by Ariel Marie
“Really, a wolf, Lina?” Vander asks, his eyebrow is even higher, shaking his head, staring at me. “What about Christian?”
“Please, Vander, shut up! Don’t go there!” I hold my hand up rolling my eyes. Not him too. All of the members of the Guardian are close and right now it’s like having three older protective brothers in the car ganging up on me.
“What the hell did the demon say, Lina?” Keegan asks as Tarron pulls back onto the road. By my calculations, we should be at the witch’s home in about fifteen minutes.
“He just said that Melomouzor wants me. He didn’t say for what or why. I didn’t exactly invite him over for tea to have a discussion before I cut his head off.” I can see his jaw muscle ticking from the back seat.
“This changes everything Lina, you are not to go anywhere without a Guardian with you!” His look dares me to defy him. I know when to pick and choose my battles. I don’t say anything but look out the window as the scenery flies by. The witch lives out in a rural part of town. The houses are close enough to say you have a neighbor but you don’t necessarily see your neighbor, giving the homeowners plenty of privacy.
“Did you call the wolves and tell them to meet us there?“ Tarron asks while he turns left at a stop sign onto the road that would lead us to the witch’s home.
“Yes, I’ll text him and let him know we’ll be there in a few minutes.” I slide my phone back out quickly shooting off a text to Colin. He quickly responds that they just pulled up to the house.
“They just got there,” I inform the guys. Tarron nods.
“The latest missing witch is Kaleema Arlo,” Keegan begins reading from the file. “According to what Azura could gather on her, she is 40 years old and recently moved to Shelby. Average height, average weight and it looks like she did notify Azura that she moved here but had not officially petitioned to join the coven. But Azura couldn’t find out where she is originally from.” Keegan looks up from the file.
“I’m sure that Azura will find out more,” Vander says. Tarron slows the truck and turns right into a long drive way. The house is set back away from the road about five hundred feet. It’s an all-white two-story cottage with a thatched roof with a double chimney. In the driveway, parked in front of the attached garage, was a large black truck. The tint on the windows is so black that you cannot see through the windows. A fluttering feeling passes through my stomach at the thought of who is waiting in the truck.
As Tarron parks the truck, Colin steps out their truck followed by Alec and the red-headed wolf named Reed. They wait by their truck as we get out of ours. My gaze locks with Colin’s and I cannot look away. His intense gaze doesn’t waiver from mine as Tarron helps me out the truck. In the distance I hear Keegan comment that that must be my wolf, but I don’t answer as I walk towards Colin. My attention is solely on him as he starts walking towards me. We stop once we are standing in front of each other.
“Hi,” I say tipping my head back so I can look up at him, smiling softly.
“Hi.” He looks over my shoulder and I feel Keegan stepping behind me. Keegan gently pushes me out the way and they step toe to toe. Shit! The tension is so thick it could be cut with a knife. It’s a major showdown, my older, super protective brother and my Alpha lover. I try to get back in between them but Tarron grabs me and moves me out the way.
“Move Princess, don’t get in the middle of them.” He pulls me back and pushes me behind him.
“They’ll kill each other!” I try to struggle to get past him so I can get back near Keegan and Colin. Tarron is like a brick wall and he is not letting me go.
“Wolf,” Keegan’s voice is low and deadly as he stares down Colin. Tarron and Vander are just as tense as Keegan is. They moved to stand behind Keegan. They both look at me as their little sister since I became an official member of the Guardians.
We’ve all grown close. They have to depend on me to have their back. There have been plenty of situations as a Guardian where I have left no doubt in their minds that I can take care of myself. They know I am more than capable of backing them up. They don’t take too kindly to any threats made towards me.
“Fairy.” Colin growls back, not backing down. Alec and Reed are right behind Colin flanking him on both sides. They sense the threat against their Alpha, their bodies ready for a fight.
“Do you want to tell me why I caught my little sister coming home at nine this morning?” Keegan steps closer to Colin.
“Do you really want me to tell you where she was last night?” The corner of his mouth lifts up in a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. Both of them are dominant males and neither will break the stare. My eyes are large as saucers as I break away from Tarron and push myself in between them.
“Can we please put our dicks away? We are here to work together! Can we focus on what we are here for? There is a new victim! So stop measuring your dicks so we can focus on the witch! You can beat each other to a pulp later!” I scream pushing them away from each other, neither of them wanting to be the first to look away.
“Hurt my sister and I promise you wolf, I will hunt you down and kill you slowly,” Keegan says pointing to Colin as they back away from each other, making a promise I know he will carry out with no problem.
“Never will I hurt her,“ Colin says to Keegan but he looks at me while he speaks.
Chapter Fourteen
~Colin~
Kaleema Arlo, the latest witch that has disappeared, has been missing for twenty-four hours. Her home holds the bare essentials; there are no photos of family members, and no personal keepsakes. Since Lina reminded everyone of why we are here, everyone has settled down. Keegan, Lina’s older brother, gives everyone the rundown on what little they have about the witch.
