Bound Guardian Angel

by Donya Lynne

  “Maybe you’re wrong.” Mya shrugged.

  “And maybe I’m right.”

  “Have you asked him?”

  Cordray flipped on the faucet and stuffed the brush in her mouth.

  Mya leaned through the doorway. “Have you?”

  Jesus, Mya couldn’t take a hint.

  She spit out the mint-flavored paste and spun around. “No! Now drop it!” She quickly rinsed and slapped off the faucet.

  “No.” Mya followed her back into the bedroom. “Not until you tell me why.”

  “This is my life, Mya. Why do you care so much?”

  Mya looked at her as if she hadn’t a clue about anything, frowning and tilting her head. “How can you even ask me that? You’re like a mother to me, C. A mother, a sister, a best friend. Believe me, I care.”

  Cordray slumped onto the edge of the bed, eyes closed, the wind draining from her sails. Her still-damp hair hung over her face.

  The bed dipped as Mya gingerly sat down beside her.

  For several long moments, neither said anything. Then Mya took Cordray’s hand in both of hers. The only way Cordray knew she had was that she felt her arm being lifted away from her leg. She couldn’t feel Mya’s hand on hers, or whether her hand was warm or cold. Just a shifting of weight.

  She opened her eyes and stared at Mya’s long, elegant fingers wrapped around hers. If only she could feel.

  But then, she could, couldn’t she? With Trace.

  “I can feel him,” she said quietly.

  “Who?”

  She sighed and lifted her gaze to Mya’s. “Trace. When he touches me, I feel it.”

  Mya pulled in a gentle gasp. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  She frowned. “How is that good?”

  Confusion tore at Mya’s expression. “Because . . . you can feel him.” She spoke slowly, as if she thought it should be obvious that this was good news, not a death sentence. “You can’t feel anybody, so yeah, this sounds like a good thing to me.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? Don’t you get it? He doesn’t want me. He hates me. If I give in to this, he’s just going to hurt me.” She shook her head, eyes closed. “I barely survived Gideon. If I allow Trace in, it will kill me when he rejects me. And he will reject me. It’s inevitable.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do. I’m the reason he got arrested. I’m the one who got him thrown into Bain’s dungeon. Which means he’s not my number one fan, and I’m not his.”

  “But if he’s as attracted to you as you seem to be to him, all that shit’s water under the bridge.”

  The day Trace let what she’d done to him become water under the bridge would be the day no water remained anywhere on the planet.

  “I doubt that’s the case.”

  Mya let go of her hand. “Maybe you’re just too chicken to find out.”

  To hell with that. “I’m anything but a chicken, Mya. You know that.”

  Mya shrugged. “If the shoe fits.” She pushed off the bed, grabbed the laundry basket, and headed toward the hallway.

  “Just drop it, Mya.”

  “Fine.” Mya stopped in the doorway and looked over her shoulder. “But you like him. You can’t deny that.” Mya turned on her heel, stepped into the hall, and shut the door behind her.

  Cordray glared at the door for at least a minute.

  Mya was a dear friend, but that didn’t mean she knew everything, or that she had the right to get in Cordray’s face about things that didn’t concern her.

  Still, she was right. She did like Trace.

  And didn’t admitting that sit like angry lizards on her gut?

  Cordray reluctantly stood and walked toward the window, where she slipped her fingers between two faux wooden slats and split them so she could peek outside. Trace picked Null up and placed him in the wheelbarrow. Aiden was already in it. Then Trace got behind the handles, lifted them, and pushed them farther down the fence to where another rail needed to be replaced.

  He was good with Null and Aiden. Better than she thought he would be.

  But he was awakening parts of her she thought had died a long time ago.

  She felt as if she had never moved on. That she was still the young, innocent, and terribly naïve pre-transitional girl she’d been with Gideon. For all her bravado—for all her toughness and blustery rough talk—she was just another insecure kid. One who’d been required to divide her father’s time with another family, who had been abandoned by love, and had lost every aspect of life that made it worth living.

