Enchanted Guardian

by Sharon Ashwood

  “Then what are you going to do?”

  He grinned. He’d been doing that more and more, and she definitely liked the look on him. “I’m here to make sure you’re happy. I consider that a very special assignment.”

  A collective battle cry went up as Palomedes took the first swing at the connecting wall. Plaster flew into the air, accompanied by a choking cloud of dust. Beaumains had the other sledgehammer, and soon a competition was on.

  Wordlessly—because the noise made talking impossible—Lancelot took Nim’s hand and led her up the stairs to the office above and closed the door. The sound of laughter and cheering through the floor was still loud, but it was dampened to a bearable level.

  Lancelot turned the key in the lock. “As I said, I’m in charge of keeping you in a good mood.” His presence—solid, strong and focused wholly on her—took her breath away.

  This was the room where she’d asked him to help rescue Susan. Now she heard the first notes of the girl’s violin winding into a fiddle tune. After the initial chorus someone whooped and a rhythmic clapping began, egging on the music and whatever mayhem was unfolding downstairs.

  Nim’s throat grew tight. Lancelot had promised to help Susan, and the girl was safe below and spreading happiness. A job done. The innocent safe. That was the essence of who he was—knight, champion and force for light. He had brought her back to life, and he was hers.

  Nim hooked her fingers through his belt and pulled him close, melting into him for a kiss. His mouth was hot and eager, as if they’d been apart for months and not a handful of hours. He turned her so that her back was against the wall, pinned by his big body. She felt safe, and loved, and warm.

  The construction went on below, the hammering in counterpoint to the pounding of her pulse. She opened her mouth to Lancelot’s, returning his hot exploration of tongue and teeth. She was wearing a peach-toned T-shirt with a scooped neck and he pushed the neckline aside to give a gentle nip to her shoulder. It conjured images of what they’d done in bed that morning, and her knees went weak.

  Then his lips were on the upper curves of her breasts while his fingers traced the bottom hem of her short skirt. He pushed it up, tracing the minimal distance to her panties. A hungry noise came from Nim’s throat.

  Then she put her lips close to his ear. “So you know how my body remembered emotions that my mind had lost and your lovemaking brought all those feelings back to me?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” he said, sounding distracted by the lace edges of her bra.

  She bit the tip of his ear to get his attention. “Forget all that chivalric duty to the greater good. I don’t care if every fae in the world can be cured. I’m the only one who gets your special treatment.”

  He laughed, a confident masculine rumble that vibrated through her sensitized body. How he did that—drove her wild with just a laugh—was a mystery to her. Lancelot had magic of his own.

  As if reading her thoughts, he met her eyes and she fell into the dark, liquid depths. In that moment, so much ceased to matter. Merlin would plot and Arthur would agonize over his tourney prize and Gawain would make ridiculous jokes—at least until he figured out why Tamsin was spending so many hours in the parenting section of the bookstore. Big and small, it was all important to her—but not as much as the bond Nim had with this one special man. They’d broken apart, grown and changed, and now they fit better than they ever had before.

  When she realized that, she finally understood the vision she’d had of his future lifemate. She remembered telling Lancelot how that unknown woman would give him comfort and safety. She would keep your hearth and home and fill it with kindness. Your future would be known and beloved, a tale well told and filled with love and laughter. Nim finally had learned enough to be that woman herself. She’d stopped hiding and was prepared to fight to make that vision real.

  There was trust and freedom between them now. Her power was magic, his the sword. They both had responsibilities and dangers to face, but neither would let the other fall. Darkness had no hold over their domain. Not anymore, and never again.

  She kissed him then, craving his unique flavor. At their touch, her magic flowed between them, binding them in ways even she barely understood. When a fae took a human mate, they shared immortality as long as the love was sound. Their love could literally last forever.

  Such thoughts left her solemn until a giddy bubble of joy took her over. “You’ve fulfilled your role admirably,” she said. “I think you’ve managed to keep me happy.”

  His smile was soft as he took her hands in his. “I promised that you wouldn’t be alone.”

  A smile tugged at her lips as she wound her arms around his neck. “That means keeping me happy through a lot of nights. And mornings. And the occasional afternoon. Do you think you can manage that?”

  His smile was wicked. “A knight is sworn to serve.”

  “I’m nominating myself your personal quest.”

  “Then perhaps we should marry.” He said it casually, but his fingers fumbled as he slid a ring from his pocket. She recognized the rich red of the stone. He’d taken it from the hilt of his sword, the blade that had been broken in the contest and reforged again from stronger steel. That sword was a little like her. Maybe it made sense to share its jewels.

  “Marry?” she asked softly. “It has been a long time since the fae have seen a wedding. We used to have the very best weddings.”

  “Then it’s time the fae had another.” He went to one knee. “Say yes.”

