The Brazen Amazon

by Sandy James

  “When are ye going to introduce us to our guest, Gina?” Artair draped his arm around his wife’s shoulder and grinned at Zach.

  “Zach Hanson, the tall guy in the kilt with that wicked brogue is Artair MacKay. The blond is Johann Herrmann.”

  Zach threw a smug smile at Johann first. “Glad the nose is better.”

  “Nose? What about my—” His hand flew up to touch the tip of his still swollen nose. “You mean you knew?”

  “He knew,” Gina replied.

  “So you broke my nose for nothing,” her Sentinel grumbled, although he extended a hand to Zach.

  She waited while the men exchanged their handshakes, wondering when she would have time alone with her sisters and the Sentinels to warn them to keep their powers under wraps. Soon, she hoped.

  Zach slipped his arm around Gina’s waist and pulled her against his side. Her heart warmed at the spontaneous show of affection, and she could feel her sisters’ curiosity.

  “I was promised a sword fight,” he said.

  “Sword fight?” Megan asked, her voice eager. “You know how to use weapons?”

  Gina groaned, amazed that fireworks weren’t shooting from Megan’s hair.

  “All tae kwon do,” he replied. “But I’m ready to learn something new.”

  Johann rubbed his hands together. “I’ve been itching for a good fight.”

  “You two are always so damned blood thirsty,” Rebecca said with a shake of her head.

  “Aye, Becca mine, they are,” Artair said. “But I know the Earth in you wants to see if he’s a challenge too. Are the bairns with Beagan and Dolan?”

  Rebecca nodded, a smile lighting her face. “They’re fine.”

  “Bairns?” Zach asked, turning back to Gina. “You mean kids?”

  “Yeah. Rebecca and Artair have a son and daughter. Darian and Bonnie. Megan and Johann have a daughter. Mina. They’re all toddlers.”

  “Interesting.” Zach rubbed his fingers over his chin, the scratchy sound of his unshaven whiskers making her feel strangely warm inside. “Never heard of a security firm that keeps kids around. Nor one that operates out of a Girl Scout camp.”

  “We’re a little...different,” Gina said with a shrug.

  “When do we hit the sand pit?” Johann eyed Zach like a cheetah seeking the weakest in a pack of gazelles.

  “You’re not fighting with Zach.” Gina sent a glare at her sisters and her Sentinels. “None of you are. He doesn’t fight the way we do. No swords.”

  Megan pouted her lower lip. “Why not?”

  “Yeah, Gina. Why not?” Zach asked. “Sounds like loads of fun. I just need someone to teach me.”

  “I’ll teach him,” Artair offered. He fetched one of his swords from the small stack leaning against the pantry door.

  Sweet Lord, what was Zach thinking about them right now? A woman baking chocolate chip cookies had a pile of swords in her kitchen, and all the people he’d just met wanted to pound the living daylights out of him.

  Artair held the hilt to Zach, who grabbed it, backed up a couple of steps and gave the weapon a few small swings.

  He grinned from ear to ear. “Nice balance. Where do we fight?”

  “You don’t. Not with anyone but me.” She narrowed her eyes at Artair. “He’s a civilian. Remember?”

  “It doesnae matter,” Artair replied.

  “He needs to learn,” Johann added. “We don’t know when he’ll need the skill.”

  Gina swallowed the sassy answer she wanted to throw at her Sentinel. Zach didn’t need to learn to fight with a sword because he wasn’t going to face revenants. Ever. He wouldn’t be with the Amazons long enough to have to fight those mindless zombies. Besides, Sekhmet had SOGs at her fingertips. She wouldn’t need revenant enforcers, and SOGs could be killed up close and personal, though it was harder to drop them because they were technically demigods.

  “Where’s Richard?” She hoped to change the topic and maybe get an ally to keep them all from fighting Zach.

  “He’s in Eden with Sarita,” Megan replied. “After the way I worked him over in the sand pit, his muscles had to be burning.” Fire laughed at the pun Zach would never understand. “It was like he wasn’t even paying attention. Beagan had to stitch up a gash I put on his chest.”

