The Crystal Warriors Series Bundle

by Maree Anderson

  She toyed with her pendant. “So, Mr. Stone—”

  “Peter.

  “Right. Peter. Is there anything in particular you’d like to do while we wait for the food to arrive?” She plastered a hopefully endearing, wide-eyed smile on her face while she mentally cursed her big mouth. Way to go, Jade. You should have been content to sit there, looking decorative for as long as he wanted you to. You should have let him take the lead. Men like that, taking control and all that other macho bullshit.

  One eyebrow quirked upward. “I am in no particular hurry.”

  Jade flushed at the subtle criticism. He’d indicated over the phone he desired her services for the entire day, and if he chose to spend a portion of it sitting round chatting, who was she to complain? She shifted in her chair, biting her lip and searching for something to say to ease the tension.

  “I meant no censure,” he said. “You take what people say too much to heart, Jade.”

  Damn. Her face must have betrayed her. The ease with which he could read her both frightened and angered her, and she ducked her head to hide her expression. Where did this old guy get off thinking he could make personal comments?

  He might think he knew her. He might imagine he’d accurately pegged her type given her obviously Asian heritage, her careful make-up, and the flirty sundress she’d paired with matching high-heeled sandals to better display her legs to full advantage. All he saw was a little China doll willing to take the easy way out and prostitute herself for money. But he had no idea who she truly was and why she’d stooped to doing this. She wouldn’t allow him to know the real Jade—couldn’t, because the real Jade hated him for wanting her.

  Just like she hated that she hadn’t been able to find another way.

  “Calm yourself, child.”

  She hadn’t heard him move but he was there, beside her, his hand clasping her wrist. And the warmth of his touch seeped into her skin, dissolving her disquiet, leaving her calm and relaxed and languid.

  “I have a present for you, Jade.” He tugged her from the refuge of the armchair. And as she stood, she had enough presence of mind to understand that this was it, the defining moment of her life.

  Last chance, Jade. Could she go through with it? Could she screw a stranger—and a practically ancient one at that—for money?

  Damn straight she could. She needed money fast. And she’d get it any way she could.

  She rested her hand on his forearm and allowed herself to be escorted to the huge bed.

  Peter perched on the edge of the bed by the heap of pillows, and patted the coverlet beside him. “Sit down, Jade.

  She joined him on the bed, resisting a childlike urge to bounce up and down on the mattress. So far, so good. But when she glanced at Peter, a sneering, hate-filled face superimposed itself upon his.

  It was a face that haunted her whenever she let down her guard. Nausea and revulsion twisted her guts. Necessity and pride was all that prevented her from bolting to the bathroom and locking herself in. Peter appeared to be a decent man. She couldn’t imagine him hurting her or degrading her. She could do this. She would do this. For her sister’s sake.

  While she took deep breaths to calm herself and tried to hide that she was freaking out, Peter opened the bedside drawer and retrieved an object wrapped in gold silk.

  He placed it in her lap. “This is for you, Jade. Treat him well, for he deserves a second chance at redemption.”

  Treat him well? She frowned at Peter’s choice of words, mulling them over in her mind to gauge hidden nuances and meanings. She instinctively understood his words were laced with secrets. If she accepted this gift, what else was she unknowingly accepting?

  The wrapped object was the size of her palm and its weight surprised her. Whatever-it-was felt solid and smooth beneath its silken wrapping. She unwound the strip of fine cloth—a scarf, at a guess—to reveal an egg-shaped stone of breath-stealing beauty, its polished emerald and jade hues perfectly offset by the deep gold of the scarf.

  She stroked the stone’s surface and it responded, warming beneath her fingertips, glowing as though polished by her light touch. Then it whispered to her, inserting its yearning, its long-endured pain and horror at its fate, into her unprepared mind. She shared its consciousness—she had no choice. And she, too, suffered.

  She tried break contact but her fingers were welded to the stone. She tried to scramble to her feet, hoping to spill the stone from her lap, but she could not make her body move. She tried to force her eyelids shut, but even her gaze was fixated on the cursed thing. She was powerless.

