Earth Warden

by Mina Carter

  Hawk curled a lip. He didn’t think much of the so-called Battle Wardens. They might carry some fancy-ass weaponry, but it was all for show. He doubted any of them had ever drawn a blade in the heat of battle. After all, why bother when they could just wiggle their fingers?

  But still, the Wardens wanted her dead. And there were an awful lot of them compared to just one of him. If he had any sense, he’d dump her pretty little ass right here and get the hell out of Dodge.

  She turned to him and hit him right with the trust thing again. Her eyes glittered in the darkness, their glorious color bright with unshed tears and hurt. Hawk’s heart lurched again. Fucking sucker. This is such a bad idea.

  “Come on, sweetheart, let’s get out of here,” he murmured, and drew her away into the darkness.

  ***

  It didn’t take long for Hawk to find them somewhere. Within minutes he was opening the door to a motel room and urging Lyssa through it ahead of him. Closing it, he threw the lock and bent to look through the blind at the window. Checking that they hadn’t been followed

  Lyssa wandered around the room, deliberately not looking at him. She could feel him watching her. Could feel the curiosity behind the look. It was like a damn elephant in the room. The same freaking elephant she’d had for years.

  “What?” she asked, and put her hand up to her face. “Have I got a mark on my nose or something?”

  “No.” He frowned, black brows snapping together as if she was a puzzle to be worked out. She knew what he was thinking. Nothing about her made sense, not to an outsider. She was Warden-born but didn’t live in a Haven. She froze as soon as someone used magic around her, and—as if her life couldn’t get any more shitty—the Wardens had signed a death warrant on her.

  “Aren’t you going to ward the door and windows or something?”

  There it was. The expectation she couldn’t fulfil. He saw her as a Warden, and she should be able to cast a ward to secure their location as easily as breathing. But nothing. No magic flowed through her body, the witching that her kind so easily manipulated stubbornly refused to acknowledge her presence.

  “How the hell do you expect me to do that?” Tears stabbed at the back of her eyes. She couldn’t do this. It was bad enough that her own kind wanted nothing to do with her, but to have to say those words out loud, that she was magic-less, brought it all back. Brought back being driven from the Havens, the loss of the only home she’d ever known.

  “I’m a void, okay? No…magic. Not now, not ever.”

  Her breath caught on a sob as she ran for the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. Shutting the world out so she could fall apart in peace.

  Chapter Six

  Hate to break it to you honey, but you look like shit.

  Lyssa stared at herself in the tiny mirror in the equally tiny bathroom. Some women looked wonderful when they cried. Their eyes sparkled as tears filled them. Tears which then streaked artfully down their cheeks accompanied by small, delicate sobs.

  Lyssa wasn’t one of them. When Lyssa cried she sounded like a cross between a pig and a donkey, her eyes went bright red, and her nose ran so much it could double as an Olympic contender. She patted at tear-puffed eyes with a wad of wet tissue in the vain hope it might bring the redness down.

  It didn’t. Instead, the tissue broke up and left her with scattered bits of toilet paper on her face instead.

  “Typical,” she grumbled, swiping the flecks off with a shaky hand.

  Sighing, she tried to repair the damage, wishing she hadn’t left her purse in the other room. So she did the best she could with what she had, which was nothing. But nothing short of a full makeover was going to help her out much here, she thought as she studied her reflection and put off the moment she had to emerge from the bathroom.

  What on earth had possessed her to blow up at him like that? It wasn’t as if any of this was his fault. In fact, if he hadn’t been around she’d be dead in that alley, or another somewhere, her body burned to crispy critter.

  She shivered as her over-active brain furnished her with the likely damage a fireball spell could do to a body and she swiped at her eyes again.

  Gathering her courage, she threw the tissues in the wastebasket and unlocked the door, closing it behind her as she looked around the small room. Her attention was drawn to him, and she admired his broad shoulders as he bent over at the window. Didn’t he ever take that bloody jacket off?

