Clayton's Jade (Runes Stone Series)

by Maria Yvonne Wood

  Shaking his head Odin looked at her “You don’t want to do that, kitten.” It was a warning and also he let her know that he knew she was a shifter. “I know it’s a lot to take in but you need to and fast.”

  “I am nobody’s kitten and you can’t tell me what to do. Who do you think you are?” The gall of that man, however the kitten remark and unnerved her a bit. No one outside of the family and of course other shifters knew that she was a bob cat. She was very careful when she changed, it was also one of the reasons why she would never sell the property. She needed it to roam around in.

  “If you want to get technical, you are mine. Now, you have been seeing things when you dream and sometimes when you are awake. Your home is going to become a base for several people who will find their way here. In fact sometime this week a young lady will be arriving that can tell if a person is good or bad with a touch. Kaylee you have the ability to see where the stones are and Clayton is a protector and fighter. He still needs to collect four more runes. I would say you have your work cut out for you.” Looking into his eyes she knew he could do a lot of damage. But he sounded just as loony as Clayton. “We are not loony. I am Odin and since the day you found your stone you gained more powers than you already had. Now both of you need to understand this, you can‘t be without your stone for too long. Once you hold the stone it is bound to you. You will get very sick if you are separated from it for too long and will remain so until you hold it again.” Bright light flashed in front of her eyes and he was gone.

  “Where the hell did he go and what did he mean we can’t be without our stones for too long?” Looking around trying to figure where he went. There was no way he was a god, maybe this Clayton guy had slipped something in her tea and she was just hallucinating. Hot fire hit her leg at the same spot as the stone that was in her pocket. Putting her hand in she grabbed the stone and it cooled down. She heard laughing coming from Clayton. His whole body was shaking as he did.

  “Hurts don’t it. I wouldn’t doubt him or call him names. If I’m right you just got hit with the fire spot. Don’t put it back into your pocket for at least an hour. Your hands keep it cool. I found that out the hard way. I just had to have a few lessons before I got it. It gives us some powers and we will go through withdrawals without it.” Watching as she switched the rock to her other hand so that she could rub her leg made him glad he was sitting down.

  “One of the stones is in the woods on this property, I just haven’t found it yet. Go have fun looking for it.” She loved her home and the privacy that went with it. She didn’t have to answer to anyone and didn’t have to feel guilty when she just needed to be alone. The thought of sharing her home with strangers scared the shit out of her. This was just too much for anyone to ask of her, well they didn’t even ask, they just told her. Once she was back in the house she went to the cabinet with the tequila in it. Grabbing one of the shot glasses from her collection she poured herself a shot. Wanting another one but deciding it wouldn’t be a good idea she put the bottle back up. Every time one of her friends went somewhere they brought her back a shot glass.

  “Did that help at all?” She turned her head to look at him as he stood in the doorway. What was she going to do with him? He was in her life for the time being whether she liked it or not. She might as well get over it and start helping then when it was over maybe her life would get back to normal, well as close to normal as it could be.

  “Not really but it will have to do.” She went to the front door and opened it then turned to him, “You might as well go get your bags it looks like you will be here for a while. Once you get them, I will show where you can sleep.” Turning and going back into the kitchen she looked around for something to cook for dinner, but everything in the house was set up for one person meals. She would need two of everything. Maybe a scallop stir-fry over rice would be good. Systematically she started taking out the ingredients that she would need. Some of them would need to thaw out before she could use them. Hearing him come back into the house she went back out to the front room. “This way, your room is on the right side at the end of the hall. It has two small beds and a dresser with a night light.” Now that he was getting settled she could go back out to her garden and finish weeding. Those weeds didn’t stand a chance today with the aggression running threw her.

  By the time he found her in the garden she had finished two rows and was working on the third. “Don’t just stand there you can lend a hand. If I have to help find these damn stones and expect more people at my house then you can pitch in and help with the garden. We are going to need this to feed everyone.”

  “Why don’t you get cleaned up and I will take you out to dinner. Then we will go shopping. I can afford it, Odin made sure of it.” He really didn’t want to get dirty today, he knew there would be many days ahead where he would never feel clean at the end of the day. He just wanted to treat her like a lady for one night, before the preverbal shit hit the fan.

  “I will clean up after I’m done with the weeding. This is my life, when you are gone I have to be able to survive and that means keeping up with this now. This is my food for the year and I also trade with other people.” It always amazed her how most people thought food came out of box from the store. Around here everyone rotated their crops and traded with each other so that everyone had what they needed. Hard work in the yard and in the kitchen put food on the table. We couldn’t afford to go out to dinner whenever we wanted and frozen dinners cost too much and tasted like crap. Thinking about it though, she realized that she was going to have to accept his help with buying food if she was going to be having people here all the time. She just didn’t have that much back stocked.

