A Dark Guardian

by Donna Grant

  “I don’t know what I thought I would find,” she admitted, her lips turned down in a frown.

  “It must have been something.”

  She shrugged her dainty shoulders and clasped her hands together. “It was like something told me to look here. I just knew I would find something. Instead, all we found was lots of dust and the cat again.”

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  He crossed his arms over his chest. “You took a huge chance coming back here if it was this place that caused you to become sick.”

  She shrugged. “I guess we will know in a little while if it happens again.”

  He dropped his hands and took the two steps that put him face to face with her.

  “That isn’t something to joke about,” he said overly harsh.

  “Why do you care? You think I’m controlling the creature.”

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  Chapter Twenty-One

  As soon as the words left Mina’s mouth, she wanted them back. Hugh hadn’t mentioned her involvement since the night she agreed to help him, and now she was throwing it in his face.

  She waited for him to answer, hoping against hope that he would say the words she longed to hear. But the moments ticked by with nothing.

  Just as she was about to turn and go to her horse, his hand reached out and stopped her.

  “I asked you to prove me wrong.”

  “And so I shall,” Mina said, putting a smile on her face when she wanted to cry.

  “We should return to the castle.

  It wasn’t until she was mounted on her horse that something continued to nag at her memory. She turned and looked at the monastery.

  “What is it?” Hugh asked as he and Gabriel waited for her.

  “Just a feeling that we have overlooked something.”

  She shook herself mentally and turned her horse back toward the castle. She couldn’t help but wonder if Hugh would mention their night together. When she had first seen him he had a particular sparkle in his eye. Had it been that he was happy to see her?

  Their return ride to the castle was spent listening to Gabriel and Hugh plot ways in which to keep the villagers safe for the coming night.

  “The creature has had enough,” Gabriel said as they crossed under the gatehouse.

  “You realize he will come at the castle tonight.”

  “Aye,” Hugh agreed and looked at Mina once they had stopped near the stables in the bailey.

  “There is no where else for the villagers to go,” she said.

  As they dismounted, Bernard met them. “I wondered where you went off to,” he said and kissed Mina on the cheek.

  She smiled. “I thought you weren’t supposed to do that.”

  “Bah,” he said. “Theresa knows that we have reconciled. She has vowed to see you dead, by the way.”

  Mina sighed. “Nothing new.”

  When she looked at Hugh, she found him watching her and Bernard with a funny look in his face. “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” he said tersely. “Baron, is there some place your people can go until this creature is dead?”

  “You know there isn’t,” Bernard said as the smile died on his face. “This home is all they know. Why can’t they continue to sleep in the castle?”

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  “We have a feeling the creature will attack the castle tonight,” Hugh answered.

  Mina wanted to reach out to her brother as he ran his hand through his short blonde hair, his face mottled in thought. “The only place I can think of is the dungeons, but I wouldn’t want to subject them to that if I don’t have to.”

  “I don’t think you have a choice,” Hugh said. “I would rather see them face another day than die tonight.”

  “Then I will see it done,” he said and walked off barking orders to his men.

  “He’s a good man,” she said to no one in particular.

  “Few men could lead this well when faced with such evil,” Gabriel agreed.

  Mina turned and found Hugh staring at her again. “We need to talk,” he said softly so that Gabriel wouldn’t overhear him.

  She smiled and followed him as he walked toward the castle. As she walked past him and he held the door open for her, he whispered, “Why did you leave so early this morning?”

  “I didn’t wish for Bernard to barge into the stable and find us. I wasn’t sure how my brother would react to that scene. I thought it best that he find me in the castle.”

  “You could have woken me,” he said as they entered the great hall.

  She giggled at the memory of him sleeping so soundly. “I didn’t wish to wake you when you looked so peaceful. How is your back, by the way?”

  “Don’t change the subject,” he warned.

  She walked into the solar and turned to face him. By the stern look on his face, she knew she wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “I’m simply concerned about your back. Am I not supposed to ask?”

  He shut the door and leaned against it. “What happened last night-”

  “Was wonderful,” she interrupted him. “Don’t say that you regret it,” she cautioned. “Please.”

  “You deserved better than standing up in a horse stable.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Because I’m a lady?”

  “Aye.”

