Clayton's Jade (Runes Stone Series) (13 page)

“I believe that would be my job this time.”  A deep voice sounded from behind her.  “You all did a great job out there today.  I am proud of you all.” When Vie collapsed Odin snapped his fingers and she was gone.  “She is at Valhalla with my wife.  Clayton you are the first of the hybrid berserkers in my army.  More will follow.  When the mate stone for a couple is found the bite will bond the two together.  When everyone has recovered from tonight we will have a ceremony.  Right now you have enough on your mind and a full house.” Then he was gone.

“Ceremony?” she was confused. “Mate. Bonded. Umm Clayton you had better start explaining.” 

The dead stare coming from her eyes was enough to make him pause before he messed things up really bad.  Damn Odin and his big mouth!  “Ouch!”  He hated that Odin could burn him whenever he wanted.  “I did sort of tell you before he showed up.   The markings on the stone were ours.  It means we’re mates and then you bit me and the bond was completed I guess.  I didn’t know about that part until Odin said something.  It also means that we need to find the other couples stones before the giants do.  If they do not have the stones in their possession they cannot complete the bond.”

“What about this so called ceremony?”  She hadn’t agreed to anything yet and she hated it when people assumed things.

“I don’t know.  I am in the dark on that as much as you are.”  He had to admit that confused him to. “However, if it means being tied even closer to you than I already am, then I am all for it.” For now everything was as good as it was going to get.

Kaylee was still messed up, but not near as bad as some of them.  Just getting some rest would for the most part heal her.    Taking Clayton’s hand she pulled him towards the bedroom to rest.  She just wanted him next to her.  He made her feel safe
, and with all these people in her home, she needed to feel safe so that she could sleep.   “I just want to go to sleep and deal with everything else tomorrow.  We all just need to rest and heal for right now.”

“That’s the best offer I’ve had all day.  I just want to fall asleep holding you.”  When they got into the bedroom he pulled back the covers and stripped down and got into bed, she did the same thing.  Lying on her side she curled up to him with her back facing him.  His arms immediately went around her.  It didn’t take long for her to go out. 

Each time Clayton moved she moved with him, a couple of time she even woke up when she didn’t feel him near her.  It was like she needed him more than she realized and that scared her more than anything she had ever faced before.  She didn’t want to have to depend on anyone else.  Now by the looks of it she was going to have to.  Snuggling back into him she fell back to sleep.

CHAPTER 10

The Tasmanian had lost his battle and his life at the same time.  He was pissed off and wanted revenge and the girl yet there was nothing he could do about it now.  Suddenly he felt his body being pulled toward something.  He just went with it.  As he went he saw things that if his skin had still been attached it would have been crawling.  Some beings were in cages with nails poking straight up from the floor.  Other people had black spirits going through their bodies constantly and could see that it felt horrible by the looks on their faces.

Then he was in a castle that had been constructed of ice with layers of frost on the floors.  Sitting in a throne was a woman if you could really call her that.  The right side of her body was that of a beautiful lady in her twenties.  The left side was bone and moldering flesh with liquids seeping out in different areas.

He stopped at the foot of her throne where he was given solid form again.  He wondered if this was a good or a bad thing.  He decided to hold his tongue and wait to see what she wanted from him.  “So it seems the berserker got you at your weakest moment and killed you.  I bet you would like a second chance to set the record straight so to speak.”  She held no real emotion in her voice.  Her voice was both sensual and gritty at the same time.

“Yes, I would like a second chance to even the score and get the girl.”  Not only would she have to watch him kill her lover, but after it was all said and done she would do exactly what he told her to do.

“Then I have a deal for you.  I will give you your second chance with an enhancement of my own.  I will even help you in the killing of him.  You will lead him into a trap of my making, and then you will continue in this war for my side.  As it is with every deal there is a price to be made to seal the deal.  Should you choose to make this deal your cost is my pleasure for it has been a long time since I have had a man.”  So he had to sleep with this and he would not be able to kill the berserker.  He was going to make that bitch pay for this.

“Deal.”

***

Brad had fallen asleep next to Bridget without intending to.  He woke up with a jerk he must have been more tired than he had thought or it was stress he wasn’t sure anymore.  The past few days he had been on overload.  He could tell it was late in the afternoon just by the way the light was hitting the room.  After being stuck in there a few days you notice certain things that most people wouldn’t.  Bridget was still asleep if you could call it that.  No one could wake her up. 

