Guardian's Joy #3 (30 page)

“I’m going to get in your grill if you’re not
careful.” The Liege Lord pointed to the frying pans on the stove.
“You take care of those.”

“I think we can kill two birds with one
stone, my lord,” Nardo interrupted before Dov could get himself in
more trouble. “I’d like to take Joy over there and we could ask a
few questions while we’re at it. We might get more if it doesn’t
look like an official inquiry.”

“And you want to take JJ over there because…”
Canaan raised his eyebrows in question.

Nardo inched along the counter until his
shoulder touched JJ’s. He grasped her hand and held it tightly to
his side. “I think she’s one of us.”

“Well of course she’s one of us. We’ve
already determined that. Where were you?” Grace laughed and looked
like she was going to say more.

Nardo cut her off. “No, you determined she
was one of you, a Daughter of Man. I’m saying I think she’s one of
us.” He pointed to the men in the room. “Paenitentia.”

“What?” JJ was the first to say it. And then
she thought,
She’s one of us, my lord
.
I’ve heard those
words before
. She’d felt very proud to be ‘one of us’,
until…until… The thought was gone.

“Too many of the pieces fit,” Nardo was
saying, “Your height, your build.”

“Lots of women are tall and thin,” Hope
argued, “I used to hate them.” She looked up at Nico and
smiled.

“Your strength, your speed.” Nardo kept the
list going.

“I’m in good shape, so what?”

“For a human woman, Grace is in great shape,”
Nardo pointed out, “She’s been working out with the twins for a
couple of years now and they push her hard.”

Eyes wide, Dov appealed to Canaan. “She makes
us, boss. She makes us push her hard.”

“Col, You’ve sparred with them both.” Canaan
glanced between the two women. “Pound for pound, who’s stronger,
faster?”

“Sorry, Grace,” Col sounded as if it was a
betrayal, “JJ’s got you, hands down.”

“Yeah, you two decide to duke it out and JJ’s
gonna whup your ass. And she hurts!” Dov added.

“I hurt,” Grace said indignantly.

“Nah, we pretend you hurt, so you don’t get
discouraged.”

Grace folded her arms across her chest and
huffed.

“That still doesn’t prove anything,” JJ
reasoned. “Some people are stronger than others, you guys
included.” She tried to make a joke of it. “I haven’t been able to
beat any one of you.”

“And that was a real shocker, wasn’t it?”
Nardo still held her hand tightly to his side, just to prove his
point. “How’d you score at the Police Academy?”

“There are different criteria for men and
women,” she hedged.

“Wouldn’t have mattered to you if there
wasn’t though, right? You would have scored at the top either way.
Unless, of course, you purposely lost.”

“I thought about it,” she admitted in defeat,
“But I couldn’t do it.” It hadn’t won her any friends either. And
he was right about the sparring, too. At first, she thought she was
weak from illness, but it didn’t take her long to see the truth.
“Anything else?” she asked weakly.

“Yeah. How much does it take to get you
drunk?”

“He wants to get her drunk? I thought they’d
already… Ooof!” Dov grabbed his side where Col’s elbow had dug
in.

“More than most,” JJ admitted, ignoring the
scuffle at the sink. Long before she was of legal age, she was
winning money in bars by drinking much larger men under the table.
Yes, it took a lot to get her drunk. She’d been there more times
than she wanted to remember.

Nardo nodded. “You metabolize the alcohol
faster. You burn off calories faster. It’s why you eat so
much.”

JJ felt the blood drain from her face.

Grace jumped to her defense. “Leave off,
Nardo. She doesn’t eat that much.”

“The hell she doesn’t.” That was Col.

“Shit. JJ makes Hope look like a picky
eater,” was Dov’s contribution.

“Hey!” Hope and Nico shouted together. She
sounded offended. He sounded furious.

JJ was praying for a hole to open up in the
floor.

Canaan brought two fingers to his mouth and
whistled. They all quieted in time to hear Broadbent, who’d been
sitting quietly sipping his tea and trying to console JJ and
Hope.

“Barbarians, my dears. Good hearted, but
barbarians still. It has been my cross to bear and now it is
yours.” He glared at the twins and then shook his head sadly at
Nardo. “I had such hope for you,” he lamented.

“I don’t care how much she eats,” Nardo
argued, “I’m just saying she eats more like us than a human
woman.”