  “What are you doing?” She reached his side, her gaze wandering over the crude designs he was drawing in the salt. They almost looked like…

  “Are those supposed to be wards?” She chuckled. “Sorry to break it to you, handsome, but those wouldn’t even keep a Boggart out. Where’d you pick them up? A book on old wives tales?”

  “If you think you can do better, you do it!” he snapped and stalked away to drop into the chair by the bed.

  Lyssa cast a glance over her shoulder. Was he making fun of her? The void trying to draw a ward... What could be more ridiculous?

  She looked back at the designs in the salt and shook her head. Well, she couldn’t do any worse. At the least she could use basic, passive wards that would keep things like Boggarts and other little nasties out. Reaching out, she brushed over the designs Hawk had drawn, levelling the salt to start again.

  She was beautiful.

  Elbow propped on the arm of the chair and his chin rested on his hand, Hawk watched her from the other side of the room. Her slender finger sketched in the salt with delicate movements while her other hand traced absently in the air. Her lips moved silently all the while but even though he could lip read well, he couldn’t make out what she was saying.

  Then it happened.

  Instead of the witching flowing into the shapes drawn in the salt, they took shape in the air above. He stopped breathing, hardly able to believe what he was seeing. Never, in all his years as a Warrior, had he seen this. It was like she was sketching in the witching itself. Instead of merely siphoning off a little power to form the wards, she was forming them in magic itself. Making the essence of the room conform and shape its own protection. Like a Haven.

  Shiiiittt...

  That had to have been how the Havens had been made originally, magic that was reported to have been lost eons ago. Happening right in front of him.

  Stunned, Hawk shook his head. Whoever had told her she was powerless didn’t have a clue. The power was thick in the room as the witching itself reacted to her. It was a fickle thing at the best of times. Hawk had seen fully trained Battle Wardens struggle with it as they tried to bend it to their will and force it to comply. Which was just plain stupid. Forcing the witching was like trying to plait jam—impossible.

  However, it wasn’t evading Lyssa. It reacted to her lovingly, wrapping itself around her and begging for attention. But she ignored it, as though she didn’t or couldn’t see it.

  Hawk frowned.

  Why had the Wardens told her she was powerless when she obviously wasn’t? Why had she never been taught?

  He searched his memories, sifting through over heard stories and gossip he’d picked up when sheltering at Havens until he finally latched onto something. A half-remembered conversation that rapidly became suspicion as she moved around the room, warding all the entrances, even the little window in the bathroom.

  He swallowed hard as she finished the last of the wards, feeling like doing a little begging himself. As a warrior, the Witching ran strong in him and her presence called out to that part of him. She turned, wiping the loose salt from her fingers and caught him looking at her.

  “What’s up with you? Show’s over, buddy.”

  “Are you a virgin?” His question was abrupt and to the point. She had to be, there was no other explanation.

  “What? Yes...no!” On the defensive, she backed up, her eyes flashing with anger. “What the hell’s it got to do with you? You running some sort of survey on Warden sexual habits or something?”

  “I bloody wish!” he
snapped, then flinched as pain lanced through his side again. ”You people are that far up your own damn assholes these days half the time a Warrior can’t even get into a Haven never mind anything else.”

  She paused, watching him intently. Her gaze dropped to his side. “Are you okay?”

  Hawk’s temper flared, pain and exhaustion taking its toll.

  “Oh, yeah, I’m just fine and dandy. I’m stuck in a motel room until dawn, temptation staring me in the face and claw marks up my side to boot. So yeah, I’m tip-top. Thanks for asking!”

  “Where?” she demanded, marching over and matching him glare for glare. “Show me.”

  “Bossy mare,” he grumbled but did as she asked, shedding the heavy jacket and sitting on the bed. She gasped as she saw his ribs. The black shirt he wore was virtually shredded and the fabric soaked in drying and not-so-dry blood.

