Ways in the Guardian: A Menage Romance Book Collection

by Barbara Downey

  © Copyright 2016 by Barbara Downey (Editor) -All rights reserved.

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved. Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Thanks for purchasing this short story book that includes bonus romance stories.

  25 Bonus Romance Stories Included!

  More books you may like;

  Under Investigation

  Table of Contents

  The Mirror Cracked

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Goddess of the Stars

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Cat and Mouse

  Chapter 1 - Ryan

  Chapter 2 - Ryan

  Chapter 3 - Josie

  Chapter 4 - Ryan

  Chapter 5 - Josie

  Chapter 6 - Ryan

  Chapter 7 - Adam

  Chapter 8 - Josie

  Chapter 9 - Ryan

  Chapter 10 - Josie

  Bonus Books

  The Mirror Cracked

  Chapter 1

  The sun was so warm. The grass beneath her was so cool and so soft. Even the air had an exotic and strange, but compelling scent. Anna heard birds: birds twittering such sweet airs. She nestled in the grass and let herself feel comfy.

  That was odd because she had expected to have been violently hung-over.

  The moment that she signed the contract in her agent’s office they had started with champagne. And why not? She had scored the lead in The Lady of Astolat, a fantasy film directed by the Big D himself and starring Nicholas Flade. She was going to star opposite Nicholas Flade. But more than that, she was going to star. She had hit it big.

  There would be no more “with” or “and” or “also” before her name. There would be her name in big block letters on the screen, not even an “as”, because by then the publicity machine would have her on every chat show, every promo and every appearance touting her as The Lady of Astolat.

  She’d gone from her agent’s champagne to a party at the Avalon Club where the paparazzi were outside in full force, stretching to catch a glimpse of the rising star in her slinky maroon cocktail dress. From the Avalon, she hopped about Hollywood, schmoozing with actors and producers who all wanted to have a word with her. She’d gone from wine to cosmos to daiquiris in record time, and she figured that there’d be hell to pay in the morning.

  But that was okay. She was young, she was pretty and she had hit the jackpot.

  Her friend and sometime lover, Beka, caught up with her at Johnnie Walker, fed her carbs and snuck her out the back. Beka was also celebrating. She had been crowned as props-mistress for the film. But Beka hadn’t gotten there by her most excellent talent or her keen eye for the best items to decorate a set. It was a very secretive secret that she was sleeping with Nicholas Flade.

  Beka had a starlet’s body, straight out of the 1950s, and she liked to wear those old suits with the pencil skirts and tight blazers. She wore her dark hair with bangs and shoulder curls. She had that Betty Page thing going on, and a lot of people liked that, including Anna – and Nicholas Flade.

  “So Anna,” she said as they drove. “I gotta show you. I found the best and most perfect mirror.”

  “Are we redecorating your apartment?”

  “Silly,” Beka said. “For the film.”

  “Oh, right. There’s a mirror.”

  “It’s all about a mirror. So anyway, I gotta show you. It’s on the lot. I just gotta show you. It is the most excellent, perfect and bestest mirror ever.”

  “Bestest? That a word?”

  “It is now. Lemme show you, it’ll only take a minute.”

  The security guard waved her on. They drove down the lonely streets of the sound stages until Beka parked before a warehouse. The girl had a key-code to the door.

  “I love these things,” she said pressing the buttons. “I always lose keys.”

  “Isn’t your business having the right keys on set?”

  “My own keys, silly. Come on. It’s over here.”

  Anna was unsteady on her feet. Beka held and helped her. The place was like a deep, dark cavern. Beka flipped a switch and a trail of fluorescent lights lit a path.

  “This way,” Beka said. “Just wait and see.”

  They passed suits of armor. They passed swords and lances. They passed rough and crude tools that Anna didn’t understand. Then Beka stopped and pointed. Nestled between tall ax-like things and a pile of old rusty swords was a huge mirror.

  It was at least Anna’s height and well her width. It was framed by scalloped and cunningly wrought wood that was intricately carved. But the wood was old and dry, cracking in places. The gold paint was brown and aged and holding on by luck. The glass itself was tarnished, the backing showing through the silver.

  “It’s cracked,” Anna said, “the mirror. It’s cracked.”

  “I know,” Beka said with a smile.

  “What good is a cracked mirror?”

  “Well,” Beka said. “For one thing it’s all out of bad luck. But it is the name of the film.”

  “Oh, right,” Anna said. “Okay. So. It’s a great prop.”

  “It’s more than that. Look at it. Can you see your reflection?”

  “No. It’s like a spider-web.”

  “Look closer,” Beka said taking out her phone. “Maybe if you had more light.”

  “I can’t see anything,” Anna said. “It’s a very cool frame and all, but maybe you could rip out the old glass and put in some new stuff.”

  “Then I’d have to crack it again.”

  “But that’s your job. Anyway, this is very cool, but – but – whoa?”

