend
time walking through the castle or out on the castle grounds. She
didn’t get mad at mistakes, and didn’t joke with the guards. Her
personality change, though considered normal by the doctor, was
disturbing.

“
Your dinner is waiting,”
Silas said, falling back into his official guard roll. He was
afraid to stray into friendship for long. The Elders had been on a
quest to straighten up the guard staff in Council City, and that
started with the Cavalry.

Emily nodded and went into the dining room
and sat down at the head of the table. She picked, uninterested, at
the cheeseburger and fries and listened to the kids talking around
her. Her head was hurting, and it felt like every argument sent her
closer to the edge of passing out.

Silas alerted Chevalier that she wasn’t
eating again, and he appeared beside her.

“
Come on, Em,” Chevalier
said, and held his hand out.

Emily took a drink of Coke and then took his
hand and let him lead her out into the cool night air. They started
across the back pasture, and she leaned against his arm.

“
I’m worried about you,” he
said, squeezing her hand slightly.

“
I’m ok,” she told
him.

“
You keep saying that, but
you aren’t. I want you to go see a doctor.”

“
I don’t need a
doctor.”

“
How’re the
headaches?”

“
I’m ok, Chev, really,” she
said softly.

Chevalier sighed, “No you aren’t or you’d be
yelling at me by now.”

“
I just have a headache, it
will go away.”

“
Go see a doctor,
Em.”

“
I don’t need a doctor,
being here on the island is what I need.”

“
Then why aren’t you
getting better?” Chevalier stopped and looked down at her in the
moonlight.

Emily shrugged and pulled closer to him,
“I’m just tired.”

“
Then why don’t you take
something tonight? You aren’t sleeping well.”

“
Will you stop worrying if
I do?”

“
For one day,
yes.”

Emily nodded, “Ok.”

Chevalier swept Emily off her feet and
cradled her, smiling, “Off to bed then.”