“Like he has so much experience with human
women,” someone, probably a twin, muttered.

“Before this conversation deteriorates any
further,” Canaan growled, “You still haven’t said why you two need
to go to Moonlight Sanctuary.”

“I talked to my brother. That’s what I was
doing on the computer. He’s an expert in genetics, well, animal
genetics, but he said there’s a doctor in Moonlight Sanctuary
that’s top of the line in genetic research for the Race. The guy
thinks there’s a genetic reason for our low birth rate. Anyway,
Tony says he’s fairly certain this Dr. ad Fenton will be able to
verify it, probably with a simple blood test. I figured we’d take a
run over there and see this guy. Sooner the better, right?”

“And you were going to ask my opinion when?”
JJ asked through gritted teeth.

“And on that note…” Grace began shooing
everyone out of the kitchen. “I think we should leave the happy
couple to a more private discussion.” She winked at JJ as she
passed by. “Don’t hurt him,” she whispered.

Chapter
29

They didn’t go to Moonlight Sanctuary that
night mostly because JJ felt she needed to prove a point. There was
no use arguing that she should have been consulted only to turn
around and do what he had arranged anyway.

“The nerve!” she complained to the other
three women sitting at Manon’s kitchen table. She reached for yet
another cookie. They’d been there for over an hour and between the
wine and the company, JJ was feeling comfortable and relaxed.

Hope wistfully eyed the cookie as it traveled
to JJ’s mouth. “I wish I could hate you,” she told their newest
member, “But I need you sitting beside me at the dinner table.” She
started to giggle. “Since you make me look like a picky eater.”

“Just for that, I think I’ll eat another
one.” JJ chewed slowly, savoring the chocolate chip goodness until
Hope groaned and grabbed a cookie of her own.

“Bitch,” she muttered as she popped it into
her mouth.

“Whoa,” Grace howled. “You made Hope say a
bad word! Welcome to the family, JJ.”

Family? JJ looked around the table at the
three women who were all so different from herself. They were what
she wanted to be. They were confident and self-assured. She was
physically stronger than any one of them, but at her core, where it
counted, she was weak and afraid.

“I’ve never done this before,” she confessed,
“Never sat around a table with a bunch of women… friends. A month
ago, if you’d made some smartass comment about how much I eat, I
would have…”

“Hurt you,” Grace finished for her. “She
would have hurt you which is something I, apparently, can’t
do.”

“Oh, I think you could hurt me,” Hope told
her and patted her shoulder in an understanding way. “I’m big, but
I’m soft. Anyone for more wine?” She held up her empty glass.

“You’re mean,” Grace grumbled. She sipped her
orange juice and made a face. “It isn’t fair.”

“Go tell it to Canaan. He’s the one who
knocked you up.”

Hope grinned as she topped off JJ’s glass and
refilled her own. Manon covered hers. She’d had enough.

“You see how she is, JJ. All the men think
butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but you see the real Hope.
Mean.”

“Girls,” Manon shook her finger at them, “You
interrupted JJ who was about to tell us what she would have
done.”

“No, it’s okay.” JJ was enjoying the banter,
but they all turned their attention to her. “All right, the truth
is I wouldn’t have done anything. I would have eaten one cookie and
then loaded up on fast food on my way home. I’ve always been
self-conscious about how much I eat.”

“You have no reason to be.” Manon patted her
hand. “It is as Bernardo said; your metabolism.”

“Will it make a difference?” JJ asked and
hoped they didn’t hear the uneasiness in her voice. She’d become
attached to these women and in doing so, she’d broken her own rule;
don’t become attached and you can’t be hurt. She’d given them that
power.

“Oh sweetie, how could it?” Grace placed her
hand on her belly where there would soon be a bump. “My baby will
be like you. That’s not a bad thing.”

“You are one of us, ma petite, no matter who
your father was. Our gifts travel through the mother’s line. You
cannot lose us any more than you can lose your powers.”

JJ swallowed hard. “It’s funny you should say
that, Manon, because I think I’m losing mine.”

She told them about her inability to zap the
guard, how thankfully it kicked back in for the vampire and about
Nardo’s questions. “If I can’t rely on it, I won’t be of use to
anyone.”

