The Wardens Boxed Set

by Heather D Glidewell

  “They do have names. I can for sure tell you that the fire girl, as you called her, hates when her title is used in place of it,” I laughed.

  “Oh I know, I just don’t remember them,” he blushed.

  “Dawn is fire, Krista is wind, Helen is earth and Rose is water,” I said softly, looking around the room.

  “Did you get all of this from the head of the people here?” he asked, blinking.

  “No, love, I actually know a lot more about this world than one would think,” I said, touching his face. “Now why do you say that they are damaged?”

  “The blonde, her spirit is good. She has a spring in her step. But there is a darkness that looms over her. You can see it on her face when she meets people. She’s afraid any one of them could be like him. The good thing about the neutralizer is that there are not many in this world. The chances of meeting a second one of his kind is rather slim. Still, she is going to have that fear as long as she walks this earth. In a small way it will always cause her not to trust.” Marshall seemed quite in tune with Krista’s mannerisms. “The other, she’s dark. I couldn’t read much into her, it was almost as if she was a glamour. You can see pain in her eyes but I’m not so certain it is from the trauma that John imposed upon her.”

  I felt my pulse increase again.

  “A glamour?” I gulped.

  “You know, someone who is fake,” he laughed. “I can’t believe I just said that about a warden. I bet she can strike me down with a blink of her eye.”

  “How do you know all this stuff?” I asked quietly.

  “It’s feelings, really. You can watch how someone carries him or herself and create the emotion that best suits the movement.” He shrugged. “The few times I changed my flesh I had to seriously study the person. I had to know everything, from the way their hair fell to the tiniest blemish on their body.”

  “One of these days you will have to show me what you do.” I raised an eyebrow.

  “It isn’t much different than when you changed the water to blood for Lilly. The body changes form fluidly, like the water. There is momentary pain but it numbs out quickly.” He was comfortable talking to me. I could still learn more about Miranda without having to actually be in her presence.

  “How so?” I smiled.

  “You changed a few ions, said a few words and that was that.” He winked. “It is really hard to explain without showing you. Once we get out of this secret room, I’ll show you mine and you can show me yours.” He wagged his eyebrows at me.

  I broke out into laughter.

  “Deal.” I held out my hand and we shook.

  He was going to find out one way or another.

  “Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?” Marshall asked, making my blood freeze.

  “I hear that quite a bit, it seems,” I said slowly, my eyes rolling towards him.

  “I was just wondering if you heard it. You know, some of the most attractive women in the world are never told they are beautiful.” He ran a hand over his head.

  “I’m not going to toot my own horn or anything, but yes,” I nodded at him, my eyes still watching his face.

  “Good,” he grinned. “I am truly blessed to know you, Miss Prudence.”

  “Marshall?” I said softly as he ran his fingers through my hair.

  “Yes?”

  “I think we can drop the formalities. Just call me Prudence,” I said, and he nodded.

  “I like that. This means we are friends.” His eyes lit up.

  “Yes, that is exactly what it means.” I pulled him closer to me and held on.

  Marshall was older than me in years and experience. Sooner or later he was going to find out that my age was slightly exaggerated. I was going to have to rely on our friendship to get us through the hard part. For someone who had a hard time making and maintaining friends her whole life, having him with me in that moment made me forget all those years of loneliness. I had truly found my truest friend.

  ***

  “Honey?” The knock on the door made me raise my head, placing my index finger over my lips. Marshall was snoring from across the room. Once they let him in, he refused to leave my side. Instead of fighting, Mona had agreed to allow him to stay just as long as he didn’t get in the way.

  “Hey, Mom.” I smiled at my mother as she came into the room.

  She glanced warmly at Marshall and then walked towards my bed.

  “Good to see you feeling better.” She gave me a forced smile.

  “Of course.” I raised an eyebrow at her.

  “You look so different.” She reached out and touched a strand of blonde hair and looked into my eyes.

