Warmongers and Wands

by Dunbar, Debra

  This tough welder girl was scared. A fact which would surprise anyone except my sisters who knew that under the brawn and cheeky swagger was a total wimp who could be brought to her knees by a papercut or a wasp sting. This? I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to close my eyes and wake up when it was all over and I was in one piece again.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. My truck was most likely down in some ravine. The werewolves wouldn’t think to come look for me. My family wouldn’t notice my absence for a few days. I’d need to gather some courage and assess my physical condition, then decide how the heck I was going to get out of here and somewhere I could call for help.

  I tried again to unhook my seatbelt, whimpering in pain as I shifted to the side. It was truly jammed. And worse, it had become clear to me that my legs were not only trapped under the twisted dash, but one was definitely broken. Sitting back, I realized that even if I could get the seatbelt free, I’d have to deal with the hunk of metal trapping my legs. Then if some fricken miracle occurred and I freed my legs, I’d be facing an agonizing one-legged hop out of the woods and up the side of the mountain.

  Yeah. No.

  I looked for my purse which was nowhere to be found. Who knows where it had ended up as my truck had rolled down the hill. The contents were probably spilled all over the cab, and maybe even across the mountainside. Yep, I was pretty sure that was a lipstick down on the passenger-side floor.

  Lipstick. Don’t judge me. I sometimes wear lipstick, although in reality it’s more like tinted Chapstick. When you work outside all day, lips get chapped.

  Okay. Focus. I couldn’t sit here cold and wet in my smashed truck with injuries for days, praying that someone would manage to notice I was missing and track me down. I felt around, hoping that maybe some of my purse contents had landed near me and nearly cried from relief when I realized the multitool in my driver’s door pocket had somehow not been flung around the cab when I’d crashed. With shaking hands, I pulled it out and began sawing at the seatbelt.

  Those suckers were tougher than I’d ever imagined, but using the little saw on the multitool, I managed to disengage myself from the belt. Bruises. Cuts. I was pretty sure I had a cracked or bruised rib or three. My leg… I tried to pull free from the twisted dash and nearly vomited in pain.

  Guess I was back to waiting a couple of days for someone to rescue me. Maybe once daylight hit I’d be able to figure a way to get my legs free. Unscrew the dash with the multitool or something like that. Yeah. That was totally plausible. And in the meantime, I’d just freeze to death in the chill of the night, wet and injured in a broken truck.

  I blinked back my tears, gripped the multitool tight and closed my eyes, hoping when I opened them, all this would have been a bad dream.

  Instead I opened them to the sound of something against the door. Before I had a chance to ready my multitool for defense, the truck rocked from side to side. I gasped in pain, everything going momentarily black. When I could see again, I heard the squeal of twisting metal and turned to see the driver’s side door to my truck being torn off the hinges.

  I’ll admit to being momentarily annoyed that someone was tearing the door off my truck, but I quickly remembered that was the least of my worries. The truck was most likely totaled as well as my little trailer with my forge and all my tools. I was injured and trapped. Someone ripping the door off my truck meant I wasn’t down in this ravine alone. Had the paramedics found me? I blinked and tried to focus, expecting my sister Ophelia’s face to appear in the spot where my driver’s side door had once been.

  A face did appear but it wasn’t Ophelia’s, or anyone else I knew from Accident. This was a man with a tangle of dark wavy hair, a tanned face with a thick black beard, and light brown eyes under dark brows. There was a strange light filtering through the trees behind him that haloed his head, bringing an otherworldly feel to what had become a really shitty day.

  Who the hell was this guy? I knew everyone in Accident and I’d never seen this man before. Was I dead? If so, I’d expected to meet a geriatric Saint Peter at some pearly gates in the clouds, not be yanked from the wreckage of my truck by this Jason Momoa look-alike.

  Mmmm. Jason Momoa. Now that would be heaven.

  The man stared down at me, astonished, as if he’d never seen a woman in a wrecked car before. Guess that meant he wasn’t a paramedic. Or Saint Peter. He reached a hand toward me, swiping a finger along my cheek. It was red when he pulled it away. Rubbing the bloodied finger against his thumb, he frowned.

