by Donna Grant
“We’ll need an answer soon, Elle.”
“You’ll have one by tomorrow,” she promised.
A KIND OF MAGIC
Donna Grant
35
Chapter Eight
Roderick heard the cry rent the stillness of the night and leapt to his feet. He had been sleeping in Elle’s front room and hurried to her chamber.
He spotted her thrashing around on her bed and knew she was in the grips of a nightmare. He straddled her and took a wrist in each hand.
“Elle,” he said. When she didn’t respond, he called out a little louder.
“No,” she screamed and tried to kick him off of her.
“’Tis me,” he said as he struggled to wake her.
Of a sudden, her thrashing stopped, and he looked to find her eyes open and staring at him.
“Elle?”
He immediately noticed how close their faces were and the fact his body straddled hers. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and his rod, hard and throbbing, rested against her stomach. All he had to do was lean down and take her mouth in his.
“’Twas just a dream,” he said as he released her hands and moved off her.
She curled on her side but didn’t say anything.
Roderick could only imagine what was going through her mind. So far, she had handled things relatively well, and it would depend on how strong she was mentally if she could believe them.
He was about to walk away when her hand reached out and took his. He looked at their joined hands, then her face.
“Thank you for saving me.”
He knew she was referring to the Harpies. “They won’t kill you. You control them, but they are thirsty for blood and want more.”
The moonlight streamed in from windows on either side of her bed, illuminating her face and light blue eyes. “Don’t let them take me.”
“I give you my word I will protect you with my life.” He bent down and gently tugged his hand free. “Sleep, Elle,” he commanded as he moved the covers over her shoulders.
He checked to make sure her eyes were closed before he rose and walked from her chamber.
“Is she all right?” Val asked as he stood in the hallway.
Roderick nodded. “I don’t know if she believes us.”
“We may have to take the stone from her.”
Roderick looked at the woman sleeping so soundly. “We might.”
“She’s got until tomorrow. I wish to return to Hugh and the others.”
Roderick nodded and thought of Hugh. He was their leader, and the best of them.
Roderick missed them all, Hugh, Darrick, Gabriel, and Cole. They were his brothers in arms.
A KIND OF MAGIC
Donna Grant
36
He returned to his place on the sofa and stared into the darkness. What he should do was go in Elle’s chamber, find the necklace, and destroy it, but he had promised to wait for morning. And wait he would.
* * * *
“Morning, Elle,” a female voice called from the front of the house.
Roderick and Val glanced at each other. Elle still slept, so Roderick walked into the front room to find Elle’s friend, Jennifer.
“Well, hello,” she said and looked him up and down. “I didn’t realize Elle had company.”
“I’m just a friend.”
“Ah,” she said and nodded. “And needed a place to crash.” She walked past him toward Elle’s bedchamber. “I’m Jennifer.”
“Roderick,” he said as he followed her.
“I’m just going to borrow a shirt Elle said I could use,” Jennifer said when she reached Elle’s door.
Roderick had no choice but to let her go in. He waited with Val in the front room, but as each second ticked by, Roderick felt the urge to drag Jennifer out of the chamber.
“Well, hello,” Jennifer said again as she walked out of Elle’s bedchamber.
Val immediately perked up at finding a woman interested in him. “Hello to you, as well.”
“It’s too bad I’m already taken, or I’d be very tempted,” Jennifer said as she walked by Val, her finger trailing across his chest. “I just love the accent.”
Roderick was hard pressed not to roll his eyes.
“Tell Elle I’ll return this later,” Jennifer said as she held up a shirt just before she walked from the house.
“Fairly decent in looks, aye?” Val asked him.
Roderick shook his head and returned to the kitchen. “Could you keep your mind on other things than bedding a woman?”
“Then what would the world come to?”
Roderick couldn’t help but chuckle. “One day, Val, you will find a woman that will knock your feet out from underneath you, and I pray I’m there to see it.”
Val put his hands over his heart and let his head fall back. “Ah, never say such words.”
“It’ll happen. That I promise you.”
Val sat up and studied him. “Has it happened to you?”
Roderick shook his head. “Hasn’t yet, and I hope it doesn’t. At least not until I’ve vanquished the evil here and can help my own realm. If it still exists.”
“It
does.”
Roderick clenched his jaw and gripped the counter top, the rooming spinning at Val’s words. “What?”
“You might not want to ask Aimery for fear of discovering bad news, not to mention you have a hard time dealing with why you left, so I asked for you.”
