Guardian (9 page)

I even threw a few elbows myself, happily releasing some of my pent up fashion anger on the hapless monsters in that room.

Unfortunately for Dawnia, by the time she arrived at the front of the room with me tightly in her wake, Ian was back on his feet and looking strong again. I went to stand behind him and whispered, “Sorry” in his ear.

“Stay close.” He murmured back.

Dawnia stood there for a moment, looking surprised and confused, and then her eyes darkened and she threw out her hands. Evidently deciding she was tired of being under Ian’s thumb.

I tensed, knowing from personal experience how much it was gonna hurt when Dawnia’s faery power hit me.

But Ian lifted his hands and held them, palms out, in front of his body. Dawnia’s power stopped, shimmering in front of Ian and me like a thin sheet of water in the air and then, amazingly, slid into Ian’s hands with a soft gasp.

Dawnia hit the ground hard with both knees. She managed to catch herself with her hands and knelt there, head bowed under some kind of internal struggle.

Ian’s hands remained outstretched and, if I squinted, I could see a string of shimmering power still running between the two of them.

When Dawnia’s arms gave out and she crashed to the floor face first, Ian finally lowered his hands. He looked away from her, disgust visible in every line of his body and every nuance of his beautiful face. He addressed the now silent room. “Meeting adjourned.”

The room erupted as its inhabitants scurried to remove themselves as quickly as possible. Two minutes later all that remained in that room were Ian, me, a still prostrate and unmoving Dawnia, and Aubrie.

The elf stood where he’d been before the altercation, his golden face dark with anger and something else. My guess was frustrated ambition.

He just stood there for a long moment, staring hard into Ian’s eyes. I felt the promise of violence between them like a living thing in that room.

Then Aubrie turned slowly away and sauntered out of the room.

Ian waited until the door slammed shut behind the elf before letting his rigid stance soften. He brushed a hand over his face wearily and turned to Dawnia, still unmoving on the floor. I thought he might have forgotten I was there as his eyes suddenly swam with emotion. Regret seemed predominant among the range of emotions swirling in their brown depths.

But then he shook his head and turned, flinging dust over his head and stepping back into his travel layer. I joined him there.

Jerking my head toward Dawnia I asked, “Will she be okay?”

He didn’t look back. “She’ll be okay.”

Then he took my hand and we moved out of that room, gratefully leaving behind the monster meeting from hell.

~ ~
*
~ ~

We walked in silence for quite a while, Ian obviously dealing with the residual effects of the meeting. My head swam with questions but I forced myself to remain quiet, figuring I’d get more out of him after he’d had time to come to terms with nearly killing another faery.

After a while it occurred to me that we weren’t heading in the right direction. “Where are we going?”

Ian glanced at me, his pretty brown eyes unreadable in the night. “We’re not done yet.”

Shit!
“What the hell does that mean?” I was getting pretty sick of being dragged around completely blind. I wanted some answers, dammit!

He stopped and turned to me, his face dark with sudden anger, his nostrils flared and his mouth tightened against barely restrained rage.

I realized my mistake immediately, but couldn’t do anything about it at that point. He needed a release from the pent up, roiling emotions caused by that meeting. I’d just given him a handy place to release them.

On me.

He took two steps toward me, his long, hard body bending over me in obvious threat. I forced myself to hold my ground and look up into his face, shoulders squared.

My hand fell to my weapon though. Just in case.

“You
will
shut up and follow along quietly like a good little dog. It’s entirely your doing that you’re here now…I certainly didn’t invite you along. I don’t have the time or the energy to babysit you and I WILL NOT listen to your whining and complaining. You’ll just have to learn to deal. And do so SILENTLY. Is that clear?”

I stared at him for a moment, judging the depth of his anger and the probability that he would take it out on me in violence. I decided the depth, for whatever reason, was considerable and the probability that he’d whack me upside the head was pretty high. So I did something I rarely do. I backed off and kept my big mouth shut.

I gave him a brief nod and stepped back, allowing him the win.

Ian turned away and stalked off, his big hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. I suddenly realized he hadn’t wanted me to back off. He’d been spoiling for a fight. Watching him I grinned, shaking my head.

Men.

I started walking again, catching up with him. “So where are we going?”

He turned a still angry face to me and blew out a frustrated breath. “To the Wood.”

“The Wood?” Unfortunately for me my voice had a slightly shrieking tenor that I didn’t relish. All I could think of were those damnable harpies. “Why?”

He rounded on me. “Didn’t I tell you to keep your mouth shut?”

I stared at him for a moment and then gave him a slow smile. With a thought I stepped into my own layer and took several, ground eating steps away from him. Then I crossed my arms and waited.

Within seconds he was a writhing puddle on the ground. When I stepped back into his layer he looked up at me from the ground and took a deep breath, “Point taken.”

I reached down to help him to his feet and, after a second’s hesitation, during which he sat on the ground and glared at me, he finally grasped my hand and allowed me to help him up.

We fell into silence again as we headed toward the Faery Wood. Ian’s anger seemed to have leeched away with the pain. I was glad for that anyway.

As we stepped into the outer edges of the Wood Ian turned to me. “I want you to stay with me this time. I don’t care if they see you. You need to be ready to do battle.”

I nodded, wondering what the hell he was getting us into.

We headed in the opposite direction from Tana’s kingdom. As we moved into the densest part of the Wood the air became cool and moist, a roaring sound in the distance slowly penetrating my awareness. We followed a fairly narrow dirt path that wound its way through the thick growth of trees, occasionally swatting at mischievous sprites or hostile brownies trying to club our ankles with thorn covered sticks.

