by Jane Cousins
To Woo A Warrior
Southern Sanctuary – Book One
Jane Cousins
Copyright©2013. All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction.
For Dad - A warrior in word and deed. Love and thanks for always having my back.
And to Tom … for the sheep.
Chapter One
Time froze. The less than heartfelt apology for her tardiness dying on Hadleigh Valhalla’s lips as the air was sucked out of her lungs.
Too late her cousin Charisse’s words registered.
“Whatever you do, don’t look directly at it!”
“Arrgh!” Hadleigh flung up an arm to shield her eyes but the damage had been done. She’d seen a lot of ugly things in her time and generally ended up killing them but this … this thing defied description. It mocked the word ugly as pithy and stomped on an array of descriptive words such as loathsome, skin crawling and hideous. “Good Goddess, what in the Hell is that?”
“That cousin dearest is your bridesmaid dress. No don’t look at me!”
Hadleigh ignored the warning and turned, taking in the sight of Charisse in her own matching nightmare. “Goddess, it looks like radioactive seaweed has become sentient and crawled out of the ocean.” Hadleigh felt the flare of magic cross her palm to her fingers seeking a weapon and release.
Charisse held up a warning hand, humming softly under her breath. Instantly peace and tranquillity blanketed the room.
Hadleigh sent her cousin a stormy look. “Bloody Sirens, if you’d just let me shred that sucker I could have gotten out of this whole nightmare.”
Charisse sent her a dazzling grin. “And why should you be so lucky? Misery loves company and we have eight assorted friends and relatives who have kindly covered all the mirrors in the dressing room next door. Come on. Just get the damn thing on. The sooner this is over with the sooner we can start drinking.”
Reluctantly Hadleigh grabbed the hanger. She’d picked up decapitated heads with less distaste. The dress was the colour of pond scum and appeared to be both ruched and ruffled to within an inch of its existence. The material was sack like but not unpleasant to touch. “What’s this made out of?”
Charisse yanked her dress up none too elegantly by the floppy cap sleeves, the sheer weight of all the material making it hang and droop in very unflattering places. “Ah well, that’s up for discussion at the moment. Gigi is voting that it’s some sort of carcass but Eli thinks Auntie Meg may have got the loom out, made a pact with the devil, and gone old school with some hessian and barbwire.”
Grabbing her duffle, trying not to jostle any of her back-up weapons Hadleigh followed Charisse. “What happened to the gold taffeta puff balls?” Anxious for a new topic. She desperately needed a distraction from the sight of the big limp mottled coloured bow that was currently hugging her cousin’s butt. Resigned that in the very near future one very much like it would be clinging to her own derriere.
“We think Aunt Meg used them as a ruse to get our measurements.”
Hadleigh choked back laughter. “I know we said at the time they made us look like gold Christmas ornaments but in comparison to this…”
Charisse abruptly stopped her gorgeous face slightly paler than normal and Hadleigh didn’t think it had anything to do with the Goddess awful dress she was wearing.
“What? What haven’t you told me?” Hadleigh dropped her duffle bag with fluid speed, stretched out her hand and began the call of magic for her favourite sword.
Charisse laughed softly. “No weapons needed. I just wanted to warn you that Gaia has gone a little Bridezilla on us and that you might want to leave your bag out here and put a lock down on your magic.”
Hadleigh frowned in disbelief. Generous of heart, soft spoken Gaia who scoffed at the whole traditional wedding thing, who, had only agreed to a church wedding and formal reception to stop her mother from hounding her? That Gaia had gone over to the dark side? Had these ‘unique’ - for want of a better descriptive word - gowns been Gaia’s idea and not her nuptial obsessed mother?
Charisse read her cousin’s mind. “I’m not kidding Hadleigh. She almost hexed the florist because he turned up with roses that weren’t pink enough. Trust me I saw those roses … they were plenty pink. And it’s not just the ceremony. She’s being smug about finding her meld match.”
“No?” Hadleigh couldn’t believe it.