  The light from Beka’s phone made the mirror glitter and sparkle. Anna was entranced. She felt a sort of vertigo. She tried to look away but the light was dazzling her with a myriad of colors and textures and then…the sun was so warm. The grass beneath her was so cool and so soft. She nestled and let herself feel comfy.

  Then a shadow fell across her.

  She opened her eyes. Four men stood around her. They had on shapeless pants, shirts that went below their knees and hoods that covered their shoulders. Two carried crude wooden pitch-forks.

  “Oh give me a break,” Anna said laughing. “Who put you up to this?”

  “It speaks,” one man said.

  “It speaks with an unholy tongue,” another said.

  “You guys from central casting?” Anna asked.

  “It speaks unholy words.”

  “Yeah,” Anna said, “Central casting. Been there, done that shit myself.”

  “It is a she-devil!”

  “Guys,” Anna said leaning up on her elbows, the strap of her dress sliding off one shoulder. “I had a long night. Joke’s over. Okay?”

  Chapter 2

  Eevan del-Castillo was on a quest. For two years he had languished in a Moorish prison. In his aguish he vowed that if he could ever taste freedom he would
devote his life to the good and holy. As if in answer to his prayer, that day the earth shook, the castle cracked and he and his fellows escaped, praising the heavens.

  True to his word, Eevan made his way to Lisboa where he sought the archbishop to devote his soul as a holy monk. But the bishop was wise. He saw the stalwart, brawny warrior as an asset.

  “In Angle-Lond there is a new monarch,” he told the young knight. “Arturius holds his throne in Camelot and he is said to be good, wise and pious. He is assembling a band of worthy souls from all the world to do battle with evil.”

  As Eevan listened, a small fire lit in him.

  “You are strong, Eevan. I would send you to his court so that you might join his holy cause, and so plead for Iberia as we writhe beneath the boot of the hellish Moors.”

  With a new and burning passion, the knight took vows of poverty, humility and chastity, and so journeyed to the land of the Angles to seek the place called Camelot. His travels were long and hard, but on his first night beyond the Port of the Mouth he saw a falling star gleaming so bright and so deep red that it was almost purple, and then he knew that his quest was true.

  So it was that on one fine and blustery autumn afternoon, as he made his way north through St. Teath, he chanced to hear the cries of a damsel in distress. He drove his steed through the woods and up a small hill to a clearing where he saw such a sight as he had never seen.

  A tall maiden stood holding four men at bay with a long branch that she wielded as skillful as a lancer with a quarter-staff. Her skin was the tan of a sailor, yet clear and smooth as a newborn. Her face was soft and delicate with such features as to be worthy of a master sculptor. Her hair fell long and low and was a gleaming yellow that sparkled and seemed brushed by the fingers of a frost-fairy.

  But it was her manner of dress that astounded him. She was clad, if it could have been called clad, in deep royal-red gossamer. Her shoulders were bare and the lines of the garment plunged low behind and in front, hinting at such ample and fulsome bosoms. The hem of the skirt was so short as to hardly be of any maidenly modesty and that lack showed as lust in the eyes of the roughs who beset her.

  “You frigging bastards!” she cried with an anger that stirred Eevan. “I’ll see you rot in prison! I’ll have your SAG cards crushed and you’ll never work in this town again! Do you know who I am?”

  “A she-devil!” one called her.

  “A she-devil with the form of beauty,” another said. “Ripe for the plucking!”

  But Eevan knew that she was no devil. In the great halls of Lisboa and Roma, he had seen the depictions by the masters of angels and through those images he had come to understand that those who dwelt in paradise celebrated their bodies with such scant garb. She was the star that he had seen plummet from the heavens.

  “I’ll pluck this stick right up your ass, you come any closer,” she yelled.

  And she had the courage of the divine.

  “Stay!” Eevan cried, sitting tall in his saddle and drawing his bow. “Lay off and cease harassing that celestial being!”

  “What the fuck?” the Angel muttered.

  “This be no business of yours,” a man called. “Foreigner! We found the demon-slut on our lands and we have our rights.”

  “Have at the heathen!” another cried.

  But even as they rushed him, Eevan let fly and their leader clutched at the arrow in his neck, his blood gurgling in his throat. The other fled screaming. The angelic creature fainted.

  ****

  Allona Merrymount hustled about her cottage, trying to pack hurriedly but carefully. She cared nothing for her herbs, but her vials of potions and elixirs were dear. Still, she took only what she absolutely had to.

  When she was satisfied she stepped outside to the cauldron simmering over the low fire. The wormwood root was just right. She took a small jar of doe-tears and slowly poured in the precious liquid, chanting softly. The evening was gathering and thin whips of vapors began to rise from the bubbling brew. She smiled at her work. As the night air cooled, the vale would be shrouded in her fog. She could slip easily away in the night.

  But even as she admired her handiwork she heard hoof beats approaching. Her heart froze. They couldn’t be here so soon. She had gazed into her orb less than an hour before and she saw the villagers still gathered and arguing in the common barn.

