by test
The hand that had been lazily tracing circles on my arm clenched into a fist and his face was hard and angry again.
“I saw Celia, she was in the car with him,” I said.
His face softened and he pulled me closer until I was tucked up close to him and he kissed the top of my head and smoothed my damp hair away from my face.
“She was helping him,” I said my throat tight with emotion.
“I'm so sorry angel. Try not to think about tonight.”
I was past the point of tears. The thought of Celia throwing in with a monster like Hugo and actively participating in the ambush tonight was too much. Whatever tender feelings I had for her, the lingering hope I hadn't acknowledged until now that there must have been some misunderstanding, a good reason for her to kidnap me and lie to me about my family was gone. I had an empty feeling in my gut and more than anything I wanted to forget it all for a little while.
“I'm okay, I just ….” my voice trailed away. I couldn't put it into words right now. It felt good to be held by him. I liked the way his hands traced across my shoulders and back. I concentrated on that feeling, it was safety and acceptance and comfort.
My life was such a mess now. I couldn't believe what had happened to me.
But, this was my life now. I had an aunt with evil intentions. A long lost family that loved me. A warlock who wanted me to be his bride and broodmare and, last, but not least, I think I might have killed or at least grievously injured three men tonight.
Gage whispered, 'masdorme' in my ear and before I could protest, the darkness had a hold of me and I was sound asleep.
WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 89
Chapter Eight
A phone ringing and being answered by a quiet male voice woke me. Groggily, I rolled over and with a gasp and awkwardly clutching hands I slid off the side of the bed and felt the satin sheets pooling around me as I landed on the cold, hard floor with a loud thump.
The bedroom door slammed open and I looked up into the barrel of a shotgun. The man holding the gun was dressed in black body armor, with several wicked looking guns (and was that a grenade on his belt?) gave me a quick once over as I desperately tried to pull the silky white sheets around my naked body. His eyes lingered a moment on my breasts before he gave me a quick nod, lowered the gun and pulled the door closed speaking quietly into a small headset.
I moaned in embarrassment, I had to get out of here, but, as of now, I didn't have anywhere to go. Besides, I wasn't sure there was any place on the planet that I could hide from Gage. The man was like a plague, no matter how fast I ran or how far away, he always found me.
I stood up to get dressed and started feeling angrier by the minute. I wasn't sure what could be done to make me feel better about my current situation. I couldn't leave the house alone, Hugo and Celia would grab me. My heart contracted with pain at the thought of Celia and with a few deep breaths I was able to push the thought of her to the back of my mind. There would be time to deal with her betrayal later.
I didn't have any money, my purse was locked in the bottom drawer of my desk at work and I couldn't ask my friends for help. Patty and Leah would jump at the chance to help me but I couldn't get them mixed up in this. They could get hurt or worse, killed because of me. I already had three, maybe more if I counted Hugo's men, on my conscience. Any more dead people and I would go batty.
Well, first things first; coffee, breakfast and a quick talk with Gage. Eating and talking were pretty small steps, but taking things slowly seemed the order of business these days so I was happy to make these plans.
I dressed quickly, opened the door and stepped out narrowly missing another body armor clad man who gave me a brisk nod and moved aside to let me pass. Two more guards were at the bottom of the stairs and a look out the window showed me several men working outside.
Gage must have hired more guards. Where he found them I couldn't say. They all looked pretty similar, tall, bulging with muscle and grim as disappointed Super bowl fans. I saw them carefully stringing wires across the yard and setting up several large lights in the surrounding trees.
The kitchen was full of men. They were talking quietly and sipping large mugs of coffee but all the talk stopped as I walked into the room. Six sets of eyes narrowed on me and I was taken aback a moment and started to turn around to head to the living room when the small form of Taryn pushed out from behind two massive redheads with big noses, twins?
“Anna! I am so glad you are okay. We have been so worried.”
She gave a careless push to a couple of the men and I was surprised to see them move WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 90
away without a word as she reached me and gave me a warm hug. It felt good to get a hug from her and I hugged her back with a wordless exclamation of joy. She pulled away and looked me over with a concerned smile.
“Are you hungry? Do you want some coffee?” I nodded with a desperate look around the kitchen.
“You guys were supposed to be taking care of her! She hasn't eaten since last night! It's after eleven o'clock now. She could have slipped into a coma while you guys were down here stuffing your faces.”
I saw several of the men looking at the floor with shamefaced expressions and before I could interrupt her to assure them that I was fine, I heard them give whispered apologies and back out of the kitchen with alarmed looks.
“Ugh, can you believe that? They start playing with their guns and motion sensors and totally forget they are supposed to be keeping an eye on you! Werewolves around a full moon are the worst!”
I blanched, “Those guys are werewolves? Like the ones that attacked us last night?”