  Shit! All those tales about young girls arranging clandestine meetings with strange men they’d met online or through ads were right. But no one would ever believe this. And Jade hadn’t the faintest idea how to escape this… this… whatever the heck held her captive.

  “Do not fight him, Jade.”

  Fight what, exactly, goddamn it?

  She concentrated, trying to divorce her own senses from the all-consuming hope now emanating from the stone. Sweat beaded her forehead, the droplets plumping and merging into fine rivulets that snaked slowly down her temples before seeping into her hairline.

  “What is it?” she finally managed to grate from between tightly clenched teeth. “What. Is. This. Thing?”

  “He is your destiny, Jade,” Peter said. “Do not be afraid. He will not hurt you.”

  Yeah, right. Peter Stone was a whack-job. He’d hypnotized her. Or… or… done some weird pressure point nerve thingy to paralyze her. And he believed this stone had human characteristics, considered the cursed thing to be alive.

  She was in big trouble.

  Peter reached for the pendant nestling in her cleavage. His fingers were cool and impersonal on her skin as he rubbed the ingot-shaped stone briefly between his fingers before letting it fall. He backed away from her, out of her narrow line of sight.

  Her pendant hummed against her skin as though the old man’s touch had gifted it with a voice. Its sweet tones resounded in her mind, soothing her fears, quieting her need to resist. Its song crescendoed, and then sharpened into a questioning discord that thrummed through her body—

  And was answered by the stone resting in her lap.

  The full force of the stone’s power slammed into her. She was cast adrift on a sea of absolute resolve—the stone’s resolve. His resolve, for she could sense him now, an undeniably male presence calling to her, demanding her surrender.

  You are my savior. Her world became his deep voice echoing in her mind, his thoughts probing hers as he sought entrance to her innermost secrets, his hope that she would be the key to what he so desperately sought, his belief she was his safe haven.

  I am Malachite. And you…. You are mine.

  She struggled, fought him. He would not own her. He would not!

  Please…. Do not leave me here. I can bear it no longer. Please!

  Via their bizarre supernatural linkage, Jade shared his prison. Roiling blackness, a pitiless nothingness that absorbed all light and consumed all sensations. Until she’d found him, he’d been blind and deaf. When he’d howled his despair, no sound issued from his vocal cords. He didn’t know whether he’d been rendered dumb or whether sound no longer existed.

  Until she’d found him, he’d clawed and torn at his flesh but felt no pain. He hadn’t known whether he even owned a physical body in this space and time. For all he’d known, he’d been a disembodied brain floating in the seething darkness with nothing to comfort him but his thoughts. And his thoughts were guilt-ridden, self-loathing demons, eating away at his soul.

  Until she’d found him, he’d been in Halja, Hell.

  Please!

  How could she be so cruel as to resist his plea?

  She yielded.

  His answering roar was exultant.

  Jade struggled to her feet. The stone dropped from her lap, and when it hit the carpet it cracked in two.

  Freed from the stone’s influence, she toppled backward with w
hat seemed like excruciating slowness, stiffly leaden, arms hanging uselessly by her sides.

  Mid-fall, a blazing corona of light captured her gaze. Her back hit the mattress. She bounced once, twice, still paralyzed, her brain numbed except for growing wonder.

  A gray, ghostlike form materialized, its glacial blue eyes pain-filled and incongruously humanlike. The specter solidified into a human man who collapsed to the floor with a resounding thud.

  Jade couldn’t comprehend the enormity of what she’d witnessed. A man appearing from thin air? It wasn’t possible. He wasn’t possible.

  “Malachite!” The scream rent the quiet, contrived serenity of Peter’s hotel suite.

  A woman’s scream.

  Her scream.

  “Jade!” His hoarse shout reverberated throughout the room. His pain scoured her skull, and his horror at what he had become, what he was prepared to do to gain his freedom, lanced through Jade’s soul.

