Iron (The Warding Book 1)

by Robin L. Cole

  Now Seana’s warning made sense. This wasn’t some drawn up contract, signed and sealed with fancy wax. This was a magical binding in its own right. I didn’t know enough about my Gift to know if this magic would work on me or not, but I had the feeling Kaine would not have purposed it in the first place if it wouldn’t. Too late I realized my mistake. Why hadn’t I asked the pertinent questions? Like, what would happen if either of us broke this bond? I had the feeling it couldn’t be anything good. Was there an escape clause in there, in case this Lynx proved to be a myth, or was I going to be bound to this man until the day I died? Something told me it wouldn’t be that easy to walk away, not if we were sealing the damn thing in bodily fluids.

  Shit.

  He waited, hand extended, with blood pooling on his palm. It was too late to back out now. It was now or never. I took the dagger with a trembling hand, nearly dropping it when its weight proved much more substantial than I had anticipated. The golden hilt was cool in my grip, the wickedly sharp silver blade already wet with blood. I stared at it for a long moment, stomach churning. My heart hammered so fast I thought I could hear it in my ears. There was no other way. I had already made up my mind. I turned my head away and squeezed my eyes shut as I drew it across my left palm. The steel was so sharp I barely felt it cut my flesh.

  He took the dagger from my hand and held forth his bleeding palm. I let him clasp my own wounded hand, gasping as the string flared to life under his crushing grip. I met his eyes, blinking back tears. He said, “And so the pact is made.”

  I echoed, “And so the pact is made.”

  A surge of burning pain ran up my arm, like the stinging bites of a hundred fire ants. I cried out, jerking my hand from his grasp. I stumbled back, catching myself on one of the chairs before I fell to the ground. My head spun. It took me a minute to realize that the hand that I had caught the arm of the chair with was the one I had cut—yet there was no pain. My arm continued to tingle, like it once had when I tried to stick a plug into an ungrounded socket (let’s just say I wasn’t the smartest child), but my palm should have been screaming in agony of its own. I looked down at it and saw smooth, unbroken skin. No gash; not even the faintest trace of blood.

  I looked back up at Kaine. He was once again seated behind his desk. The dagger had disappeared back to wherever it had come from. He held the quill in his hand once again and it moved in deft strokes as he finished up the letter he had been writing when I first entered. He was the perfect picture of nonchalance.

  Good god. What kind of devil had I just bound my soul to?

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning, I awoke in a strange bed. I hadn’t thought I would sleep well in a house full of strangers, especially since one of them had apparently just become my blood-bound buddy. Maybe it was sheer exhaustion or the super high thread count of their expensive sheets, but I couldn’t have lasted more than five minutes before passing right out. I could hear birds singing outside when I next opened my eyes, curled up on my side, wrapped in a little cocoon of soft, warm blankets. I hated to admit it, but my own bed was not nearly as comfortable.

  I yawned and rubbed the sleep-crusties from my eyes. The curtains were drawn but a digital clock on the nightstand told me it was almost noon. The sky had been starting to lighten as I was shown to my borrowed bedroom, so I couldn’t have slept all that long. All things considered, I felt pretty good, despite the harrowing night I had had. It took a moment for the feeling of being watched to penetrate my sleepy haze. The hairs on the back of my neck rose. I rolled over and sat up, gasping at the sight of Mairi perched cross-legged on the foot of the bed. I wasn’t a deep sleeper. How the hell had she gotten there without me noticing?

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. She gave me a shy smile, like the new kid at school who was unsure of her welcome on the playground. I didn’t know what to say, exactly. It was pretty creepy to wake up and find her staring at me, but that was hardly the worst thing that had happened to me lately. Technically, it was her home; not mine. Instead of making a fuss I just smiled back and made a noncommittal shrug.

  While the thought of the things she could do still scared the holy bejesus out of me, in her human form she was rather normal. She reminded me of a sixteen year old dead set on disobeying her parents, with the bleached blond hair and a hole frayed in one of the knees of her black skinny jeans. Her heavy eyeliner matched her sparkly purple tank top and the black nail polish on her short nails was artfully chipped around the edges. She was cute and harmless, in that rebellious punk rock sort of way. I smiled as I thought back to my own teenage years, chock-full of black clothing, burgundy lipstick, and endless hours of listening to Type O Negative. Ah, the good old days of my misspent youth.

