Guardian 2

by Porter, Jack

  Ah. Maybe faith had been the wrong word? “I meant it—”

  “As a joke?” She laughed, but it was hollow. “I think maybe you and I have a differing sense of humor.”

  Yua turned on her heel and began marching up the mountain. I sighed and glanced at Megan, who shrugged.

  “I honestly didn’t think what you said was that bad, but maybe it’s another gap in a generation thing? Like how I can’t say oh my god around my grandmother?”

  “Perhaps.”

  But I got the feeling that this little outburst threaded back to something deeper. Yua had been avoiding a certain conversation with me for quite a while now. And I would not let the elephant in the room impede on our friendship, and possibly our relationship, any longer.

  Tonight, in the spirit realm. I’ll ask her about that masturbation memory and find out exactly why she’s been denying our obvious connection.

  That decided, I stamped out the fire from breakfast with my foot, only minding a little that the flame licked the bare flesh of my heel. Then I kicked dirt over the smoldering embers until I was sure none of the sparse vegetation around us would catch and burn.

  Megan hopped up onto my shoulder until we caught up to Yua, who refused to sit on my other and forced us into a slower pace. That didn’t turn out to be a big problem though, because the track quickly grew narrower and forced me to put Megan down within the span of an hour.

  With the sheer cliff on one side and a long, steep drop on the other, I carefully placed her feet in front of mine.

  “You know, heights are more of Hannah’s thing,” the redhead said. “Give me an ocean or river any day.”

  Nine

  Hours passed, with the track only getting more unstable.

  It was daunting, and nothing except pure willpower kept me alert enough to watch my next step. The coffee hadn’t done its job well enough. My brain was still running on fumes.

  I found myself wondering why Yua didn’t seem affected by the lack of true rest. Maybe it was something that would get easier with time?

  Maybe I just needed to be more patient?

  I let my frustration at this thought out in an audible growl, louder than I expected, which made both Yua and Megan glance back at me in question. I shook my head at them, letting them know I was alright.

  Why did everything seem to take such unwavering patience?

  Goddess, I think I’m beginning to hate that word.

  That thought caught me, and I frowned. I had always been a reasonably patient man before now. What changed? Why was I so antsy for action all of a sudden?

  My eyes drew themselves to Yua, almost as if she’d said my name, and insight hit me square in the forehead.

  Oh, shit. Was the reason for my sudden lack of patience stemming from my desire to hold Yua in my arms and do naughty things to her?

  I wanted her, that was no secret, but this was more than just a simple passing lust. It was a raging fervent desire that burned me up from the inside.

  Once again, I felt the memory of her fingertips travel up my arm and down, down, down. Feather light and so close to my cock that I could sense it. The memory was so real I swore I was back at the campfire.

  Knowing that this wasn’t new didn’t help. My dick stirred and hardened as I recalled the memory, and I grumbled to myself again.

  Part of me knew that this was probably just the island playing its usual games, stoking my desire in the same way that it messed with distances and directions, but that didn’t really help. In an effort to distract myself, I glanced up, focusing my attention on the girls.

  Megan walked ahead of Yua. Her concentration firmly on the path ahead. But Yua, I sucked in a breath. She was glancing back at me. Or rather, directly at my bulge.

  The way her eyes sharpened, then glossed over, and her breathing turned into airy almost sighs let me know that the island was impacting her the same way it impacted me. The way her pink lips parted in the most arousing way struck my core like a lightning bolt. My cock strained at the leather of my pants and Yua’s eyes sparkled in wonder as she stared.

  The lady monk stopped dead in her tracks as I approached. Her hand was already half raised, as if she wanted nothing more than to reach out and run her fingers across my length, just to see what I felt like.

  The knowledge that she’d never touched a man with that type of intimacy before wasn’t lost on me. Kain save my soul. That thought alone nearly undid me. Nearly brought me to my knees so I could let her explore me as much as she wanted. For as long as she needed to satisfy her curiosity.

  If I had been literally anywhere else, I would have done just that.

  Her hand stretched a little further. I held my breath and became as still as if I were just another stone in the rigid landscape. Briefly, a thought flitted through my mind. I wondered how possible it would be to get her off against the crumbling mountain edge.

  No. Not for her first time.

  I knew that, but still I couldn’t help but let myself imagine the way her legs would tremble under my efforts and the sounds her mouth would make.

  This fucking island, I thought to myself.

  Yua’s hand reached the point where it had been last night. I prayed this wouldn’t be the same teasing as before.

  But it wasn’t. She crossed that threshold and I couldn’t help but notice how she brushed her fingers across the front of my pants with the lightest of caresses, as if worried she would break me, or as if she herself would break.

  With an iron will, I kept myself under control while she slid her fingers further and further down the outline of my shaft. Her eyes grew wider as she counted every inch.

  “It’s so long,” she blinked in surprise. “And impossibly hard,” she whispered, and I realized at once she was talking to herself. Pure awe laced her words in a way that was so open and honest that my heart melted, and a smile started to curl my lips before Yua’s next words.

