Clayton's Jade (Runes Stone Series)

by Maria Yvonne Wood

  Just as he had gotten her fitted against his body perfectly to feel every curve on her luscious body, she was gone. Where the hell did she go? Looking down and feeling her rub against his leg he realized what had happened. “Well that’s one way to make sure I don’t get out of control. I do believe I will hit the shower now. Hopefully you have ice water for cold. I do believe the colder the better. I will see you in the morning.” Turning around he left the room closing the door behind him.

  For right now it was probably better that she ended it like she did. It was too soon for both of them. They had all put her through enough for the day. He figured tomorrow would be more of the same. Unfortunately she had to be ready yesterday. In the morning they would start with working on the new power then work in some hand to hand combat and see where they were after that.

  CHAPTER 4

  Turning on the cold water he stepped in. after about ten minutes he realized that it was not going to help him this time. It was going to be a long night. Knowing that he wasn’t going to get any sleep, he took out his computer and brought up the topographical maps to this area and more precisely to her land. He didn’t have enough people to set up a defense, but he had some technology that might give them a warning. With shifters being involved it was going to be harder to configure. Looking at the layout of the land it was going to be impossible to completely defend but he might be able to set up a warning system of sorts.

  Emailing his colleague he asked him to send priority overnight micro surveillance equipment. He figured out that when they arrived he would have to spend one night putting all the devices up around the property, then configure it to looking for certain patterns. Until then he would put some of the mini cameras around the immediate area. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to suffice for the time being. Going into his bedroom he changed into some shorts and a t-shirt. He had found out years ago it was much easier to climb if your clothes weren’t catching on everything.

  Grabbing his car keys so that he could to get into the trunk of the car, he got out to the car, opened the trunk, and unscrewed the area where the tire was. He had several things stashed in there just in case of an emergency. There were several bags, each one was a different color. He grabbed the yellow one and put the trunk back together. Taking the area map he printed from the computer, he started walking the perimeter. At about every fifty feet he put a camera up. Some of them were at eye level and some he climbed the trees to put them in. He had slivers all over his body somehow some of them had made it through his t-shirt. It must have been too thin. At least he was almost done.

  After putting in the pin cameras, he went to the center of the property and put up a relay transmitter so that he could receive images at the house. When he was about half way up the redwood tree the whole front of his pants ended up ripping out by the time he realized it was too late. He decided in that moment that he would never climb another tree while going commando. By the time he was done he really hated climbing redwood trees. They may look majestic and ah inspiring but, they were not tree hugger friendly. Asking for help was not one of his strong points and he definitely didn’t want anyone knowing about this. He had slivers in places that shouldn’t have slivers and they itched. With his luck he was going to be allergic to them.

  If he remembered correctly there was a roll of duct tape lying on the kitchen counter. After getting back into the house, he walked into the kitchen and grabbed the tape. Heading into the bathroom the main question he had was how to use the tape to pull out the slivers without pulling out all the hair on his body. Squeezing them out or tweezing them out was not going to cut it. That left the tape. Going back into the kitchen he grabbed the bottle of tequila, he was going to need it.

  Several shots of tequila and a half hour later his arms and legs looked like a patchwork quilt. He still had chest and private area to go. Looking down at the bottle he didn’t know if there was enough tequila for that. Two more swigs and back to work. Damn did this suck! After he finished his chest, he grabbed the bottle and took a large swallow from it. Then reaching over grabbed a rag and shoved it into his mouth. Taking a section of tape he placed it next to his dick, patted it down to make sure it was sticking. Then he grabbed the edge of the tape between his thumb and index finger he ripped up towards his chest while screaming into the rag the entire time. If this is what women did to themselves during a bikini wax they were insane! Looking at the other side and the top he decided to just get it over with. Pulling two pieces of tape off the roll, he placed them in the appropriate places and pulled. Then he felt nothing as it went dark.

  Kaylee had just jumped through the window to get back into the house when she heard a thump. Shifting back, she pulled on sweatpants and a tee-shirt then went in search of the noise. After going through the whole house she realized that the light in the bathroom was on and the door was shut. Knocking on the door, “Are you ok in there?” Not getting a response she tried to twist the doorknob, no luck. Using her mind she tried to call for Vie. Maybe she could pop in and see how he was doing and no one would be the wiser.

  Vie must have heard the whole idea because the next thing she heard was gut busting laughter coming from the bathroom. When the door opened she understood why. Clayton lay naked on the bathroom floor and there were long patches of red angry skin missing hair while thinner strips with thick dark hair remained. If they had been square you could have played checkers. That was the closest comparison she could come up with. Then she saw the roll of duct tape mostly gone and the tequila bottle with about two swigs left in it. All across the floor lay strips of tape with hair and something that was red. Picking up one of the used strips of tape she looked at it more closely. Redwood slivers. Why was he that close to a redwood? Everyone around here knew better than to try and climb them. So he wasn’t from around here. Putting his hand on the tree should have been the first hint.

