Warmongers and Wands

by Dunbar, Debra

  He brought the bowl over beside the bed and got some soap and a washcloth. Then he headed back to the fire, pouring more of the steaming water into a mug and adding a tea bag.

  “Here. Drink this, and I will wash you up and apply some of the ointment to your wounds.”

  I sipped the tea, which according to the tag was Sleepytime chamomile, as the man removed my blankets, dipped the washcloth into the steaming water, and began to gently wipe the blood from my skin. It was downright erotic. And I fully realized how sad my love life was that having a man clean blood off my bruised and cut skin was the hottest thing that had ever happened to me in my life.

  He clucked over the scrapes from the seatbelt, cleaning, drying, then smoothing ointment over the raw skin. I tried to cover up my reaction to his touch by sipping the tea, but there was nothing I could do about the way my breath hitched every time he touched me, or that my hardened nipples were clearly visible through my thin bra fabric. It was embarrassing. It was even more embarrassing because he noticed.

  “If only you were not hurt, my witch.” He rubbed across one of my nipples with his thumb, fanning his fingers out to trace along the top of my breast. Everything tightened inside, heat settling into my core.

  “Yeah.” My voice was breathy. “Maybe later, when I’m not so banged up?”

  Who was I kidding? Guys were never into me. Guys this hot were definitely never into me. Whatever this was, it was fleeting and by the time I wasn’t feeling like I’d been tossed down the side of a mountain, it would be gone. And so would he. Gone. Uninterested. Just friends. The usual.

  “I’m not sure I can wait that long, my witch.”

  Me, neither. I was starting to wonder how many Tylenol I’d need to take to make sex with a broken leg enjoyable. Probably the whole bottle.

  “Soon.” He smiled, covered me up with an entire zoo of fur pelts, then took the basin of water over to the table while I drank my tea and tried to get my libido in check.

  Then he put a cassette tape into a boom box that looked like it was straight out of the eighties. A sound poured from the speakers—Steely Dan. I settled into the soft blanket and furs, listening to the music as he brought me more tea. By the time I was done with the second cup of tea, I was happily on the edge of sleep, listening to Hey Nineteen.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, my eyelids drifting shut. “I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for me.”

  “I am yours, Adelaide,” the man replied. “Yours. You’ve returned to set me free, and I will serve you for all eternity.”

  I floated to sleep, a tiny bit concerned that I’d just somehow attracted a very sexy stalker and wondering who the heck was Adelaide.

  Chapter 5

  Bronwyn

  I woke to the smell of stew and Diebin staring at me from the edge of my bed. My first thought was that I hoped the raccoon wasn’t rabid, because damn it all, a broken leg was bad enough. My second thought was that whatever that was cooking on the fire, I wanted it in my belly right now.

  Not wanting to attempt hopping my way over to the food, I put out a tentative hand, wondering if Diebin was friendly.

  The raccoon stared at my fingers and made a chattering noise. Then he gave me the equivalent of a high five. A paw five? Either way, I’d take it as a positive sign that this guy wasn’t harboring secret plans of mauling me.

  “How are you feeling?” a deep voice asked.

  I shifted around to look at the man, immediately regretting the action. “Sore. Bruised. I feel better, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be dancing the jig any time soon.”

  “If you’re up to it, then you should eat.”

  He approached and bent to wrap his arms around me, gently easing me into a sitting position. I rode out the pain, fully aware that I was wearing nothing but a bra and panties, and that his efforts put his head right against my breasts. Soft beard and hair. Warm breath against my skin. Muscular arms around me that looked like they belonged to a lumberjack.

  All too soon I was sitting upright, a folded fur supporting my leg. The man had his back to me, stirring the stew, so I took the opportunity to check out his medical handiwork and my injuries. The diagonal red mark and bruise from my left shoulder to my right hip had definitely improved. I was glad the seatbelt had done its job or I would have been bounced around the inside of my truck like a freaking ping pong ball. The bruise on my left thigh was huge and dark, but it didn’t look like something that would cost me my life by my inexpert estimation. My right knee was still a little swollen, but a few tentative tries told me that I could bend it. Good. One leg working was better than none. I couldn’t see what was going on under the splint on my lower left leg, but from the steady throbbing, I knew this was my most serious injury.