  This whole thing had taken a surreal turn—as if things could get any more surreal than the brakes going out in my truck during a thunderstorm, getting caught in a rockslide, and being hurtled down a mountain.

  He looked up from his fingers, his eyes meeting mine. “You came back.”

  His voice was deep and raspy, just as mesmerizing as his appearance.

  “You came back for me,” he repeated. Then, before I could reply that I had no idea who he was, the man reached in and pulled me from the truck.

  Actually, it wasn’t that easy. He went to wrap an arm around my waist and I screamed. The seatbelt was a dangling, sawed-in-half strap. The air bag was a chalky deflated mess on the steering wheel. Something in my chest had stabbed me like a knife when he’d touched me, and my legs were still pinned under the mangled dashboard.

  With a mumbled apology, the man grasped the steering wheel and yanked it from the car. Then he took the bottom part of the dash with both hands and twisted it upward. I inhaled sharply, feeling the pressure leave my legs, only to be replaced by agonizing pain.

  “You the Incredible Hulk or something?” I gasped. “Werewolf? Troll with glamour? Elephant shifter?”

  He didn’t reply; instead, he ran a hand over my legs, carefully easing my hips around. One hand came under my ass, the other across my shoulders.

  This was going to hurt.

  I blacked out as he pulled me from the car, only to come to with him carrying me snug against a rock-hard body, his hands gentle as they cradled me and supported my injured leg. I could feel the wiry softness of his beard against my face, feel the strength in his muscular arms. This would have been an amazing romance novel if only I wasn’t in so much pain.

  The next thing I knew, he was nudging a door open with his foot and carrying me into a one-room log cabin. A cheerful fire crackled in a stone fireplace against one wall. There was a pair of rough-hewn chairs and a table, a set of shelves with cooking utensils, and in the corner, a bed which seemed to be covered with a weird combination of cheap fleece blankets, leather, and animal skins.

  Kinky. Or survivalist Grizzly Adams. Or kinky survivalist Grizzly Adams.

  A chattering noise filled the room and a raccoon jumped onto the table, rising on its two hind legs to wave front paws in the air. It had to have been one of the biggest, fattest raccoons I’d ever seen in my life.

  “She returned,” the man told the raccoon. “And once I am free, you will get your reward. I keep my vows.”

  Okay, so hot Grizzly Adams here had a pet raccoon. Given that I’d been contemplating a cat or possibly a dog adoption in my near future, I wasn’t about to point fingers. People who lived alone…well, got lonely. I certainly knew that.

  “What’s his name?” I gasped, inclining my head toward the raccoon. It clearly says a lot about my mental, emotional, and physical state that I was asking the raccoon’s name and not the name of this gorgeous man carrying me.

  “Diebin.”

  Cute. I hoped he didn’t bite. I shifted a bit in the man’s arms and winced.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’ll live.” My breath was warm against his beard. I thought I’d live anyway. Cuts. Bruises. My rib. My left leg. Hopefully that was it and the adrenaline wasn’t covering up a ruptured spleen or a brain bleed or anything.

  “Thanks for finding me and getting me out of the truck,” I added, wondering why he was still standing in the middle of the room with me in his arms. N
ot that I was complaining or anything. I mean, a hot guy holding me was pretty darned nice. And I was certain the act of setting me down somewhere was going to bring on a fresh wave of agony.

  “I serve in the hope that you’ll finally free me,” he announced.

  Free him? What the hell was he talking about? Was he a shifter chafing under the rules of his pack? Was he under some sort of indentured servitude to the fae? A nine-to-five desk job he just couldn’t take any more?

  “I’ll do all I can,” I told him. The least I could do for this guy was get him out of whatever entanglement he needed freeing from, but even in my hurt state, I knew better than to blindly promise something I might not be able to deliver on. As a Perkins, I had significant standing in Accident, but there were things the family name couldn’t overcome. And compared to Cassie, I wasn’t all that powerful a witch. I could enchant objects—especially metal objects—but big spells took time as well as the appropriate astrological conditions. I wasn’t gifted enough to do much magic on the fly as some of my sisters could.