Were they talking about the same person? Sweet Gaia who for the last sixteen years had sat and commiserated with all her female relatives at every family picnic, party and shindig about the lack of available men and the fact that these days their chances of finding suitable meld matches in the Southern Hemisphere were slim to none. It was beyond belief.
“But she and Sergei, the Council only just barely rated them a bronze meld match.”
Charisse rolled her sea green eyes skywards. “Well she’s acting like the elders declared them a gold meld instead of just scraping through as acceptable. And then there’s her dress.” Charisse shoved Hadleigh hurriedly into the dressing alcove and yanked the curtain closed. “Hurry up would you.”
Hadleigh knelt down to start working her steel capped boots off. “What about Gaia’s dress?”
“It’s a little...”
“Is she here yet?” The tone was high pitched, strident and virtually unrecognisable as belonging to her normally soft-spoken cousin.
The dressing room curtain was ripped opened and from her half kneeling position on the floor Hadleigh found herself eye to … well cleavage … lots and lots of cleavage … acres of cleavage. With an almost physical wrench she forced her gaze away letting it travel upwards. “Oh My Goddess … Gaia.” Hadleigh forced back the whimper that was trying to escape her suddenly dry throat at the sight of her normally hippie Mother Earth loving cousin having been transformed into what she could only think of as Dolly Parton gets married Vegas-style during the 70’s.
Just over 5 feet tall and a little plump, Gaia had managed to stuff her frame into a figure hugging floor length swathe of white lace with a neckline so low she resembled a tube of toothpaste being squeezed. Her long dark blond hair was drawn up into a mass of tube like curls frozen high on her head. And it looked as if a 12 year old had done her makeup with a heavy hand on the blue eye shadow and overly red lipstick.
Gaia had always had a soft understated natural prettiness, not a smidgeon of that beauty was in evidence now.
“You’re late.” Gaia screeched reminding Hadleigh of a Harpy she had once tangled with. Able to tear the flesh from your bones as easily with its voice as it could its razor sharp claws. “Are you trying to ruin my wedding? Is that what the plan is? I found a man Hadleigh, we’re a match. You’re just going to have get over your own issues and grow up.”
“Sorry … I was working.”
Gaia’s eyes narrowed, looking ready to shoot off another uncharacteristic vitriolic burst.
Hadleigh changed tactics, letting out a deep heartfelt sigh she lied her ass off. “Gosh Gaia you just look so … beautiful.”
For a moment Gaia wavered, then tears flooded her eyes as she reached over to wrap her arms around Hadleigh’s head, bringing her in close for a tight hug.
“Urrgh.” Hadleigh found herself suffocating. Death by cleavage, she could just see her obituary now.
“Don’t worry Hadleigh I’m sure you’ll find someone … someday. Probably not as handsome as my Sergei but someone who won’t mind that you’re so tall or built like an Amazon on steroids or walk like a man…”
Charisse pried them apart just in time. “Gaia Sweetie, isn’t it time for you to fit the tiara? Leave Hadleigh with me and I’ll get her ready in a jiffy.�
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Charisse gently manoeuvred the Bride out the room, all the while Gaia completely oblivious to the fact that Hadleigh had pulled a knife from her left boot and had been contemplating shoving it where the sun don’t shine. Bride be damned.
Muttering under her breath Hadleigh resumed yanking off her boots. “Don’t worry Hadleigh you’ll find a man … someday … even if you walk like a man … fight like a soldier.” She yanked her trousers off next. “Are built like a brick outhouse … the nerve. Where does she get off being so holier than thou?” Her long sleeved black top was next. Getting caught slightly as she tugged it off with vengeance. “I mean sure if I was to wear a low cut top and bat my big cow eyes at the first unibrow foreigner that knocks on my door at the height of a storm then I could have a man too.”
“Hey, what did you just say?” Charisse demanded suddenly.
“Ignore me.” Hadleigh grabbed the poor excuse for a bridesmaid dress from the hanger, pulling it on roughly with no regard whatsoever for the fabric. Who cared if it got torn? Then she could excuse herself from this nightmare and go home, soak in a bath with a good book and a glass of wine.
