“Hold this.” Rush shoved a glass container into her hands. “Catch the manabeeze when they release. Get as many as you can.”
“The what?” she gasped, still hazy and disorientated.
“The manabeeze.” He snatched the glass cylinder from her hands and twisted it at the halfway mark. It opened. He then showed a sweeping motion, as if he were catching air. Then he closed the container.
“I’m not stupid,” Clarke groused. “I know how to close a container.”
His lip curled in a one-sided smirk. “Someone isn’t a morning person.”
She couldn’t say the same for him. He’d woken looking just as handsome as he did going to sleep. Hair brushed back as though he’d run his hands through it. Beard looking a touch thicker but not messy. Laughing eyes watching her. Her body hummed in the most delicious way and she remembered her first thought when seeing him upon wakening. She’d liked the idea of a morning cuddle. It was stupid. She shouldn’t even be thinking about that, but she was half asleep. Her guard was down. And she was lonely.
She didn’t want to be thousands of years from anyone she’d ever known. She didn’t want the nightmares to be her only friend. She blurted, “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t be a morning person either if you were always dreaming about fire and death.”
Liar. Her dreams last night had been nightmare free. That only happened when she was around someone she felt safe with.
“You are a confusing woman, Clarke.” He used his knife to gesture urgently at the glass container in her hands. “Use it to catch the manabeeze.”
She opened her mouth to explain, again, that she knew nothing about manabeeze, but shut it when he gripped the creature’s head and held it to make the neck taut. Every line in his body tensed and strained as though it hurt to touch the little beastie. “You ready?”
“I—”
He lowered his voice and closed his eyes, muttering a prayer of respect. He sliced the neck, killing it, and then said, “Now.”
She jolted, and then the strangest thing happened. Little white balls of light buzzed out of the animal’s body and hovered in a swarm.
“Catch them!” Rush barked. He retrieved another container from his rucksack.
Jumping to her feet, Clarke opened the glass container and tried to scoop as many balls of light—manabeeze—as she could. Restless energy rippled through her body. She released a yip of excitement. It was like catching fireflies. She chased the damned things around the circle as they swarmed in lazy patterns, getting faster and flying higher with each lap around her. One brushed her face, tickling like an electric caress. She giggled. There was something so pure about the light.
Twirling around like a school girl in a yard, grinning from ear to ear. She stopped just in time to see a single manabee buzz drunkenly and come straight for her.
Rush saw it at the same time. “Don’t let—”
It hit her sternum and soaked into her being, spreading warmth.
“—it go through you.” Rush’s shoulders slumped.
Clarke felt woozy. Who moved the ground? Stumbling, she barely held upright and tumbled into Rush’s arms. “Wha... What’s wrong with me?”
He shook his head and set her straight. “You shouldn’t have let it go through you. Now you will pay.”
“Do you accept Visa?” She giggled then clapped her hand over her mouth. Why was she laughing? Because it was funny! She felt funny too. The world around her became hyper-focused and yet soft at the same time.
Rush rescued the glowing glass canister filled with buzzing manabeeze from her hands. Her knees buckled, and she landed hard on her butt, blinking lazily at the sky swirling pink and yellow with a new day. But she felt… a fizzing through her body. From the tip of her toes to the end of her hair. Which was totally weird. Hair had no feelings.
She laughed again.
“I feel great.” She shot him a goofy grin.
He stowed his prize. “You’re lucky it was only one, and it was from a warada.”
“A warada?”
“Doesn’t matter. Point is this stuff is potent. If you ingested mana from a stronger being, you’d be hallucinating the memories of their life right now... among other things.”
She blinked. Wow. “So this... this stuff is like a drug.”
“This stuff is sacred. It’s the last remaining mana left in one’s body before you die. It has many uses, all of which are lucrative.”
“What happens if you just leave it?”
“It rejoins the Well—the cosmic mana of the planet.”
Clarke sighed. “That sounds so nice. Cosmic. Say it again and let me watch your lips move. Coz-mik.”
