Tainted (5 page)

I walked my best side to side sexy walk, I’m all that, I’m woman hear me roar strut, I could give and take it shrug, and handed Ian the sword.  I leaned up to his face making him think I was going to kiss him in front of his buddies and stepped one half foot to the side and whispered on tiptoes in his ear, “Hope you don’t hold back like that in the bedroom.” 
Two can play this game.

Pike coughed.

Ian choked aloud.  He eyed me cautiously and I saw his hand reaching to sink the pinchers in.  I moved quickly to be out of reach knowing the crowded area would stop him.  I said with my back turned and hand in the air for an exit cue, “Hope you enjoyed the show.  Tomorrow.  Same bat time.  Same bat channel.  Maybe even the playing field and make it ladies only.”

Not one male said a word
and no other female was there.
 
Had they never seen a girl fight?

Not wearing that! 
Pike was syncing to me.

Well, I didn’t shred my own clothes.

No, that would be why Ian stepped in.  There wasn’t going to be much left if he hadn’t.

Oh, you wish.

You know it.

Too late.

Not yet.

I’m walking away.  And yes, it is Pike.  GIVE.IT.UP.

I blocked so I couldn’t hear him.

***

My bath was divine.  I met Ian at dinner with my head held high.  No point being ashamed. 

We ate and parted from each other without much talking.  Although he didn’t look mad, he looked something.  I did manage to get him to face me right before he finished at the nightly range time.  No words, just his face. 
Oh!
  His eyes were silver and glowing.  His skin was glowing now that I focused and noted his various attributes.  I’ve always noted his hard as nails abs and strong arms.  I even noted back in school the way his jeans hung just the way I liked on his hips.  But I’ve never noted how they affect me and that he was so much more than just a pretty face.  He was thinking things altogether different that what I was.  And keeping his mouth closed and in a thin line with his lips, I guessed, the only way he was tapering it.  Men just think so differently sometimes.

“Meet me in your room,” he whispered in my ear.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”  I was nervous about facing those eyes again.  He might not hold back.

“Regardless.”  He left.

I didn’t like that threat but my body did.  I decided right then and there I wouldn’t be going.  I would have Danella lock me up in my room before he could arrive. And I did.

I was snug in my bed for the first time in a while.  The overexerted energy from the day had worn me out and I was out cold before I had time to worry about what Ian would think of my defiance.  Next thing I knew, his arms were winding around me and he was moving closer than ever before. 

I reached with my left hand to find and make sure he had bottoms on not wanting to wiggle my parts to find out.  Pants, no shirt.  They were there.  I sighed with relief. 

“That was quite a show you put on today.”

Was I in trouble?
I decided to not answer.

“Are you going to ignore me?” he asked.

“Works for you.”  That was mean, but I wanted his ignoring me to stop too.  We'd just had a heart to heart in the garden days before, but he'd gone right back to ignoring the idea of telling me things.  I asked about Kin, I got shrugs and the word, "later".

“Agreed.  Trying to change that.  Why did you feel like you had to prove yourself?”

“Because you still think I’m frail.  And I wanted this court to know I’m not.  I didn’t intend for you to know I’d done anything in the range without you, but I wanted to be treated as equal.”

“You will never be equal to anyone or anything in this world or anywhere.  That I can promise you.”

“You’re partial.” 

“You just told every male out there that you are a force to be reckoned with and my poor attempt at holding backing their hormones was the worst part.  You are to be my wife and I am selfish.  I will not have them looking at you like that again.”

“Then maybe you should have thought first before you allowed my clothes to dissolve.”

“Oh, I’ve thought long and hard on that, Grace.  Don’t doubt that.  But not anywhere else but in the privacy of a very secluded room like we shouldn’t be in right now.  And not on my sparring floor.”

These thoughts were extremely fun to entertain, but couldn’t go anywhere until we were married.  So!  “Changing the subject, if I’m serious about the ladies learning to spar and lead off on the bow targets, will you overstep me and tell me no.”  I could’ve been smarter about the way I said that.  He stiffened and stayed quiet for a full minute. 

“No, you can have that if that is what you need.  Just do it after dark so the men have their time and no distractions. Dissembling yourself from me will not work another time.  Is that a compromise you can live with?”