“No you said something … something important.” Charisse yanked the curtain open once more.
That was the problem with growing up in each other’s pockets, no privacy, no boundaries and no secrets. Hadleigh won the tussle with the dress to emerge dubiously victorious. “I’m always saying important stuff … you’ve just type cast me as the muscle and never take me seriously.” She jerked and dragged the dress into place; it was a lot of material. But then given her height she supposed there would have to be a lot just to cover all the important bits.
“No you said something about … oh my Goddess you bitch!” Charisse’s green eyes narrowed with a look of exasperation.
Hadleigh looked up from the disaster that was currently clinging to her frame. “What? Do I have a spider on me?”
She hated spiders. She could take on a nine foot tall Cyclops but spiders, ick, with their little hairy legs and multiple eyes.
“No.” Charisse rolled her eyes, reaching past Hadleigh to uncover the mirror. “Just look at yourself. How do you take an oversized sack made of bile and make it look as if you could wear it down a Paris runway?”
Now it was Hadleigh’s turn to roll her eyes as she contemplated her reflection. “Whoa how come it’s so tight? Yours isn’t tight! Why does it have to cling?” She glared at her own reflection.
“Honestly you’ve been brainwashed by those three dumb lugs you call brothers. You look freaking amazing, even in that hideous sack. On the rest of us it hangs like the skin on one of those Shar Pei dogs … on you it hugs curves that should be outlawed.”
“The colour makes me look like a week old corpse.”
“No, on you the colour makes your skin even creamier and those darn clear grey eyes of yours glow. Honestly big deal you’re 6.6ft, you have a supermodel pout and hair the colour of fire-lit rubies.”
“I’m not that tall.” Hadleigh muttered under her breath, technically she was 6.5ft, nine tenths and three quarters. “And you are so full of shit Char.” Hadleigh tossed out her voice full of affection.
Charisse shook her head knowing her cousin refused to see what the rest of the world so clearly could. Those no good brothers of hers and that bad experience away at college had decimated Hadleigh’s self-esteem. “Come on. Grab your shoes, your swords, your mace, your knives and your backup knives. The sooner we get this over with the sooner I can hit the bar.”
Chapter Two
“You are such a shit stirrer!”
Charisse raised her glass in Hadleigh’s direction. “I’ll drink to that.”
“Don’t think I didn’t hear you humming. Just tell me why you felt it necessary to start a fight in the chapel? You couldn’t just let Gaia have her day?”
Charisse shrugged her delicate shoulders, one of the cap sleeves of her dress sliding down to her elbow as she reached for the bottle of wine to refill her once again empty glass. “I’m sorry okay. I was all prepared to let it go but then just before we walked down the aisle she leaned in to tell me that she intended to introduce me to Sergei’s cousin at the reception. That despite the fact that he has a lazy eye, is a little slow and has a nervous tick she thinks he would be perfect for me … since he can swim. As if that makes him perfect for me just because I’m a Siren … he can swim, hah!”
“Ummm.” Hadleigh rubbed her fingers lightly over the rapidly fading claw marks across her throat. “And what made you decide to let Gaia think I was the one trying to seduce her groom away from her at the altar?”
Charisse had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed. “It just seemed a good idea at the time. I saw her face when she got a glimpse of you in that dress. For a moment she was as green as these dresses with envy.”
“True.” Fraser, another of their cousins leaned across Charisse regarding Hadleigh with bemused wonder. “She would never have believed any of us could have captured his attention wearing one of these biological experiments.”
“That’s all well and good.” Hadleigh managed a gritted smile as she caught sight of one of her aunts glaring at her from across the reception hall. “But you weren’t the one who had to subdue the Bride in a headlock ... at the altar for pity sake.”
“Thank Goddess you did.” Eli, Fraser’s younger sister commented from across the table. “The way Gaia was swinging that shoe around like a weapon she could have ripped one of these gorgeous dresses and made it unwearable.”