As we walked, the Wood became so dense that there were places we could barely squeeze through. In those places we had to be careful not to stab ourselves on the thorn trees, which peppered the Wood. The nasty trees sported thorns the width of my little finger and the length of my hand along their rough barked surface.

There was very little light at the base of the thousand year old growth around us and what there was came through in lace-like patches that only served to make the space seem more fractured and claustrophobic.

The air became thicker with moisture as we forged our way more deeply into that part of the Wood. I finally identified the distant sound as falling water, and it was growing steadily louder as we walked. When the sound had built to a roar, we suddenly emerged from the trees into a circular area of grass and, in the distance, a rough wall of rock that was striped with waterfalls, lots of them, as far as the eye could see in both directions. The sound was thunderous.

“The hundred falls.”

Ian glanced at me and nodded.

“We’re in Aldine!”

Ian grinned. “That we are, Monad.” Then he took off across the lush, green grass, heading toward the largest waterfall in the center.

I scurried to catch up. “Faerydae will kill us without asking questions!” The Elvin queen didn’t much like intruders in her kingdom.

Ian chuckled but didn’t slow down.

As if on cue, something whizzed by our heads and embedded itself in the dirt in front of us. The object flashed immediately into flames and disintegrated to ash, leaving only a ribbon of smoke behind.

It was an Elvin arrow, fletched with Phoenix feathers. An exceedingly deadly weapon.

Ian stopped and looked down at the scorched grass. “I believe we’ve been noticed.”

I glared at him, pulling the long knife he’d given me out of my string belt. “You think?” I swung around, searching for our shooter. I wasn’t exactly sure what I could do against fire arrows with a long knife, but I was certainly ready in case the shooter fell out of the sky at my feet or burrowed under the ground and popped up at me.

The next arrow landed an inch from my feet. I jumped away as it exploded into flame. “Do something!” I yelled at Ian.

“I am.” He responded in a calm, unconcerned tone.

Five more arrows flew toward us and I flinched, ducking as they headed right at me. I closed my eyes, thinking how much it was gonna hurt when I was pierced several times and then exploded into flame. I heard a pinging sound and then a layered fizzing as the arrows combusted one by one against something that wasn’t me.

I opened my eyes. Several wisps of smoke wafted up from my feet.

I looked back up. The air shimmered in front of me.

I looked at Ian. His palms were stretched out in front of him.

I grinned. “That works.”

He slanted me a look. “Happy I could please.”

“Now, how the hell are you gonna get us out of here?”

“I’m not.” He threw back his head and opened his mouth. His muscular throat pulsed and a deep, rich sound began to emerge. What at first seemed like disparate musical notes, although pleasant, soon coalesced into the most incredible song I’d ever heard. Around us all became suddenly and completely still. The sound of falling water disappeared. Birds stopped singing. And arrows stopped winging our way. Nothing else moved, no sound competed. Only the rich magic of Ian’s voice throbbed on the air. I watched in shocked silence as the song flowed around us like a living thing, pulsing against me and bringing goose flesh up on my arms. His voice was deep and rich and made my knees buckle with its beauty.

This wasn’t a normal voice, it was a magical entity, a tool that was crafted for persuasion, for seduction. It was an elfish voice. Used only by the Royal elves of the Wood.

It was as much a weapon as it was a tool of seduction.

My eyes widened and I stepped back, hitting the ground knees first in shock and sudden, uncontrollable lust.

He couldn’t be. Ian Lavelle couldn’t be both faery and elf. It didn’t happen. It wasn’t even possible. It defied everything I’d ever known. Everything I’d ever been taught.

But as the song wound around me, urging me forward against my very will, I knew it had to be.

Ian Lavelle was Royal elf. And of faery birth.

Chapter Six

The Gods are Fools

A
s Ian’s song drifted into silence I blinked and looked around. Hundreds of elves, many holding nocked bows in their hands, stood around us. In the unnatural stillness of the moment, I became aware of the waterfalls again, and something else.

We turned as the sound of hooves intruded on our consciousness. The sight that met my eyes made me gasp.

Thousands of horses loped regally in our direction.

The beautiful, all white mounts were liberally decked out in gold and silver armor and their riders wore flowing silver gowns, their long, multi-colored hair flowing away from them like silken flags.

At the lead, a single black horse carried the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. The horse was enormous, easily twice as big as the other horses, and had huge black wings that it held back and out to its sides, as if barely restraining itself from taking off. Its huge hooves floated above the ground and I knew, though I couldn’t discern it from the general thunder of their advance, that its approach would be soundless. I looked at the creature’s long, elegant head and gasped. “A black unicorn?” The rarest of rare creatures. I’d heard rumors that Faerydae had one, but I hadn’t believed it.

Ian turned to me and smiled. “Yes.”

We waited while Queen Faerydae and her beautiful, magical horse approached us. Ian stood straight and still. I glanced at him and was surprised to see a power aura encircling him. I wondered if it was a protective aura or meant to be a warning against the other elves.

Faerydae pulled her magical mount up before us and looked down a long, straight nose at Ian. Her pale, flawless skin glowed with power and her midnight black hair flowed over her shoulders and slid down her horse’s shiny flanks in silken waves that reminded me of the waterfalls behind her. She wore a golden gown that plunged from her slim shoulders to a decadent vee that ended just below her navel, showcasing pale, iridescent skin. The sleeves of the gauzy gown streamed down from delicate, white wrists and fluttered away from her slender form in a conjured breeze. She stared hard at Ian, ignoring me completely.