Awakening (Promiscus Guardians Book 1)

by Brianna West

  My mouth went dry. “Lucas?” I asked, taking another step away. “You are in cahoots with Lucas?”

  The blonde man regarded me with a raise of his eyebrow. “Moya solnishka, you are acting quite strange. Is this what Lucas was talking about?” he said half to himself.

  I glanced back and saw a few men from the compound heading towards us. I started for them, but the blonde Russian surged ahead of me, throwing orb after orb and causing each man to fly backwards and to the floor.

  “We haven’t time,” he said, grabbing my arm roughly and pulling me down the hall. “We have to go.”

  I yanked my arm from his grasp. “Hell no!” I yelled before taking off the other direction.

  “Moya solnishka!” he called after me, but I was already turning the corner into the heat of the battle.

  There were several men that were similarly muscled like the blonde Russian had been. They were easily defeating the large number of men in the compound. I watched with rapture as their attacks continued, unlike anything I had ever seen.

  There were two men, of similar faces and bodies, working in unison to take down one man after another. A woman, easily maneuvering as if she was performing a dance, struck into several near her, easily defeating them with a swipe of her daggers.

  I watched with bated breath, feeling something inside of me responding to these newcomers.

  I knew they were the enemy. Why then? Why was I responding to them adversely? Why did it feel like I should go to them?

  “Izzy!” I heard a voice from the crowd.

  My eyes scanned the mosh pit of bodies until they found the man that I had previous run from. He was pleading with me, gesturing for me to come to him. I almost would have if not for it dawning on me that it was exactly what he wanted. He wanted me for his own gain, to use me as a weapon.

  I saw the group of attackers stall, watching me with interest as I stood still. They were confused. I could see them speaking to each other, shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders as if perplexed by my decision not to come. Another feeling welled up inside of me, urging me to them.

  “Izzy,” another voice called before Tristan was flying towards me.

  I watched him with interest, as if paralyzed by my own thoughts.

  Why did I suddenly feel fear with him flying towards me? Where was the urge to run coming from?

  “We need to get you somewhere safe,” he said as he landed and came towards me.

  I shifted away from him absently. His eyes watched me intensely. He made to grab for me, and I stepped just beyond his reach without a thought.

  “Izzy, what are you doing?” he asked, miffed.

  Lucas.

  That name made my heart beat faster. Not from fear. It was definitely not from fear.

  I looked over towards the man called Lucas, feeling that sense of need while I did. I needed to go to him. I attempted to, but Tristan caught my arm tightly.

  “Where are you going,” he growled, causing my body to quake out of fear. The hand holding me wrapped around me so tightly that I cringed and hissed in pain. “You will not go to him.”

  Lucas.

  I looked at Tristan. “Let go of me,” I gritted, yanking my arm as hard as I could to try to dislodge it.

  He pulled me, dragging me towards him.

  “Izzy!” Lucas cried out, sending my heart thumping in my chest.

  Lucas. He’s the one I need to be with.

  I gasped as pain seeped through my arm and into my body. The burning was excruciating; it made me shudder and cry out. I was lifted from the ground by my arm and levitated above it, feet dangling beneath me as I fought my growing agony.

  The fire-like pain licked through my body, causing my voice to erupt from me unbidden. I tried to escape the hold, and the pain, but it was no use. “Izzy!” Lucas called out, throwing a group of the surrounding men to the floor in his outrage.

  I watched with hazy eyes as he jumped and attempted to retrieve me from Tristan.

  “It’s too late,” Tristan stated with a dark smile. He let go of me, sending me hurdling towards the floor. However, Lucas easily caught me, sending my body into further pain with his touch. “The poison will kill her in no time.”

  I could see the glint of a sword in Lucas’ hand. My memories flitted back into existence, and I gasped with recognition.

  The Sword of Judgment!

  I watched as Lucas gripped the sword, watching Tristan as the angel nonchalantly hovered above us.

  “You have a choice to make,” Tristan said coolly. “The one you love, or your enemy. Choose wisely.”

  “Where is the antidote?” Lucas growled.

  I was slowly losing my ability to hear or see. The pain was growing so great that I was having a difficult time breathing. My entire body was consumed in flame. I was writhing and gasping against wave after wave of pain. I was scorched from the very core.

  “She will never remember you,” Tristan said with a deep chuckle. “Victor is the only one who can save her from such a poison. The blood of the chosen. You had better hurry. She’s fading quickly.”

  My throat had gone dry from screaming. I could hear voices, but they were skewed so much that I could make very little out. My suffering was greater each breath that I took, causing me to lose more and more ability to decipher what was being said.

  Lucas tightened his arms around me and called out to the hovering angel. “This isn’t the end, Tristan.”

  “For you it is. When she drinks the blood of the chosen, she will be connected to another in a way you will never connect to her,” Tristan said gleefully. “Practically married,” he added with a sweet note.

  I desperately fought to stay conscious, but I slipped into a dark place where the only thing I could feel, hear, or comprehend was unbearable pain.