She shook her head, “Werewolves, yes, but like the mutts you were attacked by last night, no way. Being a were is a lifestyle, you have to have a good mentor, some have parents that are weres or they get adopted by the pack. The wolves you saw last night are being controlled with drugs and money, they're dangerous. Only someone as crazy as Hugo would have anything to do with them. They could snap at any moment.”
She said this with an assurance I found comforting, but I was still reeling over the idea of werewolves. Werewolves in the house with me, holy moly! I would never have imagined something like this. Which got me thinking about other fantastic creatures. What else was out there? Pixies? Vampires? Elves?
“Taryn, are there other things, you know, like vampires and ghosts?” She eyed me over the heaping plate of food she was making me from leftovers in the fridge. I pulled the plate away before she could add any more to the precariously piled mound of food and sat down on one of the swivel stools to eat.
“Well, yeah, I mean I've never seen a ghost, you have to be a necromancer to see them.
But there's lots of vamps in the cities,” she shivered and added, “Keep away from those deaders, sure some of 'em are cute as any Hollywood star, but they're super dangerous and really hate witches and warlocks. Actually, they don't really like anyone but other vampires and humans, of course, they love humans. Oh, and there’s other shape shifters and elves, not many left though.”
Her look was openly assessing as I picked through the ham and poppy seed mini muffins to reach the purple grapes on the bottom of my plate.
“Are you … um … something, too?”
She didn't seem surprised by my question and her smile was gentle as she said, “I'm a werewolf too. Most of the weres here are cousins and packmembers. You met my dad already.”
At my blank look, she said, “He was guarding your bedroom at Gage's house in England.
He has a goatee?”
I didn't remember a goatee. What I did remember was a massively muscled man hauling me around like a five pound sack of potatoes and handing me over to Gage.
“Yeah, um, he was nice and super professional,” I said lamely, ducking my head so she wouldn't see my grimace.
She laughed and clapped me on the shoulder so hard I was sure to have a bruise there WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 91
tomorrow.
Gage walked in and gave Taryn a warm smile, “Good morning.”
She gave him a perky salute and he ruffled her hair as she walked out of the room with a friendly wave at me.
“Why didn't you tell me there were werewolves in the house?” I said.
He slid his arm around my shoulder and stopped mid embrace and looked taken aback at my hostile tone, “I didn't think it would matter. Have any of them bothered you?”
I shook my head with an exasperated sigh, “A few days ago I didn't think magic was possible and now I am surrounded by werewolves and warlocks and who knows what else.”
My voice was rising to a near shout, but I didn't care. I should have been told. I was tired of being managed. I was twenty three years old, I deserved to be treated like an adult with the right of self determination. This was America after all, not feudal China!
He sat down on a stool across from me, “My protection detail has seven werewolves.
They owe a debt to my coven and this is how their pack is paying it. My three personal guards are warlocks. Two of them were killed last night.”
His look was somber as he told me about his men and I felt a tremor shake me
remembering the violence of last night. I wondered what their names were and whether or not they had family.
Would there be wives and children grieving for them? What happened to their families when they died? Did they have life insurance? Would Gage help them? Just thinking about it made me feel sad and ashamed. Those men died trying to save me and here I was feeling mopey for myself.
He continued, “Hugo's attack was not the first on a coven, he has grown bolder the last couple of years. I'm meeting with Seattle Consolidated and the Saint Ignatius Colony today to decide on a course of action.”
“What are they? Security companies, like the Pinkertons?” I popped a mini blueberry muffin in my mouth and chewed slowly, it was rubbery and the blueberries were sour, but I was hungry enough not to care.
“Seattle Consolidated is the largest of the West Coast Covens, they absorbed several smaller covens about eighty years ago. I have some good contacts in their high council. The Saint Ignatius Colony is newer, they claim two hundred members from Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming and contacted me last night about a meeting. I have never met any of them before, but I've heard of them. They are one of just two American covens led by a witch.”
“What about me?”
His look sharpened as he ran his eyes over me with a satisfied smile, “I will claim you formally at the meeting and introduce you to the covens as my fiancé,”
I started to shake my head but fast as a striking snake he had a hold of me, with his strong hands on the back of my neck holding my head steady and looking into my eyes with a hard gleam, he whispered so low that I stilled to hear him, “If I don't claim you, everyone will know you have rejected my suit. You will be free to be claimed by someone else after you have proven your fertility. Your mother and brother will have to negotiate a new contract with one of the other covens. Your family's position is … tenuous, I don't know that your mother would be able to make a good contract for you at this stage.”
Prove my fertility? Ick, I didn't like the sound of that.
“What if I don't want to contract with anyone? Maybe I just want to be left alone.”
WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 92
Being alone had never sounded so good.
“Haven't you heard a word I've said? Warlocks outnumber witches by about twenty to one. That's not figuring in the witches that are past the age of child bearing or are infertile, which makes the real number closer to twenty-five warlocks for every one witch. You are too valuable to be left alone. If you are fertile, someone will claim you and impregnate you. The only choice you have is who you will mate with,” his voice was heated and angry and I opened my mouth to respond but he walked away from me with a huff of annoyance.