“I don’t think you’re losing anything,” Grace
told her. “I think I’m strong enough now to make a human do almost
anything, but I can’t influence Canaan at all. I can’t do much with
the other Guardians either, at least not alone.” She tapped her
head with her finger. “Hope connects best with Nico.”

“But the other men are like blank walls.”
Hope blushed. “I think my powers have less potential for harm than
yours.”

“What about flinging things with that wiggly
finger of yours? Did you ever fling anything at Nico?” Grace’s eyes
were lit with mischief.

Hope’s blush turned a furious red. “Only
once. It didn’t end well.”

“My illusions don’t hold up well under their
scrutiny either,” Manon added. “Nor can I read their pasts.”

“There. You see. It’s a problem for all of
us, not just you. So problem number two. Humans.” Grace poked her
thumb at Hope. “Zap her.”

“Wait a minute! Why me?”

“Because Manon’s old and I’m pregnant. That
leaves you by default.”

“I’m not zapping Hope,” JJ insisted,
laughing.

“You can control it, can’t you? Just give her
a little one.” Grace jabbed the air with her fist.

“No,” JJ laughed, “Not even a little one.
This is your revenge for the wine. Count me out.”

“Spoil sport. Now you’ll be forced to zap
some completely innocent stranger when you could have taken my
revenge on Hope.” Grace stuck out her tongue and Hope returned the
gesture adding a raspberry for good measure.

“Actually, I have zapped a human,” JJ
admitted cautiously, “I didn’t say anything before because I felt
really bad about it and I didn’t know how you’d react to it. I
didn’t exactly zap her. Faith touched my fingers when I showed her
the blue sparks.”

“You zapped my sister.” Hope wasn’t smiling
anymore. “How could you?” she asked angrily. “You know how fragile
she is and you expose her to that? How could you?” she asked
again.

JJ held out her hands in a plea for
understanding. She should have known this would be a mistake. “She
showed me the gold at her fingertips. I showed her the blue at
mine. I thought it was a way for us to connect. I didn’t touch her
and I didn’t think she’d touch me. Shocked the shit out of both of
us. The kickback felt like I stuck my finger in a light
socket.”

“Well, you both survived, so it couldn’t have
been that bad,” Grace reasoned. She wasn’t at all upset.

“Couldn’t have been that bad? She shocked
her, Grace!” Hope pointed an accusing finger at JJ. “As if Faith
hasn’t been through enough, you shocked her!” She appealed to Manon
with her hands.

Manon raised her hand before Hope could say
more. “I am more interested in this kickback you speak of. Has it
happened before? Was it your spark or Faith’s that you felt?”

“Mine, definitely. Faith’s has more of a
tingle, no pain,” JJ answered Manon. “And no, it’s never happened
before. Why?” Had she screwed up her own ability when she came in
contact with Faith? “Where are you going with this?”

Hope sat ramrod straight in her chair, her
back an even four inches from the wooden chair back. She crossed
her arms over her chest and set her mouth in a firm, thin line. Her
jaws were clenched and the chords of her neck stood out. No one
would ever mistake this woman for soft.

Manon ignored her and tapped her pursed lips
with a fluorescent pink nail and then she, too, pointed at JJ. “If
you suffered this kickback from your power,” Manon said slowly,
“Then is it not logical to assume Faith received this kickback from
her own power? She has improved so much in recent weeks. Do you
suppose your contact…” She tapped the tips of her index fingers
together. “…gave her a dose of her own medicine, so to speak?” She
turned to the anger frozen woman across the table. “What think you
of this, Hope?”

JJ held her breath. This unconventional
family fit so well together. If one were to turn against her, it
would upset the balance for them all and she wouldn’t let that
happen. She would leave before she let that happen.

Hope sat back heavily in her chair. “I think
I can’t stand the thought of my sister suffering more pain and it
doesn’t matter if the results are beneficial.” They waited while
she hung her head and gathered her thoughts. When she finally
spoke, she didn’t sound any less angry.

“But that’s my problem and I shouldn’t make
it yours… or Faith’s. She likes you, likes you a lot. She watches
for you and her face brightens when she sees you. She doesn’t do
that with anyone else. I’ve tried to spend as much time as I can
with her, but she closes down when I’m around. We don’t
communicate.” The word was bitter on her tongue. “She hates me,
refuses to live in my home.”