  “Why have you not healed yourself?” He eyed my leg. “Did your flying vehicle spell fail? Has another witch cursed you and blocked your powers?”

  I blinked, surprised that he knew I was a witch. I mean, if he went into town or up to the wolf pack compound, then he would obviously have heard about the Perkins sisters and how we were witches descended from the town founder. Someone might have pointed me out to him. But why didn’t I know him? I made it a habit to know all the town residents. How had this guy slipped in without my seeing him? Because someone who looked like he did wasn’t someone I’d see and forget.

  “I can’t do flying spells. And I haven’t been cursed—just a storm and a mechanical issue and a rockslide.” I grimaced, remembering the feeling of my truck going off the mountain. “And I suck at healing. That’s Glenda. My skill is in enchanting objects. Besides that, right now I’m in too much pain to concentrate. No magic happening here. Not at the moment.”

  Whew. Saying all that had completely worn me out. The kinky leather-and-fur bed was looking mighty inviting. Of course, just being here in these guy’s arms was pretty darn sweet as well.

  He chuckled. “I am not skilled in healing, either. My talents lay in a very different direction.”

  As much pain as I was in, my mind went right to the gutter. Talents. A guy that looked like this… damn, broken leg or not, I was not going to refuse if he offered up those sorts of talents to me.

  “I’ve seen enough injuries in my life that I know how to set bones and check for bleeding,” he added.

  As grateful as I was that my savior knew basic first aid, I got the feeling I might need more than splints and bandages. “Got a phone? Can you call an ambulance? Get Ophelia. Tell Cassie. Cassie needs to know. She’ll worry. Don’t want her to worry.”

  Shit, I was totally rambling. Going off the rails here. I’d already plunged over the side of a cliff physically, and now it seemed my mind was doing the same thing.

  The man didn’t answer me; instead, he crossed the room and laid me gently on the bed. Then he walked over to pick up what looked to be an old hunting knife with a rawhide handle from the table with the raccoon on it. I stared at the knife, thinking how amazing it would be in ritual. I could imbue such an object with magic, enchant it, and I got the impression that this knife would be the perfect medium to hold a spell.

  It was also perfect for cutting my clothes off.

  “Hey!” The knife sliced right through my tank top before I had a chance to get the word out. Darn it, that was one of my favorite tank tops, too.

  “I need to check your injuries,” he told me.

  I looked down, thinking that he was probably going to have to cut my pants off, but that my shirt could have stayed on. That’s when I realized I had a huge diagonal bruise across my chest, some raw and red seatbelt burns, and that the tank top was most likely a goner even before he’d started cutting. Even if I could get the blood out of it, there were holes and a rip right across where the bottom of my boob had been. Yeah, the shirt probably needed to go. The guy knew first aid. I was probably in shock. I needed to shut up and just let him do his thing.

  Trust. It wasn’t something I gave easily, but something told me I could trust this man.

  “Okay. Sorry. Go ahead.”

  I grimaced as he continued to slice with the knife, but I didn’t protest further. I tended to be more modest than most of my sisters, but it wasn’t like anyone had ever cared about seeing my naked body before, so I wasn’t particularly shy about this guy hacking the tank top from my body. He eased the scraps from under me and tossed them to the floor, his gaze roaming across my skin.

  It sent goosebumps in a wave over my flesh. Plenty of doctors and nurses had given my body a clinical once-over in my life, but there was something about the way this man looked at me. It was as if what he saw stirred him in some emotional way.

  It was as if he wanted to do more than just look.

  Before I realized what was happening, he moved to cut my bra off.

  “Oh, no. Not that.” I wrapped my hands across my boobs, not wanting to go that far.

  “You’re hurt.” He traced the bruise and rash from the seatbelt with the hand not holding the knife.

  “The ta-tas are fine. You can clean around the bra. Or put salve around the bra.”