  Cordray smiled as Trace hoisted Null out of the wheelbarrow and spun him around. She heard Null’s peals of laughter as he spread his arms and legs in midair. Aiden bounded toward them, her arms outstretched. Trace set Null down before picking up Aiden and spinning her, too.

  Yes, Trace was fucking up everything. He was opening her heart again. He was making her smile, giving her a false sense of hope that there was more to life than this self-imposed loneliness she had surrounded herself with. He was allowing her to think she could have it all.

  But that was a pipe dream. What she’d had with Gideon hadn’t been real. If it had been, he wouldn’t have mated someone else. And now, here came Trace, like a knight in shining armor, to drag her from the tower prison as if she were Rapunzel or Cinderella or whatever sissy-faced fairy-tale maiden had allowed herself to be treated like shit and captured by evil forces.

  Cordray wasn’t a damsel in distress. And Trace wasn’t Prince Valiant. And life wasn’t a fairy tale. In real life, the prince saved the princess and then left her after falling in love with someone else. That’s how it was, and that was why she couldn’t let Trace rescue her now.

  But he was damn good with the children.

  Too damn good.

  Spinning, laughing, and tossing their little bodies in the air and catching them as they screeched for “More!” and “Higher!”

  He would make a wonderful father.

  A heartwarming mate.

  She let the blinds flap shut then climbed into bed, pulling the blankets halfway up her body as she settled her head on her pillow.

  She did like Trace. She liked him a lot.

  And she wanted to feel the pleasure he could give her.

  Maybe she could feel it now.

  Slipping her hand under the covers and inside the waist of her pants, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine Trace touching her. Tried to feel . . . something. Anything.

  But her long-dormant sex drive refused to budge. Without Trace doing the honors, she was a frigid, dried-up desert. No physical sensation whatsoever. Just . . . nothing. Not even numbness. Her libido was like a massive void. No spark.

  She stopped trying.

  Just let her fingers go lax against her mound.

  Then she broke down in pathetic sobs.

  She was that heartbroken, unfeeling, lonely girl she’d been that night in the woods.

  The night Gideon shattered her heart and stole her sense of touch forever.

  Chapter 15

  Trace tossed the last broken rail into the wheelbarrow and stuffed the hammer through the loop in the tool belt he’d found in the barn. Null and Aiden were busying themselves poking sticks in a shallow mound of muddy dirt.

  His stomach rumbled, and he pulled out his phone to check the time. It was almost eleven thirty. What time did they eat lunch around here?

  “Twace! Twace! Look what I found!” Null darted toward him, holding a flat, brownish rock in his tiny hand.

  “What’s that, little man?” He knelt and held his hand out, palm up.

  Null placed his small treasure in his palm and beamed as if he’d found a lump of gold. “It’s an awwowhead.”

  “So it is.” Trace rolled the arrowhead between his fingers, admiring it, reminded of his time with the Choctaw. “Do you know what kind of stone the Indians used to make arrowheads like this?” He held it out so Null could take it back.

  “No.” The little boy squinted up at
him.

  Trace tapped the tip of his index finger on the arrowhead. “They used flint, or even a type of rock called obsidian, or another called chert, which contains fossils. Do you know what fossils are?”

  “Like dinosaur bones?” Aiden said, joining them.

  “Something like that, but the kinds of fossils in chert are smaller. Like seashells and bird bones.”

  Null eyed his arrowhead as if searching for evidence of fossils. “Is this chewt?” He lifted his gaze questioningly to Trace’s again. It was adorable how his tiny mouth couldn’t handle the letter R, but someday he would grow out of that.

  “I don’t think so. I think this is flint.”

  Null examined the arrowhead again then looked up, beaming. “Wanna see my wock cowwection?” It seemed R wasn’t the only letter he had trouble with.

  Before Trace could answer, Null grabbed his thumb and tugged him toward the main house as Aiden brought up the rear, never letting her brother get too far away from her.

  The smell of corn chowder and garlic bread assaulted his nose as he followed Null inside. Mya was in the kitchen tending to the stove.