We were called in to assist the Fae with this case. Wolves have a better sense of smell than the Fae, so we are needed for our keen sense of smell to sniff out any traces of sulfur and tracking if needed. It was mutually agreed that we would start working together to locate the missing and defeat the demons. Lina said that she had spoken with her brother on the way here and told him how the demons wanted her. One thing that Keegan and I agree on is her safety.
The plan is for us to team up, one wolf with a Fae to search the property. Reed will stay outside with the Guardian named Vander to search the property. Tarron volunteers to go talk with both neighbors on both sides to find out if they heard or saw anything. Everyone else comes inside to search the home. Apparently, Kaleema went missing from her home. Unlike, the other cases, there are no signs of blood. Everyone else who went missing left a bloody mess.
There are signs of a struggle; the front doorjamb is splintered signifying the door had been kicked open. The furniture in the living room is knocked over; the coffee table is split in two as if someone fell on it. I’m not getting a good feeling about this house. The smell of sulfur permeates the air. The hairs on the back of my neck are raised. My wolf senses that something bad went down in this house and he’s pacing back and forth.
Keegan and Alec go upstairs to look around to see what they can find. Lina goes in the kitchen. Walking into the kitchen to join her I notice that the kitchen has been ransacked too. Cabinets and drawers had been left open; the floor is covered with anything and everything that had been in the cabinets, drawers and the refrigerator. She’s looking around the kitchen with a confused look on her face.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, standing next to her. She closes her eyes for a second as if trying to sense something. She’s dressed similar to the other Guardians with a black long sleeve shirt tucked into black cargo pants and her small work boots. Her midnight hair is pulled up in a messy bun on top of her head. She has enough weapons on her little body to take on a small army. Her katana handle can be seen over her head. She’s absolutely stunning and deadly.
“Can you feel that?” she asks me, opening her big emerald eyes. I shake my head no. She begins walking around the small, ransacked kitchen, holding her right hand up as if she
is trying to feel the energy in the room. “I feel a presence of a power radiating from this house. It got stronger as I came into the kitchen.”
She opens a door that I assume is a pantry but it is a doorway that leads to a lower level of the house. “Down there.” She points to the darkened stairway as we stand at the top of the staircase.
She starts down the stairs but I pull her back so I can go down the stairs first. The intense need to protect her scares me.
Mine.
The word continues to echo in my head. My wolf is desperate to claim her. Deep down inside, I know she’s my mate. My wolf has never responded to another female, human or wolf before. Usually he ignores all the women I have been involved with. But, Lina, he’s desperate to have her, protect her and love her.
We get to the bottom of the stairs and my wolf instantly goes on alert. There is something about this basement that makes me uneasy. There is a long dead-end hallway with one door on the immediate left at the foot of the stairs and a door on the right further down the hallway. We pause at the first door. Lina is standing directly behind me. She has one hand on my back, slowly bringing her blade on her hip out of its sheath. I open the door and the room is pitch black. I rub my hand alongside the wall and find a light switch.
It’s a general storage room with no windows. A few boxes are littered on the floor. We go through the boxes and find nothing of value.
“It’s the other room,” Lina said walking slowly out of the storage room down the hallway. “I feel drawn to this room.”
She stands outside the door, placing her ear to the door listening. She opens the door and this room is also encased in darkness. I reach around her and flip the light switch but the light does not come up. She shakes her head.
“There is no light bulb. It’s her spell room.” She flicks her wrist and suddenly the room is lit with soft light from hundreds of candles in the room. We walk completely in the room and the door shuts behind us with a bang. I grip the handle tugging on it with all of my strength, but it is not budging.
“She’s warded the room. I think I was supposed to come here,” Lina says with her big emerald eyes looking at me.
“How would she know that you would come?” I ask still trying to get the door to open but the handle won’t even turn. I give up and look around the room. We’re trapped. This room has two little windows but they are too small for a grown person to fit through and they are barred from the outside.
“I don’t know, but I feel the pull from something in this room. She could have warded it for any witch in my grandmother’s coven or our family.” She walks around the room eyeing the items on the shelves.
“This type of magic will not release us until either we do what she needs us to do, or we get what she wants us to have. There is a reason why we are locked in this room.”
“How do you know that?” I ask looking up from the book I picked up from one of the bookcases. She’s looking down at a book that was left open on a table in the room. I move to where she is and look over her shoulder. The faded pages and musty smell denotes it’s an old spell book.
“It’s what I would do if I wanted someone to do something or get something and could not give it to them myself. It’s quite a simple spell to pull off.”
“Do you still feel what you were feeling?” I ask her. She nods yes. She walks away and stands in front of the large stone fireplace that is at the back of the room. She starts moving one of the loose fireplace hearthstones back and forth. The stone gives away and she pulls the stone out. Inside tucked in the hidden space is a piece of deep lavender velvet cloth that is wrapped around something. Our eyes meet, shocked.
“How did you know that was hidden there?” I ask incredulously, running my hand through my hair.
“It was calling me. I could just feel where it was.” She shrugs her shoulders slightly. She reaches in the hidden space and slowly brings out the hidden object.
* * *
~Lina~
The call to the hidden object grows stronger as I pull the velvet cloth out of its hidden space. I can feel the warmth of Colin at my back as he looks over my shoulder.