  I ran my fingers through my tangled hair and regretted my lack of a comb. And a flat-iron. Maybe a fresh shirt. And, while I was at it, I added a clean change of underwear to the wish-list. She watched me with a mix of curiosity and defiance, toying with the stringy edges of the gap over her right knee. Perhaps she was just as unsure of me as I was of her. That was a thought. I broke the silence before it could get too uncomfortable. “Did Seana send you to check up on me?”

  Her nodded. “She was worried. We don’t sleep much. She wasn’t really sure how much sleep a human would need.”

  “Luckily I’ve never needed much either.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I remembered her offhand question about my humanity at our first meeting. Not wanting to go down that road again, I quickly changed the subject. “I assume you were told that I made a pact with Kaine last night, to help you guys find the Lynx?” At her nod, I continued, “Great. Only, Kaine wasn’t exactly chatty when it came to explaining just what this ‘pact’ thing means. Do you know more about it?”

  “Pacts of blood are very serious,” she said. “They’re only invoked in extremely important matters. Bad things happen to either party if they try to back out of it without fulfilling their end of the deal.”

  Bad things. Well, that was just great. Everything from being chased by the slavering hounds of hell to being subjected to endless hours of Dr. Phil on loop sprang to mind. I didn’t think I had the gumption to have her elaborate while I was on an empty stomach. Topic number two, then. “So, Kaine said one of you will help teach me about the fae. Should I assume lesson one will be taking place today? Perhaps over brunch?”

  She shook her head. “Kaine wanted you to meet with Gannon first.”

  Ah. So Lesson One would be fairy kung-fu. I had meant every word about wanting to learn to defend myself from creatures like Goliath and the Wax-Man. I just hadn’t expected that first thing in the… I glanced over at the clock; twelve o’ five. Well, not exactly first thing in the morning, but; still. That was a lot to spring on a girl at the crack of noon. Maybe the lack of clean clothing wasn’t so important after all. I had the feeling I’d be covered in sweat by the end of the day, given my rather soft physique.

  Mairi unfolded herself with a teenaged grace I envied, and picked a small tote bag up off the hope chest at the foot of the bed. It looked familiar; much like one I had at… I fixed her with a very perturbed stare. She looked sheepish as she said, “Kaine asked me to get you something more comfortable for you to train in. I grabbed some stuff from your bathroom too. And I put your keys back in your purse.”

  I took the bag with a tight smile. Longing for clean clothes aside, I was a bit annoyed that they had taken it upon themselves to go through my things while I slept. I guess this new lack of privacy was something I was going to have to get used to. Something told me this wouldn’t be the last time our fae/human sensibilities clashed. I rifled through the bag. The items she had chosen was more like lounge-wear than real clothing, Stretchies and a tank top were all well and good for working out, but I certainly wasn’t going to feel very comfortable hailing a cab in them later on. Then again, they were probably the closest thing I had to appropriate gym attire. Getting all sweaty with a fairy hadn’t been high on my list of p
riorities thus far in my life.

  When I looked back up, Mairi had paused in the doorway. She nodded her head toward the hall beyond. “Come on. I’ll show you where the bathroom is. Seana will make you something to eat before I take you to Gannon.” She paused, looking me over. I hope I didn’t look as panicked as I felt. “Something light, maybe. Not gonna lie. Gannon is pretty tough. You’re in for a workout today.”

  Just what a girl wants to hear. For the hundredth time I wondered just what the hell I was doing. I extricated myself from the sheets and followed her down the hall, my tote clutched tight in my arms. I reminded myself again and again that I had asked for this. I’d be damned if I was going to back down. Kaine’s obvious expectation of my failure was one thing; that I had pretty much expected. Seeing that pity mirrored on the face of a rail-thin girl who looked half my age? Nuh-uh. That wasn’t going to fly.

  I was going to show them both up.

  After all, how bad could it be?

  ~*~

  Me and my big fucking mouth.

  You would think, in my thirty years of walking the planet, I would have learned somewhere along the way not to tempt fate. Or maybe, at the very least, not to goad it on so damn much. Yeah—nope.

