Chronicles- A Devil's Daughters Crossover- Book Two(Published Feb 2017)

Secrets and Switches

   Kember had thought it strange at first, that Nyx and Mia, and Ben and Belvaya, were all crammed into the one little cabin; but that was before Malice had returned with Bathsheba at her side.
    "You were to remain with Kember!" Malice hissed at her daughter as they entered the room.
    "You didn't have to kill him!" Bathsheba shouted back at her.
    "You guys, want to keep it down?" Nyx grumbled, leaning his head back against the wall. "Someone's gonna hear you!"
    "Let them!" Malice growled back at him.
    "No one's gonna hear anything!" Sheba bellowed, picking up a chair and slamming it against the wall. "Not after she was done with them!"
    "What are you saying?" Kember threw a glare at Malice. "What did you do?"
    "She didn't tell you all?" Sheba looked stunned, like a dear in headlights; a dear with long red hair, big doe eyes, and a rack that would please the Gods. "Ha!"
    "What didn't she tell us?" Mia inquired, rising from her spot beside Nyx. "Malice? What have you done?"
   As if her thoughts had summoned the asshole himself, there came a knock at the door, though it wasn't closed, and Kordahn stood there with Lync beside him. Tall, dark haired and handsome; Malice couldn't see what Khia's problem was with him; talk about yummy...
   "Shit!" She hissed again, and shook her head.
   "What is it?" Kordahn asked as he made his way into the small cabin.
    "She's hormonal, and can't get you out of her head!" Bathsheba laughed, and Malice swung around, slapping her daughter across the face.
    "You, will be silent!" The Valkyrie seethed between gritted teeth, "Or you will not make it to your ceremony!"
    "You're such a bitch!" Bathsheba shouted back, and if it were not for Kember's hand on her arm, Malice would have decked her daughter, but good; but she had stalled for the time being, as Bathsheba took off out the door, and Mia followed close behind her.
   "Holy shit balls, Mal..." Nyx started, but Malice's glare had him thinking twice.
   "Just breathe!" Kember told her, running her hand up her arm to her shoulder, and then her neck, and finally her cheek. "Just, breathe!"
    "I'm breathing, my love, and so is she, for the time being!"
    "Great! So, here's a question..." Nyx cocked a brow at Kordahn. "If we're sailing, where the fuck did you come from?"
     "Come!" Kordahn laughed, and Malice took Kember's hand.
    "Come on! We will be rid of this mess soon enough!"
    It wasn't long, before Kember laid eyes upon what Bathsheba had spoken of, though they were not dead, they were all... sleeping. "What happened?"
   "They ate, they drank, they were merry!" Malice grinned, "And all of it was laced with a special tonic!"
    "Is that where my Kalmarona Root went?" Kember laughed, as loud as she wanted, for not a soul on board could hear her. "You drugged them!"
    "I had to!"
    "But why? I thought they were taking us to..." But she stopped short when she came around a corner, a witnessed the pool of black ooze. "Oh Gods..."
    "Yes! There was a Shadow among them!" Malice sighed, "And where there is one, there is another! I could not be sure who it was, so I dosed them all!"
    "Even the... Oh, Malice, you drugged the Captain?"
    "He said he needed a good nap!" She smiled back, and kissed Kember long and hard. "I had to make sure it was safe, Kember, for even the Guilded Rose had been tampered with!"
  It suddenly dawned on Kember, the talk of Home Harbor and Khia, the way Malice and Mia took to the light fixture, and the hushed version of their plan. "You plan to leave the ship? But how?"
   "We are all leaving, the same way that Kordahn arrived, and  by the time anyone wakes to notice we are gone..." Malice grinned again, as the second ship came in to view. "... they will not be able to find us!"
    "And we can finally get Bathsheba to Khia?"
    "Khia, is already here!" Malice smiled, as she led Kember across the plank, and on to the deck of a ship, twice the size of the one they had been on.

                                                                                            ***

       "Tell me, my brother, are the rumors true?" Navina asked, as she waited for Malice and the others to arrive. "Did Khia, kill Markin?"
    "Her husband Markin, was a nasty piece of work, Navina. He was a madman and a sadistic fiend, and as the Valkyries say 'Vengeance comes for those who are the most deserving."
    "So, she did kill him?"
    "I would say, that she gave cause to his demise, but she herself, did not end his life!" Kordahn replied. "And yes, I wish it had ended by my hands, but that was not possible."
    Silence surrounded them as they waited in the dining room of the large ship. Khia's ship. It was a long, sturdy ship, with five floors, living quarters, a dining room and ball room for entertaining guests. Her chair, an ominous as it was, stood off to one side, and beside it, was another, reserved for whichever male she had accompanying her at the time.
    It should be Kordahn in that chair, sitting by her side as she faced the world, but no... Khia was too good for that, too, new world! She had responsibilities to tend to, people to protect. To her, her world came first, not Kordahn, and that was just not right.
    "You are too hard on her!" Kordahn sighed, "You always were!"
   "How..." She started, but the sudden guilt, and the stupidity that she felt, held her back.
   "How long were you away for?" Her brother finished for her, being the reader that he was.
    "Yeah, I guess!"
     "Two hundred years!" Kordahn replied with a sigh.
   Two hun... Was he serious? How could it have been two hundred years? What the hell had happened to her? Where had she been?
   "Two hundred, forty nine years, and three months!" Another voice entered the room, and Navina all but lost her mind.
   For the love of the Gods, Khia, looked so very much like she did. So very much, like Marena.
    "It is good to see you again, Navina!" Khia announced as she took a seat on her throne.
    "Hello, Khia!" Navina replied. "It has been..."
    "Too long!" Kordahn finished for her.
    He had to stop that, and where the hell was Lync? Why wasn't he here yet?
    "Still looking for your male?" Khia laughed, and Navina shot her a look.
    "Still sleeping with all of yours?" She glared back at her and then rolled her eyes.
    "Why have you come, Navina?" Khia sighed, "Even after two hundred and fifty odd years, you're still a bitch!"
     "Says the whore, from her putrid throne!" Navina shot back.
    "Enough!"
    "She knows what happened to me, Kordahn, she knows what happened to Lync!" Navina glared at her brother. "She just won't say anything!"
    "I can't say anything, because I don't know! Gods, female, do you ever listen to your words as they fall from your mouth?" Khia shouted, "Do you really think I could keep that from you? Knowing what you mean to your brother?"
     "You've kept worse from him!"
     "I do what I must, for the people!"
     "You keep telling yourself that!" Navina rolled her eyes, and turned towards the door as it opened, and one of Khia's people rushed towards her.
    "Show them in!" Khia nodded her head, and the male bent down to kiss her palm.