  She turned, and her gaze swiftly inspected them as if she were in the habit of making sure no one tracked dirt inside. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

  Null hardly slowed as he galloped through the kitchen. “Twace wants to see my wock cowwection.”

  He shrugged helplessly as Aiden took his free hand and pulled him along.

  Who could resist these two?

  Mya grinned at him, shaking her head. “You’ve gone and done it now.”

  “Done what?”

  “Made two new best friends.” Her eyes sparkled as she suppressed a smile.

  “Yeah, looks that way.” He nodded toward the soup pot. “Smells good.” He’d have to see if he could get the recipe.

  Null stopped and faced him, tugging harder on his hand. “Come on, Twace!”

  Mya held her finger over her mouth. “Sssshhh. You need to be quiet. Cordray’s sleeping.”

  The beast actually slept?

  Null hung his head. “Sowwy.”

  Mya went back to stirring the soup. “Remember, quiet feet on the stairs. And only whispers.” She stepped back and checked inside the oven. “And don’t be too long. Lunch will be ready in a few minutes. So get washed up and hurry back.”

  Lunch. Thank God. Trace’s stomach had been rumbling for the past hour.

  Null yanked his hand again, pulled him through the dining room, the living room, and upstairs to a room outfitted with two small beds.

  “Is this your room?” he said, feeling like Gandalf in Bilbo Baggins’ hobbit hole. Everything was so tiny.

  Aiden opened a toy box under the window and pulled out a stuffed Pooh Bear as Null dropped to his knees and dragged a small plastic storage bin from under his bed.

  “No. My woom is in the school.” Null gestured toward the backyard without looking up. “But Aidy and I take naps and play in hewe sometimes.” He popped the blue lid off the box and dropped it on the wooden floor.

  “Sshh.” Trace placed his hand on the lid, quieting it. “Remember, Coco’s sleeping.”

  Null’s wide eyes peered toward the door. “Sowwy.” Then his little hands dove into the box of rocks.

  What an impressive collection. He had all kinds and sizes.

  “This is my favowite.” Null held up what appeared to be an unremarkable, jagged rock, but when he turned it over, sparkles of fool’s gold covered the other side.

  Trace reached inside the box and pulled out a small, shiny piece of what looked like rose quartz. “Where did you find this one?”

  “In the gawden.”

  “You know,” Trace said, sifting through the pile. “When I was a kid, I collected rocks, too.”

  “You did?”

  “Yep. I didn’t have as many as you do, though. I kept them in a leather pouch my father made for me.”

  He smiled at the memory. His parents hadn’t been overtly compassionate, but they’d loved him. He knew that now, and remembering the small things his father did for him made him see things in a different light than he had at eight or ten or even twelve years old.

  He should visit him, but he just wasn’t ready, especially now that he knew Brak was here. In time, though. He would visit them both when he felt ready.

  Facing them wouldn’t be easy. He’d fucked things up. He was responsible for Mother’s death. He’d be lucky if his father hadn’t disowned him.

  His eyes lit on a rock in the corner of Null’s box, half buried by the rest of his collection. He frowned. The rock looked familiar.

  Slowly reaching in, he rolled the other rocks away and pulled out the one that looked similar to the one from his own childhood collection. His favorite. The one that Mason had tossed into the pond two centuries ago. The white quartz with the black flecks.

  It wasn’t the same rock, but it easily could have come from the same place. That’s how similar Null’s was to his own.

  “Where did you find this?”

  Null lifted onto his knees and glanced into his palm. “Um, I think I found that one in the woods by the stweam.”

  Aiden hopped to his side and stared at the rock. She nodded. “Uh-huh. It was by the stream. I remember.”

  “Yeah.” Null nodded with his sister. “On the bank.” He rubbed his fingers back and forth over the rock’s surface.

  “Were there more like this one?” Trace brushed his thumb over a concentration of tiny black specks.

  Maybe he would never get his own rock back, but if he could at least replace it with one that was similar . . .

  “Want me to take you thewe? We can look.” Null’s big blue eyes shone as he grinned up at him.