  She snorted. “All my life I have lived alone, wondering if I would ever experience any adventure or find a man who would really look at me the way you do. I rely on no one but myself, or at least I used to. All that has changed now. Because of you.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t paint me into a pretty picture, Mina. You won’t like the outcome. I tried to warn you last night that I would be leaving.”

  “I know that. I’m not asking you to stay.”

  “You don’t want me to stay?”

  The distress in his dark eyes shattered her heart, but what she did, she did for the both of them. “You and your men have a mission ahead of you. Your men need you to lead the Shields. I knew going into last night that I would get no more from you than that.”

  He pushed off from the door and glared at her. “You used me?”

  “No more than you used me.”

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  arms around his neck. He stared at her, glowered more like it, but she stood her ground.

  “You should have run from me,” he finally said.

  “I will tell you again that I do not regret last night. It was everything I could have hoped for and more.”

  “You are ruined for a husband now.”

  She waved away his words. “You and I both know I will never marry. Theresa will see to that. As it is, I am past the marrying age.”

  “Men will look past that once they see your beauty.”

  His words caused her stomach to flip flop. She smiled. “Put your fears to rest, Hugh. I will not try and trap you into marriage.”

  He nodded at that and left the solar. It was strange that she should feel so alone now since she had been that way all her life. Yet, after sharing such an incredible night with Hugh, everything had changed.

  Hugh didn’t know how he managed to walk from the solar with his emotions in such turmoil. He had half expected Mina to beg him to marry her, or at least try to make him feel as though he should. But she did neither.

  He mentally shook himself. There were other, more important, things to concentrate on right now. He motioned to Gabriel who sat at a table in the great hall and caught Cole’s eye as he guarded Theresa.

  They followed him into his chamber and each took a chair. He stared at them a moment, briefly wondering who would take over as leader of the Shields if something happened to him.

  “Hugh? What did Aimery want?”

  �
�What?” Cole asked as he looked from Gabriel to Hugh. “Aimery came to speak with you?”

  Hugh shook his head. “Actually, I was taken to court.”

  Cole whistled. “The king and queen called for you?”

  “They wanted to let me know a few things.”

  Gabriel sat forward. “Like how to kill the creature perhaps?”

  “I wish,” Hugh said and raked his hand down his face as he sat on his bed. “I do know that no weapon we have will kill the creature while it is awake.”

  Cole and Gabriel exchanged glances. “We’re to kill it while it sleeps?” Cole asked.

  “That is the only way to kill it.”

  Gabriel said, “How are we supposed to do that when we have no idea where it goes during the day?”

  “We’ll have to follow it,” Hugh said.

  “What else did the king and queen tell you?” Cole asked.

  Hugh looked into the eyes of his men. “That if we fail it won’t be just our world that is destroyed but also the Fae’s.”

  “How is that possible?” Gabriel asked.

  Cole stood and turned to look out the window. “It is easier than you think,” he said. “I watched my world being destroyed. I’ve no wish to see any others come to the same fate.”

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  “I think it has something to do with the fact that the Fae once roamed this realm.

  They are connected to us in a way that no human can fully understand,” Hugh explained.

  Gabriel stood and patted Cole’s shoulder. “Then I suppose we had better find the stone and the creature.”

  “Bernard is seeing to readying the dungeons so the villagers can stay in there tonight,” Hugh said.

  He raised his eyes to find both men staring at him. “What?”

  “Did you speak to Mina?” Gabriel asked.

  Hugh lowered his eyes. “Aye.”

  “Well?” Cole prompted. “What happened?”

  “You know our way of life,” Hugh said. “We live solitary lives with only each other for company.”

  Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest. “No one blames you for what happened with that woman. It was many years ago.”

  “Besides,” Cole said. “We all deserve some happiness when we can get it.”

  “I don’t see either of you with any women here,” Hugh pointed out.

  Cole shrugged. “None have gained my interest.”

  “Mine either,” Gabriel said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Hugh said. “She isn’t interested in more than what we shared last night, and that’s just the way I want it.”

  “Right,” Cole said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I must get back to watching Theresa.”

  Hugh watched him leave before he turned to Gabriel. “You don’t believe me either?”

  “I don’t know,” Gabriel answered. “But I do know that if you continue with that line of dung-filled words you just gave us, you will be lying to yourself.”