“Why, my future husband surprises me at all times of the day.” I snuggled closer and concentrated on the way he felt against me.  I wanted
him
closer
. 

I heard you. 
This surprised me.  Maybe he was concentrating hard like I have too.

“How?”

“Emotions speak louder than words it seems.”
 
He lifted my hair and kissed the back of my neck.   My ear.  Oh, this was new.  I was lost within seconds as he moved around.  “Don’t ever take your clothes off like that again unless you’re married to me and in the privacy of our bedroom.” His voice was a little too possessive. 
Love it!

“That’s not quite nice of you.” I pulled away. 
Our bedroom?

“I mean only that I can’t handle it and don’t care for anyone else to see what’s mine.  I will have to be married to you the next time so I can take you right out of there and…” he trailed off and kissed the corners of my neck moving on to my shoulder.  I got the picture.  We both seemed to refrain from ever putting it into words.  As if it was more sacred to talk after we were married.  Maybe that was the woman in me.  And maybe the man just couldn’t control himself if he said it aloud.  I have a long way from understanding my man, but I’ve eternity to do it.

I found Ian and Pike “chatting” the following morning at the edge of the garden.  They were discussing Kin, that much I could tell.  I cleared my mind hoping to keep hidden and stayed put by the ivy wall and listened.  Pike was suspicious that someone was tracking him.  I gathered enough from the conversation that he didn’t know who and it made me wonder again why Pike was inside the court so much lately. I thought he didn’t come all the way in.

“No longer private.”  He nodded his head to Ian in my direction. 
Good morning, Beautiful.

Guarding,
I rubbed my charm heavily remembering that it was there hating that I let him in somehow.  I thought I was getting better at it.

“Pike,” I nodded to him attempting nice.  The previous day’s events were playing once more in my brain as I watched him. 

He nodded back. From now on, the charm, if needed, would be in my hand at the sight of him.

“Any news?” I asked.

“Nothing but Kinsler wandering aimlessly by your old home.  Can’t decide what he wants.”  Pike looked at me, reaching into me with his eyes.  He was intending to assume I would get his double meaning in the words he chose. 
Wrong!

Ian cleared his throat and I finally let go of Pike’s gaze wondering if he had some kind of side power of hypnotism or something.  Pike raised an eyebrow no doubt hearing me. 

“He’s up to something.  We just have to find out what.  No need to worry yet, Grace,” Ian shared.

“I think there is, but…” I started but tossed a look back at Pike.

“But, Pike will stay on this.  He can handle this.”  Ian’s eyes were hinting at something else, but what that was, I didn’t have the foggiest.  I wanted to pursue it, but thought of another tactic with all the leading off and no one answering kind of conversation to avoid telling me things.

“Very well.  Pike is good at handling things.”  I nodded at both of them.  I turned and left and went to go find Danella releasing myself from the Pike spell that seemed to consume me lately. 

***

“Danella, I want you to find out what Pike knows about Kin.  They are not telling me something.  For my own good, I presume.  To protect me, I presume.  But this is my mother and father.  I want to know what they aren’t telling me for my own good.”  I waved my fingers in the air.

“But miss.  I can’t.  It’s traitorous.”

“Immune.  I’m the queen and my…’protectors’ are keeping me too well protected from even the Intel needed to protect my parents.”

“But my lady…”

“No.  Go!”  I growled sternly.

Danella bowed and left.

She returned only minutes later as I worked on the tangles my hair acquired from the day.  The wind was howling something terrible since yesterday.  I don’t remember any weather since I’d been here until the last few days. 

“Well?”

“I’m deathly afraid to tell you, my lady.”

“Immune, remember?  Just spill.”

With reluctance, Danella kept her eyes closed and said as fast as she could, “Kinsler has men all around your house.  There are twelve in all.  Two are staying on the back porch.  Pike is weary of one of them being a rebellious one because Kin ordered to remove some of the plants and destroyed some property in the process.  Pike fears they will move soon but I don’t know that meaning.”

So he kept it from me because he only thinks he might
move
. Move what and where?  It was enough to come into the court to tell Ian. Not that he seemed to leave court lately but everywhere I was.  Maybe I could look myself. 

