Mercy (The Guardians Series 1)

by Wendy Saunders

  ‘Olivia,’ Theo spoke up, ‘Jake may have a point, you are too vulnerable here by yourself.’

  ‘You think I can’t take care of myself,’ her eyes blazed pure gold, her hair whipped back from her face as if caught by an unseen wind. Her skin began to glow and her hands trembled and twitched, sparks flying from her fingertips to singe the rug.

  ‘If they want to hurt me let them come.’

  She fought to control the wave of heat and anger inside her but it was like trying to ride a dragon’s tail. The power whipped through her, white hot, and flames burst from her fingers making it appear as if she were holding two blazing spheres in her hands.

  ‘Olive,’ Jake stepped towards her only to be met with a wall of heat.

  ‘Get out!” she hissed.

  ‘Wait outside Jake,’ Theo replied calmly, his eyes never leaving hers.

  Jake threw a startled look at Theo, who appeared neither surprised nor fazed.

  ‘Theo,’ he warned.

  ‘It’s alright Jake,’ he repeated calmly his gaze never leaving Olivia, ‘wait outside.’

  Torn, he glanced at them both one last time before reluctantly opening the door and stepping out into the cold night air.

  Theo heard the door click quietly behind him and then he focused on Olivia.

  She could feel her control slipping, as her hurt and anger bubbled closer to the surface. She was drowning in heat and flame, as flickers of scattered thoughts licked at the edges of her consciousness. She tried to stop it, to rein the fire back in but it was too much.

  ‘Olivia,’ Theo’s calm voice broke through her panic.

  ‘Don’t,’ she gasped as the flames from her hands began to coil up her arms like flaming vines.

  ‘Olivia, look at me,’ his voice came again soft and reassuring.

  ‘I can’t,’ she tried to look at him but it was like seeing him through a thin film of red and gold, ‘I can’t control it.’

  ‘Yes you can,’ he took a step towards her and her heart hammered painfully in her chest.

  She could feel the fire coiling madly through her body consuming her. If she let go she would become a creature of flame and ash. She wanted it, she wanted to let go and become the fire, its call seductive and welcoming.

  ‘Olivia,’ this time there was a note of calm command in Theo’s voice, almost as if he could sense her slipping away, ‘look at me.’

  He took another step.

  ‘Don’t,’ her voice sounded deeper, unlike her own, ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘You won’t,’ he stepped closer.

  Fear now gripped her by the throat, cold and icy in direct contrast to the fire burning through her veins. If he touched her he would burn, consumed by her magic.

  She couldn’t see it herself but she was magnificent, Theo thought, a creature of pure gold and light and heat. Her fear held her back but he could see her as she truly was. He couldn’t say how he knew her magic wouldn’t harm him; he only knew it, right down to his very bones. She was his, she’d always been his.

  As Olivia felt him close the distance between them her heart threatened to burst from her chest. She felt his arms pull her against his body and his mouth crashed down on hers. Her mouth fell open and she gasped, allowing him the opportunity to taste her and with deep strokes of his tongue he feasted on the addictive flavour of her.

  The heat of her blew straight through him; his hands slid down her spine and grasped her as he picked her up easily. Her legs wound tightly around his waist and he slammed against the wall, knocking a picture loose and as it hit the ground with a resounding crack, pieces of glass skittered across the polished floor. Neither of them noticed or even cared. Olivia was barely aware that the inferno consuming her had begun to retreat, to smoulder under the far more dangerous and seductive heat that now consumed them both.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, her hands sliding into his silky dark hair and gripping almost painfully she bit down on his bottom lip. He growled and thrust his tongue back into her mouth, an indication of what he wanted to do to the rest of her body. She moaned helplessly as he ground the hard length of him between her thighs lancing through her in painful need and shooting straight to her core.

  She tasted smoky and delicious and all his. He was so hard it was painful and right then he wanted nothing more than to tear away the layers of clothing that separated them and plunge into the deep wet heat of her, riding her hard until they both shattered. He wanted it more than his next breath.

  It was physically painful tearing his mouth away from her. With his forehead pressed against her they both breathed heavily. No matter how badly he wanted to claim her, to mark her as his, he couldn’t, not like this. Not up against the wall in her hallway, while she was emotionally churned up and Jake was on the other side of the door.

  He gradually released his grip on her and her legs dropped to the floor. Her traced her jaw lightly with his fingers, grazing her lips with his thumb as she stared up at him her eyes still swirling with gold.

  ‘Damn, you’re beautiful,’ he murmured.

  ‘Theo,’ she breathed, unsure what to say. What could she say?

  ‘I have to go before Jake comes back in here and sets you off again,’ he smiled against her mouth before sighing in resignation, ‘I don’t like the thought of leaving you here on your own, I can’t help it.’

  ‘I know,’ she replied softly.

  ‘I’ll be here when you need me,’ he took a deep breath and stepped back, ‘whenever you need me.’

  She nodded silently as he stepped out of the door and closed it behind him. Feeling her legs finally give out on her she slid down the wall, sitting on the floor surrounded by fragments of broken glass. She’d never lost control like that before, not of her magic and not of herself. But Theo, he grounded her in a way she didn’t understand, but at the same time he made her feel more alive than she’d ever felt. He pulled at her in every way imaginable, he had done since the first moment she’d set eyes on him.

