Ways in the Guardian: A Menage Romance Book Collection

by Barbara Downey

  “No,” Anna said. “Not at all. You have been a brave and stalwart protector. You have shown nothing but courtesy and, um, deference. You have even provided our food, and it is so succulent.”

  “I thank you, m’Lady.”

  “This meat is so good,” Anna said. “It reminds me of these burritos we’d get at this cool Mexican place in Anaheim. What is it? Where’d you get it?”

  “It is lobo,” Eevan said. “I killed him in the night.”

  “Lobo?”

  “Wolf,” Allona said.

  “You’re for shit,” Anna said laughing. “Really, what is it?”

  “Lobo. With a little pepper.”

  “It can’t be,” Anna said dropping her meat.

  “The carcass is there,” Eevan said.

  “Are you crazy?” Anna cried.

  Allona looked up at the woman.

  “It is of no matter,” she said. “Wolves are—“

  “Wolves are a protected species!” Anna shouted standing and kicking at the fire. “They’re strong and proud and noble creatures, and they deserve to live. You can’t go killing them. Do you know how many federal and state laws you have violated? Do you know what kind of shit you’re in?”

  “My Lady,” Eevan said. “It is just a lobo.”

  “That’s it,” Anna said. “I’m done. When you go killing harmless wolves for some sort of emersion crap that’s the limit. I am outta here!”

  Chapter 7

  “Jonathan!” she cried in the cave. “Jonathan I want out! I want out of this shit immediately. That moron of yours just killed a wolf and tricked me into eating it. Jonathan this has gone too far. I want out this instant.”

  After her rant’s echoes had faded the cave was quiet. Anna felt a small chill.

  “Jonathan I know that you can hear me.”

  The silence scared her. But more than the silence was the sudden feeling that she was alone.

  “Look,” she said, “I’d better hear a car or a helicopter pronto, or you and my agent are going to have a real long talk.”

  There was nothing.

  “When I tell the press about this . . . Jonathan?”

  “Is your liege-lord so powerful,” Allona said, “that he can hear you from afar?”

  “You know he is,” Anna said turning and glaring at the woman.

  “Then why does he not answer?”

  “Listen you, the game is over; done, finished, finito. I’m not playing anymore, so you guys can quit your act. You got a working phone?”

  “A what?”

  “Oh will you please stop it,” Anna cried clutching her hair. “I want out and if you don’t help me get out now you are gonna be a grease-spot when I get done with you. Both of you. So start thinking about your career, dig into that bag of your and pull out your phone or your notepad or your crystal ball. I want to speak with Jonathan and I want to speak with him now.”

  Allona took a breath. She glanced outside. Eevan was away watering the horses. She went to her rucksack and drew out her orb. Anna stared, then rolled her eyes. It was a beautiful, flawless thing. It fit neatly in Allona’s palms, and Anna saw no ports or connectors, not even a base. She wondered how it charged.

  Allona walked deeper into the cave’s shadows and knelt with. She began a soft chanting. Anna watched as the ball slowly fogged from the inside.

  “I am trusting you, dear Anna,” Allona said, “because I fear your confusion and your desperation. Soft now, my friend. I will help you if I can. Come closer. Please. Kneel with me.”

  Fascinated, Anna obeyed. The haze in the ball glowed with its own light.

  “Hold your hands over the orb,” Allona said. “Breathe slow and deep, and clear your mind.”

  Anna had no idea what it meant to clear her mind, but she held her hands and breathed. The haze in the ball churned, then swirled. Colors began to form, and then those colors merged and formed and an image appeared.

  “Beka?”

  Anna looked to Allona, but the woman had her eyes shut and was humming and eerie sort of tune. Anna looked back to the sphere. Beka was staring at something. She was smiling and nodding. Then she laughed and clapped her hands in glee, and the moment that she did the view panned and Anna was looking at what Beka was staring at. It was the broken mirror. The glass was cracked with a thousand, thousand splinters, but in that mosaic Anna thought that she saw another woman. A woman who wasn’t Beka. She looked old, but she looked so happy.