He rolled his eyes, but couldn’t hide his humor. “Here we go.”
“Hey, you know you’re pretty cool, right? You’re not nearly as scary as you pretend to be.”
His smile dropped and he raised a brow. “Cool.”
“Yeah, I mean,” she continued, “I once dated this guy who used to make me tell him the lotto numbers every week. And then he sold me to this scary dude who pulled my friend’s fingernails out so I’d tell him those other numbers.” Her voice turned soft. “Can’t believe I dated him.”
Rush stared at her. “He sounds like a floater.”
“Don’t know what that means, but don’t worry, he got what he deserved.” That man, along with everyone else she knew, had died with her old world. His greed had given him nothing in the end.
A shiver ran up her spine when she remembered that she’d seen two of them pouring over a map of Elphyne. Maybe he wasn’t dead.
“No.” She shook her head. “Only good vibes, please.”
Rush looked at her long and hard, then went to the warada and lifted it to inspect the spiky tail. Even with the permanent grimace, he was much nicer to think about than jerk-face Bishop. Or his evil friends. Enough with those floaters.
She giggled. What a weird phrase.
But Rush. If it weren’t for the fact he was trying to use her, she might have liked him.
“You’re also pretty cute when you frown.” She rested her chin on her hand. “If you stop forcing me to do things, we could be friends, you know.”
Chapter Eleven
Rush froze at Clarke’s words.
We could be friends.
The problem was, he’d been holding the warada when he froze, and the contact sickness hit. Like a jolt of anti-adrenaline, the curse dragged his energy down, just like it always did when he touched another creature. Stupid. He knew he’d felt off when he’d sliced its throat but ignored the warning, just like he did when he gave Gray a scratch or tickle. It was stupid to get distracted, but her talk of a man who extorted her powers made him angry and he’d neglected to pay attention to the sickness creeping up on him. He knew better.
His hand snapped open and the carcass fell to the ground as the nausea hit. The second wave of the curse was always worse. It took all his restraint to hold the pain in, hoping Clarke wouldn’t notice in her state of disarray. Sweat itched beneath his beard and above his brow. Taking deep, even breaths, he concentrated on the thing that triggered his curse.
The warada was reckless to come so close to the perimeter stakes. Usually the magic stone deterrent was enough to send all creatures skittering away, even the larger monsters. They were only at the start of the woods. It would be a few more days until they got through. Perhaps something spooked the creature and made it desperate.
Biting through the waning pain, Rush reminded himself that he had to be watchful. A cursed reaction from an animal the warada’s size was bearable. A bigger creature, not so much.
He looked at the forest and groaned inwardly. If they were attacked, he’d better be careful not to touch, or he would be incapacitated in hostile territory for Crimson-knew how long.
Damned curse. He was over it. Fifty damned years and he was completely over it. The sooner they got through the Whispering Woods, the sooner they got to Crescent Hollow, and the sooner they found a portal
stone to take them to the Order. Without a stone, the journey would take weeks on foot.
Rush removed Starcleaver from the beast, wiped the blade on the body, and then sheathed it over his shoulder.
A glance at Clarke showed she’d already forgotten about him and studied the way her hand looked before the sky. But her words still rattled in his mind.
If you stop forcing me…
He tapped his thigh, deep in thought. The woman had been forced to do a despicable thing. He was under no illusion that she was perfect, that she deserved his pity, but he also wasn’t the kind of male who forced a woman to bend to his will… not like the way his uncle did. He was nothing like Thaddeus, and the fact that Rush had to use magic to compel Clarke didn’t sit well with him.
He turned to face her, ready to corral the town drunk, but found she studied him.
“What?” he demanded.
Her still-glazed eyes dropped to his right ear. With a sway and pout of plump lips, she said, “I want to touch them.”
“Oh no. No, you don’t.” Rush backed up, but she advanced on him. Two pale hands outstretched and grasped air, aiming for his head.