  Chapter Fourteen

  If I had to describe the pain, it would be similar to being torn limb to limb by wild dogs, or disemboweled by zombies, or if you had been covered from head to toe in gasoline and set on fire, fully conscious through the whole experience.

  It was the single most excruciating pain of my life.

  It was the first time in my life that I ever thought that death would be easier and more welcomed.

  I wanted it to end.

  From head to toe, my body wrenched and twisted against the onset of pain, never lessening. My voice had long since silenced; not because I no longer felt the need to scream but because I no longer had the ability to.

  I had screamed for hours, days, weeks, maybe even years. Now, I couldn’t voice my torment. I could barely even move. I just twitched and gasped as the pain continued endlessly.

  When it all finally ended, I slipped into unconsciousness.

  --

  My mind awoke well before my body did. My muscles barely responded to me, incapable of movement from the long hours of seizing with intense pain.

  And it hurt like a bitch.

  I swallowed painfully around the dryness of my throat. I knew without even making an attempt that my voice was gone. So instead, I focused all my efforts in getting my eyes to open and my ears to listen.

  At first it was like being submerged well below the surface of water. All the voices around me sounded disembodied. I attempted time and time again to decipher what was being said, but it was as though my entire body was incapable of doing what it was supposed to.

  Fantastic. I was dead.

  I finally managed to blink my eyes open, but all I saw was a shapeless world full of fuzzy images and shadows. However, I managed to get some hearing back.

  “She’s awake,” someone said.

  At least, I think that’s what they said.

  Well, at least I wasn’t dead. I mean, if I was, no one would point out the fact that I had woken up, right?

  “It would seem it worked,” another said just beside me.

  What worked?

  I felt a hand brush over my cheeks, lips, and then lay softly against my forehead. It rested ther
e for a moment before pulling away. The touch was so loving that it very nearly made me cry. However, I still couldn’t figure out where or how I had gotten here.

  Who were these people?

  Bastards better not have done this to me. If they had, be assured, when I got full movement back in my limbs, my first physical act would be to beat the shit out of all of them.

  “Her fever has broken,” the voice said beside me. “Victor, can you heal her?”

  “I would much rather you did,” supposedly Victor said.

  What I wouldn’t give to tell them both to piss off. This girl didn’t need their help.

  I attempted to move and pain shot through me. It felt like I had run several days at a marathon. Every muscle in my body was sore and throbbing in protest.

  Okay, I take that back. Heal me!

  “We do not know what adverse effects my healing her would cause,” the man named Victor went on to explain.

  Their voices and names sounded familiar to me. I wracked my brain to think about the possible reason for the familiarity, but I was still rather tired.

  My brain hurt, worse than any time at school when they forced me to take a test I was unprepared for.

  “I could transfer my energy,” another voice offered.

  “No,” came the swift reply of the man beside me. “I will heal her.”

  “Then get on with it,” another voice said with irritation. “Can’t you see she is in pain?! Why are you stalling?”

  “Gustave,” a woman warned. “Lucas, more than any of us, wants to relieve Izzy of her torment. You must be patient.”

  “It was his plan that got our Izzy in such a state,” the man called Gustave said in a French accent laced with frustration. “If he had listened to my suggestion of another one going with him, she would never be in this state.”

  Whoa, this French dude was totally in love with me.

  I would have snickered if it weren’t for the pain it would cause me to do so.

  “Silence,” Lucas growled. I could feel the soft brush of his hand on my cheek just before the ache and heaviness of my body began to dissipate. “Izzy? Can you speak?”

  “No,” I responded to my surprise. I looked over at the man next to me with surprise. “Um, actually, yes,” I recovered with a small breath.

  Suddenly, everything clicked.

  This was Lucas, the man I loved, the one I had left unconscious on the floor of his house while I was stolen away by Tristan.

  I sat up quickly, looking about the room and seeing the rest of the Guardians standing in a horseshoe pattern around me. The formation was actually rather impressive, and I almost felt the need to applaud it.

  “Whoa,” I exclaimed at the grimness of all their faces. “Who died, guys?”

  Simultaneously, everyone in the room smiled at my question. It was a rush of bodies and voices. I barely comprehended between the numerous hugs and greetings before they all settled back into pattern.

  It all rushed me at once.

  Where was Tristan?

  “Lucas,” I gasped, turning towards him and then to Victor. “Where is Tristan?!”

  “Gone,” Victor responded sadly. “He will, no doubt, go into hiding until he rebuilds his strength.”

  “Dammit,” I cursed. “How the hell did he manage to erase my memories?”

  Victor shook his head sadly. “He is a very powerful angel, Izzy. However, it would seem his talents are only temporary with you. You managed to recall your memories, which led him to act well before he was prepared to.”

  I looked at Lucas again, suddenly very aware of him. It was as if I could feel his every emotion like they were my own. And suddenly, the very question of how and why I had overcome the pain plagued me.

  “How did you stop the poison?” I asked hesitantly.

  The entire room became heavy and stifling. Several of the group looked away, as if I would be able to read the answer in their expressions.

  I might be intuitive, but I wasn’t a mind reader. Still, I could read that whatever had been done, it was done as a last resort.