Knowing that they had to shift in a few hours he went in search of Dagda.  He didn’t want to leave her but needed to.  He found Dagda in the back yard behind the garage.  The next thing that came to mind was how did you ask a wizard if he forgot about a tank without offending him?  The last thing he wanted to do was piss off a wizard.

CHAPTER 11

“Go back to your whale the tank will be ready when you have need of it.”  Ok. Weird, but he could deal with that and he did not have to ask anything.  “By the way you did not have to ask.  I could hear you.”  Then he tapped the temple of his head.  With a big swallow, Brad turned and went back into the house. 

He stopped in the kitchen to grab something to eat then headed back to the bedroom and Bridget.  He was done eating by the time he reached the bedroom.  She was still in the same position that he had left her in.  He wished she would wake up before he had to put her into the tank.  He had a feeling that it was going to have a long night ahead of him.  Tim was still here so he would be able to help him with her. 

When she woke up in the morning, she realized she had slept for twenty four hours.  She had even slept threw her shifter form that had never happened before.  She guessed that her cat had been exhausted too and that’s why she had slept through the night.  I guess my body had more to heal than I thought.  Where was Clayton though?  Getting up she took a shower and got dressed.  Every time she moved her muscles would scream at her.  Sometimes it was like a sharp needle being stuck into her body, at other times it felt like the muscle was stretched to the point of sit your ass back down pain.  Her whole body felt like it was black and blue from being beat by a baseball bat
, at least that was the best analogy she could come up with.

When she got out to the front room she saw that some people were still sleeping and that was ok with her.  Going into the kitchen to get that all important cup of coffee
, she realized that it was already made and Clayton was out on the patio drinking a cup of it with Mark and Gavin.  She poured a cup and headed out to talk with them and see what was going on, what the plans were for the day.  Clayton saw her at the sliding glass door and got up to open it for her, that and give her the all-important morning kiss that made both of their days.  He slowly lifted his head and asked “How are you feeling this morning?”

“Very sore, in fact I don’t have anything to compare it with
, if that tells you anything.  How is everyone else doing?”  She was concerned over some of the more serious injuries that some of the shifters had received.    In a lower voice directed at Clayton she asked “How did I sleep last night?”  She saw him smile at her and knew that he like whatever had happened.

He leaned over and whispered into her ear “You shifted while asleep and curled up at my waist and stayed that way until you shifted back.  I think your cat likes me too.” Then he straightened back up and said loud enough for rest of them to hear, “Everyone seems to be healing fine.  It is just going to take time for all the wounds to completely heal.  Over all we came out better than the other side.  In fact I don’t think they killed anyone on our side.  This is just the first of many battles that lies before us, but we will prevail either that or lose everything and everyone.” Gavin answered.  He was the one with the most medical training in the group.

“One thing we need to do is set up a real first aid area.  We need more and better supplies than what we had on hand.  We need to get a list of everything we need and get it here so we have for the next time this happens.  I don’t want anyone to worry that we don’t have enough gauze or that we are out of stitching thread.  If you guys are going to make my home a base of operations, I want certain precautions, put into place as soon as possible.”  She knew Clayton would make sure everything would be stocked before the next time they got hit. 

“It will be taken care of.  I will have Gavin make a list of the things we will need and we will get them here.  I promise.  Is there anything else on your mind?” the look in his eyes gave her all kinds of ideas, but she was going to be good and pay attention to her guests.  She wondered if they would maybe fit in a nap sometime today or if she was going to have to wait until tonight?  Sometimes it sucked being good! 

“There are lots of things on my mind some of them just have to wait.  So what did you guys do with the shifters you caught in the nets?  Are they still sitting up in the air?”  She couldn’t help the little snicker of laughter that escaped her at the thought of them still up there just hanging around in the nude.  They deserved it, but as much as she wanted them to still be hanging around she knew better.

“I believe Dagda dropped them in the ocean this morning, after they had changed back into their human side
, if you want to call it that.  We let them hang for a day.  It should have been a sight for everyone to see watching them walk out of the ocean stark ass naked.  I wonder if they could get a ticket for that.”  Ok, that was just too much to hear and not bust a gut over.   There was a side effect that she had not counted on, she froze every one. Oh shit, oh shit, this was so not good.  How was she going to fix this?  Before the fight she couldn’t even get her new power to work now it works when she didn’t want it to.

“I don’t know what to do.” She whispered more to herself than anything else.  Still in shock over what she had done, she didn’t realize that someone was behind her until a hand was covering her mouth.  Oh god
, now what? Please, please wake up.  She couldn’t even yell for Vie, because she was still recovering from healing all of those people. She kicked one of her feet back, but nothing was there. Whoever had her knew that she would try to do that.