  Hugh couldn’t stand to be by himself once Gabriel left. Being alone made him think of things he had no business thinking, like a future with Mina in it.

  “Who am I kidding?” he asked the empty chamber. “I’ll be lucky if I leave here alive, much less with my heart intact.”

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  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Hugh got no farther than his door when he found Gabriel standing there. “I thought you left.”

  “I need to look at your back,” Gabriel said.

  Hugh stood aside and let him in. He took off his shirt and straddled the chair backwards.

  Gabriel whistled when he glimpsed Hugh’s back. “That creature likes leaving you with scars.”

  “This set deeper?”

  “Aye, but they healed well. I wish I would have gotten to take care of them earlier,” he said as he cleaned off the caked blood. “But it looks like that journey to the Fae realm did something to help them.”

  Hugh gritted his teeth as Gabriel poked around the fresh wounds. They had bothered him since he woke, but he hadn’t had time to see to them. He hissed when Gabriel smeared some foul smelling cream on the wounds.

  “I’m amazed you were in any condition to make love last night,” Gabriel murmured.

  “It was the bloodlust.”

  Gabriel straightened and came to stand in front of Hugh. “You didn’t.”

  Hugh looked away from the scorn in his friend’s eyes. “I tried to get her to leave, but she wouldn’t. She threw herself at me.”

  He sighed. “I would ask if she was a virgin, but I can almost guarantee she was.”

  “She was,” Hugh agreed.

  Gabriel returned to Hugh’s back. “If I hadn’t seen with my own eyes her smile at you this afternoon, I would tell you to watch yourself. But she was glad to see you.”

  Hugh recalled her smile as well. “She said she enjoyed it.”

  “Well,” Gabriel laughed, “that’s a good thing, my friend.”

  “I could have hurt her.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  Hugh laid his head on his arms. “I’ve got to stay away from her.”

  This time Gabriel laughed loudly. “I wish you luck, because frankly, I think you’re fighting a losing battle.”

  * * * *

  Mina pushed up her sleeves as she helped clean the dungeons. They hadn’t been used in more than a score of years and the musty, damp walls were no place for the elderly or the young.

  But they had need of it for the night to come and who knew after that.

  She pushed a lock of hair from her face with the back of her hand and bent down to pick up more of the old rushes that lined the floor. Women were going behind her A DARK GUARDIAN

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  sweeping and mopping the floors before placing new rushes down.

  They had much to do before nightfall, and she doubted if all of it would be accomplished. The kitchen was alive with women cooking while men gathered what they could and began stacking it in the great hall to be moved down once the dungeons were clean.

  She had no idea how long she had been hunched over cleaning, and when someone came to offer her water she gladly accepted it. But when she tried to rise she cried out from the pain in her back.

  Immediately strong hands came around her. She looked up to find Hugh holding her.

  “Drink,” he ordered.

  When she had drunk her full and replaced the ladle, Hugh straightened her into a standing position.

  “You should take more breaks.”

  “There isn’t time for that,” she said.

  He stared at her a moment. “Take more breaks,” he said and walked off.

  She watched as he went to stand with some other men who were carrying up the bundles of old rushes. It amazed her at how he helped them.

  A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned to find Theresa at the top of the dungeon stairs looking down at everyone. She wasn’t surprised to find her sister as far away from work as possible.

  She bent down to pick up more rushes and glanced around for Bernard. Sure enough, he stood with some other men cleaning. Her brother had made a drastic turn-around. Too bad Theresa couldn’t do the same.

  Sweat poured down Mina’s face and her hair clung to her face and neck and rolled between her breasts making it itch. She promised herself a nice long bath once the dungeons were clean. That bath might not be until tomorrow, but she would have one.

  “Hello, milady,” an older woman said as she came to work beside Mina.

  “Hello,” Mina said and offered her a smile.

  The woman smiled in return. “’Tis good to see you smiling, milady. For many years we all despaired of ever seeing the light in your beautiful eyes again.”

  Mina sat in stunned silence a
s the woman worked. Had it also been a lie when she had been told that no one in the castle wanted to have anything to do with her? That no one would be her lady’s maid? Since it had been Theresa that had told her, Mina seriously doubted if any of it had been true.