Guardian (10 page)

Liam closed his eyes and fought the images, but Catya went on, her ability with images stronger than his even at her young age. She showed him something he never thought to see. The ghostly image of the woman’s spirit, her essence as it floated away from the gored and broken body. She held her child, thanked Catya and, with a smile, was gone to the other side of the veil.

Safe now, happy now. Good for her. Sad for Catya.

His eyes flew open to see Catya smiling at him. Wisdom far beyond her years radiated from her. “You understand she is better off now.”

Val and Rylee startled as they watched what Liam knew was a strange conversation, but he ignored them.

Catya nodded.
Some deaths must be. Called for. Needed. Like you.

How did he answer that? He went for simple. “Yes. Like me.”

The little girl frowned, a tear leaking from one eye.
Sad. I watch over baby when you go.

That did it, completely undid whatever control he had; if he sat there for one second longer he would lose it and start crying himself. He handed Catya to Rylee. “Take her. I must talk with the water dragon.”

Chapter Eleven

Catya held my
hand, her fingers warm against mine as we headed out to the drawbridge. Whatever she’d shown or talked to Liam about had obviously upset him. I couldn’t stop the frown from slipping over my face as I worried about it. I hoped he would tell me, but my intuition said that whatever they’d spoken about, he would be keeping to himself.

“Rylee, perhaps a moment with you,” Val said as we stopped at the foot of the drawbridge. Liam was in the middle of it, talking to the water dragon. She swayed in the water, her eyes thoughtful with whatever conversation they were having. At least this time she wasn’t so damn pissy. Then again, her belly was full of hunters.

“What is it?”

Val carried his brother on his back, Pavel’s head resting on his shoulder. “There is no safe place for my brother and me. Our coven is weakened after losing our strongest members to a rogue werewolf a few months ago.” Shit, he was talking about Liam when he’d gone on his rampage against witches.

I managed to keep my voice neutral. “What happened to the werewolf?”

He frowned and shook his head. “It disappeared; from one day to the next it was just gone. Some of our people thought it was a judgment on us and didn’t hold the deaths against it.”

Now I was confused. “Judgment for what?”

He blew out a soft breath. “For exactly what you asked me about. Why we wouldn’t help our fellow supernaturals. For years, all the supernaturals of this region have acted as though they were the only ones. After the attacks, our coven has been trying to change; we are seeing we cannot stand on our own any longer. It is not possible in this world. So while we lost much, the damage that was done opened our eyes and showed us we were not above being killed. Add into that the hunters stealing our weaker members and we realized it was time to make a decision.”

Liam walked over to us, his eyes drawn and fatigued. Whatever control he exerted over the water dragon cost him. “Perhaps I have an answer. She will continue to guard the moat, but will not harm any who comes to stay here from the coven or the wolf pack. If you can live in peace with the wolves, this would give both groups a chance to be safe.”

My eyes widened, but I knew what he was suggesting was a good thing. Even if it went against everything I’d ever known in my life. Supernaturals didn’t like working together; yet I was banking on their ability to overcome the past, at least if I had any hope of defeating Orion. Maybe this would be a good testing ground for inter-species relations. In other words, I needed to keep my mouth shut and stay out of the arena so I didn’t offend anyone and see what happened.

Val had a slight frown, but he nodded. “Yes, I think perhaps that would be doable. We could work together to keep the peace in the region. This could be a very good thing.”

I hadn’t expected that, and I wondered at how far up the coven ladder Val was, if he’d be able to convince the other witches that Liam’s idea was a good one. Especially after dealing with the … er … rogue werewolf.

After that, things went rather fast. Val left to gather his coven, and Liam left to gather Peter and his wolves.

I touched Liam on the arm, stopping him from going. “Fedya too.”

He gave me a quick kiss, stripped, shifted and was gone in a flash of black fur and silver gold eyes. While he might not be able to Track like me, his sense of smell would help him find her.

I was left with two small children, neither of which was capable of speaking to me. Not that it mattered much; they were both beyond exhausted with everything that had happened to them. Before dark, I fed them both and tucked them into one of the spare beds. They curled up together, Pavel’s dark hair and Catya’s sandy blonde mingling on the pillow as they clung to one another in their sleep. Perhaps it was a sign that the two groups would be able to work together. I hoped that was the case.

