The second rule was that she didn’t get involved with people at work. She’d never dated other graduate students in her program. Not that there’d been much temptation in the two years she’d been working towards her master’s in psychology. It was mostly other women in her class, and that just wasn’t her style. The few men were far too mousy or nerdy, true library dorks. She applied that rule doubly hard to the men on the ranch. While they appealed to her at least with their ruggedness and often decent physiques, she never wanted to risk losing the sanctuary that was the barn. Since she was eighteen and started leasing Rainstone with money saved up from long summers spent waitressing, Elaine felt at home there. While she’d always felt awkward even with her friends at Tuscaloosa and never welcome fully at the rez, on the farm she was just one of the gang, mucking out stalls and jumping fences.
She’d never forgive herself if an ugly break-up ruined it.
So why she’d been tempted to say yes to a first-time rider like Trent Williamson, she wasn’t sure.
Okay that wasn’t completely true.
The man was gorgeous. Tall, easily 6’2” if he was an inch, with close-cropped, sandy, blonde hair and a svelte swimmer’s build. Even if he was a bit of a city boy, the rippling muscles under his tight white t-shirt yesterday had shown her that he was more than capable and strong. Maybe he was a gym rat type. She wasn’t sure, but Elaine could admit that she had spent last night imagining those strong arms wrapped around her. It was the eyes, though, that really drew her in. They were piercing, a brilliant tawny gold that made her breath still in her throat.
They called to her.
Which led Elaine to her rule number three: never talk about her weirdness. That’s how she thought about it. Ever since her first disastrous romance during her junior year of high school with the Chief’s son, she’d been different. It wasn’t “different” like she’d felt like a woman the morning after. Hell, some days she’d trade it for the kind of “different” where she’d caught something from Stephen Morningsong.
No.
This was something else. Ever since her first time, her life had changed fundamentally in a way she’d never told anyone about. Her senses were heightened. She could hear things other people couldn’t, see in the night like it was day, and could tell a dozen different things about someone just by their scent. Similarly, animals just responded to her. People at competitions used to complain she had to have some trick to get Rainstone to comply well during dressage contests. It was almost true. In some ways, it was as if her horse could read and anticipate her thoughts. It didn’t stop there. Strange dogs at the park would always come up to her and stray cats would come down from trees to greet her. She was always the first person to catch a fish on those long trips with her dad because even they seemed drawn to her.
Elaine had the faintest suspicion what it was. They said that her father’s mother had been a Medicine Woman for the tribe. Recently, her father had even found some of her grandmother’s old journals, bound in actual deer hide. Elaine had been leafing through the collected recipes and remedies there.
It was hard to believe, even now, but after seven years of thinking about it and studying her family’s history, Elaine suspected she was a Medicine Woman as well or some kind of witch. It would at least explain some of the animals’ affinity for her, her ways to get them to comply with her wishes as well. She couldn’t explain how the senses played into it, not yet, and she wasn’t sure she ever would. It wasn’t like there was a current Medicine Person for her tribe. She felt nuts even thinking about asking anyone about this, even if she had once Googled Wiccans in the Birmingham area.
It sounded too nuts: “Hi, I can tell if you’re a natural blonde with one sniff and might have a telepathic link with my horse. So am I a witch?”
So she never, ever talked about what had happened to her and what she could do. It was the only way she felt she could keep her sanity. It scared and overwhelmed her how easily she’d crumbled around Trent, broken rule number two for him. Because, deep down, she knew why. Cute or not, the real reason was there was something almost feral about him. It called to the deep instincts that she never indulged, those thoughts she hid even from herself.
It scared her.
How wild would she let herself be with him?
And would she ever come back?
• • • • •
Even two days after his lesson with Elaine, Trent woke up with his cock hard and throbbing. It was painful to shuffle as far as the shower, and it taunted him as the first drips rained forth. Normally, Trent was a warlock who loved his creature comforts, which included an almost scalding shower. It took everything he had not to jump into the cold shower, but he didn’t want to ruin his buzz that way. Once the faucet’s stream was tolerable, Trent rushed in.
Closing his eyes, he lathered up his hands with soap and started to pleasure himself. His hand encircled his engorged dick and started to pump in a slow rhythm. His cock jerked at the touch and he almost came right then. Goddess, that hadn’t happened in over thirty years and back when he was really still just a teenager.
What was this woman doing to him?
His left hand cupped his balls and he squeezed just a bit, giving the most teasing pleasure. His tempo increased with his right hand and his fingers trailed over the head of his member. The nerves there were beyond sensitive and even trailing his fingers over the tip, made his knees quake under him. Keeping his eyes shut, he recalled Elaine. As he stroked harder and began to moan, all he could see was her. He recalled the scent of her, the mix of fresh cut greenery and hay, but Trent went beyond that, imagining the softness of her breasts, what they’d feel like under his grip. His pumping became furious then and he thought of those doe brown eyes looking up at him as her hot little mouth wrapped itself around his cock.