  Should they move him to the bedroom or let him wake up in the bathroom? “Clayton, time to wake up.” Pushing at his arm while she was talking to him she asked, “What do you think we should do Vie?” In some ways she felt sorry for him. How had he endured that pain?

  “I am going to move him into the bedroom and cover him up. Then I have to decide whether to I fix his patch problem or not. I have to admit that part of me would like to see the reactions of others. The other part of me wants to fix him. I have the power to heal. I have to be careful when I use it. If I use it now I will not be able to use it again for another day. It drains me to use it. What do you think? Should I use it and fix what he did to himself or leave it?”

  “I believe that you should heal him. The first reason is that there are still slivers in him that will get infected. Even if he is immortal some areas where the infection could occur were never meant to happen. The second, no living thing should have to walk around looking like a quilt gone wrong.” While Vie was moving him to the bedroom she ran to the living room to grab her camera. Even though she shouldn’t take his picture, the evil side of her had to. “Vie would you please just cover the one area and step back before you heal him. I have to do this. “

  “Ohhh, I so like the way you’re thinking.” Snap. A bright light flashed in the room. The screen on the camera showed that the picture had turned out. “Do your thing, Vie.” Vie looked down at the camera and smiled. Odin might even want one of those. Clayton was never going to hear the end of this one. With one hand on his forehead and the other on his chest Vie closed her eyes and began chanting.

  The sounds that came from Vie did not make any sense. They were a guttural noise. As she watched Vie started to glow. When the glow faded Vie was covered with the patches. Clayton was clear and healthy. “Crap. I didn’t realize that you would end up like him. How long does it last?”

  “It depends. Probably about fifteen hours then my skin will be healed. It will drain me to heal myself. I will not be able to do much of anything. At the most, though I can get you out of a bad situation if it’s an emergency. There is always a co
st to healing. The more severe the wounds are the worse I am.”

  “I will make sure and tell Clayton about this. I wonder what the hell he was doing up in those trees. It must have been important for him to go through this. I will make sure to find out when he wakes up. You go wherever it is you need to go and get healing. If we need you we will call for you.” Kaylee just hoped that they wouldn’t need her.

  “Fine I will go and heal, however you need to get back to bed and get some sleep. You have a very long day tomorrow.” Then Vie was gone. No matter what that was going to take some getting used to.

  The bed was calling to her and she was not going to ignore it anymore. She needed the blissful peace of sleep after her day. If only her dreams would co-operate for once. Laying her head on the pillow she curled up into a ball and promptly fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 5

  Bacon. Why do I smell that? Not really wanting to move for the bed was soft and the heavy blankets on top of her acted like a cocoon, she turned her head and looked at the clock. She flew out of bed in shock when she realized it was ten am in the morning. Paying for moving fast after last night, the wounds had healed but the skin and muscles were still tight. She never slept that late, at least not since she was a teenager. Yesterday must have taken a bigger toll on her than she thought. Throwing on some clothes she rushed into the kitchen to find Clayton cooking breakfast. He had on a nice pair of jeans and a white tee-shirt. He arched his back to avoid getting hit with the grease spitting from the bacon. The shirt outlined every ripple on his back as he moved. She had to admit it was kind of nice to have someone else in the house. Not that she would admit that to him.

  “Good morning. So how was your night?” How she kept from laughing was beyond her. However she was curious as to how he was going to answer it.

  “Morning. I must have slept really well because I had the worst nightmare ever.”

  “That bad huh. Did it by chance include a bottle of tequila and a roll of duct tape?” Ok, so now she couldn’t help the uncontrollable laughing that was bubbling out of her. The egg that he had had in his hand fell to the floor as he stared at her stunned. He didn’t know what was worse, the fact that he had actually done that or the fact that she had seen what he had done.

  “How in the hell did you know….OH SHIT! You mean it wasn’t a dream that I really did…..” Looking at his arms and knowing that the particular area was ok. Mainly because it was the first thing he checked when he woke up this morning. “How?”

  “In one word, Vie. She healed you. However the cost to her was fifteen hours of down time. You really owe her, Patchwork.”

  “You mean she saw me like that too? Are you crazy? You are not calling me that.” Bending down he cleaned up the broken egg just to avoid looking at her. How was he going to deal with this? Life was so unfair sometimes. On the other side of that coin, not many men would have had the guts or stupidity to do what he had done.

  “Yes, the door was locked, no, I am not crazy, and the bacon is burning, Patchwork. Why did you climb a redwood? Only idiots do that or they wear gloves, pants, and a heavy shirt. I hope it was worth it.” Even though he had been missing patches of hair all over his body she could still picture him without clothing and he was even better in real form than he had ever been in her dreams. Of course she had never imagined him nude either.

  “I was putting up some surveillance cameras for a warning system, so yes it was worth it. Besides I thought a light t-shirt would work as for the other, the pants I had ripped when it got caught on a branch. I hope Vie keeps this to herself.”