  “Oh my god, what happened?” she asked, kneeling on the bed next to him. Her gentle fingers probed at the torn edges of his flesh. “These...hell, you weren’t joking, were you? These really are claw marks!”

  “Demons,” Hawk replied. His eyes were closed, and her soft touch was more soothing than he’d admit to.

  It had been a long time since any woman had looked at him in concern, with worry shadowing her eyes. A little of his anger, his frustration, drained away.

  “Used a heal-all potion back in the diner so most of it should be closed up now. Just didn’t have enough juice for the worst of them. Got mauled pretty bad,” he admitted, although that wasn’t the half of it. Only his training and years of experience had kept him on his feet and alive tonight. He was damn lucky to still be breathing. But she didn’t need to know that. She looked worried enough already.

  “Okay, stay there. I’ll get something to clean you up.”

  He nodded and dropped his head forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The bed behind him dipped as she disappeared off into the bathroom for the second time that night.

  Hawk, how do you get yourself in these messes? Resignation and frustration warred with each other. Her instinctive reaction had been too telling.

  She was a virgin.

  At least he now knew why she hadn’t come into her power. She had to be an Earth Warden, and they drew power from Mother Earth in her fertile phase. From sex. No sex, no power. Even though a full charged Earth Warden would be real useful right about now, he couldn’t take her innocence. Not a man like him. She needed proper courting, flowers, and all that mushy crap. It wasn’t something Hawk had in him.

  Lyssa was gone less than a minute. She returned with a wet washcloth in her hand and crawled onto the bed behind him. She gasped at the sight of the claw marks and gently started washing his skin down.

  Silence stretched between them as she tended to his wounds. Who did this normally? Was there a Mrs. Hawk waiting for him to come home from a hard night of battling demons and tending his weary body when he did? Had she just been a moment’s temporary diversion in the alley? Jealousy shot through her, making her hand a little heavier as she scrubbed at a particularly stubborn spot of blood.

  “Oi!” He flinched away from her. “You’re not scrubbing tables now, so take it easy, would you?”

  “Sorry.” Lyssa bit her lip as she swept the cloth over his skin again. All the blood was gone, but she liked touching him, so she kept going, her strokes getting lighter and lighter…

  “That’ll do now. Stop.” The growled order took her by surprise, and her hand stilled for a moment.

  “I’m not done.”

  “Yes. You are.” Twisting around, he grabbed her wrist. The next moment Lyssa found herself flat on her back, pinned under a hard male body. A very hard, very aroused, male body.

  “I said...stop.”

  His voice was dangerously low, but nowhere near as dangerous as the look in his eyes. What she read there took her breath away. Frustration, anger, and a deep burning need. She’d thought he was indifferent to her, that the kiss in the alley was just his way of proving a point. Now that his guards had been stripped away, she could see what it cost him not to touch her, could see the control that was so close to breaking, and a thrill at her own feminine power filled her.

  “Why?” she asked, her eyes wide and oh-so-innocent.

  “Don’t play games with me, little Warden,” he bit out. “I don’t play by the rules, and you won’t like what happens.”

  “I might…”

  Her voice trailed off as she reached out with her free hand to touch his chest. She didn’t know what was driving her, she never acted like this, but there was just something about him. Something about the expanse of skin across his chest that demanded she touch it, stroke it.

  He moved like lightning, his hand snapping out and strong fingers closing around her wrist. First one, then the other, capturing both and stretching them above her head where he held them easily with one hand.

  Excitement shot through her as she felt the small tremble in his hands. He was so close to snapping. She should stop, not push his control any more, but she couldn’t help it, couldn’t resist baiting the tiger.

  “Don’t,” he repeated, although with her hands above her head like this there was no way she was doing anything. She just looked at him, her eyes wide with mock innocence, questions burning in their depths.