  “Aw, poor Dick,” Zach said before Gina elbowed him in the ribs. “You guys keep talking about Eden. What’s that?”

  “A natural hot spring,” Rebecca replied. “It’s like a hot tub in the middle of the woods. Always the perfect temperature, surrounded by trees and flowers, and absolutely beautiful.”

  “Sounds nice.” He turned to give a salacious smile to Gina that melted something inside her. Leaning in, he whispered, “Want to go there later?”

  “I don’t have a swimsuit,” she blurted out.

  Two Amazons and Sentinels gaped at her, clearly confused at the turn in conversation. Rebecca and Megan waited a beat then gave Gina broad smiles. Sometimes their sisterly bonds seemed...invasive.

  “Won’t need one.” Zach actually blew in her ear as he’d whispered to her, the heat of his breath sending a shower of delightful tingles racing down her body.

  Johann’s knowing smile brought Gina crashing back to earth. “If you’re talking about Eden,” he said, “after we teach Zach to fight, he’ll need a good, long soak in the hot spring. You two can go later.”

  She was getting plenty pissed at constantly having to shake her head, and she fired a nasty glare at her Sentinel. The guy loved to fight with swords, especially after Artair had given him more training. Johann probably smelled fresh blood.

  She wasn’t going to let that blood be Zach’s. “He’s not sparring with you, Johann.”

  “It’ll be fine, Gina.” Johann picked up another sword. “I won’t hurt him.” His chuckle pissed her off more. “At least not much.”

  “It’s not fine.” She folded her arms over her chest and tried to scorch him with her gaze. Like a man married to the embodiment of Fire could be intimidated.

  Zach kissed her cheek, even with everyone standing right there. “It is fine. I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself. Let him teach me. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  Chapter Eleven

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” Gina mocked, as she watched Beagan tend to the cut on Zach’s cheek.

  Her stomach churned and she was actually wringing her hands like some kind of nervous ninny. What the hell was wrong with her? She’d seen injuries before. This was just a damned scratch. He’d probably done worse learning to shave.

  The fear roared inside her anyway. “You could have lost your eye, Zach. You were fighting with swords, for fuck’s sake.”

  “I’m fine, Gina.” His too-calm-for-the-circumstances declaration was followed by a grimace as Beagan started to clean the wound.

  “This is serious.” She had to resist the urge to thump his injured cheek to show him this wasn’t a laughing matter. “Johann took a chunk out of you. I told you that you’d get hurt. This isn’t a stupid game.” Shit, she was going to give Johann a piece of her pissed-off mind when she found him.

  Zach’s enchanting smile, dimple and all, almost charmed the anger right out of her. Then she looked at the gash again.

  “It’s just a flesh wound.”

  “Don’t you dare try to make this funny by quoting Monty Python to me.”

  His grin grew. “See, I knew there was a reason I liked you. You get British comedy.”

  “That’s my fault.” Sarita’s voice filled Zach’s cabin before she came all the way inside. “I introduced her to it.”

  “Another sister?” he asked, still grinning as Beagan washed the dried blood from where it had caked on his cheek and chin.

  Gina had a hard time taking her eyes away from the dark stains on his skin and shirt. They were stark reminders that he might be a tae kwon do master and a genius, but he was, above all things, a mere mortal.

  His way of fighting was for fun or for t
rophies or for a new, darker belt.

  Her way of fighting was to kill her foe so she could stay alive to fight another day.

  She vowed to protect him at any cost—a vow she felt all the way to her soul. No matter what else happened in this fight against Sekhmet, Zach was going to survive and come out of the other side his same happy, slightly compulsive self.

  “Gina, you okay?” Sarita asked.

  “Sorry, just lost in thought. Zach, this is Sarita Neeraj. She’s my—”

  “The last sister,” Zach wrinkled his nose at the smelly ointment Beagan had scooped out of the jar. “Sweet mercy, do you have to use that stuff again?”

  “It cures everything, Mr. Hanson,” Beagan replied as he smoothed it over Zach’s cheek. “Your burns and your cut will heal quickly.”

  Amazed that Beagan actually spoke to Zach, she wondered at how easily everyone in Avalon, even the emotionally distant changelings, had accepted him as though he were one of them.