  Sunday night found me unable to move off of my couch. There wasn’t a single inch of my body that didn’t feel gross. Or sore. Or, more likely, both. My hair was sweat-crusted and scraggly and my scalp was itching for a shower, but I had no motivation to move. I was sprawled in an awkward half-slump but that position only made a handful of my numerous bruises ache. That was good enough for me. I didn’t care that I reeked like holy hell or that I hadn’t eaten since brunch. I was pretty sure I was dehydrated from losing half my body weight in sweat too, but the kitchen was just too far away. My thighs trembled at the thought of standing. I still wasn’t sure how I had made it up the steep staircase to my apartment in the first place. There was a distinct possibility that I might have stopped halfway up, arms wrapped around the banister for dear life as I wept like a little baby. Of course, that might have been a hallucination. I wasn’t sure I had enough moisture left in my body for tears.

  The stubborn itch along the nape of my neck finally won. I reached back to scratch it and swore at the pain that radiated down my arm. My muscles were worn well past the point of exhaustion. I was too weak to hold a pen, let alone the stupid wooden rod I had been tortured with all day. The succession of bruises along my forearm didn’t help. They were ugly yellow-blue reminders that I was shit when it came to blocking a blow.

  Lesson One had not gone in my favor.

  Just thinking about it made bile rise in my throat all over again. From anger, of course; not from the excruciating pain that had made me think I was going to hurl on Gannon’s shoes multiple times throughout the day.

  Gannon.

  Ugh. I wish I had hurled on his stupid shoes. It would have served him right.

  Seana had watched me throughout breakfast with the troubled eyes of a mother sending her child off to their first day of kindergarten. It had made eating difficult, but I tried to smile and kept the conversation light. Mairi sat across from me at their quaint kitchen table and watched me with those strangely luminous eyes the whole time, which didn’t exactly add to my sense of ease. I had no intention of showing either of the women just how piss-scared I was, but after ten minutes of chatting about the weather and traffic patterns, I finally just shut my trap and focused on putting fork to mouth.

  After I had forced down enough orange juice, buttered toast, and eggs over-easy to placate the cook, Mairi had taken me back upstairs. In what I had assumed to be a broom closet across the hall from my former guest room, there was actually a narrow staircase leading up to a third floor. Perhaps it had been meant as an attic at one time, but now it was clear of any clutter. There were no boxes of Christmas ornaments or old baby clothes up there. It had clearly been outfitted to be a training room (a.k.a. my personal hell).

  It was one large rectangular room that ran the length and width of the house. Huge skylights had been set at regular intervals in the ceiling, flooding the room with natural light. The hardwood floor was spotless, except for a large red ring painted in the middle. A long wooden bar that looked like it belonged in a ballet studio ran along the wall to the left. I saw a weight bench and matching punching bag tucked in the back right corner, as well as stacks of faded blue padded mats that reminded me of my elementary school gym class. A few shelves rounded out the room and ran along the far wall, damn near overflowing with a hodge-podge of sporty looking items I couldn’t even begin to identify.

  Those run-of-the-mill home gym bits weren’t the worst of it. It was the rack of neatly placed wooden rods closest to the door gave me pause. The one next to it containing sheathed swords caused the knot in my stomach to sink even lower. What the hell had I been thinking, asking for this? I didn’t have a lick of combat training, unless you counted the one-day self-defense seminar we had had in my senior year of high school. Hell, I couldn’t even keep a gym membership in good faith. Ten minutes on the treadmill was my highest achievement and I’m pretty sure I had stopped for ice cream on the way home.

  Me and my bright ideas.

  I didn’t even notice the man standing in the shadows next to the stairwell door until he moved away from the wall. To say I jumped out of my skin would be an understatement. I nearly bowled poor little Mairi over as I stumbled back, a hand pressed to my chest. I managed to strangle my scream, biting my tongue in the process. Not the first impression I wanted to make by a long shot. I had expected some hulking brute with battle scars and stacked muscles the size of a professional wrestler, with all the hush-hush hype they had spoken of him with. Instead, Gannon turned out to be only a head and a half taller than me, with a lean frame much like Kaine’s. Perhaps faeries didn’t bulk up like human meat-heads. Even the cold-eyed, sword-wielding ones.

