Her Royal Protector (a Johari Crown Novel) (Entangled Indulgence) by Alexandra Sellers

struggling to its home in the sea. She fell to her knees, her breath sobbing with the effects of her wild sprint.
    The pack over his shoulder, Arif jogged to a standstill beside her. A gull called above. The smell of the sea was strong in her nostrils.
    “What is it? What’s the matter?” Arif asked.
    “They’ve been picking off the hatchlings, damn them.” She waved a hand. “It’s been quite a feast, by the look of it.”
    He set the backpack down, and she rooted in it to find the broom, stood up , and waved it uselessly at the gulls. They circled as relentlessly as vultures over a dying man. Bile and tears rose in her throat and she swallowed hard.
    “This is a nest?”
    She nodded mutely. “A daylight hatch is unusual, but it does happen. You see how they’ve headed towards the sea? I hope some of them made it.” She led the way down to the water, examining the tracks. Too many stopped short of the water in a little scuffle of sand that told its own story.
    “They hatch at night, usually, and they’re programmed to head towards the light—moonlight or starlight on the waves. A night hatch protects them from predators and the sun. In a daylight hatch if they lose their way even a little, they’re baked before they reach the sea. Between the sun and the gulls these little ones haven’t had much of a chance, but maybe some of them made it home. And maybe there are more to come. I’ll carve them a path just in case.”
    She took out her spade and scraped a little trail in the sand down through the markings, from the nest to the water’s edge.
    “There may not be any more,” she said. “But we have to stay and stand guard and be sure.”
    Arif glanced up to where the gulls still circled, then at her face, and said nothing.
    And a few minutes later she was rewarded with the sight of sand moving at the center of the nest. “Here comes another one,” she cried. “Oh, thank God.”
    It was more than one. The nest erupted with activity as they watched, the tiny hatchlings clambering up through the sand in an energetic cluster and heading for the water, some in the track she had made, some spread over the sand, their flippers working to gain the strength they would need.
    And more and more.
    “Oh, my God, aren’t they beautiful,” she whispered. “Not that way, little one, the water’s behind you,” she murmured, bending to encourage the errant hatchling towards the sea. One by one and then in twos and threes the little turtles clambered out of the sand and headed for the sea. Twenty, thirty, forty—so by no means all had been lost. Thank God she had been here in time.
    Aly looked up. The gulls were screaming in frustration. They rose and sank on the wind, but she picked up her Disappearing Broom and shooed at them, and none dared to come nearer.
    “Fifty-two,” she counted, as a last errant hatchling surfaced and headed after its siblings down the little track she had made, towards the life-giving sea. She squatted down to add the number to her notes, then stood up and dusted her hands. “That’s probably it. I’m going to watch them into the sea.”
    She turned to shepherd the last of the miniature turtles down to the water. The gulls still hovered indignantly while she watched the hatchlings undergo the fierce struggle to get into the water. Time after time the waves washed them back, time after time they forged ahead again, determined and dedicated, until at last, one by one, the water accepted them.
    “You do not help them into the water?” Arif asked.
    “They’ve got to fight the good fight, or they’ll never survive,” she told him. “They’ve got to do it themselves.”
    When the last hatchling had been swept away into its natural home, and it was evident no more were coming up, Aly measured and marked the nest in the usual way, and then they walked on a few yards to where the beach ended in a black cliff face and Arif summoned Farhad.
    Aly could hardly contain her joy. Whoever it