  She could take no chance. She was not going to face the fire again. She gathered her pack, unhitched her horse from the tree and dashed up onto her. But even as she turned the reins, a strange voice called out,

  “Hold! Please goodwife, stay. I beg your help!”

  Through the gloom a knight emerged. He was not Anglish, that was certain. Over his chainmail he wore white with a blue cross emblazoned. His complexion was dark, as was his long flowing hair. His face was stern and weathered, but his eyes, while deep, were soft and gentle. And he carried in his arms a half-dressed, sleeping maiden.

  A half dressed and stunningly beautiful maiden.

  Chapter 3

  “Nobel sir,” Allona said, “this is such a bad time, my errand presses and my need is great. I really must be away.”

  “But good missus,” the man said, “here is a maiden in distress and propriety bars me from ministering. I smell your herbs so I know that you have some skill. Please goodwife, look at her; do you not see that she is somehow divine?”

  Divine was indeed the word Allona thought. But not in the sense that the knight saw her. The woman’s figure was slender, and yet, she was lushly curvaceous. She was no mean vassal. Her skin and hair was that of a lady and her garment was – alluring.

  Allona thought fast. Her conjured fog was already settling about, and she needed to get moving. But having a knight at hand might do well in her flight. And the man looked so trusting.

  “Come with me then,” she said. “We will take her to the, um, to the Waters of Innocence. Hurry now.”

  Allona urged her horse and they dove into the woods. The knight followed. She knew the path well, even in the night and fog. It would skirt them around St. Teath, along the stream and to the small lake at Newhall where there was a cavern set in the low hills. Their way took them up Monk’s Head Hill. There she paused and looked back. The glow off in the distance must have been her cottage.

  “What devilry follows us?” the Knight asked.

  “Idiocy,” Allona said, “and ignorance. Come.”

  ****

  Anna woke to a strong and pungent smell. She coughed and sneezed and then sat up.

  “What the hell is that shit?” she spat.

  “Spirit of hartshorn,” a woman said. “It wakens the soul and rouses the spirit.”

  “It stinks.”

  “It is supposed to.”

  Anna shook her head, opened her eyes and looked around. The room was dimly lit by a small fire. The first thing she saw was the woman. Anna frowned. The girl was pretty enough, she had a full round and delicate face, creamy skin flecked with freckles and braided red hair that she had woven into a crown on her forehead. But she wore a shapeless grey gown with a leather girdle and it was clear that she had that medieval thing going on. When Anna saw the knight standing behind her, she wanted to scream.

  “Guys,” she said. “Enough is enough.”

  She reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. The moment it flicked on the woman jumped back. Anna worked the thing.

  “First, I’m calling the cops,” Anna said. “Then I am calling my agent.”

  “She speaks with a strange accent,” the woman said.

  “She speaks strange words,” the man added.

  “How about the words jail and lawsuit,” Anna said. “Those strange enough? This is kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, and if one of you even touches me, it’ll be sexual assault too. Shit, I can’t get a signal.”

  Anna stood. She looked around and shook her head.

  “A cave?” she said to the two. “A frigging cave?”

  She stormed outside. It was dark an
d they were by a lake. She held up her phone searching for signal.

  “What is that thing?” the knight asked.

  “It is like a mirror, but . . .” then the woman gasped, “a black mirror.”

  “Shit!” Anna cried turning back to the two. “There’s nothing. Okay, so what’s the game? This all like some re-enactors thing? This your big convention and you want to make me queen of the May or something?”

  “My Lady,” the knight said kneeling before her. “I do not understand your angry words, but trust me, we mean you no harm. We wish only to help you. If you would accept – “

  “Yeah, I tell you what, I’ll accept a ride outta here. Now please.”

  “My Lady, I will gladly take you wherever you wish.”

  “If we have offended,” the woman said, “then please accept our apologies. We mean no harm.”

  “Look,” Anna began – then she stopped.

  And then it hit her. They had both used the word ‘accept’. They were hinting to her to accept the scene. They were into some kind of improv – and then she understood. This was Big D’s work. It had his cunning fingerprints all over it. He had thrust her into some sort of emersion exercise. Beka was in on it. And that scene with the bad-guys, that arrow in that guy’s neck had to be some kind of real cool special effect. That had to be it.

  She stared at them a moment. She knew that there must be cameras around. She also knew that she had to accept and evolve the scene. She thought a moment. They were trying to clue her. The man had said that he’d gladly take her anywhere. That was the key. Big D wanted her to work her way out. She got it. She had to take a deep breath to hold back her grin.

  “Good Sir Knight,” she said demurely. “It is I who must seem to offend. You have bravely rescued me from the ravages of those ruffians, and in my swoon my brain was addled. I am myself now, and so please accept my deepest gratitude.”

  “Most gracious Lady,” the Knight said crossing himself, “that you are unharmed and unsullied is thanks enough.”

  “And you, goodwife,” Anna said to the woman. “I know not your part in this adventure, but I would gladly accept and reward any aid you would offer.”