“Let’s lay this out on the table.” I move over to the table that is in the room. Colin stands next to me as I stretch out the cloth and unwrap the object. I open the last fold of the cloth and can’t help the gasp that comes out. I feel Colin place his hand on my lower back.
“What is it?” he asks. I can feel how tense his body is in anticipation of something bad about to happen.
“It’s Zelphire’s Amulet,“ I breathe. I can’t take my eyes off of the amulet. The amulet is made of an ancient pewter copper about the size of a silver dollar. The front of the amulet holds a large round emerald stone that is surrounded by symbols of the Ancient Fae language. I flip it over with the cloth careful not to touch it. On the back is a picture of a woman and wolf with writing in the same language. The amulet is attached to a worn black leather necklace.
“Do you know what it says?” Colin asks. His hand is rubbing my lower back. His touch helps calm my nerves. Ever since we came to the basement, he hasn’t been able to keep from touching me. Not that I’m complaining, it just keeps sending my attention back to our night we shared together.
“No, I’ll have to take it to my father.” I reach down and pick up the amulet and a jolt of electricity goes straight up my arm causing me to let loose a scream! Power runs up my arms and throughout my body. I feel weak yet I somehow feel myself growing stronger. The intensity of the power is too much. A blinding light shines from the amulet. My heart is beating so fast, I can’t catch my breath. There is a pressure building in my chest. I feel as if I’m drowning with no water. Colin yells my name, grabs me and the room disappears.
Chapter Fifteen
~Lina~
“Lina, open your eyes!” A familiar voice is pleading with me. My eyes don’t want to open. I shake my head.
“Baby, open your eyes for me!“ Finally, my eyes flutter open. Colin is hovering over me with his blue eye and brown eye staring down at me, searching my face with a worried look.
“What happened?” I try to sit up but fall back on the soft grassy ground. I pause and look around taking in our surroundings. We are no longer in the witch’s basement. Colin assists me to a sitting position.
“Where are we?” Looking around I begin to panic a little. We’re in a beautiful rich dense green forest. The sounds and smells of the woods surround us.
“I have no idea. One moment we were in the witch’s basement, and then you picked up the amulet. You started screaming, I tried to get you to drop it but it wouldn’t leave your hand. Then the bright light came and the next thing I know, I’m lying on a forest floor and you’re lying next to me unconscious.”
He looks me over for any injuries. His eyes show his concern. “You scared the shit out of me! Are you okay?”
“I think so.” I take a deep breath and wiggle my toes in my boots. “I just feel really weak. How long have I been out?” He helps me stand up. I wobble a little. I’m like a newborn calf standing for the first time. He holds onto me until I have my bearings.
“Maybe five minutes, but I’m not sure. You still have the amulet in your hand.” He points to the hand that I didn’t realize was holding the amulet still. I look down at the amulet. There is no more electrical current or pain. I’m getting the feeling that I need to keep it on me. I untie the leather straps and place the amulet on my chest and tie the straps behind my neck. The amulet stops in between my breasts.
“We need to get moving. I think the amulet sent us here to find something.” I run my hands around my body feeling for all the weapons that I had placed on myself. I confirm that they are all still there and Dawn is still on my back. Looking up, I notice the sun is at its highest point, letting me know it’s around noon wherever we are.
“I’m not detecting any predator scents in the wind. Any idea where we are?” Colin says sniffing the wind and looking around. He’s pacing, as
sessing the woods with his steady gaze, body tense, coiled, ready to attack.
“There’s no telling. I don’t know if we are even in the same time period or realm. Someone wanted me to touch the amulet and must need me to do something. We need to move. I don’t want to give something, or someone, who could harm us the chance to find us. For some reason, I feel we need to go north.” I’m not sure how I know this but the amulet warms slightly. I just feel that this is the right decision.
We hike for about twenty minutes. The dense forest finally gives away into a small clearing with a small stream flowing past us. It can’t be more than a couple feet deep. There is ample foliage and flowers of all colors growing along the stream. I grab Colin’s arm and point towards up-stream.
“We need to follow the stream until it ends.” I can feel the amulet directing me which way to go.
“Are you sure?” He looks up and down the stream with hands on his hips.
“No, but I’m going with this strong feeling I’m having.” I’m not sure how I know for certain, but I just have a solid feeling in my chest of where we need to go. I am almost certain I have never been here before.
I look over at Colin and he nods his head. He grabs my hand and leads the way. We continue to follow the stream for about an hour. We finally come to a beautiful natural spring where the stream originates. Across the spring, there is a pathway that leads away from the spring, deeper into the forest.
“We need to follow that pathway.” I point to the pathway across the stream. We walk around the spring and follow the pathway. It leads us into a beautiful old grotto. It is picturesque. It reminds me of a picture I had seen once of a sixteenth century Italian stone garden. The garden has a few different pathways that go off into different directions. The landscaping is immaculate; the bushes are trimmed into perfect round orbs. There are multiple flowerbeds located throughout the garden that are perfectly weeded and look as if it belongs on the cover of a magazine. The stone pathways and water fountains do not have any chips or marks in them as if they are freshly laid stone.