  “This place, I read men like to be touched here.” Her fingers brushed the sensitive spot just under the swell of my head. She stayed there, stroking slowly through my pants and driving me crazy.

  Fuck. Fuck.

  “Fuck.” The last curse escaped my mouth. It was a dark rumble that started deep in the back of my throat.

  Yua froze. I watched with hunger as a wave of red washed over her cheeks and down her neck. She jerked her hand back, as if shocked by what it had done without her consent. Her eyes snapped to mine, and she took two steps back. I considered maybe that was because of the expression on my face, which was sure to be nothing short of predatory.

  “No, Dexter, I was just—no, don’t look at me like that!” she exclaimed, stumbling over her words even as her eyes dipped to take me in again. Yua’s blush deepened when she realized there was no excuse plausible enough to talk her way out of her own actions. Well, other than the effects of the island, but even then….

  Oh yes, we were going to have that talk tonight.

  Returning my face to something resembling platonic neutrality, though I knew a smirk still lingered on my mouth like a tiny promise between us, I gestured to suggest we keep moving.

  “After you, Lady Monk.”

  She swallowed, placed both hands on her burning face, which was quite a feat considering she still had her staff in the crook of her arm, and turned on her heel.

  I took one lumbering step after her, then another, before I realized something was wrong. The path below me was sliding away. It was almost as if the island was playing some sort of cosmic joke.

  First the unmitigated lust, and now this.

  At the sounds of me desperately scrabbling about, Yua whipped around. Her quick eyes took in the situation in a split second. She twisted the staff in her arms once to hold the butt end out to me. Her voice was only slightly louder than the staff’s reverberating chimes off the landscape.

  “Dexter!” In that one word, I could hear her fear for my safety. I could hear the true undercurrent of her feelings for me.

  S
he leaned far over the abruptly sheer ledge, poking my arm with the cool gold tip of her staff.

  I knew what she wanted me to do. I also knew there was no way she could hold my weight. If I grabbed the end of her staff, I’d only succeed in dragging her down with me.

  My teeth clenched together. It was a long way down. This was going to hurt.

  But pain wasn’t death. Death would be what happened to Yua or Megan.

  Putting on a brave face, I gave Yua an apologetic smile that probably didn’t reach my eyes before I slipped away from the mountain and tumbled down and down while the wind howled in my ear.

  Ten

  Had I expected for the world to go dark the second I struck the ground below? That I’d black out and let my crystal given abilities heal me while I slept?

  Maybe.

  However, it seemed my Guardian self had other ideas.

  I stayed conscious throughout the entire ordeal. Well, almost conscious.

  Just not quite conscious enough to think through the pain. My consciousness was a ball of static, and the only thing that broke through it was the razor-sharp lash of agony.

  You know how sometimes adrenaline takes most of the pain away in a stressful situation so you can ensure your survival first?

  Yeah, this was nothing like that.

  Instead, it was pain like I’d never known, played out in a hierarchy along my body. This ranged from the aching distress of blunt force trauma to most of my internal organs and scaling up from there to the excruciating feeling of every bone—shattered, scattered, and jabbing my muscles just underneath the skin.

  Without a doubt, though, it was my breathing, burbling and wet, that caused the most torment.

  Oh, shit. Oh shit! I’m going to die.

  The mantra stuck with me for who knows how long as I lay there, the canyon dust finally settling around me from my impact. My vision was blurred at best anyway, and the one time I tried to lift my arm to check for skull damage, hellfire radiated through my entire being and I decided never to move again.

  At least my mist kept me warm.

  Something about that thought niggled at me. I clenched my jaw, trying to track it down. But all I could think about was that Yua and Megan were waiting for me, and Hannah and Layla had made me promise to come back safe and sound.

  And Piper was pregnant with my unborn child.

  Piper.

  That was it. I’d used my mist to heal her. Couldn’t I do the same for myself?

  Maybe I could.

  Closing my eyes, or maybe they were already closed, I focused on the warmth of the surrounding mist. I willed it to seek out all my injuries and do its thing to stitch me back together.

  This was easier said than done. It turned out, draining my own energy to heal my body wasn’t a quick process. It also felt unusual to experience the sensations twofold, one with my own physical body, and the other through the mist.

  It didn’t hurt, not really, as the mist had some sort of numbing quality that I liked. But there was pressure and worrisome sounds as the pieces of me clicked back into place.

  It took hours before I was able to move properly. Once I was able to sit up, though, I felt nearly good as new. I was still sore in places, but that was manageable.

  Cracking open my eyes, I sucked in a breath. Night wasn’t far away. I had to get moving. So, I hauled myself upright and tested my footing by balancing on one first, then the other.

  Still wobbly, I thought, reaching for the high canyon wall to support me. Not that it mattered. More important was that Yua and Megan would be beside themselves with worry. I had to find a way to get back to them.

  Except … the canyon was deep and dark, and looked quite different from how I might have expected.

  Fuck!