  “He’s right. You’ll heal quickly, but you’ll smell like a pig farm for a while,” Sarita added with a chuckle.

  “Feeling better?” Gina asked her sister. “Did the hot spring cure whatever Artair inflicted on you in the name of training?”

  With an exaggerated roll of her shoulders, Sarita nodded. “Damn, but he sure knows how to make my muscles burn. Makes me glad we had Johann for Sentinel when we were trained instead of Artair. Please tell me I clipped his face enough to leave a bruise.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Gina felt her sister’s responding pride. “He’s got a helluva black eye.”

  “Thanks for calming her down,” Zach said to Sarita as he patted Began on the shoulder.

  “How do you know I’m calmer?” Gina asked.

  “Your hair isn’t red.”

  She ran her fingers through her short hair.

  As Beagan scurried out of the cabin, Zach kicked off his shoes and set them next to Gina’s spare running shoes. He took a moment to arrange them in a straight line. Then he hopped back on the bed, leaned back against the headboard and stretched his long legs out on the quilt. “Now that I’ve met everyone, we need to talk about these SOGs and about why they want the Toy.” His gaze skimmed the cabin. “You said it was safe. Where is it?”

  She sure didn’t want to answer that question. “I got your phone for you.” Piss-poor diversionary tactic. She’d have to face what she’d done eventually. But for a few more seconds...

  “You told me you got the Toy, too, right?” he asked, bringing her reprieve to a screeching halt. “You said you got it from the cabinet back at my office.”

  “Um, yeah. I got it.” She stared at the floor, scuffing the toe of her shoe against the wood. “But...it got...kinda...damaged.” Gina glanced back to Zach.

  “D—damaged?” From his look of pain, the destruction of his Toy hurt him more than the slice to his face. “What happened to it? I can fix it, right?” His voice took on a desperate tremor. “Just some—some scratches, right?”

  She felt like a naughty child confessing to a stern parent. Hell, she’d been saving his life. So why did she feel this bad about breaking his blasted Toy?

  “I—um—fell on it when I dragged you out of your office.”

  When I jumped three stories with you on my back and landed on my ass.

  Not a pretty picture.

  At least she found no recrimination in his eyes. “Please tell me it’s fixable.”

  “Not sure. I don’t know much about stuff like that.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In my cabin.” Gina turned to Sarita. “Come with?”

  Before Sarita could answer, Zach threw his legs over the side of the bed.

  “No!” She hadn’t meant to shout. “Sarita can go with me. You need to rest. Sarita and I will go.” Gina inclined her head toward the door. “C’mon, Sarita. Let’s get his stuff.”

  She escaped the cabin before he could argue.

  * * *

  Sarita started in on Gina the minute the sisters were alone. “So did you change your mind?”

  Gina just kept walking. “About?”

  “About sleeping with him. I don’t get the frustration vibes from you anymore. You’ve made up your mind. What I don’t know is what you made up your mind to do.”

  Gina picked up the pace. “We need to talk to Rebecca and Megan.”

  Despite her petite stature, Sarita matched Gina’s wicked-long strides. Gina always walked faster when she was angry, so Sarita was probably used to racing to keep up.

  “Why do you want to talk to them about whether you’re going to sleep with Zach?”

  “Not that. About Sekhmet. She’s got one of the Toys.”

  “Toys?”

  She’d forgotten Sarita had just returned from her own mission. “We all need to sit down and share what we’ve learned. Zach developed this communication system for the Department of Defense. Sekhmet snagged one of them.”

  “What’s it do?”

  “Not entirely sure, but Zach says one will do her no good.”

  “Good to hear, but it still doesn’t answer my question,” Sarita replied with a frown. “What did you decide?”

  Ignoring her, Gina hurried up the steps to her porch. When she’d first come to Avalon, there was only one thing she missed—the balcony on her old apartment, the only real amenity the place offered and the reason she’d chosen it.

  Nights she needed to relax, she’d sit on the ninth story deck and stare up at the sky. Even before she’d known she was Air, the sky called to her. Just watching the stars and the puffs of clouds calmed her. A full moon could touch the tender emotions she kept buried deep inside herself. Now, the moon reminded her of Ix Chel, telling her someone, somewhere was watching over her.