  “Fine after this is done we will go to town have dinner and pick up supplies and anything else you need. I’ll go change then help you.” This was not his idea of fun, but if it made her happy that was all that mattered. He had already turned her life upside down the least he could do was help her. He went back into the house to the room she had given him to use. Taking off his shirt he put on a sleeveless tee-shirt then exchanged his slacks for a pair of jeans and headed back outside. “Ok, where do you want me to start?” When she looked up at him she had a smudge of dirt across her forehead from where she had wiped her hand to keep the sweat from dropping into her eyes.

  “Why don’t you start on the other side of this row and we’ll meet in the middle. If you have any questions as you go please ask, I don’t want you to rip out a good plant verses a weed.” As he walked down the row to the end she couldn’t help but notice how the tight jeans and the tee-shirt didn’t leave much to the imagination. She noticed his chest hair at the top of his tee-shirt. A part of her wanted to run her hands down his chest. She could almost feel the little hairs covering the tips of her fingers as she went. It was a good thing he was working to the side of her and not in front of her, she would never get any work done. Working in silence took them two hours to finish weeding the garden. She did a lot of thinking while she worked and realized that if people where going to be coming here for help and safety that she could teach them a little bit about country life.

  CHAPTER 2

  Standing up then leaning back to try and get the kinks out. Looking to her side she saw Clayton looking at her with an intensity that she had never seen before. She found she liked it and could feel parts of her body responding to the intense stare. It was almost like he was undressing her with his eyes. From the looks of him he was enjoying what he saw. The front center of his pants had a slight bulge forming. “I think we can call it a day. I’m going to go take a shower and change clothes.” Walking to the door she knew it was going to be a long evening with just the two of them in the car. He would have been safer for her if he remained in her dreams. Her relationships never lasted. Most of the men she dated were normal and didn’t know about weres. She had never found anyone she trusted enough to tell. Nursing another wound on her heart was not what she wanted at this point in her life. She wasn’t sure she
wanted one now with everything she just learned. Looking in the closet she found the loosest clothes she could find and laid them on the bed then went to take a shower.

  Drying off she put on the loosest pair of pants she owned and a shirt that fell to her knees. Looking in the mirror, she thought to herself, this outfit would work there was no way anyone could be attracted to her now. She decided to keep her hair down that way some of her face was hidden. If this didn’t work she was in big trouble. Leaving her bedroom and walking down the hall she saw him sitting in the front room waiting for her. When he looked at her she knew it didn’t work. Trouble nothing but trouble why now?? Was she attracted to him because of the dreams or was attraction real? “Are you ready to go? I know a nice little restaurant it has a wide menu to choose from.”

  “Wherever you want to go, it’s your choice.” He opened the front door and waited for her to go thru. Then walked out to his car and unlocked it and opened the door for her. As she got into the car he tried not to laugh because the outfit she was wearing was nice and baggy. That meant that she had been thinking about him. It just added fuel to his imagination. She was trying to hide her figure but he already knew it. It could hide his hands moving over her skin in public and no one would ever notice. Closing her door and going over to his side he pulled out his phone to make a quick call and realized that there was no service here. He would call when they got to Crescent City. “I am going to need your phone number so that I can give it to some business associates. Just in case of emergencies, I just found out I don’t get coverage up here.”

  Opening her purse she found a scrap piece of paper and wrote it out for him. “Here, it’s the only sure way to communicate up here besides the computer. If you are in certain spots in the house you can get a signal your bedroom is one.” He took it and put it into his pocket then got into the car. Why did he have to be so damn good looking and she wondered if he tasted as good as he looked. His black hair made the sharp angles of his face stand out. Silver brushed his hair at the temples to accent it.

  They had a good drive before they reached town. It was not often that she got to look around and enjoy the scenery without having to concentrate on the road. As they drove the cat in her wanted to get out and play. In the trees were birds that were darting in and out of the tree line as cars passed by. Below the trees along the road were ferns and berry bushes. The woods were a giant jungle gym to her and she wanted to go play for a while and forget her responsibilities. She looked over at him she wondered how he would take it when she turned into a cat. If he could handle a god popping in and out of his life and basically giving him orders, he should be able to deal with a woman who could turn into a bob cat. She was probably going to find out next week during the full moon. If he was going to live here there would be no way to hide that from him.

  Reaching over she turned on the car stereo curious to see what music he liked. There was a CD in the player so she hit the play button. The music that came on was beautiful with a girl’s voice that blended with the music. “Enya. One of my favorites.” Very few people she knew liked this type of music, but it helped her to unwind and concentrate. The CD player in her bedroom held four different albums. She would be lost without them. “There is one place I would like to go before we have dinner, if you don’t mind that is.”

  “Not at all, where do you need to go?” The redwoods seemed to swallow up the sky in some places. It was a very curvy road at least there wasn’t a heavy fog to go with it. He had driven in that before and there was no way he was doing it here. The woods were so thick here that it looked like you were driving through a tunnel. It was close to sunset but he could still see small areas of blue sky where the trees did not meet. The forest floor was covered in needles from the trees making it the perfect place for bushes, ferns, poison oak, and berries to grow. He knew that scientists from all over the world came here to study the ecology of the area. Some of the plants could only be found here.