  “Good luck with that considering we have pictures.” Ok, so maybe she went a little too far by taking his picture last night, but who could blame her. Any red-blooded girl would do the same thing in her place. By the look in his eyes it might not have been the wisest. As he got closer, she stepped back. Even when he was angry he was cute. He had cute dimples that he couldn’t hide even when he was mad. As he was stepping towards her he was pointing at her with a spatula. Between the dimples and the spatula it was almost impossible to be mad or afraid of him.

  “Where are they?” How could she do that to him?

  “I think Vie took the camera with her. You will be happy to know that we covered one area up. I am amazed that you could do that to yourself even with alcohol in you. So on to better topics what’s on today’s agenda?” Hopefully he would let it drop.

  “Well thank you for a little dignity. What the hell were you thinking? Odin will tell the rest and I will never hear the end of it. As for this afternoon, I need to go see Brad this afternoon without you present. Maybe without you there we can come to an understanding. I need him to be on the same page as I am. When you are there he feels the need to protect you like a big brother would.” They had some things to go over before they came back to Kaylee’s house.

  “I wanted the picture for something to look at later on down the road and have a good laugh.” Corn, peas, or green beans, what would go better with dinner? She could figure that out later. Right now she needed to eat and get going. “I need to grab some water samples and run some tests on them.” She grabbed a couple of crisp slices of bacon off the plate and a granola bar as she talked. “See ya this afternoon. Have fun with Brad” Then she headed out the door to her truck.

  As she opened the door to her truck she was spun around. “What do you think you are doing? Did you forget about what happened yesterday? There is a Tasmanian out there and you carry on like any other day. Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for you now that you know? You have been identified and Odin has come down to see you himself. From what I have seen so far you are not that good of a fighter. What is so important that you need to leave?”

  “My job. How do you think I pay the bills around here? What did you think was going to happen today? Just because you showed up and disrupted my life doesn’t mean that it stops.” This was ridiculous. She would not sit around the house and neglect the other parts of her life while chaos ruled one part. It was all the parts of her life that made her whole.

  “The first thing you need to do is eat breakfast. After that I will go with you to get samples of the water. Until we have more people here and better protection I will be with you when you go to work.” His hand had moved up and brushed the few strands of hair back behind her ear. “I don’t want to lose you now that I have found you.” He whispered and he leaned in closer. She tilted her head to look him in the eyes. She could see that he meant what he said. Reaching up, cupping her hands round his head and neck she pulled him toward her. Slipping her tongue out she licked her lips in anticipation and invitation. The next thing she knew he was thrusting his tongue into her mouth. As he explored ever curve of her mouth she felt the drive to do the same. This need for more raced through her entire body creating sensations that she had never felt before, and she wanted more. It was like liquid heat running thru her veins. Every place his hands touched left her wanting for more. She felt a sense of loss when he pulled away. “I wish we had more time this morning, but we have a busy day ahead of us, starting with breakfast.” With an arm around her waist he guided her into the house and sat her at the table.

  They went back into the house and Clayton finished cooking breakfast. She decided as they sat down to eat that is was good idea that he had stopped her. She did not really know how to fight and she did not know enough about the opposition to know who was good from who was bad. After they finished their breakfast and did the dishes they grabbed her bag that had supplies in it and headed out to the truck. In the seat between the passenger and driver was a box that had her vials and labels in it. She had about ten different locations to get samples from today. Backing the truck out she thought that this would be good for Clayton. He would get to see the area.

  They drove in silence to the first stop. Then she parked the truck, turned off the engine then took two vials and labels from the box between her and Clayton. She wrote on the labels putting the location down and the date then stuck
it on the vial. After getting out of the truck she walked down the river’s edge bent down with an open vial in her hand collected some water. Then she stood up capped it off and walked further up river to a different spot and did the same thing. Going back to the truck she put them back in the box. Most of the areas that she had to go to were popular for fishing or family day trips.

  “Since my life is getting turned upside down, how about you tell me a little bit about yourself. I know it’s not going to be quiet around here for a long time and that I am going to have to learn how to fight, and what better person to teach me than a berserker. So how did you become a berserker and a warrior of Odin’s?” She wanted to know more about him and she was tired of the silence in the truck while she was driving.

  “I was a warrior before I was a berserker. I fought in several battles and never got seriously hurt. It seemed like I had more energy during a fight and then was exhausted afterwards. When I was in my twenty’s is when the wolf’s head appeared on my arm. I didn’t know what it meant at the time or at least until another warrior saw it and explained it to me. I watched berserkers come and go over the years. Then I found the stone and Odin appeared to me. The hardest thing to deal with is leaving the people that you grow to care about behind. When you don’t age you have to leave before they notice. Then with the other berserkers some of them die in battles and that loss is even harder to deal with. With the other berserkers they have each found their own stones so they have the same long life that I do, so over time I have come to care for them more. All of us found our stones before 1015AD they outlawed berserkers so we were the last of our kind.”