  I’d take it. Thank heaven for seatbelts and airbags. I’d gone over the side of a mountain. I could have died. I could have had internal injuries or split my head open, or had my legs smashed into little fragments. I was so lucky to have survived this with what truly were minor injuries. And I was so lucky that this hottie had been living near where I’d crashed and been home to help me.

  The man returned with two bowls of the stew, dragging a chair over beside the bed with one of his feet. He handed me a bowl, then sat beside me, the second one on his lap. Diebin chattered, then hopped off the bed to head to another bowl on the floor by the table. We ate in silence. And damn if this wasn’t the best thing I’d ever eaten in my life—and that included food my sister Glenda had cooked. I think it had to do with being in the woods, hungry, and having had a near-death experience. Somehow all that made this plain stew like manna from heaven.

  My companion ate in silence, every now and then glancing up to check on me, his eyes roving over my exposed skin. It was making me uncomfortable—and not necessarily in a bad way, either.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him. Crap, I knew the raccoon’s name but not his. I was a horrible excuse for a damsel in distress.

  “Hadur.”

  That was it. No last name. No elaboration. Personally, I liked a man of few words, not that I had all that much experience with men outside of a professional or friendship capacity. This made conversation a bit one-sided though.

  “Are you part of the pack, Hadur?” I asked, realizing that the answer was probably “no.” Up until recently, Dallas’ werewolf pack didn’t allow for lone wolves. You were either in the pack or you were dead. And I didn’t get the impression that this guy was a newly separated member of the pack. He’d been out here in the woods a long time—a very long time, from my estimation.

  “The werewolves?” He fingered one of the pelts on the bed. “They know to stay away.”

  Ewww. I was going to pretend that these furs covering me were animal-animals. Pretending hard, here—very hard.

  “So what kind of shifter are you? Bear?” He seemed like a bear with his powerful body and his loner lifestyle.

  He shot me a puzzled glance. “No. I’m yours.”

  “My what?” I pressed. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m super grateful you came along when you did and got me out of that truck. I’m grateful for you taking care of me and feeding me this amazing stew, which I really really hope isn’t werewolf or at least a werewolf that I know personally. I don’t want to pry or anything, but you’re clearly not human if you’re ripping doors off a wrecked truck and bending dashboards. So, shifter? Incredible Hulk? Jason Momoa bitten by a radioactive spider?”

  “I am a demon of war—your demon. I’ve waited for you to come back. I yield to you and will do as you bid of me, my witch. I have waited so long. I feared you would never return, but you’ve finally returned. And I will be yours. I will do whatever you command. I will serve you for all eternity.”

  Oh, God, this was quite possibly the most erotic thing I’d ever experienced—not that I’d ever experienced anything remotely erotic in my thirty-one years of life. Why, oh why did this have to happen when I was immobilized in bed with a broken leg? Why?

>   “So…a demon.” The only experience I’d had with demons was Lucien, the guy Cassie was shacked up with. He was hot, sexy, dangerous, not the sort of individual I’d expect to be living out in the woods all by himself. Clearly this guy was different.

  And he’d said a war demon. That sent up all sorts of red flags in my mind, although he didn’t seem particularly violent or angry or anything sitting here next to me with an empty bowl of stew in his lap.

  “Why are you here, Hadur?” I waved a hand around at the cabin. “How long have you been living out here in the woods by yourself?”

  He tilted his head. “I’ve been here since I was summoned. I cannot leave until I am released.”

  A lump settled in my stomach that had nothing to do with the stew I’d just eaten. “How long? How long has it been since you’ve been summoned?”