“Woman.” He dodged and weaved out of her reach. Putting his back to her and shaking his head, he finished packing away the canisters. “The manabee effect will wear off soon. Just sit down and don’t hurt yourself.”
He shouldn’t have assumed. She came up behind him and touched.
Every aching bone in his body stiffened, expecting the sickness to hit again. Shutting his eyes, he tensed, but the only pain was bittersweet. A woman’s touch. A tender sweep of fingers over the arch of his ears. A slide of blissful agony as she pressed under the lobe. And a stroke over the furred tips, then back down again.
Every nerve in his body sang at the connection. Ears were erogenous for fae. A tremble wracked through him. His eyes fluttered. His limbs loosened. The bastard he was, he pushed into her hand, nudging his head into her touch like a bleedin’ scrappy pup.
Touch there.
“Feels so good,” she murmured, dusting the furred tip of his second ear. “It tingles my skin.”
A wave of need washed down him. Arousal became a tight, hot weight beneath his skin and he remembered how she’d looked when she leaned toward him the night before, all feminine curves and temptation. He rounded on her. “Stop,” he croaked.
Wide, naïve eyes met his. “Why?”
Rush’s response lodged in his throat.
Because I want to tear off your clothes and feel you from the inside.
She had no idea how long he’d waited to sink into the tight, wet center of a female, and he was afraid of the lines he’d cross to make it happen. But he wasn’t the deviant his uncle had made him out to be. Even if his family would never know, he’d know.
Why indeed. “We have to keep moving.”
Disappointed, she dropped her hands to her sides. “I need a drink.”
“Anything else, princess?” He handed her the waterskin.
She flattened her lips. “If we’re being honest, I’d like my watch back.”
“Your watch?”
“The thing you took from my wrist. It tells the time.” She pouted. “I hate not knowing what the time is. I feel as though, if I do, then I’ll know where I am. It’s stupid.”
She shook her head.
Rush wasn’t giving her the plastic and metal watch. He put the protection stakes away and willed his body to forget the way she’d made him feel. Less isolated. Less forgotten. And less in control of his urges. He wasn’t wrong when he’d called her a confusing woman. Shouldn’t he hate her for who she was?
But he knew as well as anyone, that one thoughtless act made in the heat of the moment could have dire consequences.
Growling in frustration, he collected his rucksack and stalked into the woods where the thickest trees thinned suddenly from a wending path between. The trees bowed toward him and shifted in the wind, their leaves rustling in greeting or warning. He could never decide.
While he waited for her to follow, he willed his arousal away, but his hormones didn’t care if she was human. They didn’t care if his time on this earth was coming to an end. They didn’t even care that he was about to enter a dangerous place. He’d screw her anywhere if he could.
Fuck.
He scrubbed his face.
No, he wouldn’t.
From the sound of her thudding feet, she followed. So he set off.
Chapter Twelve
Another two days of endless walking passed.
Rush set an unforgiving pace. He was used to it, even though Clarke wasn’t. In Elphyne, they had no moving metal boxes, like the human city had. They had to walk, or use portals. Since he had no access to the Well, he couldn’t create one. He had to find a mana-imbued stone instead. Crescent Hollow was the nearest market he could find a portal stone.
Each day they made camp when the sun set, and rose with the dawn. Determined not to put himself in a position of arousal again, he kept his distance, and refused to engage in conversation, despite her babbling and questions about Elphyne.
Every night, she shuffled closer when she thought he was asleep. And every night she made these little sounds of feminine exhaustion. Sighs and moans that reminded him of fantasies he’d dreamed in his loneliest moments. In the middle of the night, he’d caught himself reaching for her. He woke each morning with hard steel between his legs, and the wolf inside him closer to the surface, howling for a taste of her.
Damned woman.
Until she’d come along, he didn’t think he would miss the quiet solitude of his curse. His words came less frequently when no one talked back. Being cut off from the Well meant the past few years had been blessedly silent. Until her.