  “This is how I looked when I was younger,” I said slowly, glancing at Marshall as he rolled over on the couch.

  “Yes, but it’s not how you looked a month ago.” She frowned.

  “It’s fine mother, it’s just hair,” I laughed.

  “I cannot bring Wesley or Aaron to see you. I don’t know how he made it in.” She pointed at Marshall.

  “Probably because he is my assistant,” I said, coughing on the last word.

  “You could very well be right,” she said, winking. “Sweet boy none the less.”

  “Why are you here?” I asked as she fidgeted in front of me.

  “I need to get you out of here,” she said quickly.

  “Why?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.

  “You’ve been in here for a week. Hidden, like you are some shameful secret.” She sounded upset.

  “Well, in a way, I am,” I laughed. “Mona had me killed. I cannot exactly go trudging out of this place with a smile on my face.”

  “Prudence!” she exclaimed, and her eyes shot open wide.

  I knew she had been trying to say my name but it came out as this one. No matter what she did, when she tried to call me Dawn she failed.

  “Mom, just stop, please. You shouldn’t call me that anyway.” I let my eyes fall. It felt odd to hear my mother call me Prudence.

  “I should be able to say my daughter’s name to her.” My mother rubbed a tear from her eye and looked towards the sleeping Marshall. “He can’t hear us, can he?”

  “No, he sleeps like the dead.” I nodded my head in his direction as he let out a loud snore.

  “I’m taking you to see Wesley. He’s been an emotional wreck since you were shot.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet.

  My knees knocked and my toes protested but after a few short wobbly steps, I was able to gain control of the muscles again.

  “Does the incubus know?” I asked as she opened the door. It led into a dark hallway.

  “Aaron is the one that is requesting that you go. We just have to be quiet.” She grabbed a cloak that was hanging neatly from a hook by the door of my room. I looked down, there was no handle. My room was a hole in the wall.

  “There’s no doorknob,” I said, pointing towards the wall as she placed the cloak over my blonde hair.

  “Of course not. You’re dead.” She winked at me and, grabbing my hand again, led me down a long corridor to a set of steps. We were met at the foot by Aaron in his evening wear. I was puzzled by the appearance.

  He never looked this nice when we were dating.

  His suit was black from the nape of the neck to the tips of his shoes. He wore a silk tie and shirt under a woven black jacket. His blond mane was styled precisely so that not a single stray hair was out of place. I had to admit to myself that it made my heart pound and a familiar yearning appear.

  “Look at you, handsome,” I said as I reached out to run my hand down his silk tie.

  Aaron looked at me and blushed.

  “No need for flattery, my love,” he said as he leaned in and kissed me on my cheek.

  My mother said nothing at the simple exchange. She handed me a key and pointed up the stairs.

  “Second door on the left.” Her voice was tense and her eyes were slits
as she looked around the dark hallway.

  “It will be OK,” Aaron reassured me as I took several steps towards Wesley’s room.

  It had been weeks since I had been near him. The quickness of my step and the pounding of my heart made my head spin. I wanted to see him. I needed to see him! I put the key in the door and turned it. My hands were shaking and I could feel cold sweat on my forehead. I rushed into the room and there, sitting on the bed looking at me, confused, was Wesley.

  “Um, hi,” he said awkwardly as I pulled the cloak off my head and threw it on the table near the wall.

  “Hi,” I said, standing there in my cotton pajamas.

  “They let you out,” he stated simply, standing up and awkwardly putting his arms around me.

  “Well, Mom said that they wanted me to see you.” I smiled at him. My palms were clammy but this reunion was not how I had pictured it being.

  “They?” He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you mean Aaron. Yeah he’s been pretty cool with me. I feel bad for wanting to kill the guy.”

  “He’s harmless,” I smiled.

  “Oh he’s far from harmless. I just see that there is some bad luck involved when it comes to being with you.” He gave me a nervous smile and sat back down on the bed.