  He closed his fist around the rock and nodded. “I’d like that, but we’ll probably need Coco’s permission first, huh? She runs a pretty tight ship.”

  Aiden tilted her head and frowned. “What’s a tight ship?”

  He had to remember he was talking to two-year-olds who weren’t yet familiar with such phrases. “Running a tight ship just means she likes order. That she likes everyone to be where they’re supposed to be and doing what they’re supposed to be doing. And if you’re going to do something else, you need to let her know.”

  The frown lifted from Aiden’s face, and she nodded. “Uh-huh. Coco likes a tight ship.”

  He chuckled. “I thought so.” He placed the rock back in Null’s box and bobbed his head toward the door. “So, are you two as hungry as I am?” He rubbed his belly.

  Both nodded.

  “Okay, then let’s go get cleaned up for lunch. I’m starved.”

  Null and Aiden hopped up and darted for the door.

  “You can sit next to me,” Null said. “I’ll save you a chaiow.”

  “Sounds like a plan, little man.” He high-fived Null, and then the two kids skittered into the hall. A moment later, he heard their clumsy footsteps tumble down the stairs.

  He might as well get cleaned up himself. Then after lunch, he’d get some sleep. He’d been up all night and was starting to feel it, especially after the time in King Bain’s dungeon had taken so much out of him.

  His room had a private bathroom, so he hopped in the shower, quickly lathered up and rinsed, driven by his growling stomach to hurry the hell up and get back downstairs. A few minutes later, he changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt then left his room and started down the hall toward the stairs.

  As he passed Cordray’s closed bedroom door, he slowed and inhaled. Her citrusy, midnight scent wafted into the hall.

  God, if only he could bottle that shit, he could rub it all over his skin and get high on it anytime he needed a pick-me-up. Closing his eyes, he took several deep breaths. What was it about Cordray’s scent that was so intoxicating? It wasn’t like she smelled any different than other females, and yet . . . she did. Hundreds of women carried the sweet but citrus scent of oranges, but with Cordray, it was darker, lustie
r, more exciting.

  He felt himself drift toward her door, and when he opened his eyes again, his hand was on the doorknob . . . and he was turning it. A force deep within him compelled him onward. He needed to get closer to her scent. To wrap it around him. To bathe in it. To revel in the way it washed through his senses and absorbed into skin.

  As the latch released, warmth blossomed inside his chest, and tingles shimmied through his fingers.

  He had no idea what this feeling was, but he liked it.

  Once he’d opened the door, he stared transfixed at the tattooed female in the center of the bed, surrounded by a sea of red satin.

  Cordray lay on her side, facing the door. Her black hair with its multihued blue streak covered half her face and spilled over the pillow.

  Of course she would sleep on a blood-red bed. She probably fantasized that her sheets were her victims’ blood. After all, this was Cordray.

  Lovely . . . breathtaking . . . exhilarating Cordray.

  In sleep, she looked as peaceful as a napping kitten, her prickly armor shed, leaving only tranquility. All that serenity enveloped Trace like a cozy blanket made of rabbit’s fur. Soft and warm. Magnetic.

  As if in a trance, he crossed the space between the door and the bed and knelt beside her. He placed his forearm on the mattress and rested his chin on it as he gingerly reached out with his other hand and caressed just the tips of her hair with his fingers.

  Her hair was cool and felt like strands of silk.

  Quiet calm wrapped around him. And something else. Something primal and urgent that ran starkly opposite from the calm energy taming his beast. Something that awakened his blood in such a pleasant, exciting way.

  Her chest rose and fell evenly as she breathed. Then she shifted and murmured as if talking in her sleep.

  Her lips parted, and a breathy moan that sounded almost sexual broke the stillness.

  Whatever she was dreaming about, it sounded good.

  She twisted and rolled so that she was partially on her back.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered sleepily, followed instantly by another moan. “Yesss.” The word trailed off on a drowsy sigh.

  Her breathing deepened and intensified as subtle waves of hormonal heat pulsed from her body.