  Suddenly the vision exploded.

  “Witchcraft!” Eevan shouted.

  The crystal ball shattered against the cave wall. Allona screamed and fell to the floor clutching her hands.

  “What the fuck!” Anna cried.

  Eevan had slashed with his sword. He whirled, took a stance and stood over the writhing Allona, his sword poised to kill.

  Anna shrieked like a banshee. She flipped onto her butt and nailed Eevan’s legs with a scissor kick. The knight crumbled to his back, his sword skittering across the ground. Anna leapt to her feet. Eevan reached to his weapon, but Anna kicked him in the groin and then stepped on his arm. The man cried out in pain. Anna swept up his sword and held it to his throat.

  “Devilry!” he cried.

  “Bullshit,” Anna said.

  “My Lady,” Allona gasped. “Spare him, please.”

  “Allona? Shit! Allona he cut you! You’re bleeding!”

  “She’s a witch!” Eevan cried.

  “She is not.”

  “But I am,” Allona said softly.

  “No you’re not!” Anna cried. “You’re an actor! This is an emersion game. You two got too caught up. Step back guys.”

  “By her own words,” Eevan said, “she is a witch.”

  “So what if she is?” Anna said. “That’s no call to go busting up her props and cutting her.”

  “The Holy Scripture commands ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’.”

  “Yeah? Well the Holy Scripture isn’t standing here with your own sword to your throat. So I’m doing the commanding now.”

  “You will burn in Hell!”

  “I will meet you there,” Anna said.

  “Then slay me, witch-friend,” he said. “I would rather die by your hand than serve the devil.”

  But even as he spoke Anna realized that they were in a spitting match that could have no good end. With his high-minded attitude the man was beyond reason. So she went beyond reason. She stood away.

  “Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll let you live. And I will go with you to Camelot. And there I will tell the tale of how you were bested by a woman. I’ll tell them how I kicked you in the pills, and how you groveled and cursed as I held your own sword to your throat. Wanna do that?”

  “You are vile.”

  “Whatever,” Anna said. “You gonna be a good boy or do I share stories with Guinevere?”

  Eevan shut his eyes and nodded. Anna tossed his sword to the ground and turned to Allona. The woman looked to her, half pleading and clutching her bleeding hands. Anna ran to her.

  “It is as I deserve,” Allona said, biting back her pain.

  “What?”

  “I am a witch.”

  Chapter 8

  If Anna had doubted the reality of her situation before, the shattered crystal ball, the blood on Allona’s hands, and the knight lying stunned changed her mind in an instant. Eevan had attacked with the rage of a zealot. Any un-staged blood on a set would have brought everything to an instant halt, but Anna believed that the maniac was ready to kill the woman.

  Anna stood on a razor’s edge. Something in her wanted to scream and cry and have a tantrum and deny everything and make it all go away. But as she looked into Allona’s frightened yet steely eyes, she found something inside of her. It was born of the same blind courage that had made her challenge a warrior in defense of a woman who she had—

  “Anna,” Allona said. “My rucksack. There are bandages and an ointment. Quickly. Please.”

  Anna found hersel
f. She was given direction and so she acted. She got the pack, found a clean roll of gauze and the red bottle Allona had asked for. The liquid was something like iodine. Allona grimaced with pain as Anna poured. Then, under Allona’s guidance she began binding the wound. Even as she did Anna felt a stirring inside of her.

  “My lady?” Allona asked, “how ever did you learn such skills of combat?”

  “Rush Hour 7, “she answered. “I did my own stunts.”

  Allona just looked at her.

  “Never mind,” Anna said. “So, you’re really a witch?”

  “Not of my own choosing.”

  “How . . . ?”

  “Since I can remember I was outcast,” Allona began. “These flecks on my skin, they set me apart. The other children shunned me, the adults feared me. They said I had the mark of the devil, and so would never be clean.”

  “Would no one help you?” Eevan asked. “Surely they must have read to you from the good book.”