  “Let me check.”

  I considered the request and thought about what was left of my pride, then removed my hands from my breasts. “Okay. Just leave the bra on.”

  He rolled his eyes, then gently eased the front of my bra down just enough to see the mark from the seatbelt. Gentle fingers traced the mark, then caressed the curve of my breasts before moving to cup them, brushing a thumb across my nipple. I sucked in a breath, immediately thinking of what those fingers could be doing elsewhere.

  With a lingering glance, his hands left my breasts and he got to work on removing my jeans, which quickly wiped out any sexy-time thoughts from my mind. Oh. My. God. Every slice of fabric, every slight move of my leg sent a fresh wave of agony through me.

  “It’s broken.”

  “Yeah. No, shit,” I panted. “Both? Or just the left one?”

  “Left. Your knee is swollen on the right, and there’s a deep bruise on your thigh where you were pinned by that metal. Left leg has the break. Luckily, it’s incomplete.”

  Incomplete. My sister Ophelia was a paramedic and I knew enough to realize that meant that the bone hadn’t completely severed in two. It wasn’t sticking through my leg. It was still broken, but not two dangling pieces under my skin. It meant I didn’t need surgery, that all I needed was a cast for it to heal.

  I should have been relieved, but I wasn’t.

  Damn it. Tears burned my eyes at the thought that I’d be immobilized probably for months. How bad was my knee on the right leg? And that bruise…was that the sort of thing that would cause blood clots? All those late-night WebMD searches flooded my brain and I began to panic.

  “No, my witch.” He smoothed my hair, his voice like hot chocolate on a winter day. “Don’t cry. I will take care of you. I will help you and care for you now and always. You’ve returned and I am yours. I yield to you. I will obey any request you make of me. And I won’t let you lie in pain. I can’t heal, but together we can work great magic.”

  Huh? Was this some sort of auditory hallucination? The pain was lessening in both my leg and my chest, but was that the effect of severed nerves? Me going into shock? Or was it that a totally hot guy had just announced he was mine and was yielding to me, and broken bones suddenly weren’t all that important by comparison?

  The man covered me with a fleecy blanket that had a scene from The Lion King on it and some of the furs, then stepped away for a few minutes, returning with two pieces of wood and a few rags. He set them down, then gently ran his fingers over the skin of my left leg, pausing where I assumed the break was. I didn’t know if it was something magical he was doing, or if it was the i
ncredible sensation of his touch, but the pain subsided, a strange numbness taking its place.

  “I will put a splint on your leg to help immobilize it and help with healing and the pain,” he informed me. “But first, let’s put some ice packs on your knee and that bruise.”

  “Are my ribs broken?” I asked as he picked up one of two plastic gel packs, breaking and kneading it to activate the chemicals.

  “No, I think the muscles are bruised from whatever was across your chest.” He placed one ice pack on my right knee, then started activating the other one. “I believe I have some antibiotic salve that might help with the scrapes, though.”

  The man was like a regular pharmacy. I guess if I lived on the side of a mountain, I’d want to have all the bases covered as well as have a solid supply of first-aid products. It’s not like he could quickly pop into town and grab some aspirin and cough medicine.

  Which reminded me.

  “You wouldn’t have any Tylenol or anything, would you?”

  He nodded, putting the second ice pack on my bruise, then heading over toward the book shelves. When he returned, he had two pills and a cup of water. I took them gratefully, then closed my eyes as he began to splint my leg.

  It hurt. No amount of hot-guy-feeling-up-my-leg vibes could disguise the fact that every gentle movement sent a stab of pain through me.

  “There. All done.”

  I opened my eyes to see what looked to my untutored eyes to be a very professional splint. My leg was truly immobilized, held straight by the wood and the cloth.

  “How’d you know how to do that?” I asked.

  “I’ve witnessed many human conflicts.” He turned away and went to the fire, pouring steaming water from a pot into a bowl. “This is my first time putting what I’ve seen into practice though, so I hope I’ve done it correctly.”