The Guardian Read online

  “Well, technically not,” Reed stated, his words thoughtful. “We were left alone while you studied with me. It’s when I kissed you the first time.” I winced at the casual way he stated that apparently having no qualms about announcing it in front of his friends.

  “Thanks for the help, Frost,” I muttered. “Well, they may not have been there, but I can guarantee I didn’t get a look at you with your shirt off.”

  “Okay, so it was intuition?” Terran asked, stroking his beard. “You think you’re clairvoyant?”

  “Not impossible,” Onyx mused. “It’s a fairly rare power, but far from unheard of, and taking into account how you have combined powers, I wouldn’t exactly be surprised.”

  “No, it’s not that either.” I blinked. “Or, maybe it is, I don’t really know how clairvoyance works.” Could that be what this was? Clairvoyance? I had thought that was simply being able to see the future, making prophecies. “I had this, um, dream.” I shrugged, deciding to make the admission full and quick. “I was fantasizing. I let my mind wander after Terran and Reed kissed me, and I let myself imagine what would have happened if we hadn’t been just friends.”

  Onyx’s eyebrows were raised, and Terran and Reed were gaping at me. “That was when I walked in on you,” Onyx deduced, and I nodded.

  “I thought it was harmless,” I muttered. “Just trying to relax before everything happened. I mean, it was only a fantasy. And when Reed took off his shirt in the dream, I noticed the tattoo, though I just assumed I made it up as part of the fantasy. It’s not like I could have really known about it.”

  “You fantasized about us?” Terran’s voice was husky as he stepped closer to me, and I held up my hands to ward him off, though I couldn’t resist the smile. It was nice to be wanted the way the two of them — maybe even the three of them, I thought, with a glance at Onyx — wanted me. They made me feel sexy and desirable, something I hadn’t let myself think about in a while.

  “Not like it’s a far leap. I mean, you two are good kissers and it’s not like I was picturing anything deviant.” Well, unless they considered me picturing the both of them taking me at the same time as deviant.

  “Was I involved in this fantasy?” Onyx asked, his voice low. I wasn’t sure if he was offended that I hadn’t fantasized about him or if he would be offended if I told him I had.

  I squirmed slightly. “Well, no. I hadn’t even kissed you yet, so it would have been a little bit awkward if I was picturing you naked,” I justified.

  “So you pictured us naked?” Terran jumped in.

  “No,” I snapped. “Only partially naked.”

  Onyx stepped up next to me, stroking a hand down my hair. “Well, now that I’ve kissed you, maybe we can change that. I wouldn’t mind being in your fantasies.” His lips quirked up as he murmured so low I could barely catch it. “You are definitely in all of mine.”

  “You actually saw the tattoo?” Reed asked, curiously, though his eyes were heated. “You were between Terran and I. He was holding you, and I had my mouth on your breasts.”

  I blinked in shock at the accuracy of the statement. “How the hell did you know that? I thought I was the one you thought was clairvoyant.”

  Terran and Reed were staring at me with wide eyes as Onyx studied them. “We don’t typically share our fantasies with each other, so it hadn’t come up.” Terran scrubbed his hands over his face as he collected his thoughts. “Remember, it’s rare for Guardians to have a true charge. It is possible for you to pull us into your head, the same way you can call us into a room with you. The call isn’t something we hear, it’s a tug at our very souls, bringing us to you when you need us. Apparently, we answered to a different kind of need.”

  “I’m…” I trailed off with a shake of my head. “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say I’m sorry?” I twirled my hair between my fingers, braiding the strands rapidly as I thought. “I had no idea I could possibly do that, but I feel like I broke some kind of boundary.”

  “You didn’t.” Surprisingly, all three spoke at the same time.

  “This isn’t the way of humans, it’s true.” Reed spoke up. “It is something to be cherished amongst Guardians, however, it is never something to apologize for or be ashamed of.”

  “We have no issue with you pulling us into your fantasies, intentionally or unintentionally,” Terran added.