  I wasn’t where I should have been. The damned island had shifted me around again. Separated me from Yua and Megan.

  I had no idea where they were, or how I might get back to them.

  “Yua! Megan!” I shouted, hoping against hope that they would hear me and respond.

  But there was silence.

  “Yua! Megan!” I called again, and again, and again.

  Nothing.

  I had to accept that I couldn’t return to them right away, even if I tried to scale the cliff to my side.

  All I could do was find an alternate route, and hope to meet up with them later.

  I still had my sword, but my pack was long gone, I didn’t know where. My cloak and pants were a little torn up, and still carried the remnants of the tar pit on them, as well as a not inconsequential amount of my blood.

  But I was whole once again, and good to go. And it wasn’t like I had a huge choice in directions. So I started walking.

  * * *

  Two days passed.

  There was no need for me to sleep, even though I knew it would be good for my continued healing. I was already restless from staying in one spot too long.

  As I walked, I wondered at the thought. It felt like that same lack of patience rearing up again. The same desire for Yua that had washed over me before, courtesy of the island’s curious impacts on us all.

  And Yua wasn’t even here! Yet still, I found myself thinking about how much I wanted to be back in her presence once more.

  Nor was she the only one I missed. I was just as desperate to curl up with Megan’s lithe swimmer’s body near the fire and keep good on our promise of later.

  Even though I was running on fumes, I pressed on.

  I called out to them regularly, but got no response. I even tried to enter the spirit realm by myself, so I could at least communicate with Yua that way.

  But there was something I wasn’t quite getting. Something that prevented me from crossing that barrier.

  Or maybe I just needed more practice.

  The need to eat was not so easy to ignore. There was no wild game for me to chase this far down the steep mountains. Even if there was, I didn’t relish the thought of raw meat, despite knowing it wouldn’t make me sick.

  Still, during my training days, we’d been taught to use whatever was at hand in a survival situation.

  This came in handy when I discovered what was ‘on hand’. The canyon offered little as far as deer, rabbit, or even mice, but it did have an abundance of one thing.

  Insects.

  They weren’t all that bad. Okay, they were, but they also got the job done. I just had to think on the positive side of things until I could have Megan’s superior cooking again. Bugs were convenient because I didn’t have to waste energy chasing them down.

  They even came in a large variety of choices. Sure, every single one of those choices was as gross as all get out, but I found water enough to wash the less than savory meal down and cleanse my palate.

  Another full day of this cycle passed. The sky darkened as the sun slipped past some flat horizon I couldn’t see and just when I thought I’d never find my way out, I stumbled, or rather, slipped on a frozen lake.

  I admit it. I was tired. Three days without anything resembling sleep will do that to a guy. And stumbling over a frozen lake in the dark just seemed like a step too far.

  I didn’t relish the thought of taking a dip in freezing ice water if I ran into any thin patches.

  So I decided to take a real break for a change. But I had no intention of just going straight to sleep.

  Instead, I figured I’d give the spirit realm thing another go first.

  Sitting down cross legged like Yua had shown me, I placed my palms in my lap, closed my eyes, and tried to empty my mind of all thought except the remembered feelings of the spirit world.

  Maybe it was that I was tired, and emptying my mind came easier. Or maybe it was something else entirely.

  Either way, to my shock, it only took a few minutes to break through the mental block keeping me from the spirit realm.

  I rose above my body with a giddy chuckle, feeling like a child who got away with taking a cookie before dinner. Oh, Yua was going to be so pissed
that I’d done this by myself. But this was the only way I knew how to reach her. Besides, I knew enough to keep myself out of trouble. And I didn’t have any intention of galivanting around the universe again.

  This time, I intended to stay on the island pathways.

  So, fighting to keep the equilibrium of my astral form, I float-walked to the nearest yellow pathway running through the canyon, the color Yua told me was bound to the island, and jumped in.

  Eleven

  The yellow pathways led around the island alright, but the island was so big, I’d apparently misjudged my desired destination.

  There were no signs that I could use to let me know where I was going. No bursts of light to estimate how many miles I traveled. So, after ten minutes of riding the island pathway, I was unceremoniously dumped at one end of the island where the current abruptly stopped.

  In the middle of the sea.

  The water was gray, murky, and unsettled. I scrambled my astral body upward, trying to escape a large wave that ended up passing right through me.

  Once my heart settled in my ribcage, and I was sure I wouldn’t drop into the water, I inspected my surroundings.

  I was only a few yards away from the island shore, not far from where my plane had crashed. I could see the line of trees that got damaged when I smashed into them. The vegetation was starting to grow back now, and I knew in another six months, most of the damage would be gone.

  “How the hell did I end up here?” I spoke out loud, hearing the unusual way my words echoed in the spirit realm.

  If only Yua was there to answer my questions.

  Walking back to the yellow pathway, I watched the flow bounce back on itself. Yua mentioned you could travel two ways through the current, you just had to direct it where to go. That had been easy enough with her to guide me, but now that I had overshot my destination by so much, I wondered if I even could get back to my body.