“Good idea.” Charisse picked up her unused steak knife, grabbed a bunch of material around her waistline and sawed the knife across a section. “Darn those stilettos Gaia was waving about were sharp; it looks like she may have irreparably damaged my dress.” Charisse held her knife out to the rest of the table filled with bridesmaids. “Anyone else want the knife?”
The rest of the table’s occupants were too busy using their own cutlery to slice into their dresses to take Charisse up on her kind offer. Hadleigh grabbed the knife from Charisse who was still waving it around, her green eyes clouding a little at the amount of alcohol she had already managed to consume and the appetisers hadn’t even come out yet. It promised to be a very long reception as Hadleigh caught the eye of yet another aunt who sent her a hard disapproving look.
“Fine, but now everyone here thinks I’m a complete slut bag. That I would happily sink to ruining my own cousin’s wedding by making come-hither eyes at the unibrow groom until he can look at nothing but me rather than the bride. You couldn’t have sung your siren song after the photos had been taken?”
Charisse sat bolt upright so abruptly she knocked over Fraser’s glass. Luckily it was almost empty. “What did you just say?”
“I said you couldn’t wait until after the photos to pick a fight? With all the makeup she’s wearing it’s not like Gaia’s black eye is really noticeable but still you should have waited.” Hadleigh studied the besotted bridal couple who had made up and were currently drinking from each other’s champagne glass … ick, tacky.
“No, the unibrow thing! That’s where I’ve heard it before - Christmas!”
Gigi sitting on the far side of the table laughed. “Yeah you know the carol? All I want for Christmas is a unibrow groom?”
“Yes!” Charisse was looking triumphant. The rest of the table continued to look confused. “Don’t you remember what Gaia said to Great Aunt Alma at Christmas?”
Hadleigh shook her head along with the rest of her cousins.
“Ooh yes, I remember.” Quinn piped up snapping her fingers.
Instantly Hadleigh was back sitting at the Christmas table. Thanks to Quinn’s ability to read others memories and project them she wasn’t surprised to find herself in an unfamiliar body. From the looks of the thin tanned arms and tight red short sleeve top she was in second Cousin Maureen’s body. Maureen was the biggest gossip in the family. She had an uncanny talent for being in the right place at the right time to w
itness or eavesdrop oh so accidentally on all the good stuff. Just like Christmas day when she’d managed to sit herself next to long lost Great Aunt Alma.
Following the death of her meld husband 22 years ago Alma had quit her job on the council and high tailed it out of the Sanctuary to travel the world on a never-ending series of cruises. If it hadn’t been for the salmonella outbreak on the Queen Regina it was doubtful they would have seen her this past Christmas at all.
Alma’s sudden appearance had surprised the entire family. Turning up looking rested and elegant, passing for a well-kept 60 year old when she was in reality well over one hundred. Her slim figure stylish in a French cut cream trouser suit and complimentary silk blouse that Hadleigh sensed Maureen felt a twinge of envy over. Alma’s only real acknowledgment of her age was her grey hair but even that was styled short and elegantly flipped out just above the shoulders.
Alma looked slightly out of place amidst the family mayhem as if she had forgotten what it was like to be part of the quirky community. Yet there was fondness in the gaze she passed over the one hundred odd family members present sitting down to eat at the long trestle table Auntie Magda had set up in the shade outside her home. Many of the older generation of aunts and uncles were kissing and cuddling as if they had been apart all year. That was the thing about meld matches; once you found that special someone and made the commitment then it was like you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself. Certainly the younger single generation had become used to all the public displays of affection and ignored the fact that many of the older couples went for long ‘walks’ into convenient linen closets during family gatherings. Though it was often disturbing to note when it was your own parents doing the disappearing.
Maureen observed that Alma’s focus seemed to be on the four youngest members of the party. Ten year old CJ and his older brother by two years Jonty playing with their dog Pepper. And Gigi’s baby sisters, Chase and Brynn, the twins, who at a coltishly 16 years of age were showing early promise of beauty with their fairy tale long white blond hair and matching violet eyes. Luckily for the male population the twosome were more interested in books than boys. That day they were reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Ashes in the Wind by Kathleen Woodiwiss; exchanging the books at the end of every chapter.