  “But how do I prevent myself from doing it again?” I threw up my hands in frustration.

  “You don’t,” Onyx said simply. “Unless you plan to find a way to control your thoughts, you would continue to pull us into your daydreams, or your actual dreams. Ideally, we would be awake at the time, and able to resist the pull if we knew you were safe and sleeping. If we are asleep as well, however, we may be just as unable to differentiate between whether we are dreaming or whether it is real.”

  “That’s not comforting,” I retorted with a scowl.

  “I wasn’t trying to be comforting.” He lifted a single shoulder in an elegant shrug. “You asked, I answered. Your only other option is simply not to fantasize, although I have no idea what it will mean for your actual dreams — you sleep so deeply at this point that none of us, as far as I know, have been pulled into your dreams yet.” He glanced at the others who shook their heads.

  “Great,” I grumbled. “I get kidnapped by faeries, thrown into life and death situations, have to become accustomed to an entirely new world and now I can’t even fantasize? How is any of this fair?”

  “You can still fantasize,” Reed pointed out. “You merely have to be okay with the fact that we may potentially see them.”

  I glared. “Oh, yeah, that’s easy to do. At that point why am I not just having sex with you, since I’m drawing you into it anyhow?”

  “Well, that’s an option too,” Reed offered with a shrug.

  Terran smacked Reed upside the head, the resounding crack filling the room. “You’re not helping anything, Reed.” Terran’s smile was soft as he faced me. “I’m sorry that you were uncomfortable in finding this out, and that it was such a large surprise in a sensitive situation. If it’s something we’re aware of, we can try to remove ourselves from the situation if you pull us in. I can’t guarantee it will work, we are biologically driven to respond to your need, but we will try.”

  I blew out an exasperated breath. I was humiliated beyond belief at this point and now I was frustrated as well. “Well, this has been fun.” I doubted I had ever turned this many shades of red in my lifetimes, and I wasn’t keen on repeating the experiment at any point in my future.

  Reed caught my hand as I headed back toward my room, interweaving his fingers with mine and catching my eye. “You don’t need to run, Tori. I’m sorry you’re embarrassed, but I would like to spend time with you.” He stroked a finger down my cheek, tapping my lips lightly. “Even if it’s just sitting out here with all of us, it doesn’t have to be time spent with just the two of us.”

  “We’ve all missed you, Tori,” Terran spoke up. I didn’t bother glancing at Onyx; I was sure he, at least, hadn’t missed me, despite being confused by the emotions that ran through him when I came close to dying. “We haven’t had much time just to get to know each other, to talk about things that aren’t life or death. We’d be honored if you’d just spend time with us.”

  I hesitated, uncertain of my footing here. It was one thing when I thought of them as teachers, but it felt more intimate to simply sit with them and talk about things with the illusion that we were friends. “I don’t know, is that, um, weird at all? I mean, you’re my Guardians.” It was a struggle to get those words out in that order. It was still hard to acknowledge them in the possessive sense.

  “We don’t have to just sit around,” Terran offered. “There’s plenty you haven’t seen here.”

  I considered that, debating with myself about what would be the best thing to do. If this was going to be my life from this point on, then I would need to acclimate to society, not simply hide in these warded rooms.
I wasn’t going to get closer to answers here, even though I had all the books I could ask for.

  “I still have so much I want to learn, so much I need to know.”

  “So let’s figure out exactly what you want to learn, make a list of what’s most important to you, and go from there. Would that work?” Onyx’s suggestion was surprisingly helpful, and I blinked at him, expecting the words to have come from Reed or Terran instead.

  “That’s a good idea,” I admitted.

  Reed tugged on our joined hands, drawing me back with him so that I could take a seat beside him on the couch. “So what is most important to you now?” he asked softly.