But there was something I still couldn’t figure out. Why the hell couldn’t I sense Catya until I was in the castle? Was there a spell blocking my senses here? No, that didn’t make sense; I’d been able to pick up on Dimitri and he’d been in the castle too. So what the fuck had it been?

I found myself at the drawbridge staring into the dark waters of the moat. “Can you hear me?”

The water stirred, and slowly, the water dragon raised her head, silver eyes glittering in the night like gems on fire.

What do you want?

There was no guessing about how she felt. Time for some kiss-assery to make things happen.

“You’re a guardian, which means you have a great deal more knowledge than pretty much any other supernatural.”

She preened under my words. Damn, I didn’t think it would be that easy.

Yes, I am the oldest of all the guardians. One of the first.

Well, that was interesting. She was one of the oldest and Liam had controlled her. Shit, my guy was a force to be reckoned with, even more so than I’d realized before.

“Do you know much about Trackers?”

Her eyes widened and she swam forward so she could put her forelegs on the drawbridge.
That is what you are, you are a Tracker. Why would you ask me something about what you are?

There was no need to hold back, since most of what I was going to share with her was common knowledge. “I didn’t have anyone to train me. I am the last and there is much I have yet to learn.”

Something about that softened her face.
Ahh. I understand. I am the last of the water dragons, as you would call me.
She scratched at her jaw with one of her deceptively delicate claws.
What is it you want to know?

Again, this was going easier than I’d thought it should. “I tried to Track the girl, but got nothing until I was so close I was right on top of her. Yet I Tracked one of the hunters here, so I don’t think it was a spell.”

There are some places, like the room they kept their captives in, that are outside the realms of the veil. As long as the child was there, you would have to be right on top of it to sense her, within speaking distance. If you could have shouted and she could have heard you, then you can Track her. Otherwise, there would have been no way for you to find her.

“So the room had some sort of spell on it?”

No. The ground below it has a binding, not a spell. It is a natural occurrence that can be found in a few places in the world. Most are in the wilds, forgotten. But a few, a very few, are considered holy ground. Places of sanctity. The elementals created them as places of true safety.

“Shit, that was no place of peace.”

No. The hunters did not know of its existence; it’s ironic that they would use it as their torture chamber.

I tapped the stone wall with my boot. “And you were here to also guard this special place?”

Yes.
She started to slide back into the water, pausing when only her eyes peered up at me.
There is always a guardian with a place like this. Sometimes they are killed; sometimes they are displaced.

Sometimes they are lost to memory. But they are still there. It is our calling, to guard. For all the disruption you have brought, you and the Wolf, you have also brought purpose back to me. I will guard those who are here, willingly. Unlike those others, who were nothing more than butchers. They bound me with a spell to keep watch over them, when you killed their leader, the spell dissipated.

That didn’t surprise me. She wasn’t the first guardian to be trapped by magic into serving others. She was silent after that and I supposed that meant our conversation was over. At least my question had been answered; I knew why I hadn’t been able to find Catya. But I wondered if even Jack, my mentor, had known about these hallowed places. Nothing in his minimal teaching had ever hinted at them, which made me think this was lost knowledge.

“Thank you for telling me,” I said, lifting my hand to the silent surface of the water, knowing she could probably hear me. Maybe she wasn’t so bad; maybe she just didn’t like Liam. The thought made me smile. She and I were perhaps no different. I hadn’t liked Liam all that much when we’d first met, either.

Inside the castle, I checked on the two sleeping kids. They hadn’t moved a single inch. I threw another log on the fire, and slumped into a chair nearby, yawning. So much for a relaxing vacation.

Chapter Twelve

The next few
days flew by as the two groups slowly made their way to the castle. There was a lot of caution on the part of both groups. The leader of the coven, Rebekah, worried that the rogue werewolf would be hidden amongst the pack, and Peter worried it was an ambush by the hunters to finally wipe out all the wolves.

Liam ran interference between them, finally sitting them down and pointing out how they could help one another. The wolves could bring in food and keep an eye on things, acting as surveillance, and the witches could keep up the security. The wolves, of course, were worried about their desire for flesh, but Liam and Peter discussed it at length.

“Peter, you can’t help them overcome it if they never face it. And the witches here can protect themselves if it comes to that.” Liam’s eyes roved over the wolves in the field, reluctant to come within the walls. “They didn’t attack Rylee.”

“She was a guest, a part of the pack.”

“Then make the coven a part of your pack. Tell your wolves they are part of your pack.”