  The room wavered, becoming as fuzzy and indistinct as the thoughts clamoring in her beleaguered brain.

  ~~~

  Chapter Two

  Bloody hell. What on earth had hit her? The entire freakin’ forward pack of the Wallabies rugby team? Her body throbbed and ached. Her skin prickled, hyper-sensitive even to the tissue-light material of her summer dress. She tried to pry open her eyelids but her body refused to cooperate with her brain and with her eyes still firmly shut, her head lolled to one side.

  Cool cotton beneath her cheek—a pillow. Textured material beneath her out-flung hands suggested the coverlet of the bed. She twitched her toes. Someone had removed her sandals. Huh. At least she wouldn’t be poking holes in the hotel’s horrendously expensive bed linen.

  A voice yanked her from her musings—a pissed-off-to-the-max-sounding voice.

  “This cannot be right,” it rumbled. Not Peter’s voice. Too deep, the timbre too rich and chocolaty-smooth to be Peter’s.

  Jade finally managed to peel open her eyelids. The room was all blurry. She blinked and tried to focus.

  “What were you thinking, choosing this… this… fragile child for me? She will break in two if I so much as lay a finger on her.”

  Huh?

  “Have the long centuries of your guardianship finally addled your brain, old man?” Now the voice was like a lash, so rife with fury that Jade imagined poor Peter must be cowering on his knees.

  When Peter responded he didn’t sound the least bit cowed. His voice was low and calm. “My brain is as sharp as it has ever been. And you know very well that I am but a servant to the will of my goddess.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Then what is she doing in your bed, old man? Is it the will of your goddess to bond me to your cast-offs?”

  She didn’t catch Peter’s reply for everything started to go a little fuzzy around the edges again.

  She came to with a start—must have drifted off again. She lifted one incredibly heavy arm and managed to rub her eyes without sticking her fingers in her eyeballs. One more blink and a large form swam blurrily into view.

  She rubbed her eyes again. And just to be certain her vision was working properly, blinked a couple of times. Whoa. It was the phantom. But he was sure no phantom now. He was built, and his tight leather pants and sleeveless leather vest displayed his impressive physique to full advantage… if you liked that oh-so obvious “Hey, I work out!” tailoring for men. His shit-kicker boots further enhanced his “mess with me at your peril” image. He was all taut muscles and carefully leashed strength. A lean, mean, fighting machine of a man.

  The impossibility of a human being morphing into existence from thin air was too much for even Jade’s fertile imagination to cope with. She thrust what she’d witnessed from her mind and refused to believe it could have been real. She told herself he must have entered the room while she was out to it.

  Peter stood before the stranger, facing him as an equal. The old guy had guts, she’d give him that.

  “She is the one for you, Crystal Warrior,” Peter said. “Or to be precise, she will be,”

  “Admit it, Crystal Guardian, she is a mistake. Again.”

  “Jade is no mistake.”

  Jade stifled a snort. I should bloody well think not, she thought.

  “Jade. A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.”

  Mmm. His voice coated her skin, seeped into her sore muscles and eased her hurts. And she’d take the compliment, too. She’d never been called beautiful before.

  “But I need a woman, not a mere slip of a girl.”

  “You are remembering Francesca,” Peter said.

  “Yes, old man, I am remembering her. How could I ever forget her?”

  “I truly believed Francesca was—”

  “She was the one for me. The only one. Did you sense that from wherever you lurked, Guardian?”

  “I comprehend far more than you could ever know.”

  “Spare me your platitudes, old man. When you forced Francesca to choose between us, her pain rent my soul. She was already suffering but your gross miscalculation, your arrogance, increased her pain twofold. What say you to that?”

  Peter’s head swiveled toward her, and Jade shuttered her eyes, faking unconsciousness. The conversation was getting really interesting—out there, but interesting—and although she probably should have bolted for the door, a little voice inside her insisted that she wait to hear this play out.

  “I say, your suffering far exceeded hers, Malach. And I say the intentions of my goddess can be unfathomable—even to one who has faithfully served her for centuries. I do not profess to understand why Francesca was chosen for you at such a difficult time of her life. All I know is that she was. Just as I know that by the grace of the goddess, you have been given a second chance.”