  “Rumiano Cheese Company, It’s got the best cheese in the area. Just remember to plug your nose it’s not the most pleasant smell.” Hopefully he didn’t get sick as some people did.

  “I have been in cheese processing store before and you’re right they do stink.” They just went over the bridge that went across the smith river so it wouldn’t be much longer before they were in town. He slowed down then pulled over and started typing in the name of the cheese factory in the GPS and set it back on the dash. The voice coming from the GPS was annoying, of all things to be giving directions it was a squirrel. The voice sounded like one of the chipmunks only more annoying if that was possible. The thought of throwing the damn thing out the window was a very pleasing thought.

  “Of all the possible voices you could have downloaded into that thing why the squirrel?” The trees were so thick here if she pitched it out of the window he would never find it. The tourists that came here drove very slowly thru here, afraid of what they might hit. For the most part that usually happened at night. During the day time the animals tended to stay away from the roads due to the noise.

  “I could have picked Darth Vader, like one of my associates did. We can look at different voices when we get back to your place if you would like. I really don’t care, I just thought this one was kind of funny so I loaded it on here.” What he didn’t tell her was it was really funny watching people’s reactions when they heard it. That’s what made it fun. Even for him the voice got annoying after a while.

  Looking out the car window she noticed an animal that didn’t belong in this area. It was far enough away from the road that normal people couldn’t see it. What the hell was a Tasmanian devil doing here? That thing could do a lot of damage to the natural wildlife here not to mention if a kid came up to it. That would not be good at all. What could she do? She really didn’t want to tangle with it. If she told other people about it they would think she was crazy. Besides most people associated it with the cartoon character which was close in personality but not in looks. Talk about a rock and a hard place. Guess it was time to see how well Clayton took it. “There was a Tasmanian devil back there on my side of the road.” The next thing she knew the car came to a immediate stop as her upper body was slammed against the seatbelt. It was a good thing she didn’t bruise that easily.

  Turning his head he looked directly into her eyes “How did you see it? What are you?” Watching her face he could see her reaction to his words.

  He was mad, she could see it in his face. He had obviously seen it, so he was more than he let on. “So, you saw it too. I wonder how you could see it from the road, let alone on the wrong side of the car. Don’t go getting angry at me, at this point I have more questions than answers. You have known what is going on for while, I just found out today, so if I don’t want to tell you exactly who or what I am that is my decision.” He had no right getting mad at her, she was being pulled into this shit against her will.

  “Yes I saw it, I just chose to ignore it for now. I didn’t want to spook you. I’m a Ulfheonar Berserker which means that I am one of Odin’s special warriors. I have been around for a long time. I have really good eyesight and fast fighting reflexes. I really didn’t want to fight this evening and the last thing I want to fight is a Tasmanian devil, they are mean and vicious. He is not a regular Tasmanian devil either, he’s a shifter and that makes him all the more dangerous.” He noticed that she wasn’t shocked when he talked about it being a shifter. “You know about shifters don’t you.” As he said it he watched her eyes become greener as he looked at her.

  “I am one. If you want to get to get technical I’m a bob cat.” As she reined her cat in her eyes went back to normal. Leaning back against the seat she waited to find out what he wanted to do or what he was going to say. Well I don’t think he was expecting that, she thought smiling to herself. Score one for the girls.

  “You’re a bob cat. Do you want to find out what the Tasmanian devil is doing here or wait? It will probably be a fight but it’s up to you.” No wond
er she thought she could get away from him earlier. She might have been able to do it as her scent would have been different and he would have been looking for a lady not a cat. He hated going in blind, but Odin thought this had to be done right away so he jumped right in without doing the background.

  “Let’s go see what it wants. I don’t like him in my forest he doesn’t belong here.” She opened up the car door and got out. He has a very musky smell to him. Turning her head to look at him she watched as he took off his shirt and put it in the car. He had washboard abs that made her want to drool. She also noticed that he had a tattoo on each shoulder, both were of weapons. He also had a wolf tattoo on his upper arm. She turned her head so that he wouldn’t see her staring at him. Well now she knew what he looked like without his shirt. Oh man, bring on the good dreams tonight! Closing the door he locked it and walked over to her. Ok time to get busy and stop drooling she could fantasize on it tonight while she was sleeping.

  “He is just up ahead, we will have to go into the woods deep enough so that no one can see him change into human form.” When they got close enough to see him they went into the woods until they couldn’t see the road anymore. She was starting to get worried about how this was going to go. She did not go out looking for trouble in human or cat form. However they needed to find out what side this guy was on. When they turned around they saw a guy who could pass for a muscle builder as big as he was. The guy’s hair looked like he had used a can of grease to make it stick. Didn’t people stop doing that in the fifties? He also looked like he hadn’t seen a razor in a couple of days. He did not look like a nice guy that was for sure. “You’re a football fan huh? They are not my favorite team.” He had the word giants tattooed on his shoulder. Below his left eye was a deep scar almost as if someone had tried to take out his eye. Then his right cheek had a gouge in it where it seemed a knife had once been through it. He had eyebrow piercings and spikes poking through his bottom lip.