It was her mouth and not his insufficient hand on him, her tongue tickling him and not his awkward fingers. It was her moaning his name over and over. He thought of himself coming, envisioned Elaine lapping his seed up eagerly and that was enough to send him spiraling over the edge of the climax. Leaning heavily against the tile, Trent came, cum spilling into the shower’s drain. He kept stroking himself, even as everything poured from him, refusing to let any sensation slip by, enjoying the waves of pleasure assaulting him too much.
Saturday evening couldn’t arrive soon enough.
CHAPTER THREE
“YOU WERE NOT paying attention at all for Dr. Buckley’s lecture,” Elaine’s friend, Carrie, chirped while sipping on a milkshake next to her at the student union.
Elaine blinked back at her friend and marveled at the other girl’s appetite. Carrie was five feet total and willowy. However, there was never a time when the girl wasn’t chomping away at something. Right now she was slurping on a drink about the size of her head and also nursing a basket of fries. Elaine envied her.
“I was,” Elaine protested.
She loved Carrie. The other girl was her best friend at The University of Alabama, but Rule Three was steadfast. It was why she didn’t want to let Carrie coax her into a conversation. The only way to really, truly explain her distraction was to admit there was something in her that Trent was stirring.
Elaine couldn’t afford to do that. Either Carrie would stop talking to her or call someone to lock her in a padded cell. Neither option was acceptable.
“So what was the good doc talking about?”
“Conditioning, all that Skinner pigeon stuff.”
“Eh no, but thanks for playing. You’ll have a toaster as a parting gift. We talked about attachment. You weren’t even close.”
“Then it was boring either way and I’ll re-read the textbook.”
“And,” Carrie said, shoving another French fry in her mouth. “You’ll ask me for some great notes. However, I’m not your patsy. I won’t turn over the goods unless you tell me what’s with the thousand yard stare?”
“Nothing.”
“Elainnnne…”
“
Fine,” she said, figuring that a partial truth would help. Stealing a fry from the tray and adding ketchup to it, Elaine added, “There was just this client at the farm the other day.”
“Client like annoying person? Client like they almost fell off so would have sued you? Or is this client as in hot guy and I’m not a nun anymore?”
“Whoa! Down girl,” Elaine replied, laughing a little bit. Carrie joined in too, and it made her dark, black curls bob. “Okay so it might be a little of number three.”
“A little?”
“Okay so a lot. This guy was really gorgeous––tall, muscular, and with the most amazing eyes I’ve ever seen, like melted amber. It was just…I dunno.”
“You can’t tell me he didn’t like you,” Carrie replied, shaking her head. “Also, you can’t tell me it’s because you’d rather date Floydenstein over at the stables.”
“His name is just Floyd, and he’s gruff but not mean.”
“He has a unibrow. That’s a fashion don’t. I wouldn’t be surprised to find bolts in his neck to match his non-personality. Anyway, did he send the wrong signals? Not interested? Because I can help you with a makeover. I have been dying to help your poor cuticles forever. Ever heard of work gloves?”
“It’s just the hazards of working a farm. And, no,” she added, biting her lip a little. “He asked me out. Even said I could plan the date in the city this Saturday.”
Carrie’s squeal was enough to have the four closest tables glaring at both of them. For her part, Elaine scrunched in on herself and barely kept from clamping her hands over her ears. They’d be ringing for at least the next hour. Just another one of the joys of being a freak.
“That’s perfect! Then why are you so bummed?”
Because there’s something wrong with me, because there’s something different about him too, because I don’t even know what I am. Pick one.
Elaine couldn’t say any of those things, so she settled for the half-truth like always.
“I just want to plan the date right.”
“Well then, my friend,” Carrie started, draping an arm over her shoulder. “You have come to the right place. Let the evil mastermind plan it and you will be getting laid in no time.”
• • • • •
Elaine had to admit that Carrie’s idea of going to Five Points and the French place there Chez Tonton sounded fun. She wouldn’t exactly call herself a fancy person. Okay, she was a total tomboy, but it might be fun to really show Trent the sophisticated side of the city she loved. If this all worked out, she’d have to take notes for both of them in class for the next few days. Carrie would have earned it.
Hell, by the time she slumped down on her couch in her apartment, Elaine was actually feeling pretty damned relaxed.
Mistake.
That was when she finally checked her voicemail and had a new request from her dad:
“Honey, it’s Dad. How’s work? Look, I know it’s short notice, but we’re a few volunteers short this year for organizing the rest of the festival. I know how you feel about all of this, and I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, but we’re really in need and it could be fun, honey, a good bonding time. I know we don’t do that enough and…just call me okay?”
She sighed and shut off her phone. There was no one she wanted to talk to tonight and, with her lack of a rip-roaring social life, a minimal risk that anyone would call her anyway. Her father wasn’t a bad person. Even after her parents had divorced back when she was in middle school, he had worked hard to stay in her life. Still, the thought of being back on the rez, of all that old scrutiny, those were things she didn’t want to deal with tonight.
Instead, she went back to her bedroom and opened the closet door. Inside, she’d hung a few handmade dream catchers that her grandmother had woven decades ago. Digging around the floor, she pulled out a few cream colored candles, the hawk feathers and ancient journal she’d stored there as well. Elaine sat on the floor, crossing her legs. Taking a deep breath, she said a quick prayer to the Goddess and then opened the book. The ancient vellum pages were written in English and, while most of the handwriting was her grandmother’s, a few of the front pages were in a script she didn’t know.