  “Two hundred years? Possibly a decade or two more. I’ve lost track of time out here.” He reached out a finger to trace the line of my jaw, then brushed across my lower lip. “I thought…I thought you would never return. When I felt your presence, felt you cross the boundaries, I could hardly believe it. You are here. You have returned, and I will do all you ask, my witch. I will serve you, Adelaide.”

  This was better than those romance novels. This was better than a porno. This was way better than that vibrator in my bedside table, and the guy hadn’t even kissed me. Had I died and gone to heaven? Because I might totally be okay with that if my leg suddenly miraculously healed and this guy started serving me and doing as I asked.

  Wait, who was Adelaide?

  “I’m Bronwyn Perkins, not Adelaide.” I held out my hand, the one not holding the empty stew bowl. “Not sure if that makes a difference or not on you serving me. Although that sort of thing might need to wait until my leg heals. If you’re still interested. Because if you’re not, that’s okay. It’s not like anyone else is. Interested, that is.”

  Crap. I needed to just shut up. I was making a huge fool out of myself. The guy hadn’t made any move to shake my hand, so I let it fall onto the pelt-that-I-hoped-wasn’t-werewolf.

  “Bronwyn Perkins?” He shook his head, a bemused expression on his face. “Of course. Humans do not live for very long, at least those not bonded to a demon. Two hundred years would be too long for Adelaide to still be alive. So, you are…”

  “Probably a great, great, great, grand-niece or something, if Adelaide’s last name was Perkins,” I told him. “Is she the one who summoned you?”

  I suddenly had a whole romantic tragedy running through my head of a young woman in a dress and corset, summoning a demon out in the woods and vowing to come back, only to get run over by a wagon or hit by a falling tree before she could return. And here the demon sat, for two hundred years, pining for his lost…summoner.

  Okay, I clearly had been reading too many novels. That, and the fact that the only demon I’d ever met was bumping uglies with my sister, made me assume Hadur and Adelaide were some kind of Romeo and Juliet. For all I knew, Adelaide was a wart-nosed ninety-year-old witch who’d summoned Hadur with murder on her mind and had stroked out before being able to release him from the circle and send him off to kill whoever she felt needed killing.

  “I had believed Adelaide was the witch who brought me from hell. I was summoned, and when I appeared, she was the only witch present. But she claimed that she had not been the one to summon me. She demanded I reply to questions I did not know the answer to, then left, vowing to come back. I never saw her again.”

  Yep. Definitely Romeo and Juliet, even if Adelaide had been ninety and wart-nosed. Hey, elderly disfigured witches deserved love, too.

  “So, you’ve been here alone for two hundred years, give or take a few decades?”

  For a brief second, he smiled, and I realized that was the first time I’d seen him do so.

  “Yes. Alone aside from Diebin and other beings of the forest.”

  “Werewolves?” I stroked the pelt with tentative fingers.

  “Just the one. They don’t come to this section of the mountain. They believe there is evil here.” Again with the brief smile. “They are right.”

  “And you killed the werewolf?”

  He shrugged. “The werewolf was very disagreeable.”

  Okay, I kinda understood that. The werewolves were on the whole a disagreeable bunch. And if he were to be trapped here for hundreds of years, alone, I could see he might be a bit pissed at having some jackwad come into his home and be a total asshole. Still…

  “So how big is this circle you’re trapped in?” I mentally tried to calculate the distance from my wrecked truck to this cabin. It wasn’t easy since it had been raining and I’d been in pain, and he’d been carrying me.

  “The circle diameter is approximately two hundred feet.”

  I blinked. That was less than three quarters of an acre. Admittedly, there were prison cells smaller than that, but to be cooped up in such a small area for over two hundred years…

  “You built the house? And—” I glanced at the pot over the fire—“smelted iron? On less than an acre?”

  “I did build the house and some of the furniture. I also hunt animals who venture into the confines of the circle. Diebin has provided the other items for me.”

  I eyed the raccoon. Yeah, he was a big boy, but how the hell had he managed to drag a heavy iron pot through the woods? Guess I never should underestimate the thievery skills and strength of a raccoon.

  “Diebin…is he some sort of familiar?”