  “What does that mean?” I crossed my arms over my chest and frowned at him.

  “Any man who falls in love with you is doomed to some life far beyond the supernatural.” He put his head in his hands. “Look at me and Aaron. Look what your world has done to us.”

  I wanted to slap him. It took everything in my power to keep from crossing that wooden floor and planting my hand across his cheek. Did he actually believe that I was responsible for what happened to him?

  “I hate to be the one to break it to you but I wasn’t the one that brought you into this world. That was Miranda! Oh, and you were already supernatural when she took you.” I pulled my lips tightly together and glared at him.

  I watched as his eyes changed color from blue to purple and then to a calming aqua.

  “I had visions. That is all I ever had: visions. I was able to see a small fraction into the future. What I had was controllable and easily dealt with. You, though, you are the offspring of heaven and hell. You wield fire from your fingers and pass judgment on those you feel deserve it.” He didn’t sound upset but I had a feeling he had been rehearsing this speech for some time now.

  “So that makes me the villain in this whole thing? It was never about Miranda and all those horrible things she did to you. It was about me and my secret.” I felt my lips quiver. This was not how I had pictured this at all.

  “Dawn, I fell in love with you without knowing what you are.” He looked at me. His eyes were constantly shifting, changing color then settling on something new. “If I had never fallen in love with you there never would have been the need for a war.”

  I picked up a book and threw it at him. He caught it in his hands before it hit him on the head.

  “You and I are not the cause of this!” I screamed at him. I didn’t care if the whole compound heard me. “Wait – you just called me Dawn.”

  “That is your name, is it not?” He looked at me, confused. I was sure my rapid mood swing had not helped the matter.

  “I have grown so used to being called Prudence that hearing my name again sounds so foreign.” I slumped down on the bed and looked at him.

  “Why did you come to the camp, Dawn?” Wesley asked. “As long as we were not together she was content. It was her mother that wanted her to burn everything. To incinerate the world. Get rid of the purebloods, the wardens, the human shards, leave only the humans. Burn heaven! Freeze hell! Watch it all go up in smoke.” He rolled his eyes. “I had to listen to that day in and day out.”

  “You were a slave to her,” I said softly. “She would tell you where to go and what to do. The hardest thing was watching you do as she said.”

  “I did what I had to in order to stay alive. Miranda needed me, I was her visual link to the warden world. In a way, I think she always knew you were one.” He put the book on the nightstand next to the bed.

  “She handed you out to other creatures as if you were a common wh … concubine.” I couldn’t say the other word; it sounded too dirty for what this was.

  “She wanted to make the perfect hybrid. Mix together all the bloodlines into one. She just wanted to know what it would do. So she lent me out for favors, the whole time knowing exactly what she was doing.” He scoffed. “Then you come in. Your Highness, all high and mighty. You had John wrapped around your little finger, no surprise. He would have done anything that you wanted. There was no need to bring a battle on those people.”

  “I came for you and found a prison camp,” I replied.

  “I never told you what the camp was. You said you would come for me; I didn’t care about all those other people out there. They meant nothing to me. Until the last time I saw you. When the changes were happening. I cared about them then.” His eyes were blue again as he looked at me.

  “Do you still love me?” I felt my voice catch in my throat.

  “To the moon and back.” He reached out and grabbed my arms, pulling me close to him. I could hear the odd beat of his heart. Supernatural maybe, but not the undead.

  “What happens now?” I asked as a tear slid down my cheek.

  “I don’t know. We can’t exactly pick up right where we left off. Too much damage has been done and too many things have changed.” I felt his lips on the top of my head.

  “Will you just hold me for a while? Until they come for me?” I asked as he started to rock.

  “Of course.” He laughed.

  “Say my name,” I requested. His arms tightened around me.

  “Dawn. My beautiful raven princess.”