  I blanked for a moment, only able to stare at him. What would I classify as the most important thing for me at the moment? I knew what my old answer would be: living a life where I didn’t have to worry about bills with every penny I spent and reaching some semblance of normal so that I never had to hide my home life. When I first got here, it had been my wish to return home. Then what I most wanted to kick Birch’s ass. Now that all of those were behind me, what was my highest priority? I had plenty of questions, but which one stood out more than any of them?

  “I want to find out who killed my mom.” The words were low, but I knew they all heard me. “I know that may not be easy, but I think that would be the most important one.”

  “Then that’s what we’re going to do, Tori,” Terran replied, reaching across the table to give my knee a reassuring squeeze.

  “Do you still have the wolf?” I asked, curious. The three blinked in unison, and I resisted the urge to laugh. It sometimes felt as if they ran on the same circuit, reacting at the same moment.

  “He’s still in our section of the dungeons,” Terran confirmed with a nod.

  I stared at him blankly, my tone dry as I repeated, “Your section of the dungeons? You have your own section of the dungeons?” I shook my head, resisting the urge to rub at my temples. “This world is really weird, I never know what’s going to come out of your mouths.”

  Reed chuckled, stroking a hand down my arm. “You’ll get used to it in time. We’ll help you all we can.”

  “None of you can focus, I swear.” Onyx appeared as close to a headache as I was. “Why do you want to know about the wolf, Tourmaline?”

  “Well he had to find me somehow. Either he wanted me himself or he was involved due to someone else directing him, in which he’ll know who sent him. I know Terran didn’t get any information out of him, it? I may shock him enough or irritate him enough that he’ll speak to me.”

  I knew it was a long shot, but at least it was a place to start and I wanted to at least check it off of my list before we moved on to other avenues.

  “Werewolves aren’t exactly predictable,” Onyx muttered, “but with all three of us we should be able to keep you safe.”

  “Yeah, I kind of got that memo when it burst through my window and took out a chunk of my wall,” I replied sarcastically. “Apparently me being exposed to dangerous things is par for the course in this world, so let’s go expose me to another dangerous thing and then get on with our research.” I was a bit sad to release Reed’s hand, having enjoyed the comforting warmth he offered. At least I could be grateful I wasn’t dressed in red when I was going to meet the wolf.

  25

  The three flanked me, keeping me from prying eyes as we wound our way down corridors. I was surprised to see so many folks where we hadn’t previously, and from Onyx’s snarl, he apparently didn’t appreciate their intrusion near his rooms.

  “They’ll get over it soon,” Terran told Onyx quietly. “They’re just hoping for a look at her.”

  “I still don’t like it,” Onyx snapped, his voice just as low.

  “Like that’s a surprise,” I muttered. “I don’t there is much that you do like.”

  Onyx’s grey eyes were sharp as they darted to me. “There’s plenty I like, though it’s probably nothing like your dreams.” His husky tone was a challenge, his eyes holding mine as we walked. I refused to blush, merely arching an eyebrow at the innuendo. He smirked, turning away to face forward as we reached a stone staircase. The stone here was completely unornamented, the jagged chunks standing starkly on their own as if in warning to any who may try to descend.

  “So how secure is this dungeon?” I kept my tone casual despite the uptick in my heart rate while we walked. I would have liked to say I wasn’t scared, but I doubted the rapid tattoo my heart was beating was due to the minor exercise I was indulging in.

  “We haven’t had anyone escape in…” Reed trailed off for a moment as if calculating, before turning his attention to Onyx. “Has anyone ever escaped here to your memory?”

  “No one,” Onyx stated. “Not in any history of the Hold.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure they would admit if they had, it’d be great for PR and personal histories are so accurate. I’m sure none of the fae have ever committed an atrocity either.” All three stopped to look at me in shock and I shrugged. “What? It’s true. Everyone revises their history, spinning themselves so they aren’t the villain. It’s just nature.”

  “Human nature maybe,” Onyx muttered darkly.

  “You say your history goes back eons,” I pointed out as we continued our descent. I really wasn’t looking forward to climbing back up all of these stairs. “Do you honestly believe that everything you know, everything recorded, is completely accurate?”