  Her heart pounded, tears gathering in her eyes. They had been through fire and ice to come to this moment, defying time and destruction and the laws of lore and magic. None of those trials had dimmed the yearning of her heart. Lancelot was her one and only love.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

  He slid the ring on her finger, where the scarlet gem flashed like the eagerness in her heart.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from LYCAN UNLEASHED by Shannon Curtis

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  Lycan Unleashed

  by Shannon Curtis

  Chapter 1

  “What the hell are they doing?” Zane Wilder whispered.

  “They’re training,” Matthias murmured. He tucked his ring and the chain it hung on around his neck under his T-shirt, not wanting a glint of sunlight on metal to give away their position. Both he and Zane lay prone on the ground as they peered over the edge of the ridge. A group of juvenile
s were clustered below in a clearing, and all listened avidly to the woman instructing them.

  He and Zane were on a scouting mission, gathering as much information as possible on the Woodland Pack. Four months earlier his alpha prime, Jared Gray, had been poisoned in a dentist’s chair. The dentist, Ryder Galen, had ultimately proved his innocence and uncovered the conspiracy between Rafe Woodland, alpha prime of Woodland Pack, and Arthur Armstrong, the head of one of the oldest families in the capital city, Irondell. Arthur was currently remanded to a Reform prison, awaiting his trial.

  Arthur Armstrong was a human, not a werewolf, so his crime—being a crossbreed crime—fell under the control of Reform Authority. Getting justice from that individual was out of his hands. Rafe Woodland, though, was a different matter entirely.

  As neighboring werewolf packs, his own pack, Alpine, had requested to transfer the matter out of the Reform justice system, to deal with it under tribal jurisdiction. The Reform justice system governed all of the tribes, be they shadow breed or human, and had to be seen as fair and just for all. There were certain cases, though, that could be transferred to the tribes. In this case, when a werewolf from one pack coordinated the murder of a werewolf in another pack—especially if the murdered werewolf was an alpha prime—then the transfer was almost automatic. Rafe Woodland was proving a hard lycan to catch, though. He’d refused to acknowledge the charges and refused to turn himself in to Alpine.

  So now they were working on plan B, perving on—er, no, scouting out the enemy. He eyed the woman below.

  The sunlight filtered through the trees, picking out copper highlights in her braided brown hair. He wished he could see her eyes, but they were too far off. She turned away, her back to them, and Matthias couldn’t help noticing the indentation of her slender waist, the sexy curve of her hips, the way her jeans cupped her trim butt. She had an athletic figure that drew his attention, and he grew hard as he eyed her lean grace as she walked around the clearing, instructing her charges.

  A cool breeze washed over him, a sign that the chill snows of winter were just around the corner. It teased the back of his neck, and he could almost imagine it was her fingers caressing him, playing with him, teasing him. Tempting him. He watched her hands as she spoke, the smooth, rolling gestures hypnotic and innately sensual. He wanted those hands on him. The lust he felt now was at first uncomfortable, then painful, and wholly surprising and unwelcome.

  His eyes narrowed. He didn’t like the rise of desire within. Didn’t like it at all. He told himself he was merely surveying the enemy, that his intense interest—not lust—was completely warranted. She was undeniably sexy, moving with a lithe fluidity that called to a part of him he’d trapped and buried. His senses sharpened. His body throbbed in time with the slow, languid thump of his heart. The leaves in the surrounding trees rustled, whispering encouragement. He took a deep breath to calm his body’s reaction, and breathed in the loamy richness of the earth, the rock on which they lay hard and unrelenting. He caught the whiff of a scent, something he knew by instinct was hers, a delicate trail of spice amidst the fragrant forest. He dug his fingers into the stone outcrop as he battled the sensuality that was flooding him. He wanted to leap down, grab her and carry her off. The beast within him unfurled, awakened by his reactions, stretching, arching.

  This was not the time to lose himself in an attraction, damn it. He was tempted, though. Tempted to ignore his goal, the reason he was spying on the enemy, to abandon his friend and surrender to the lust that was licking at his defenses, like a bushfire consuming the land.

  The woman commanded the attention of several adolescents as she spoke with them quietly. Matthias felt a smile tease at the corners of his mouth as he watched a little boy of maybe five years old standing next to her. Once again, his reaction surprised him as much as it displeased him. The kid mimicked her stance, nodding and frowning as she spoke to the group. A man stood behind the class, and Matthias wondered briefly who he was and what his connection was to the woman. Something deep, dark and possessive rose within him, and yes, so did a hint of jealousy, of envy, that this man was within her trusted circle. The man nodded, then jogged away into the undergrowth.

  The woman held up her hands, calling their focus back to her as she assigned partners within the group. Her back was to him, but her movement raised her shirt and jacket, calling his attention back to her butt, her waist. This reaction he had to her was new. Alien. The kid started to wander off, but she grabbed hold of the back of the younger kid’s hooded pullover, not once breaking her focus from the adolescents as she gently pulled the child back to her side. Matthias sucked in a breath as, just for a moment, the scene below merged with a memory he’d ruthlessly ignored and never thought to revisit, of another woman, another boy...another time.