“Thank you.  I trust you will be silent and I as well.”

Danella nodded, but weariness filled her head with dread no doubt thinking me as the queen might just be the downfall of the court.

I headed to my room, gathered my dagger, changed into my traveling attire including the horrid armor Ian insisted upon because he would insist if he knew where I was going, and set out to the edge of parents’ property line.  I traveled alone.  Ian would flip when he found out, but I had to know.

The spring night was cool, but fresh in a scent and languor, quiet like a slow rain, and the opposite of the windblown morning. As I traveled, I wondered where the strange weather went and how it disappeared so easily.  Like on command.  I moved quickly keeping low to not attract unwanted attention.  I didn’t have time to waste if I wanted to return before I was noticed missing.  The dagger in my side stayed firmly in my grasp.  My mouth was dry, but anticipation kept my tongue flickering side to side in nervousness. These are my parents and I wanted to protect them.

I was close enough now I watched every direction for movement.  As I inched closer to my house, my eyes darted to the sound of spit flying from my left.  My hearing was good, but not trained.  I forced myself to stand as a statue so my body would feel my surroundings and search for the source.  Ian had taught me to close my eyes and feel the movement in the forest.  He’d made me do it at times when there was nothing, and times when even the slightest flutter of a birds’ wings could be heard above.  We’d done this as far back as fifth grade on the playground at recess.  Still, I had to close my eyes to do it.

I eased a bit closer to the “spitter” and heard it again.  There were two of them.  I could just make out two Nym shaped figures standing on the tree line close to the gazebo around two hundred feet to my left.  One of them was as tall as me. I wanted to get closer, but saw someone really tall and broad like a football player in the light of my backyard to the right just below my window balcony. 
KIN!

He stopped dead in his tracks sensing my careless thoughts.  I slid my hand to the charm and stayed perfectly still tossing only my eyes slightly back to the two at my left.  A slight breeze sent a stench of horrid body odor back over before I registered Kin through my nose.

No one was moving.  Me included.

I watched as Kin looked to my balcony, out in my direction, towards the shed, back to the kitchen, and back to me.  I could see my parents sitting in the kitchen through the white curtained window seat.  My eyes watered at the attempt to remain so still and I had to close them to keep from letting them leak everywhere.  I watched him walk back to the side of the neighbor’s house where he stopped and nodded at the nearest “whoever” standing with his paired buddy by the edge of where the trampoline used to sit.  They were watching my parents.

I couldn’t just stand in wait, so I turned and started to retreat before I did something rash and stupid.  My eyes caught something out of place as I peeled them wider across the backyard I’d grown up in.  I’d catch anything out of place in my backyard.  Ian and I had spent more time there than inside the house.    My eyes searched for what was severed from my childhood oasis.  The jasmine vines.  They’d been clipped and balded to nothing but stems.  My eyes wandered the yard.  Nothing else was touched. I quickly assessed that the jasmine was also missing from the trellis climbing to my balcony, kitchen windows, and gazebo and most likely gone from the front of the house too.  My mother loves them.  Why would she cut them down?  Kin.  Why would he?

I had taken three steps towards my destination when the famous “twig breaking” triggered a sound at the scariest of moments like in a horror movie from beneath my own foot.  I looked back slowly to see the two goons on the edge of the woods heading in my direction and took off. Not
slowly
at all!  Kin would know now.

I almost made it when one of the two made ground on me and sidestepped my footing by the frog rock.  I turned fast with the dagger, felt the slice hit the target, and swung back around to almost enter the Seelie Court domain. 

“Wait!  Please!”

I stopped myself falling against some type of moss or plant or something that left a lingering scent.  A quick glance gave me the answer I already knew. 
JASMINE!
  I was distracted enough by it, I noticed that it lined the entire entrance to the court and then some.  It was everywhere.  I probably shouldn’t have but I turned slowly, my empty dagger hand still raised and bloody.  I saw that the blood belonged to the Nym standing beside Kin.  It was stuck in his arm.  I didn’t speak because I was assessing my options.   