  The first time she’d stepped out of her Avalon cabin to take in the night sky, Gina wished for a porch, just a small place to put a nice wicker chair. After she’d trained the next day, she returned to her cabin to find a wooden deck wrapping all the way around her home. When she looked around, the changelings peeked out from behind Sarita’s cabin. She called out her thanks and they’d giggled, shapeshifted into rabbits and hopped away.

  God, it felt good to be home.

  Sarita followed her inside the cabin.

  What she felt for Zach was downright frightening, and if she started talking about it, she’d lose her courage and decide not to be his lover. She wanted him, but it was all still so confusing.

  If only her heart could be as easy to manage as her muscles.

  “Fine.” Sarita sat on the end of Gina’s bed. “I get it. You don’t want to tell me. I didn’t mean to push. You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

  Gina replied with a brisk nod, not sure what to say. Before she could consider it too long, a bright flash of light announced the arrival of a goddess. Gina whirled around to find Ix Chel.

  Dressed in a sky-blue skirt and ivory peasant shirt, she smiled at Gina. “I have come to talk to you.” Casting a glance to Sarita, Ix Chel said, “I would like some privacy with my Amazon.”

  Sarita grinned, making Gina wonder what was on Water’s mind. After reaching up and placing a quick pat on Gina’s arm, Sarita left the cabin.

  “We need to talk, my child.”

  “About?”

  “You have come to a crossroads. I have come to hear from your own lips which road you intend to choose.”

  What the hell did that mean? She couldn’t possibly know what Gina had decided about Zach. Could she?

  Although the patron goddesses had never given any indication that they could read their Amazons’ minds, Gina’s heart skipped a beat. Had Ix Chel been eavesdropping on her thoughts?

  “What crossroads?” she asked.

  “You face your destiny, Gina. I have come to hear from your own lips that you plan to choose wisely.”

  “May I speak freely, m’lady?”

  “Of course you may.”

  “Of all the goddesses, you’re always the one who wants to—I don�
��t know—keep things you know about from us.”

  Shit, that sounded stupid. But Ix Chel always cautioned Freya, Ganga and even the powerful Rhiannon to let the Amazons figure things out for themselves. Yet here she stood, acting like she wanted to help pave the way for Gina’s future.

  Which future was she paving?

  Duh. Ix Chel wanted to know about Zach.

  Gina’s gut tightened. What if Ix Chel wanted her to stay away from Zach? Could she possibly disobey her patron goddess?

  Ix Chel gave Gina a warm, genuine smile that eased her mind. “I understand your concern. And, sí, you are right. When the Fates send you and your sisters to face evil, it is not my place to make that fight easier. Should I do so, the Fates would surely love to show how fickle they can truly be. Too often, my help would only cause you more trouble. I have found it best to let the future run an unimpeded course.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Ix Chel crossed to Gina and stroked her cheek with cool fingertips. “Because when it comes to concerns that are more...personal, I am less reticent to interfere. I seek only your happiness, my child.”

  Drawing her brows together, she stared at her goddess. “I don’t understand.”

  The goddess’s hand dropped to her side. “You deserve happiness. Too often, I have felt your unease, how you have struggled to belong, never feeling the comforts of home in your heart. I blame myself.”

  Gina was already shaking her head. Ix Chel had nothing to feel guilty about. Carla might have liked to wander, but she’d given Gina everything a child needed.

  Except stability.

  Shaking her head again, she refused to look at her Aunt Carla as anything less than a fine guardian. “I’ve had a good life.”

  “Yes, Gina, you have. Yet you have never known love. Carla tried to be a good mother, but her heart needed to roam. Had I known, I might have chosen another priestess to raise you, someone who might have shown more affection and made a permanent home for you.”

  “I love Aunt Carla.”

  A tender, almost loving light shone in Ix Chel’s big, dark eyes. “Of course you do. But your childhood was...difficult. Now, love is within your reach. I only wish to ensure that you grab for it, that you do not let the opportunity for a true and lasting love slip through your fingers because of your fear to offer your trust.”