  “Only the passages that condemned me. They were particularly fond of your favorite passage from Exodus. I lived in fear of being burned at the stake should someone fall unnaturally ill or some other unexplained thing happen.”

  “But,” Anna said, “they didn’t burn you.”

  “When I was eleven years old my own mother sold me to a young Gypsy woman. The price was a copper kettle. The Gypsy was indeed a witch, and yet she was the first person to show me any sort of kindness. She taught me the craft, and when I came of age . . .”

  “Go on,” Anna said.

  “I was nineteen and we were living in a village called Holt when they came for us. I managed to escape but . . .”

  “You poor, dear girl,” Anna said caressing the woman’s head to her breast. “If only you could come to my world. There you would find that things are so very different.”

  Allona flickered a smile. Then she took Anna’s hand and kissed it.

  “My Lady,” she said. “We must first return you to your world. And the way is through the Castle of Shallot, a goodly day’s journey from here.”

  “Then we should make haste,” Eevan said.

  “We?” Allona asked. “You would knowingly travel in the company of a witch?”

  “A child who is not nurtured to be good and pious,” he said, “will know only what they are taught. I judged rashly.”

  “You’d have killed me.”

  “I am a fool. Forgive me.”

  “You broke my crystal orb.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “You owe me.”

  “I will pray for your soul.”

  “Right,” Anna said. “Pray while we ride.”

  Eevan would not even entertain the notion of Anna riding clad as she was, so he wrapped her in his cloak. But she refused to ride sidesaddle and lady-like, rather she straddled the horse sitting behind him.

  “I’ve been on enough hogs in my time,” she said.

  “You ride hogs in your land?”

  “You wouldn’t believe.”

  Allona led the way north along the river that fed the lake. Riding across the lonely countryside Anna was taken aback with the beauty all around her. The place seemed as though she were living in HD. Everything was so crisp and so clear. The sun seemed brighter, the colors seemed more vibrant, and even the air was crisp and clean and alive with a thousand wonderful scents. The sky was so clear and blue that she thought it might crack.

  Yet it was the silence that got her. But for the horses hooves and the wind stirring leaves there were no other sounds. There was no highway nearby, and she didn’t see a single road. She heard no cars, no off-road vehicles and no motor of any kind. She saw no telephone poles or cell-towers, and there weren’t even any vapor trails in the sky.

  She thought a while about how she might be able to get used to this weird world. Then she had an urge for a mocha-latte, and so thought about the trade-offs. Then she thought about other things.

  She clutched Eevan tight as they rode. It was like holding onto a supple, living tree. She had been with many men, most of them built and healthy. But this guy was different. He was muscled, but not in a gym way. Like Allona, his body was sculpted by his world and his life, and that got her to thinking a little more.

  “Hey Lancelot,” she called.

  “I don’t –“

  “Sir Eevan, you married?”

  “No.”

  “Got a girlfriend?”

  “A what?”

  “Are you betrothed?”

  “No.”

  “You a virgin?”

  Anna laughed as she felt him stiffen. Even the horse’s gallop changed a little.

  “I guess not,” she said.

  Maybe it was the air, maybe it was the crazy world, but she found herself in a whimsical mood. She clutched him tighter, hanging her chin over his shoulder and pressing her breasts against him. She had her arms around his waist, then she slid a hand down to his thigh. He tensed. She felt his chain-mail, then dug under and found his thigh. Then she began exploring.

  “Oh Sampson,” she sighed.

  Chapter 9

  They followed the deer-trails along the river, stopping at noon to rest and water the horses. They drank freely from the river. Anna was astonished at how clean it and refreshing it was. Eevan shared cheese and bread. He made certain to let them know that his provisions were blessed, and Allona made a show of eating heartily. Eevan seemed puzzled when she showed no ill effects. Allona made a face at him. Eevan walked away to pray.

  “You know, m’Lady,” Allona said. “In the time it will take him to do his devotion . . .”

  “What?”

  “You saved my life. Is it not your own custom to return a kindness? Come hither.”

  In the rushes by the quietly flowing waters Anna was awash in bliss.