  The kid frowned up at her, folding his arms as his lips pouted, but the woman ruffled his hair absently as she kept talking. After a few more minutes of instructions, she clapped her hands and gestured to the edge of the clearing, and the pairs of adolescents took off in multiple directions.

  “That must be the Woodland Tracker Prime,” Zane murmured. “I’ve heard she’s good. One of the best.”

  Matthias raised his eyebrows briefly at his friend’s remarks. The guardian had a knack for acquiring intel. So far he’d been quite valuable in getting information on the Woodland pack. Although he had to admit, even he’d heard of the Woodland Tracker Prime.

  “Hmm.” Matthias didn’t take his gaze off the woman as she finally turned her attention to the boy. She folded her arms and tipped her head to the side. Her brown braid slid forward over her shoulder, and his body tightened. He wanted to touch that hair, unravel the braid and watch it slide through his fingers. He wondered if it was as silky as it looked. Again, he was stunned by his curiosity—no, his need—to know more of this woman.

  She was tall, he could tell, despite their angle of viewing. Damn, she had great legs. Long, slender and encased in denim, her coltish frame had just enough curves to catch and hold his attention. Those legs...wrapped around his waist...

  He clenched his teeth. This was not the time to get horny over a she-wolf, for God’s sake—no matter how long it’d been since he’d looked at another woman as more than just a pack mate. The woman below was Woodland. The enemy. Her family—hell, maybe even she, had been responsible for Jared’s death. The pack was systematically thumbing its collective nose at the rest of the lycan tribe. They had killed his friend, his mentor, his alpha prime.

  And she was one of them.

  Everyone at Woodland would pay for what they’d done to Alpine. Just the thought that she was part of the enemy pack—and in a trusted position, if she was training juveniles—was enough to snap everything back into perspective. He wasn’t there to ogle. He was there to gather information, maybe even hunt.

  From this distance, he couldn’t make out what was being said. The kid dragged his toe in the dirt, and she squatted down so that her eyes were level with his. Her jeans tightened around her butt, although it was the sight of the woman leaning in to the little boy that brought a tightness to his throat, the emotion taking him by surprise. He shifted, trying to shrug the moment off. She looked nothing like Cara.

  “One would almost think Woodland care for their young, too,” Zane commented in a rough whisper.

  “They’re still lycans,” Matthias murmured. And as such, had similar weaknesses to the rest of the lycan tribe, weaknesses that could be exploited. “They’ll still value life.” The young were to be protected, nurtured. Loved.

  Whatever the woman said cheered up the kid, as he started to strut about the clearing. He’d point at something, and she’d either shake her head or shrug, walking behind him with her hands clasped behind her back. She was relaxed, patiently answering the questions the boy asked. Eventually he reached the point where the man had stood, and looked up at his instructor. She smiled and nodded, giving him a high five, then knelt beside him, tracing something in the dirt. The kid nodde
d, took a few steps, then pointed. She gave him a thumbs-up, rising to her feet to follow.

  Zane started to shuffle back from the edge, but Matthias’s hand shot out, clutching his forearm. They both froze. The woman halted at the edge of the clearing and cocked her head to the side. She turned to slowly scan the area. Matthias didn’t move. His muscles clenched tight, and his breath caught in his chest. The reason they’d picked this vantage point was because they couldn’t be seen from below, yet the woman’s gaze remained glued to the ridge for a moment, before finally drifting on. The boy must have asked her something, for she turned to him, a reassuring smile on her face as she held her arms out. He ran up to her, and she grasped his wrists, swinging him up and over her shoulders until he could wrap his arms around her neck. She carried him, piggyback-style, into the woods, furtively glancing over her shoulder as she went.

  Matthias relaxed once she was out of sight.

  “Did she see us?” Zane asked as he retreated from the ridge.

  Matthias shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Should we go after her? She could prove valuable.”

  He shook his head. “No.” He kept scanning the trees, but it was as though the brown-haired woman had melted into the forest, disappearing like a wisp of mist. He smiled. They wouldn’t go after her, not now.

  Maybe later.

  * * *

  Trinity Caldwell slung her backpack over her shoulder as she stepped into the great hall. Fires burned from the wall sconces bolted into the stone, casting flickering shadows down the walls and across the dirt floor as members of her pack went about their daily business. Not many spoke, though, and most walked with their eyes downcast as they went about their tasks. The hall had almost returned to normal, although there were still some repair areas cordoned off. Just over a month ago an explosion had ripped through the hall and some of the main corridors, and there were still some ongoing issues as a result. At least Rafe had acceded to her request for routine structural inspections.