  And man, those eyes were cold. Where Kaine’s were that weird shade of turquoise and filled with heat that made me feel every inch a woman, Gannon’s were the startlingly clear blue of the winter sky. Like that frigid sky, there wasn’t a drop of warmth in them. He wasn’t an unattractive man. Quite the opposite, really. Not too tall, well-muscled, flat stomach that promised washboard abs. He hit every item on my man-candy wish list, yet the vibe I got from him was much more “watch your back” than “come hither.” There was something undeniably predatory—almost feral—about his face, with its high cheekbones and thin nose, surrounded by dark hair that was cropped short on the sides, yet tousled on the top. The calculating stare didn’t help. My eyes skidded away from his, to escape that chill. He wore loose black track pants, a matching sleeveless shirt, and worn trainers: the uniform of every jock who had ever laughed at my scrawny ass in high school. His crossed arms were taut with wiry muscle. I did not doubt the rest of him was likely as strong. Something told me someone with the title of Guardian wouldn’t be a push-over.

  Mairi giggled behind me and I elbowed her in the stomach without looking. Gently, of course. Gannon’s eyes never left me. His scowl hadn’t budged. I took a deep breath and hoped my face wasn’t as red as it felt. I straightened up, squared my shoulders, and extended a hand. “Hello, I’m Caitlin.”

  He didn’t return the favor. Instead, he jerked his head in the direction of the ring at the center of the room. “Let’s see what you can do.”

  I let my hand drop. The rebuttal stung. I wanted to call him out on his rudeness, but swallowed my pride. Maybe the fae were immune to what we humans called “common courtesy.” I found my eyes drawn to the center of the room. My mouth went dry. I had no clue what he expected from me, but I had the feeling I would be glad that Mairi had chosen yoga-pants and sneakers when raiding my wardrobe. I strode toward that evil-eye painted on the floor with my head held high, but inside I was shaking. When I looked back, Mairi was gone. Gannon had two of the wooden rods in hand, his feet braced shoulder’s width apart in a fighter’s stance at the edge of the ring. How he had move
d so quickly and silently was beyond me. The only coherent thought I remember having at that moment was I am so screwed.

  He tossed one of the poles at me with an easy underhand. I grappled with it as it came my way, nearly dropping it in the process. I cringed. This was going to be a train wreck.

  I didn’t miss his deep sigh. My face lit up like a bonfire. His voice held a note of condescension. “I see that Kaine wasn’t kidding when he said you had no training.”

  I whipped my head up. He smirked. My mind flashed back to the memories of schoolyard bullies and stupid football jocks. So, he found amusement in my clumsiness, in my embarrassment, did he? I knew without him saying a word that he expected me to quit right then and there.

  Well, fuck that.

  Being discounted out of hand was a big pet peeve of mine. I would be damned if I was going to take that from some asshole who had known me for all of five minutes. I didn’t know what this Guardian could do—maybe he shot laser beams from his eyes, for all I knew—but I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me. I straightened up, hefting the pole to get a sense of its weight. It wasn’t all that heavy, but it was long and would make for an uncooperative dance partner. I had no doubt it would wear on my scrawny chicken arms after a few swings, but I didn’t plan on letting that stop me. Instead, I summoned every memory of movie magic I could and positioned myself so I faced off with him on an angle. I held the staff catty-corner in front of me with two hands and met his unimpressed stare with a frosty glare of my own.

  He tilted his head to the side, amusement gone. I didn’t see one bit more of respect in his eyes but at least I had wiped that smirk from his face. He came towards me with the loping grace of a jungle cat and I knew a moment of true fear. This man was dangerous. I had been right to think him predatory; he moved like an animal on the hunt. I knew that Kaine had ordered him to train me but that didn’t mean much in the long run. He wasn’t my enemy but he wasn’t my friend either. He wouldn’t kill me, sure, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get hurt. In that training room, we were alone. Not ten minutes in, not a single swing taken, and I already knew that in that space, Gannon called the shots. Worse, Gannon would be the one taking the shots, at me. I had the feeling he would revel in me learning each lesson the hard way.