Peter’s jaw dropped and I smiled. Sometimes the simplest solution truly was the way. Peter told his wolves just that, and miracle of miracles, they agreed. Once made ‘pack’, the witches were off the menu.

Val helped with Rebekah (turned out she had a thing for him … at least, if the way she softened every time she looked his way was any indication), pointing out that it was what the coven was headed for, working with other supernaturals and working toward more harmony.

And me, I sat back and observed, enjoying the fact I finally didn’t have to do anything.

The best part was seeing Catya reunited with her mother, Fedya. While Fedya wasn’t human, she fit in with all the other supernaturals. It made me wonder whether the ‘father’ Liam told us about who’d been abusive had been Catya’s actual father. I had a feeling he was not by the way Fedya kept making eyes at Peter and by the way Peter kept staring at Catya.

“You think Peter is Catya’s father?” I asked Liam as we walked outside in the now snow-covered field that surrounded the castle.

“Yes, I do. Catya has a scent not unlike that of Peter’s. Though they have a long way to come, I think Peter can figure out a way to make all this work.”

I agreed. Without the hunters to cause problems and with the fortitude of the castle and the additional people, it should work. “Should” being the operative word.

But they surprised us. The wolves and the coven quickly fell into a routine and got along a hell of a lot better than I’d ever thought possible. Peter and Rebekah shared responsibility as leaders, and Fedya stepped up, running the castle’s basic needs, like cooking and cleaning duties.

Liam resumed his studies with Peter, but much to his mounting frustration, he couldn’t make his clothes shift with him. After the sixth failed attempt, they settled on him wearing a single sock when he practiced and nothing else. It was not a very dignified look for a guardian wolf, but it was the last thing he had to learn from Peter.

I caught him practicing in our room, a sock on the back right foot of his wolf form as he snarled and shifted back to human.

“Don’t say anything,” he snapped, shaking his foot, but of course the sock didn’t come off.

“I’m sorry.” I bent over, laughing, and then couldn’t stop, the look on his face as he stood there buck naked, a single sock on his foot, sending me into a fit of giggles. Tears streamed down my face and my stomach muscles clenched as I fell onto the bed, barely able to breathe.

“Oh, you asked for it,” he mock growled and pounced on me. I couldn’t even lift my hands to fend him off, not that I needed to. He flipped me to my back and pinned my hands above my head with one of his hands. The other snaked down to the edge of my shirt and began to pull it upward, exposing my bare belly. He lifted an eyebrow at me. “Beg for mercy, Tracker, or know my wrath.”

I managed to squeak a single word out. “Never.”

In seconds, my clothes were stripped from me and the wrestling turned into something far less silly and far more sensual. Those were the moments I clung to, the sound of the fire crackling, the feel of his mouth and hands on my skin, the smell of the winter air and the faint scent of wolf that was all Liam.

“Why are you crying?” he whispered to me, his lips against my cheek, kissing my tears away.

I wasn’t exactly sure myself, but I tried to find the words. I lifted my hands and cupped his face, seeing in him my past, present, and future. “This feels so right, so perfect. It scares me. To have something this good means it can be taken from us. And there are a lot of people who would love to do just that.”

His smile was soft, but there was an edge to it. “I know. But that’s why it’s so important to take this time while we can. We will never be promised tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean today can’t be everything we ever wanted.” His lips touched mine, gently at first, and then more urgent as the passion rose between us, our bodies straining as if we could forge two into one.

People talk about fireworks, about the explosion of sensations, but that is not the same thing as love and a bond that runs deep in your blood and bones. The passion was there, but it was the connection that made what we had so damn amazing.

We lay facing each other on our sides, Liam’s hand drifting down my arm to the curve of my hip and back up again. “If I ask you something, will you promise to think about it?”

I blinked up at him, my hands resting against his chest. “Of course.”

He hesitated for a moment, uncertainty on his face for the first time in as long as I could remember. Like he was truly worried about my reaction.

“Spit it out.”

“Marry me.”

Now that was not what I’d thought was coming. It was probably a good thing I was laying down or I may have gone to my knees with the shock.

“Rylee?”

I opened my eyes unaware that I’d even closed them. “Marriage is ‘til death do you part. I can’t do that, Liam. I can’t lose you.”

He traced my lips with a finger. “That’s it? Forever or not at all?”

A smile trembled on my lips. “Forever or not at all.”