  “That’s probably the closest term for what our relationship is. We have a partnership. I have granted him eternal life, enhanced strength, speed, and understanding, and he serves me.”

  I wasn’t going to delve into how similar that sounded to the relationship he was pledging to me. Cassie had told me Lucien could extend her life, provide immortality. That was one of the benefits of a witch bonding with a demon—that and enhanced magical ability. But I assumed there had to be more. I assumed that there needed to be a connection between the witch and demon, not just a swipe-right if you think he’s cute thing. Cassie and Lucien…well, it was still pretty early in their relationship, but they were obviously in love.

  I’d totally do this guy, but no matter how hot he was, I wasn’t going to jump into a “I’ll serve you forever” thing with both feet.

  “My sister Adrienne talks to animals.” I looked around at all the items in the cabin that Diebin must have pilfered from town. No doubt ninety percent of our theft problem could be laid at this guy’s paws. “She can call animals to her, get them to do her bidding, communicate with them. It makes all the shifters in town super nervous, because their animal side is susceptible to her influence.”

  Adrienne spent more time outside of Accident then she did inside, probably for those very reasons. Every now and then someone would call her to take care of the non-vampire bats in their attic, or a wasp nest in their eaves, but most of her pest and wildlife removal customers tended to be outside of the town wards.

  “She is a witch as well?”

  I nodded. “We’re all witches. Seven sisters.”

  Diebin let out a stream of chatter.

  “He says he knows your sister. She has convinced him to vacate several homes and a chicken coop.” Hadur scowled. “That’s why we do not have more chicken for dinner.”

  “Sorry?” I squeaked, thinking that the guy looked really intimidating when he scowled. Kind of a combination of scary and hot.

  “No matter. Diebin has other options when it comes to providing me what I need. A few years ago, he discovered a large building filled with food and household goods.”

  Shit, the raccoon was probably raiding the new Walmart that had opened in the town just over from Accident. I ran my hand across the cotton sheets under the pelts and took note of candles, dishes, silverware, even a few books stacked up on the table. Paperbacks. Stephen King. Huh. No surprise there.

  “I’ll get you some more tea, and you rest. When you wake up, we’
ll talk more.” Hadur stood and made his way over to a mismatched set of mugs with quirky sayings, selecting a Keep Calm and Slay Your Enemies one. He dropped a teabag in and poured steaming water from a bright blue saucepan.

  Less than an acre. For two hundred years. A war demon. Shit, I felt so bad for this guy. Even though he didn’t seem to have been driven mad by his captivity, the way in which he’d eagerly pledged himself to me told me he was desperate to be free of his confines.

  And I was going to free him. As soon as I could walk again. Which might be a while. I suddenly envisioned myself trying to hop through the forest and up the side of a mountain with a broken leg and the reality of my situation came crashing down on me.

  Judging from the faint light outside the one window, it was early morning the day after I’d left the werewolf compound. Had anyone realized I was missing yet? Probably not. There was a good chance no one would know I was gone until I didn’t show up at the family dinner on Sunday at Cassie’s house. Maybe if one of my sisters called me for something and I didn’t respond, but that still might be days before they sent up an alarm.

  I hated the thought of them worrying about me, but even more, I was filled with self-pity at the realization that no one would miss me for days. No one. Not even a cat or a dog. I actually envied Hadur his raccoon buddy. I didn’t even have that.

  “My sisters are probably going to eventually come looking for me,” I told the demon. “Is there some way I can get a message to them? A flare? Smoke signals? A cell phone?” A cell phone. “Actually, can you go back to my truck and find my cell phone?”

  The raccoon chattered and hopped off the table, dashing through something that looked suspiciously like a doggie door, while Hadur brought me a hot cup of tea. “Diebin will find your belongings. But in the meantime, you must rest and heal.”

  I drank the tea, feeling immediately drowsy, the pain in my leg reduced to a dull throb. Nice tea. Nice stew. I’d sleep for a bit. And hopefully when I woke up, Diebin would be back with my cell phone.