  Reed cocked his head, mulling it over. “It’s an interesting idea. So you’re saying there is something in the Hold’s past that we may not know? It makes sense statistically.”

  “I’m just saying to take precautions,” I stated solemnly. “You protected me from Birch, and you did that by not letting your guards down. I’m simply saying that it may not be the best idea to let them down here either, even if you think it’s safe.”

  “You keep surprising me, banféinne,” Onyx’s voice was quiet. “You act human one moment, afraid the next, then suddenly come out with a tactical statement regarding something most wouldn’t think of. It’s a very odd combination.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe because I don’t think of it as tactics. I am mostly human, it’s how I was raised even if it’s not who I am genetically. I’m frequently afraid. I see things differently since I’m looking to ensure my own safety and because I’m seeing it in a way you’ve never been able to. An outsider can frequently provide perspectives you’ve never noticed.”

  “You were born to be a Guardian.” Terran’s proclamation had me stumbling.

  “What?” I gasped.

  “You fight for those who are weaker than you. You cannot abide unfair behaviors or rules that harm. You do not believe in cruelty. You think and plan how the future could be different, not willing to sit to the side and wait for things to change without your help,” he explained.

  “I think most people do that, really,” I murmured. “I don’t think that many of us are twisted, or truly want to hurt others. Some are merely too afraid or broken down, but if you give them a start they’ll run with it.”

  We continued down corridors that were cold now, damp clinging to the walls in patches. The only lights available were flickering orbs I wished I had the chance to explore. I assumed they were magic, not like a giant castle full of faeries and witches would stoop to using torches, and these seemed different from the lights in my rooms.

  “They’re spelled,” Reed called, noticing my interest. “They prevent anyone from hiding in the shadows between the lights. The flickering also puts anyone we bring here on edge, so it serves a dual purpose and helps during interrogations.”

  “That’s cheery. What ever happened to mind reading or, I don’t know, truth spells?”

  “Truth spells aren’t real,” Terran replied, as we continued down. I was really getting dizzy at this point. “Truth is different to different people. You have a person with a strong enough belief in something, or an inability to see around it, and that is their truth. Therefore, making a t
ruth spell unreliable and nearly impossible to invoke.”

  “Well what about the mind reading, then? I mean, Reed read my mind when we first met.”

  “You were shouting at me,” Reed pointed out. “Anyone would have been able to hear you. Everyone from the Fae Realm would learn from birth to shield their minds. As time builds up, that shield gets stronger and stronger. It will only end up breaking down once someone’s mind starts breaking. After that, their answers wouldn’t be reliable.”

  “So what does that leave?” I grimaced as the obvious came to mind. “Torture?” None of them answered, and I assumed I’d hit the nail on the head. “You do realize that torture has proven to be completely ineffective and that recipients will simply answer the way they believe you want so that the pain will end?”

  “It is rarely utilized, if that helps,” Terran’s reply was solemn. “For the most part, there hasn’t been a need, though all Guardians are trained for if the occasion arises.”

  “Yeah, not really helpful.” I wondered if that was a skill I would be expected to learn. I wasn’t sure that I could ever see myself torturing anyone, though I had never believed I would ever burn someone to a nearly unrecognizable husk the way I had Birch, either. It seemed being in the Fae Realm was drawing out a darker side of me than I had known existed.

  Onyx drew to the lead, halting in front of a metal doorframe, old and solid with rivets, no handle in sight. He pressed his hands against it, closing his eyes as he focused, and I could just make out the silver of his magic flaring around his fingers. The door dissolved, allowing the four of us to enter before it reappeared again, as solid as it had been before.

  “I doubt you will get anything useful, but you may question him.” Onyx indicated down the hallway, where another door stood at the end. “One of us will enter with you, but we will stay away from his line of sight. Speak with him, see if you can disconcert him enough to tell us what we want to know.”