She got under his skin in a way he wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to end. An itch at his palm—at their bargain site—punctuated the thought. He shook out his fist and concentrated on the path ahead.
The last time he’d visited Crescent Hollow was just after his son, Thorne, had been shipped off to the Order at the tender age of twelve. That was forty years ago. Destiny was a cruel, hungry beast that kept devouring long after death. It ate Rush’s father, it ate Rush, and it still went for his son. It was for his son that Rush needed to lift the curse. Rage rose swiftly in him at the memory, at the panic riding his system when the alpha, his uncle Thaddeus, had announced Rush’s son would be the pack’s yearly tribute to the Order.
Thorne needed to know that he didn’t need to live the life of a Guardian, despite being forced into it.
Rush should have been the alpha. He should never have messed up his father’s life by wanting to join the Order, but he could never say he’d regretted becoming a Guardian. Only what came before and after because of it.
“So, like, where are we headed again?” Clarke asked.
Rush bared his teeth and snapped at her. Should have known the blessed silence wouldn’t last.
She should have been afraid. Should have jumped back. But she only blinked at Rush, waiting. Must be losing his touch.
With a grunt, he trudged onward, ignoring her and the wind whispering sweet things into his ears. Stay awhile, Rush. He shut out the voices until nothing but the dirt leaf-littered path and the occasional earth sprite skittering behind the trees held his attention. He found them more reliable for news of danger than the wind. If the sprites weren’t bothered, then the road was clear.
Onward he plodded. The light from the sun waned. It was only mid-morning, but the woods were thickening and the grim life held inside seemed to stretch its shadowy touch across everything. As though walking through a barrier to another world, the greenery and chittering birds turned to death and eerie silence. The temperature dropped.
They were here. The last leg of their journey. If they took this route, they’d be in Crescent Hollow by nightfall. He withdrew Starcleaver. Just ahead was a fork in the path. Down one, the limbs of trees bent to connect with the other side to create a gloomy tun
nel. Reaching into the rucksack, he retrieved a jar of manabeeze, still buzzing and giving off light.
He handed it to Clarke. “Hold that.”
Her eyes darted between the two paths, clearly seeing that the one with the most light wasn’t the direction they were headed.
“No.” She shook her head and pointed down the dark path. “We’re not going down there.”
“We have to. It will only take a few hours. The alternative route will take days.”
Clamping her lips, she shook her head again. “No. There’s something bad down there. I can feel it.”
Crimson save him. It was times like these he truly missed the ability to shift. All he used to do was shred his human skin, let the beast out, and the very air would quake with fear.
“Woman.” He clenched his jaw. “I will keep us from harm.”
He couldn’t say the same for when they arrived at the Order, though. But as long as he got to his son, whatever happened to her after that wasn’t his concern.
A tightness constricted his chest, and he frowned at his own callousness. When had he become so cruel as to discard the safety of a female? Even a human one. The rogue humans he’d hunted over the years were all men, all scouts from Crystal City. It was easy to kill them. They were as monstrous as the magic-warped creatures he exterminated when he worked for the Order.
“I’m not sure you can,” she said. “No offense.”
He planted Starcleaver’s tip into the ground and leaned on it with a sigh. “If you had any idea what a Guardian is, you wouldn’t be saying that.”
“So tell me.”
Rush raised a brow. She was serious.
“And then tell me why you are no longer one,” she added.
He had a mind to not tell her anything. They had to keep moving. A sitting duck was dinner in these parts.
“A Guardian has gone through a special initiation where their hearts and courage are tested by the Well. When they emerge, if they emerge, they have a deeper capacity for holding mana within their bodies. They can also draw from the Well at any location, as long as they are connected with the land in some way. Most others can only replenish slowly over time, or from a location of power. Like the lake you woke up in. When I shift into wolf form, I’m larger than most other wolves. If I concentrate, I can control the elements too.”
The Longing of Lone Wolves Page 7