  “Lucas?” I demanded.

  “My blood,” he responded, eyes glinting with guilt.

  “Your blood?” I repeated, skeptical.

  Last I had heard, I needed the chosen’s blood. Whatever the hell that meant.

  “The act of blood taking and blood giving is very powerful,” Victor explained simply. “However, since the circumstances were dire, we thought it best if Lucas was the first to try.”

  “Tristan was under the impression that only pure blood angels could save you from his poison,” Lucas explained further. “However, that was not exactly true. At least, we know so now.”

  Hold on.

  “Okay, so if giving blood, as you’ve describe, saved me from the poison,” I started, “then why do you all look like sad puppies?”

  Very sad puppies. Prince Charming actually looked very close to crying, which would unfortunately make me laugh, so I’m glad he didn’t.

  “Because in our world,” Gustave interject, “the act of exchanging blood is an unbreakable bond similar to marriage in yours. The only difference being that you cannot stray from it.”

  “So…” I rasped, throat having gone dry. “Lucas and I are…married?”

  It’s just like me to get married while unconscious.

  “Essentially,” Victor responded. “It was Tristan’s hope that I would take your blood, and then give you mine as a way of filtering out the poison. It was his expectation that this would marry us in a sense. Since Lucas is part angel, I suggested he try first. It was a risk since it had never been attempted before, but fortunately, it ended the way we had hoped.”

  I looked at Lucas, hoping this was all some sort of joke. I mean, I loved the guy but marriage?

  You didn’t marry someone after only weeks of dating. Most of those weeks being spent under the pretense that he was actually my enemy, having been brainwashed by an evil Dark angel.

  However, despite my hope that it was just some sort of joke, Lucas’ face only confirmed that it was otherwise.

  Damn.

  I was a married woman. I was married, and I didn’t even have any cake or cheap champagne to show for it.

  I sank back against the headboard and looked out towards the group that had, in such a short time, become my family. Many of them were watching me, looking for any sign that I was about to throw some sort of serious bitch fit.

  It would have been rather funny if I wasn’t already drowning on the sudden information of my unconscious marriage.

  I was glad that it was to Lucas. If I had been somehow forced to marry Victor, I think I might have gone into full rampage mode.

  I mean, Victor was a hunk, but he wasn’t my hunk. It would be undoubtedly the most awkward marriage ever.

  So, being the sort of girl I was, I smiled while addressing the rest of them, “Well, is no one going to congratulate us?”

  Finally, as if being released with my words, the lot of them smiled and nodded. Cecile came ahead of the group, pressing kisses to my cheeks in her cute little French way, and offered me a congratulations. The rest followed suit, offering my hands kisses, and Lucas pats on the shoulder for a job well done.

  And in our awkward Guardian way, we moved forward.

  --

  It had been two weeks since I woke up married to Lucas. I had managed to regain all of my memories at the astonishment of the group. Victor had explained that the very fact that I had even broken through Tristan’s memory wash, and even regained every piece of memory, was a marvel.

  I didn’t really know what that all meant, but I assumed it meant I was awesome. No need to tell me. I knew that very well already.

  Tristan had disappeared without a trace, and Victor had declared me return-to-work ready. I was to be officially brought on as a Guardian by the council. I would serve out a training period of a couple of months before I got the official okay by the council.

  Lucas had remaine
d rather stoic the last two weeks. I didn’t lack for affection; actually, it was quite the opposite. The vampire-angel could barely keep his hands to himself, especially with the others nearby.

  However, he refused to talk about the weeks while I was imprisoned within my own mind, or how I came to be married to him. He said the details didn’t matter. I begged to differ.

  We had since moved back into his home; he had purchased it shortly after our return, so it was no longer a rental. He had insisted that I move in, and I wasn’t really in a place to argue. The rest of the group would come and go, but I was offered a permanent place there.

  Nattie had even come for a visit recently. When I was given the okay, I asked her by to explain the good news. In her mind, the entire time I had been away, I was in London with Lucas.

  Since we had been gone a few months, it wouldn’t seem unnatural for us to have decided to move in together. And it wasn’t. She accepted it without any complaint.

  I worried for my friend that had been brainwashed and memory washed so many times that there had to be irreparable damage. However, Lucas assured me that Nattie had received the best care when she had her memories erased and then replaced.

  I cuddled with a cup of coffee into the sofa, reading through the notes of the next case we were to work on. Lucas had been sitting silently beside me for minutes before he took the notes from my hand and placed them on the coffee table.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  Uh-oh.

  Talking to Lucas always led to me being either relocated or caged.

  “About?” I inquired, turning towards him.

  “Tristan,” he said firmly.

  I sighed dramatically. “Victor said that he’s gone into hiding, and he would be for a while since you defeated all of his little ninja minions and sabotaged his network.”

  “He still may seek to kidnap you,” Lucas argued seriously.

  Stubborn bastard.

  “There’s always going to be something or someone, Lucas,” I argued. “He caught us by surprise last time. It won’t happen again. I’ll be better trained and better equipped to handle him next time.”