“Well,” he prompted the Roman. His patience fast running out.
“Thales still stands. It is being ravaged, but not as severely as Earth.”
A KIND OF MAGIC
Donna Grant
37
Roderick breathed a sigh of relief. He had desperately wanted to know how his realm was doing but couldn’t work up the courage to ask.
“Why did you leave?” Val asked.
Roderick had told no one the reason for his departure of Thales, but Aimery knew. Thankfully, the Fae never said a word, and the other Shields hadn’t asked since each of them carried their own secrets and demons.
“You’ve never asked me that before.”
Val shrugged. “’Tis always been an unspoken rule that we leave the past behind.”
“So why ask now?”
“I’m curious. I saw the pain on your face when I mentioned Thales. You are a prince there, Roderick. What could have made you leave?”
Roderick bowed his head and took a deep breath. There was no way he could tell his friend and fellow Shield just what he had done. “Something so awful I’m trying to redeem myself in my family’s eyes.”
Val said no more, and for that Roderick would be eternally grateful. Talking of his home and his parents brought him so much pain that he rarely did it. One day soon, however, he would return to them and hopefully be forgiven for the most unforgivable of sins.
* * * *
Elle woke slowly, the sun shining brightly in her room. She glanced at the clock, saw she would be terribly late for work, but didn’t care. Her hand snaked out of the sheets and reached for the phone. A quick call letting them know she was sick—which wasn’t a lie, she was sick in the head for believing Roderick—and she could face the day and the horrors that waited.
She sat up and stretched her arms over her head as she heard mumblings from the kitchen. It was easy to determine which one was Val and which was Roderick as they talked. Val’s voice was deeper, rougher, while Roderick’s held a refinement that she would almost compare to royalty.
Try as she might, she couldn’t make out their conversation without getting out of bed, and since she wasn’t an eavesdropper, she decided to make a quick trip to the bathroom to take care of business before heading into the kitchen. As she walked past her mirror she saw her silky chemise she wore to bed and hastily tugged on a robe.
When she walked into the kitchen, neither man was speaking. Val spared her a glance and a nod as she walked past him.
“Morning,
”
she
mumbled.
She wasn’t what was considered a morning person. It took her a bit to wake up and start functioning properly to go out into the real world, which is why she hated having company.
“Did you sleep well?” Roderick asked from beside her.
Elle covered her mouth as she began to yawn. “Not really,” she answered and reached into the fridge for a Diet Dr. Pepper. All she needed was a little caffeine in the mornings, and she was fine. She didn’t even need the whole bottle, just a few swallows and she was set.
“You?” she asked as she replaced the can and shut the fridge door.
A KIND OF MAGIC
Donna Grant
38
“Well
enough.”
As Elle leaned against the fridge, she couldn’t get the image of the Harpies out of her mind. They had plagued her all night. “Will the Harpies attack during the day?”
Both Roderick and Val shrugged.
“Some creatures sleep during the day,” Val answered, “and some don’t. Not sure about the Harpies, but something is telling me they won’t.”
“Great,” she mumbled as she pushed off the fridge. “You would think something like women with lower bodies of birds flying around the skies of Houston would have been reported.”
“I would have thought so, too, so my only guess is they haven’t been seen,”
Roderick said.
“Wonderful. This just keeps getting better and better.”
“Have you decided anything?” Val asked.
Normally, Elle was a quiet, rarely riled type of person, but for some reason, she was finding a side of herself she had never seen, and she quite liked it. “I’ve been asleep.
I didn’t get much thinking done.”
Val growled something under his breath in another language.
“Val,” Roderick warned before he turned to Elle. “This isn’t a jest we are playing on you. This is people’s lives on this realm and others. It’s very important that the necklace and creatures be destroyed.”
Elle still couldn’t believe she actually believed him. Had she been asked a week ago if she believed in Harpies and immortals she would have laughed in their faces.
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Not if you want to do the right thing,” Val said.
She looked first at Val and then at Roderick. “What do I need to do?”
Roderick took a step toward her. “Get dressed, get the necklace, and we’ll go destroy it.”
“Go?”
“The stone shatters,” Val told her. “We need to do it some place away from everything.”
“That only leaves the woods, which will be a good hour or more away from here, or the top of a building.”
Val and Roderick looked at each other. “The house,” they said in unison.
Elle assumed they meant the apartment. “I’ll get dressed.”