  I closed my eyes as we swayed.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  Chapter Three: Gran

  I woke up in my room at about half past ten the next morning. The last thing I remembered was being in Wesley’s arms. I must have fallen asleep and someone had returned me to my bed before the light of the new day could come through the window. I glanced towards the wall where Marshall was still sleeping.

  Tossing my legs over the side of the hospital bed, I stood up and stretched. My muscles felt great, my head wasn’t foggy, and I looked like a train wreck. I nearly fell over when I saw my reflection in the mirror.

  “Have no fear my love. I am going to get you back into fabulous shape.” Mona’s voice echoed behind me as she came into the room. “First things first, dear. I need you to cover your head with a hat, put on these glasses and pretend to be invisible. Oh, and grab the boy. He’s coming with us.”

  Mona reached over and smacked Marshall on his foot. His eyes shot open and he jumped to his feet, teeth bared.

  “Oh please, child. I’ve met scarier things in the fairy woods. Come on, boy, we have a long day ahead of us.” She pushed both me and Marshall out the room’s makeshift door and into the hallway.

  Marshall was frantically rubbing his eyes and I stared at Mona, confused about what exactly was happening. I heard footsteps behind us and turned towards a familiar face.

  “I will be escorting my fair lady to the salon today,” Aaron said, trying not to laugh. “No really, we are going to the salon. Well more like a makeshift one, but there will be beautification completed.”

  I poked him and he jumped before giving off an exquisite smile.

  “You two must have been the cutest couple ever,” Mona said flatly as she walked by, rolling her eyes. “Come on children, we have a busy day and only a few hours in which to do everything.”

  We all followed in a line behind Mona, the two boys on either side of me shielding my face from prying eyes. I was pretty sure that, if I drew any attention, they wouldn’t be concerned with the fact that I had bodyguards. I was escorted to a limo and both Marshall and Aaron took a seat on either side of me, Aaron’s pinky brushing agai
nst my leg. I reached over and grabbed his hand, lacing my fingers through his instinctively. He seemed to not care, but there remained no emotion on his face that reminded me of the Aaron I had been with.

  My mother and father appeared a moment later with Kelly and Krista on their heels, crawling into the limo. The interior was now quite cozy. You could cut the awkwardness with a plastic knife. Dad sat next to Mona and my mother sat across from them, not making eye contact with either. Suspicious if you ask me.

  “Marshall, you are about to be let in on a family secret. You have been found worthy and she trusts you. I don’t know why, but she does.” Mona gave Marshall a smirk as the limo began to move.

  “I feel privileged.” He bowed towards her.

  I had a feeling he knew what she was because the smile on his face would not fade as he stared at her.

  “The priestess was never real. Well, not until I created her. Prudence never existed. She was merely a plot to get Wesley from the camp. The problem is, what I created to get the boy out turned out to be true. She proved on more than one occasion she was the all-powerful. Very few of the other girls like her were able to bend water to blood or simply turn aspirin to antibiotics.” Mona looked at my father and smiled. “I am rather proud of the woman I created.”

  Marshall looked at me, squeezing his eyebrows together, his eyes questioning. I felt the need to give him a formal introduction. I sucked in my breath and let it come out in a whisper.

  “I am Dawn Weathers. I am the fire warden,” I said softly as a smile spread across Marshall’s face.

  “I had a feeling,” he said as he glanced at the people around us.

  “What?” I asked, trying not to laugh.

  “She appeared to be too fake.” He pointed at Kelly and she frowned.

  It was odd seeing my old face staring back at me.

  “You can take the necklace off now,” Mona said to Kelly and she gratefully pulled it from her neck. Her body fluttered and there she was, my beautiful firewere.

  “Oh, thank God!” she squealed. “I couldn’t take much more, Dawn. I really couldn’t. It wasn’t the soldiers, or your family. It was Helen and Rose, always with their nitpicking. Nothing I did was right to them.”