  She closed her eyes, reliving the frantic pace of his heart slamming against her own as he pinned her to the wall. She could still taste him; her body still throbbed and ached. Here in the stillness of her hallway, surround by the chaos they’d created, she could admit to herself how badly she needed him and that frightened her more than the thought of a murderer loose in her woods.

  Chapter 13.

  It was cold, that was the first thing Olivia noticed impassively. The ground squelched unpleasantly wet and gooey beneath her bare feet, but she paid it no mind. She didn’t even feel the cold as it seeped into her skin, raising tiny little bumps along the exposed flesh of her arms and legs. The icy wind tugged viciously at her thin nightgown and danced down her spine with sly spindly fingers and yet she continued on underneath the shivering canopy of trees and starlight.

  She couldn’t say how long she walked for, it didn’t seem important she thought dreamily. She seemed to be a long way from her house. Something about that should have concerned her and her brow momentarily creased into a frown but the thought disappeared like a skittish animal as quickly as it had come. Was she looking for something? She couldn’t quite remember but again it slipped from her mind before it could cause her any distress.

  Wandering further into the woods she thought she saw something up ahead, a person in a dark cloak, a hood drawn up over their face. She wondered if that should concern her but the idea slipped away as thin and insubstantial as a wisp of smoke through her fingers.

  A mist closed in around her grasping at her ankles with ghostly hands. She stared down absently at the transparent fingers winding around her legs. It seemed wrong somehow but she couldn’t quite place why. It was as if her mind was wrapped in a blanket and she couldn’t concentrate. Every time she had a thought it tattered and fell apart before she had the chance to grab onto it.

  Looking up, away from the warped ghostly mist gripping at her ankles, she continued to follow
the random winding path deeper into the woods. A part of her mind that still retained some consciousness gradually began to realise she was no longer following one of the well worn trails. She was now much deeper into the heart of the wood, ambling aimlessly through gnarled ancient tree trunks. The thin oily mist had now thickened into a greasy fog. It had a strange hue to it, not usual pale white fog of a ground level cloud but instead it held an eerie phosphorescent glow. The unnatural fog seemed to surround her undulating and following in whichever direction she chose to move.

  It should have scared her, but her emotions seemed to have been switched off. She tried to focus, and her thoughts became slightly clearer although with that clarity came a curious sense of numbness.

  Something caught her vision to her left and as she looked she caught a glimpse of a tattered yellow ribbon flapping ponderously in the breeze. Crime scene tape she mused absently as it disappeared into the thick curtain of fog.

  For a second she caught sight of the cloaked figure again and then it flickered out of sight under a fresh roll of fog. Was she following the figure? Or was the figure following her? She couldn’t quite tell.

  She adjusted her direction again.

  Her mind slowly began to stir and thoughts came a little easier now. It seemed to her she should feel some alarm but she couldn’t hold on to it. She paused and tilted her head, had she heard something; a whisper on the air calling her name? It came again, louder this time and more insistent.

  Adjusting her direction once again she followed the whispering voice, it was a sibilant hiss that lulled, cajoled and ultimately tempted her. It was a siren’s call and she was helpless to obey.

  She quickened her pace, heedless of the sharp twigs underfoot which scratched and tore at the soft exposed flesh of her feet.

  Suddenly her foot caught in a shallow hole in the ground and she stumbled. Throwing her hands out to save herself she dropped to her knees, grazing her palms on the stark ground and tearing her nightgown.

  She looked up slowly, the tree line had opened up and she was in a circular clearing. The clouds above her had burned away and the sky was blazing with stars, while the waxing moon burned pure white, filtering down through to the clearing. The fog had settled along the ground, bobbing and churning like the surface of a stream, broken only by one dark twisted solitary tree. No longer even a living breathing tree like the others in the woods, this one was different. It was little more than a shell, a hollow. Dead for centuries it writhed and speared up painfully from the ground as if it were trying to escape something deeper and darker below.

  A flicker of dread began to coil in her gut as part of her consciousness stirred. She knew this place; she wasn’t supposed to be here. She climbed painfully to her feet, the newly forming bruises on her knees throbbing as she wiped her blood smeared palms against her white nightgown. She wavered, tried to take a step back but something pulled at her. The whisper came again and she found herself stepping forwards, her torn hands outstretched as she moved closer to the tormented corpse-like hollow. The whisper was a roar in her ears, building higher with each step, the whole clearing speaking to her now, reaching a vast roaring crescendo. Her hand touched the crumbling diseased looking bark and then…

  Silence…

  The whispering, the wind, the thousand tiny little voices and sounds of the wood were gone and the silence was deafening. It was like the calm before the storm, she was standing on a precipice caught in that one moment in time. She knew she was about to step off a ledge and it was the long deep breath before the inevitable plunge.

  For a moment everything was still before roaring back with deafening clarity.