She shuffled into her room and ignored the bed that she usually made faithfully every morning. Instead, she went to her closet and grabbed a pair of shorts and a shirt.
A quick dusting of bronzing powder, eye liner, and mascara was all she chanced before tackling her hair. She ran a brush through the long length, grasped her hair in one hand, and twisted. Once she had it where she wanted, she reached for her large clippie and secured it.
Her fingers ran through her bangs that fell over her right eye as she surveyed her image. She would never be a model, but she was passing fair. At least men didn’t turn away in disgust. They didn’t look twice at her, if they looked at all, but that was much better than them turning away.
A KIND OF MAGIC
Donna Grant
39
She grabbed her red sequined flip-flops to match her shirt and wiggled her feet in as she opened her jewelry armoire. No matter how hard she searched, she couldn’t find the necklace. Panic began to set in as she searched one drawer after another.
“I forgot to tell you that your friend came by this morning,” Roderick said from the doorway.
“Jennifer?” she asked, still digging in the armoire.
“Aye. She said she was borrowing a shirt.”
Elle stopped and closed her eyes. She knew which shirt Jennifer wanted to wear.
Her blue silk shirt she had gotten from the Ralph Lauren store and that also explained the missing necklace.
“Oh my goodness,” she murmured as she closed the drawer.
“What is it?” Roderick asked.
Elle slowly stood up and faced the man before her. “She took it.”
“Your shirt? I know.”
She shook her head. “No, Roderick. She also took the necklace. It matched perfect, and it’s just like her.”
For the first time since she had met him, she saw the anger lighting his dark blue eyes. “Without asking?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Where is she? We must get it back.”
Elle ran to the phone and dialed Jennifer’s home number. “No answer,” she said as she hung up and dialed the store. “Jennifer, please,” she told the girl on the other line.
As soon as she asked for Jennifer, she realized it was her day off. “Never mind,”
she told the girl and hung up.
Next, she dialed Jennifer’s cell phone. “Jennifer always answers her cell phone,”
she told Roderick, praying that she was right.
But she wasn’t. Jennifer didn’t answer.
A KIND OF MAGIC
Donna Grant
40
Chapter Nine
“Where is Jennifer?” Roderick asked.
“I don’t know.” Elle felt sick to her stomach at knowing the necklace was out of her hands. “I think she and Alex were doing something.”
“Where?”
“I can’t remember if she told me.”
A sound from the doorway got her attention, and she turned to find Val leaning against the door with his arms crossed.
“’Tis
gone?”
She tried to swallow, gave up, and nodded instead.
“Let’s go,” Val said.
“Go?” Elle asked as Roderick took her arm and raised her to her feet. “Where are we going?”
“We must get ready for battle,” Roderick replied.
Battle, Elle mouthed as they left her house.
She locked her door and turned to find both Val and Roderick on their motorcycles. The last thing she wanted was to get back on the movable death trap, but it was obvious she didn’t have a choice since her car was still at the Huntington.
The only good news was that Roderick was still shirtless, and, as ridiculous as it was, it was all she had to hold onto at the moment.
After a quick prayer for her safety, she walked to Roderick’s bike and climbed on.
He handed her the helmet, and, once she had it on, she reached around and clasped her hands together on his deliciously rippled abs of steel.
Yummy.
Even though he didn’t want her, she wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to touch a body like she had only seen in ads or the TV.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Val pull beside them as they turned off Michigan Street on to Dunlavy. She spotted Roderick’s sword and flail attached to one side of the bike, and as Val sped ahead of them she saw his sword.
She had never been so thankful to live next to the wealthiest part of the city.
River Oaks was nestled next to her Montrose area, and the Huntington was the only high rise apartments in River Oaks.
They pulled onto Kirby, and as usual, there was constant construction, but somehow Val and Roderick bypassed the traffic and arrived at their apartment within minutes. No high speeds this time, but then again the Harpies weren’t after them.
Still, by the time Roderick had pulled into his parking space and shut off the bike, Elle’s legs where trembling. Gingerly, she got off the bike and returned his helmet to him.
�
�I think next time we’ll take my car.”
A KIND OF MAGIC
Donna Grant
41
He looked over at her dark green Civic and then back at her. “Not if you need to outrun the Harpies.”
She hated that he was right. Houston traffic could be a bitch. With her knees still knocking together, she followed the two hunks onto the elevator. She didn’t know if it was on accident or by design, but they stood on either side of her.