  “It’s a bad idea.” There was an edge of frustration in his voice as he answered and they both knew he wasn’t talking about her cleaning his back. They’d gone way past that now.

  “Why?”

  “It just is, okay?”

  “Seems like a good idea to me.”

  He groaned, closing his eyes for a second before they snapped open to pin her with a direct look. “You have no idea what you’re saying.”

  Lyssa matched him look for look. “We’re both above the age of consent here. So what’s the problem?”

  “You’re a virgin.”

  “And?” she asked, then laughed. She couldn’t believe this. “Okay, so I’m arguing with a hot guy about whether we're going to have sex… Time out! I thought it was supposed to be the other way around? Would it help if I promised it won’t take long?”

  Hawk’s eyes blazed, making her smile die on her lips. It was a look so hot she was surprised the air between them didn’t pop and crack—sizzling as it burned up. Her body agreed, responding wordlessly as a wet heat slipped between her thighs.

  “Not sex,” he growled. His hands tightened on her wrists, his anger visible as he moved over her, the hard wall of his chest brushing her breasts.

  “Well, what would you call it? Surely we don’t need to go through the birds and the bees.”

  Her sassy attitude faded as his hand closed around her throat. Heart lurching, she felt the latent strength in his fingers and realized just how strong he was. He could snap her neck like a twig if he wanted to.

  Hawk cursed and his touch gentled. He used his thumb to turn her chin, brushing the sensitive spot just under her ear and making her shiver.

  “Because, sweetheart,” he said on a breath, their eyes only inches apart, “we won’t just be having sex, we’ll be fucking like bunnies. And I promise you, it won’t be over quickly.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Not over quickly?” The dark look in her eyes almost undid him there and then. “If that’s your way of trying to dissuade me, then I’d say you failed on an epic scale.”

  Hawk had meant to shock her. By showing her a little of the dark passion tying him in knots, he’d hoped to scare her feminine sensibilities, hoped that her natural caution of the unknown—what with her being a virgin—would do the rest for him.

  No such luck.

  He hadn’t counted on the response being interest. An interest that lit up her violet eyes and had him hard and aching. As if he hadn’t had that damn problem already. He was so hard he was sure he was going to burst the zipper of his pants at any moment. He’d already ruined his jacket. He could do without having to fork out for new pants as well.

  Da
mn Sex Wardens, he cursed, stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, a roll in the hay with an Earth Warden would be beneficial. The magical fallout from her pleasure would heal all of his wounds and other aches and pains. But on the other hand she was a virgin, and Hawk didn’t do virgins. He didn’t have the patience to be gentle and mollycoddle them.

  All he wanted was a good, hard fuck.

  His lips hovered mere millimeters from hers. How he’d gotten there without noticing, he didn’t know. Just one kiss, he promised himself. Just one taste, and then he’d let her go and tell her she needed to find a nice little Warden-boy to shag and release her abilities.

  His lips brushed hers once, twice... He groaned, a needy sound deep down in his chest. She tasted wonderful. Cinnamon and vanilla with a hint of something else...something exotic. His tongue stroked out and teased along her upper lip to get her to open up for him. As soon as she did, he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue along hers to plunder the sweet recesses beyond her lips.

  She was soft, sweet, and more responsive than any man had a right to. Her tentative response fired his possessive nature. Not just her first Warrior, but the first man to ever touch her.

  Hawk stopped suddenly, his head bent over her neck as he tried to get control of himself. Christ, he hadn’t felt this out of control since he’d been a lad with his first woman. Or quite so close to spending himself in his pants either, he admitted to himself ruefully.

  Bracing his arms on either side of her head, he sighed. She was an innocent. He could quite easily keep her distracted and off balance until she was begging him to take her. But would that be fair? He wasn’t quite that much of a bastard.

  “If you don’t want this, move. Now,” he ordered gruffly, his instincts screaming at him for giving her the choice. All he wanted to do was strip the clothes from her and bury himself balls deep in her soft body.