“I won’t hurt you.”  Kin pulled the dagger out of the dude and held it up to me slowly holding the bloody sharp edge toward his chest.  He cleaned it on his pants leg and handed it back.  I didn’t move anything or lower the dagger but did decide I could throw myself into the court entrance if needed.  He watched it as I gripped the hilt and leaned back.

“I just want to talk.”

Why?
I only had seconds, if that, before Ian or Pike would show up.

“Because I want you to understand why I acted that way all those years.  I needed too.”

“Listening.  Talk!”  He can hear me.  I looked quickly to my wrist seeing my bracelet missing.  He relaxed his stance only a little and held up my bracelet.  My mouth opened little but enough to give me away.

“I fought off too many malcontents to save you.  I know that I wasn’t always that nice to you, but sometimes I just couldn’t seem to get you to understand any other way.”  His mouth drew up into a smile unlike the cruel way he usually did.  His large size was intimidating enough.

“By being cruel?”

“Your little boyfriend wouldn’t let me near you,” he growled.  Rude, but right!  “I just wanted a chance with you.”

This was getting really weird.

He misconstrued my facial expression as a softening look and asked me, “Was I rude in the early years?”

“Kin, pudding in kinder, my braids in second, scissors in third, cafeteria in fourth—“

“Okay, but I was just trying to get your attention,” his deep voice masqueraded as the big softie type but I knew better.  Maybe he is nicer somewhere deep, deep,
deep
inside the rough exterior
. 
“Not really strange.  I only wanted you to realize that I need you and still do.  That.you.were.mine.first.”

What is he talking about?  All this MINE business is wearing on me. MEN!  Are we werewolves here?  Is he going to hide me from the pack? Mark me?

“Oh, I’d love to mark you as my own.  Are you saying you’re willing?”

I had no idea how he might MARK ME, but all my paranormal reading material about werewolves suggested something a little too blush worthy for me to imagine right now.  I shook my head vigorously and tightened my lips up to hide my dripping sarcasm from his ears and mine.

Kin’s injured guard tapped his shoulder. Another guy stood with them who I missed arriving to our powwow, but said aloud that our time was up.  I freaking recognized him even in Fey get up gear.  Guessing I was accustomed to seeing the less obvious nowadays I was now at Pam's date, the college guy named David.

“
Kin, your words are tainted.  Deception is your first and only name.  I could no more understand your motives than own all the tea in China.” 

His face fell with my honesty.
Well, maybe he should try it sometime.  Honesty that is.

Kin’s head snapped around looking at the entrance of my court, “I’d better go.  Thank you, Grace.  I only wanted you to listen.”

And he was gone.  And the David guy too.

I’d held my breath for longer than should have and only let it out when I saw nothing would follow me into the court.  With a quick pace, I replaced my dagger and practically ran for my rooms but Danella was at the entrance to greet me with her head held in anguish and regret.  “My lady, I’d have never told you so if I’d known what course you’d take.”

“All is well.”

“No, it isn’t, my lady.” She stared at me.  “Ian is a better guardsman than that.  You give him no credit.  He knew the second you were gone.”

He did? 
“How?”  My inner idiot meter knocked my head against the door twenty times to knock the sense back in there, meanwhile angel Grace was swatting my hand with a ruler.

Danella was almost appalled by the amount of unfaithfulness I was displaying.  I seem to disappoint everyone lately.  “Pike!  It’s his job to know where you are.”

I hadn’t counted on Pike being able to capture my thoughts from that far.  Or to hear aloud that Pike’s job was to “watch me”, but it made sense now. He was told to, that’s how.  And was that why he is here at court? 

Don’t underestimate your people, Grace.
Danella was trying to be nice about this.

“Fine.  How long till Ian is in here?” I asked Danella the loyal.

“Already here.”  His voice came from the dark corner by the entrance and far away from my bedroom door.  He’d been there when I arrived and threw the knife, but I ran right past.  Danella slipped away leaving me alone with my mighty protector.  I turned fast guarding myself as if still standing with Kin.  Ian’s eyes were dark.  His hands were fisted shut.  Sweat dripped from his chiseled, stubble shaded chin.  He was unquestionably mad.  No, mad didn’t cover what
I saw in his eyes.  He was Frankenstein himself, bolts coming loose and steam flowing strong out the ears.  But very sexy fuming like this!