  She was thrown backwards with such a force it knocked the air from her lungs. Something sharp sliced the back of her shoulder as she hit the ground and for one terrifying moment before she was hurled through the air she could have sworn she saw a face in the bark of the tree, its mouth hung open in a silent timeless scream. Then reality flooded back. Whatever sleepy dreamlike trance had been woven around her was gone. Everything crashed in on her sharply and painfully. Her heart hammered in her chest as she tried to drag a lungful of air into her chest. Her feet and hands stung from dozens of cuts and grazes. She was freezing, her arms and legs felt slow and sluggish from the biting cold.

  She rolled over panting from the exertion, hauling herself to her feet and glancing back at the foreboding tree. She knew where she was now, Boothe’s hollow, the one place in the whole of the woods that had always been forbidden to her and her friends. How the hell had she gotten so far from her house and how long had she been outside?

  Stupid, stupid, she shook her head backing away from the clearing, her eyes darting nervously about. Something or someone had led her here and she had followed blindly. She was such a moron, so arrogant and sure nothing could cross the line, she hadn’t considered being manipulated into stepping outside her own protective boundaries. She’d been so focused on trying to protect her home she hadn’t thought to protect her own mind.

  A sudden growling behind her kicked her already frantic heart beat up another notch. She spun around and caught a glimpse of red eyes in the trees. The growl came again and Olivia ran.

  She bolted away, darting back into the woods, running as though her life depended on it. Whatever the hell the creature was, it was close snapping at her heels as she was once again enveloped by the fog. What chased her was like no dog or wolf she’d ever heard, the noise suggesting it was huge, its growl deep and sounding somehow, wetter. It was close and it had her scent. There was only one way to lose it. Praying she was right about where she was she veered off and plunged through the tree line towards the shore of the lake.

  She was wrong.

  She realised she’d miscalculated as she burst through the edge of the woods hitting a sharp embankment and losing her footing, her ankle twisted sharply and she rolled down the steep incline. Her head crackled sharply against a protruding rock before her body plunged into the freezing water of the lake.

  Theo shot up in bed wrestling with the damp sheets which were wrapped around his body like vines. Breathing heavily, his heart pounded in his ears, he glanced over at the clock which showed 2.47am in blinking red lights. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed he fumbled for the phone. He dragged it out of the pocket of his discarded jeans and scrolled through the menus the way Olivia had shown him. Praying that he remembered how to use it correctly he found her number and hit connect.

  It rang and rang.

  His jaw tensed painfully as it went to voice mail. He tried again, and again she didn’t answer. Cursing himself for leaving her in the first place he dragged his jeans on, dressing quickly. He’d had a bad feeling as he left her house earlier that evening, and it had only got worse as the hours had passed. Dread churned deep in his gut. He pulled his boots on and yanked a sweater over his head, trying her phone again.

  Cursing under his breath he shot out into the hallway and into Jake’s room, hurrying over to the bed to roughly shake him awake.

  ‘Whattimezit?’ Jake mumbled as he rolled over and looked up through bleary eyes.

  ‘Jake, Olivia’s in trouble,’

  ‘What?’ his eyes cleared and he sat up, yanking the covers off.

  ‘We have to go NOW!” Theo hovered impatiently as Jake scooped his clothes off the floor and yanked them on roughly.

  ‘What happened?’

  He hurriedly pulled out his weapon, checked it was fully loaded and tucked it into the back of his jeans.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Theo breathed heavily, ‘she’s in the woods; something is chasing her.’

  ‘Are you sure it wasn’t just a dream?’

  Jake I’m sure,’ he replied agitatedly. ‘I’ve been trying to call her and she’s not picking up.’

  Jake nodded as they both headed out.

  He broke every speed limit between his apartment and the Stick House as he tore down the deserted roads. Theo unable to sit sti
ll kept trying to call her, growling in frustration when there was no answer.

  When he finally pulled up outside Olivia’s house Theo was out of the car before he’d even put the parking brake on. Throwing open the door Jake climbed out and headed up the front steps of her porch. Even in the dead of night and from a distance he could see her front door stood wide open and the house was in complete darkness. Drawing his weapon Jake edged cautiously up the steps.

  Theo glanced briefly at Jake who was approaching the house, but he barely paid attention, he knew she wasn’t there. His gaze instead scanned the tree line at the edge of the woods where thick greasy smog spilled out between the tree trunks like ghostly tentacles. Not waiting for Jake he took off across the open grass towards the woods, calling out her name in desperation and praying to God they weren’t too late.

  Olivia breached the surface coughing and dragged in a deep lungful of air. Her body began to shake and it was becoming hard to control her limbs. They felt as if they were made of lead. She knew she didn’t have long; she couldn’t stay in the water. At this temperature she only had minutes before hypothermia set in. She clawed and scrambled her way back towards the bank with none of her usual finesse. She had been the star of the swim team in high school and college, but her body temperature was too low, she was exhausted and hurt and the thing that was chasing her still prowled the banks somewhere.

  The jagged roots of a tree overhung the bank and she grasped on with numb fingers, unable to feel anything as the bark dug into her already torn palms. She rested her throbbing head against her hands as she held on. She was so tired, barely able to feel her body and she just wanted to close her eyes.