Maybe she came from an even longer line of Medicine People than she suspected.
Still, she loved everything about the journal––the scent, earthy and deep, of the deer hide skin it was bound in, the thickness of the vellum paper, even the loving script and exquisite cursive that her grandmother mainly had written in. This was an heirloom and a key to her heritage, something to be proud of.
“Oh Grandmother, I wish you were still here,” Elaine said.
But she stopped short of adding ‘I’m so lost’ out loud. She was too scared to reveal that much, to make things that real.
Instead, she lit the few candles and flipped the pages to a new spell she was working with. Most never worked for her, probably were things only her grandmother and proper training or, frankly, her full-blooded nature would have been skilled with. However, she was interested in this one. It required she use some aspect of an animal to help her get in deeper touch with her senses. If it was a way to help keep her hearing or smell from going into overdrive, to have more control, then it would be worth it for her.
Originally, she’d wanted to use a clipping of Rainstone’s mane for the spell. However, something else had called to her instead. Last time she’d been in Moundville, Elaine had passed by an antique shop and found an ancient necklace, just a simple leather strap really, with one yellowed wolf’s tooth hanging from it. She gripped it in her hand now, feeling the bite of the fang’s tip as it hit her skin. Setting the tooth down, she closed her eyes and began her chant.
“Oh Goddess, hear my cry. Your child of sensation, child of flesh, calls to feel her connection to the wild. Guide me, oh Goddess. Let the Earth Mother be my guide!”
She rocked back and forth on her hips and repeated the incantation twice more as the book instructed. Then there was a blinding pain lancing through her. Scared, Elaine tried to stand but couldn’t as spasms wracked her body, making muscles cramp and bones ache. The shaking started then and her head struck the wood of her floor.
That was the last thing she remembered––the impact and the pain.
• • • • •
The next thing she knew, Elaine awoke naked in a field across from a small house on the outskirts of Tuscaloosa. Sitting up, she smacked her lips, trying to chase away the harsh taste on her tongue of something gamey. Also, oddly, something coppery.
“What the hell?”
When she looked down, Elaine saw only her own flesh, no clothes to be seen, and her arms and legs had dozens of small cuts on them, as if she’d run through a bramble bush. The only thing on her entire body was the wolf’s tooth necklace and she didn’t even remember slipping it on. Gathering a loose branch and some long grass to her chest, she slid back into the woods and tried to think about how to get the next few miles home to her apartment.
She didn’t even have her cell.
Cursing to herself, she wondered if doing the ritual in reverse would help, if she could will herself back home. Elaine decided to try it again. It beat being picked up for indecent exposure or trying to explain to the nearest neighbor. Cradling the wolf’s tooth in her hand and scared about the pain, Elaine prepared to do the spell again.
But something stopped her.
A familiar scent wafted into her nostrils.
It was a mix of a deep woodsy musk as well as sharp aftershave, all laced with something else, maybe lavender.
It was Trent.
Squinting toward the house, Elaine looked at the nearest window and saw familiar amber eyes staring back at her.
“Oh crap!” she blurted out, before running deeper into the forest. Goddess, maybe he hadn’t seen her. Surely if he had, the date was off, unless he wanted to do a date at the mental hospital because that had to be where she was headed.
• • • • •
&n
bsp; The thing about his assignment for the Corps was that while both his human and animal sides were drawn to Elaine, Trent still didn’t want to be here. This wasn’t the assignment he’d wanted. It was an outpost too far from battle and the real work of hunting down the Knights Templar and their cleric assistants to stop them from killing innocent Wiccans. That’s why he’d become fully initiated in the Corps, and that’s why he was fighting now. He certainly hadn’t signed on to babysit novice witches, even if the current one was by far the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
That was why he was dialing up one of his superiors back in D.C. at only eight a.m. Maybe he could get out of this go-nowhere assignment if he tried hard enough. It took only one ring before Logan MacCulloch, one of the most decorated generals of the Magus Corps, answered. That figured. The man was not only a living legend but one of the most disciplined of the hierarchy of Corps leadership. If there was a way to answer before the ringing, he probably would do that too.
“Lieutenant Williamson, I wasn’t expecting another progress report until Wednesday. You must have upped your plans to be reporting early. Did you have a chance to tell Elaine everything?”
His commander’s Scottish accent was usually subdued in person but carried more deeply over the artificiality of the phone. It threw Trent a minute before he answered.
“Something like that. We have plans to speak in private this Saturday, and I’ll be telling her everything then. I don’t know if the Knights are here yet searching for her. I think the intel from the Seers might not be right. I think she’s more than just able to communicate with animals.”
Logan gave a “hmph” on the other end. “Is she able to shift, like you?”
“Not sure yet. She might not even know herself. You know how hit and miss untrained Wiccans are. They never know the extent of their own powers.”
Trent: Her Warlock Protector Book 7 Page 2