Then he was gone. I heard the front door slam and the house was quiet.
I pushed away my plate of food and my head throbbed with pain. I wasn't sure what to do. I was falling in love with Gage and the longer I spent with him the harder it would be to leave.
He was infuriating too. Always pushing, pushing, pushing. Never giving me time to know him and make a decision, although, I already made a decision and that wasn't likely to change. The chances of my being hurt by him seemed to be rising the more time I spent with him and I didn't like it one bit.
He, on the other hand, had shown no signs of affection for me. I knew he was attracted to me and wanted to have a child with me, but it wasn't enough. I wanted his heart and until I had it, there was only one choice for me.
WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 93
Chapter Nine
The men downstairs were giving me strange looks and every time I walked into a room the conversation would stop and someone would ask if I needed anything. By the third time it happened I got the message and went upstairs to my room. I pretended not to notice that one of the guards followed me and sat outside my closed door.
The room was large, with an amazing view of the ocean and a Louis XIV armoire that had been converted into an entertainment center. I tried the TV, but all I got was static, so I turned it off and walked the length of the room trying to find something to occupy myself with.
The room was twenty five paces long by nineteen paces wide. I briefly thought of taking another bath but discarded the idea after discovering the lack of a lock on the bathroom door.
There were no books or magazines and someone had made the bed and straightened up the bathroom already, so I didn't even have that to waste time on. I peeked through the keyhole and saw a tall, burly guard looking bored and picking his nose while he leaned against the wall outside my room.
Boredom wasn't something I was used to. In fact, I always felt rushed trying to get things done. There was always someplace to go and something to do; work, reading, laundry, grocery shopping. My world was filled with activities and for the life of me I couldn't remember the last time I had been at loose ends like this.
The house was spotless, someone else did the cooking, there were no books, no movies, no gardening to be done. I had just decided to walk downstairs and announce my intention to walk on the beach when Gage walked into the room.
He had on a beautiful black suit and held his sword in his right hand and a small flat box in the other. He saw me looking at the sword and said, “I am the head of the Hawthorne Coven, it is a ceremonial requirement, I wont need it today, or, at least, I hope not.”
With a strangely shy smile he set the flat box on the bed and motioned me forward, “This is for you.”
I cautiously approached the box and sat down to open it. The emerald bracelet inside glowed in the sunlight. I felt my breath catch as I picked it up from the white silk lined interior and held it up to the sunlight and watched as a flicker of blue gleamed from inside of the dark green jewels.
It was surprisingly light and delicate and I recognized it immediately from the shop on Bond Street. I turned the box over looking for a price tag but the bottom was bare. I knew this was something I couldn't hope to pay him back for, but I was curious to know how much it had cost him.
“I would like you to wear that to the meeting.”
I undid the clasp and carefully set it across my right wrist and admired the way it looked.
“How much did it cost?”
“It doesn't matter. I want you to have it.” I gave him a sour look but he blandly smiled back.
“Do you like it?”
WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 94
“Do I like it? Are you kidding? This is the most beautiful bracelet in the world. I love it!”
His face brightened and then turned grim when I added, “but, I can't accept it Gage. We aren't engaged and it isn't right for me to accept gifts from you ….”
I carefully put the bracelet back in it's case, shut the lid, opened it again for a
last peek and then closed it and pushed it away before I changed my mind. Emeralds were my favorite gemstone and I had a vision of wearing them with my green dress at some swanky party, but it wasn't meant to be. I would have to give back the green dress too, it wasn't like I had anywhere to wear it. Taryn might be able to return it for a refund as long as it didn't wait too long.
He paced back and forth in front of me like a caged animal and a thrill of fear made the hair on my arms stand on end.
“You still don't get it! I am your husband in everything but name now! You have shared my bed and you may be carrying my child! Why do you still fight me? What do you hope to achieve with this behavior?”
My heart stopped at his mention of a child and my hands protectively covered my belly before I realized what I was doing and I dropped them to my lap.
He was still ranting at me but I was lost in thoughts of babies. What would our baby look like? Would he have my hair and Gage's eyes? Or Gage's hair and my eyes?
If we lived here the baby wouldn't have an English accent. I kinda liked the idea of a little boy or girl calling me 'mummy,' and asking for treacle tarts and mash. How soon would an over the counter pregnancy test work? Did you have to wait until you missed your period? I had sex for the first time yesterday, I was guessing that no test could be accurate that soon. I could ask Taryn about it. Would she tell Gage if I asked her to buy me a test from the local pharmacy?
“I'll go with you, alright?” I said.
He stopped mid rant and turned quickly to look at me.
“But, I don't want you to introduce me as anyone but Helene's daughter, okay?”
His face hardened with anger and for a moment I thought he would refuse, but with a tight nod he agreed.
“We leave in one hour for Seattle,” with that he walked from the room pulling the door closed after him.