Exile: Sídhí Summer Camp #3 by Jodie B. Cooper

behind. No doubt, Beth saw
Sarah as a piece of Sídhí scum that shouldn't be trusted, a killer
that needed to be permanently removed from the world.
    Sarah’s lips twitched with dark humor. The
two teens had a lot to learn.
    Beth had no idea of the danger she had just
dropped her loyal little follower into. Given the time, if the
girls lived through attacking her, Sarah might agree to teach them
a small lesson or two.
    The reports she received on Beth and her
brother, Derek, had been very detailed. The two royals couldn't
sneeze without her spies knowing when, where and how many times
they sneezed.
    Brianna proved to be a different story. Beth
kept the young woman behind the scenes, away from prying eyes. She
wished she knew a bit more about the girl.
    “If we split up, can you find Clarisse by
scent?” Sarah asked, determined to solve the mystery surrounding
the sleek shifter.
    “Why shouldn't I?” Brianna demanded,
clenching her hands at her sides. Her chin jutted out in anger.
    Well now, wasn’t that an interesting sore
spot?
    Sarah hid a smile. She needed a good workout,
and if her reports concerning shifters proved accurate, the race
had a horrible temper. Supposedly, their ‘hot temper’ was as much a
shifter characteristic as red eyes were for a blood-drinking
vampire.
    She studied the girl. What she saw only added
to the mystery. Normally, through her synth-drenched blood, she
could tell the strength of a shifter by the glow of synth energy
surrounding them, not so with Brianna. For all intents and
purposes, the girl smelled and looked like a mundane human with no
power glow at all.
    When the two girls first appeared, Sarah
accepted Emily’s assessment that the girls were shifters. Perhaps
that assumption had been a mistake.
    Sarah inhaled, separating the individual
scents until she found what she searched for. One minute Brianna
smelled human, the next she smelled unique, unique as in extremely
weird. Before puberty, all Sídhí smelled like a mundane human. A
person’s base scent didn’t change, except during puberty and then
in very brief spurts. Brianna’s base scent changed.
    The girl actually had a very slight scent
that reminded Sarah of a fairy. The spring fresh scent wasn’t a
bold fragrance. The scent shifted, confirming her theory that
Brianna was in the middle of her twenty-one day puberty cycle. As
the fresh scent changed, she caught the sharpness of electricity,
like that of a spring lightning storm.
    Sarah’s curiosity rose several degrees. It
didn’t seem possible, but Sarah had seen too many impossible things
in her life to discount the odd hint.
    “There hasn't been a shifter around in
several thousand years,” Sarah said quietly, her voice remained
cool and distant as if discussing the weather, while enjoying her
decision to test a few theories.
    "Yeah, it was great until the dragons stuck
their nose into our business," Brianna said irritably.
    Hiding a calculating smile, she decided to
take a page out of Mitch’s book. With luck, and a little extra
prodding, the girl might be temperamental enough to attack. For
better or worse, defending against an attack remained the age-old
way to gauge the strength of a Sídhí.
    “Until I learn your strengths, I'll ask
questions. Only idiots make assumptions.” Sarah smiled, a slight
tilting of her lips revealing the mockery her words implied. “You
know, the whole ass-u-me scenario, but then again, being stuck in a
restricted valley must have been mentally damaging for such a small
society. I imagine the inbreeding after several thousand years has
had a major impact on IQ and mental stability.”
    Brianna hissed at the implied insult, but she
didn't snap back. Her light blue eyes flashed with tiny sparks of
silver. The effect lasted less than a split-second.
    Keeping her face immobile as Brianna's
heritage flashed in the girl's eyes proved almost impossible.
    The dragon's peace camp was turning out to be
educational to say the least. Who