  “You,” Anna breathed as they cuddled. “I could seriously get used to you.”

  “Your words continue to confuse me,” Allona answered. “So I will speak in the language that knows no bounds.”

  Allona kissed her. It was a deep kiss. It was a soft kiss. But it was a kiss that held a passion that Anna had never known. She felt a mingling, a stirring of something so strong, and so Anna kissed back, feeling in that kiss a woman so alive and so fresh as to set her world aglow.

  Then they heard Eevan cry out in some sort of prayerful anguish. Allona giggled.

  “The man burns,” she said. “I saw you teasing him on the horse.”

  “I can be a little wicked sometimes,” Anna said.

  “Verily, you can.”

  “Allona?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well,” Anna said. “He is sort of cute, don’t you think?”

  “Your brain is again addled.”

  “Maybe. But can I tell you something?”

  She leaned in and whispered in Allona’s ear. Allona’s eyes narrowed, then slid to Anna. Then her eyes widened and she had to stifle her chuckle.

  “My Lady?”

  “In my world, it’s what we call being ‘whipped’.”

  Allona stared a moment, then as one the two burst into girlish giggles.

  “Hush now,” Allona said. “Our knight rises from his devotions.”

  Anna couldn’t help her chuckles. Eevan returned to the horses. The two women had just enough time to fix themselves. They looked up at him with gleaming eyes and broad grins.

  “Is there some jest?” he asked.

  “It’s a girl thing,” Anna said.

  They rode on. Eevan had folded his chain-mail so that his crotch was well armed. But Anna was not deterred, and as they galloped she would use the bumps and jostles to explore Eevan’s rugged frame. His pecs were amazing.

  The land began to look civilized. There were barley and rye planted neatly on either side of the river. The sun was low in the west when they mounted a small rise. Allona halted and they gazed into the gathering dusk. Before them the river widened, and on a small island stood a dilapidated castle.

  “Behold,”
Allona said. “Shallot.”

  “Four gray walls and four gray towers,” Anna quoted.

  “It has been abandoned since the Lady’s death. The peasants believe it haunted. We should tarry till morning; I would not trespass in the dark of night.”

  They camped by the river, tall, golden barleycorn all about them, swaying in the wind and seeming to whisper. Allona would not allow a fire, so their supper was cold, as were they.

  Eevan amused them with songs of bold adventure and daring deeds. And then Allona took up the entertainment with a soft, low, haunting lay about a beautiful lady who lived alone in a cavern by the meads.

  “Oh what can ail thee, knight at arms,” she sang, “alone and palely loitering?”

  She sang of how the beautiful lady lured men and enthralled them with her womanly charms. And as she sang the final words her song became a low whistle that seemed to be in harmony with the rustling barley. Eevan sat as if charmed. He was gazing a thousand yards away.

  “Oh knight at arms,” Anna sang softly.

  Eevan shook his head and found himself. He looked to see Anna crawling toward him in the clear moonlight. The cloak had parted and breasts dangled beneath her flimsy red garb. She smiled at him, but he could not tear his eyes from her exquisite form.

  “Lady Anna?” he managed.

  “I’m cold. Pray warm me?”

  “I – I –“

  “I also am chilled,” Allona said, sidling to his side. “And you are so big; you must have warmth enough for two.”

  He sat dumbfounded. Anna knelt before him and spread wide the cloak. He gaped. With her arms outstretched her breasts pressed against the flimsy fabric of her dress, her nipples standing erect with the night’s chill. He could feel her warmth. Allona draped an arm around his shoulders and was running her delicate fingers along the rippling of his chainmail sending shivers of delight through him.

  He clenched his eyes shut, remembering his vows. But then suddenly he found Anna’s naked breasts in his face. He tried to be strong. He tried to be pure and devout, but then she reached beneath and took his manhood in her soft delicate hand. He groaned and shivered, trying so hard to resist temptation.

  The next thing he knew he was lying on his back. The hand that held him became a pair of warm and luscious lips, and in a moment he was encased in her loving mouth.