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps your goddess is in truth a sadistic bitch. Perhaps she is merely enjoying a second opportunity to torture me for my sins.”

  “Believe what you will. Though it might please you to know both Kyan and your Lord Keeper Wulf have found joy in those chosen for them.”

  Jade cracked open her eyelids, her insatiable curiosity getting the better of her again.

  The big man’s fierce expression had softened. “I rejoice in the news my Lord Keeper has found happiness. And despite my personal dislike of Kyan, I wish both him and his woman well. No man should be made to suffer as we have.”

  He squeezed his eyelids shut, his body rigid, hands fisted at his side. And when he opened his eyes again, the pure anguish lurking in their pale blue depths sent icy shivers up Jade’s spine. “Why, Guardian? Why inflict me upon this girl? ’Tis foolhardy. I cannot see the slightest hope of redemption in such a choice.”

  “The choice has been made. For your own good, Malach, you must put your feelings for Francesca aside.”

  “I cannot.”

  Boy, this Francesca had really done a number on him.

  Peter heaved a defeated sigh. “Then there is little else I can do but leave you to your fate.”

  Hang on, Peter was talking departure?

  “No!” Jade blurted, struggling to sit. Her head bloomed with pain and tiny flecks of silver danced across her vision. She absently tried to brush them away. No way was he leaving her at the mercy of this stranger. That had so not been a part of their discussion. She swung her feet off the bed and used the mattress to push herself to her feet.

  Peter hastened to her side and she clutched his arm, grateful for the support. “Peter, what’s going on? Who is this man? And why does he keep referring to you as ‘Guardian’?”

  He placed a hand on her forehead and strangely, before she could push his hand away, her pounding headache eased. “His name is—”

  “Malach, yeah.” Jade summoned a high-wattage smile for the stranger. “Would you consider it rude if I asked you to leave, Mal? Like, now? Peter and I have some, uh, unfinished business.”

  “As do I.” He crossed his arms and glowered.

  Uh oh. Her smile didn’t seem to b
e working. She shrank back from that fierce, judgmental gaze.

  Peter propelled her forward until she stood directly before the big man. Malach. Peter’s hand on the small of her back ensured there was no place to hide. He was far stronger than he appeared.

  “Jade is the one for you, Malach,” the old man said. “She may be diminutive in stature but her spirit towers with potential. If you can find the key to her heart, she will truly be your savior. As will you be hers.”

  Jade cringed and ducked her head. She felt a little like she was being offered up to Malach as the solution to all his problems—as if she were some precious artifact with magical powers. Yeah. Right. As if. And even if she’d been inclined to help him, she could barely cope with her own problems let alone this stranger’s.

  Malach lifted her chin with gentle but insistent fingers. He examined her face and she took the opportunity to do some examining of her own.

  His silver-smattered raven hair suggested he was older than he first appeared. His darkly tanned face, etched with suffering, and the harsh lines about his mouth, told her he’d long ago forgotten how to smile. His eerily pale blue eyes were shadowed with memories that Jade suspected would be best buried deep and never unearthed. His was the face of a soldier returning from war, his soul crushed by the atrocities he’d witnessed. Even his impressive physique was marred by experience, the broad shoulders hunched slightly, as though to ward off unseen burdens.

  Jade didn’t know how she could possibly have gleaned all that just from looking at him, but she knew beyond a doubt it was the truth.

  He’d suffered horribly.

  She didn’t realize she’d reached for him until his callused hand engulfed hers, staying it and preventing her from touching his face. His brows knit as he gazed into her eyes, seeking answers to questions she didn’t know that she’d asked.

  Jade had always found it incredibly discomfiting to stare closely into the eyes of someone she’d just met. That sort of intimacy was for star-struck lovers or long-time partners who were comfortable in their own skins, like her parents had been. But she felt no desire to look away or even remove her hand from Malach’s grip. They were frozen in a tableau of waiting for… for… something.