“My timing couldn’t have been more perfect of course Hel was the one that picked it.  I have been through a lot and made a deal to get to you.  Now
, not only will you be mine, but I will get to kill your lover and you get to watch. Not here though, as tempting as it is, I have a better plan.” He put a gag into her mouth very quickly before she could get a sound out.  Then he blindfolded her so that she couldn’t see what he was doing.  He was not nice about tying her hands up behind her back.  Then she was pushed in a direction of his choice.

She recognized the voice, but how could he be here?  She thought Clayton had killed the Tasmanian devil.  Hold on, she needed to think about everything she had heard him say.  He made a deal with Hel.  If she was right
, Hel was like Hell or Hades this could not be good for them.  She wished she had paid more attention when her parents had tried to teach her about mythology, but she thought it was boring.  Now she was going to pay for it.  

She was shoved into the back seat of a car.   The pain that hit her from being shoved into the car was so intense that she almost threw up.  It was probably a good thing that she had not eaten or drank anything since the night of the fight or she would have. Then he shut the door and left again for a few minutes.  If only she knew how long they were going to remain frozen but she didn’t. The only thing on her side was the Tasmanian didn’t know either so he had to hurry.  People in a hurry make mistakes. That’s a fact of life.

The Tasmanian still had not returned, but she felt something else in the car with her.  It wasn’t something that you could touch or feel in the normal sense of the word.  It was her sixth sense that felt it and something else inside of her.  It was not a good feeling, it made her skin crawl.  The part that was inside her made her feel worse than what she already was, and where it had touched her, it left an oil residue.  That was as close to describing it as she could come to.

Even when the Tasmanian got back to the car, the other thing was still in the car with them.  The Tasmanian knew it was too, the difference was that he could see it.  “What are you doing here?  I will get her part of
the deal done in my own time. I don’t need you to shadow me.  Now go back to Hel.”  He started the car and got it moving but she didn’t know in what direction at least she didn’t when they got to the main road she could guess but that would be useless.  “I hope that Hel’s pet didn’t bother you too much.  I guess that is something I am going have to get used to.” Then he turned on the radio and talking filled the car, unless he played the CD. The only thing that came on radio was talking.  She never listened to it which is why she had a lot of CDs in the car and in the house.    They drove for a while until they got off on a dirt road.  There were a lot of back roads in this area.  Where was he going?  Every time the car hit a pot hole her body took air and reminded her that she was not completely healed from the other night.  The only good thing was she was getting used to the sick feeling from all the pain in her body.  Ok, so this day officially sucked and she would be glad when Clayton kicked his ass!

After about a half an hour of getting jostled around in the back seat from all the bumps they came to a stop.  He turned off the car and dragged her out of the car.  She wanted to pass out and make him carry her but she was afraid of what he would do while she was out cold.  Once she was standing he made her start walking, after they had walked about twenty minutes he took the blindfold off and let her see where she was walking.  As they kept walking she started to see different things that she had seen before.  She had been on this trail before that was good, now she just had to figure out which one it was.

This was a well-used trail. The dirt was hard packed from people walking on it.  Along the sides of the path were ferns, redwoods and deer berries.  Deer berries looked like a huckleberry but were red.  They were good to eat right off the bush when they were ripe, but from the looks of them it would be another month or so.  She figured they were about half way down the trail when she realized where they were.  They were on the Boy Scout trail off of Halland hill.

At the end of this trail was a small waterfall and even farther was a farm.  She had never met the owners.  He owned cattle but had similar standards towards his land that she did.  Every time she tested the water in this area it was clean unlike a lot of other places around here.  Maybe if she could figure out how to get away she could go to him for help.  At least now she had hope and she knew the area.

CHAPTER 12

As Clayton unfroze he realized that something was wrong.  Someone had duct taped his hands and feet to the chair as he looked around the table he saw that the rest of them had the same problem.  Kaylee’s power had gotten out of control when she laughed it froze all of them.   What had happened after that?  He got so mad at the thought of Kaylee being taken that everything ripped including the tape. Then he went around the table and untapped everyone else then he went into the kitchen and found the note that had been left. 

“Damnit!  Hel made the Tasmanian devil a deal and he has Kaylee.  If I want her back I have to find the Boy Scout trail.  He is going to set a trap, and we, my friends, are going to walk in from all sides and try and surprise him.  We need to get the shifters that are not injured to help, and then we go in.”  They all split up and started getting ahold of people and he went to the bedroom where Brad was.