“Usually, I’m betting that she goes without food. Kala told me that she’s very thin and malnourished.”
And now he had upset her. It hadn’t been his intention to do much more than speak to her about being his mate. He wanted her to understand that while she could come to him for money anytime she needed it, he was in no way going to take her as his bride. But when she looked at him, he’d nearly gathered her in his arms and wrapped her in his wings to make her better.
He reached out to her to see what she was doing. She was angry again, and he wondered who was on the other end of her wrath. Smiling to himself, he thought her to be the winner of it should it come to blows. Not that he wanted her to hurt anyone, but she was certainly strong enough to take care of herself.
But that did not mean that he was taking her as his mate. He might be impressed with her, but she would be hurt if she came to him. Valyn wasn’t kidding when he said that he was broken. As far as he could tell, he no longer had a heart in his chest. It had stopped beating on a day that he’d never forget.
He had been a protector of a small girl when it had happened, and he could never forgive himself for not paying full attention to her when she was murdered. The man who had murdered her, and so many before little Louisa, had entered the little café and picked her up from her family. What he did to her after escaping everyone’s notice had haunted him every day since then.
She’d been kidnapped. Right there, he’d led her away from her parents and younger brother by offering her a bit of chocolate. It had been a favorite of hers, and when she disappeared from Valyn’s sight, he found the small chunk of chocolate by the door that the man had taken her out of.
It had been easy for him to find her. They were connected in a way that no one would be able to break but in death. When he’d gotten to her, the man had bound and gagged her and had her lying across his horse. Valyn had tried his best to get her to wake, but the blow to her head had knocked her out soundly. By the time they were at the house, she’d thrown up several times and he had comforted her as best he could.
When she was tied to the bed, his mind was full of things that the man might do to her. And it had been so much worse. She was raped daily, sometimes more than once a day. This went on for two weeks. And Valyn never left her side, encouraging her to think of escaping. To try and get away. Telling her that her mother and father were still looking for her.
Food wasn’t given to her unless she performed an act on this man that sickened her and Valyn. But he’d been with her that final day, the day that the monster had taken a large stone from the yard and hit her several times in her little skull with it. He held her hand, sobbing when she took her last breath. The man had gotten another girl and was going to do the same to her. Going to someone else’s human, Valyn had told him in great detail what had happened to the child, and that the monster had another. The man was hung a week after they caught him. And the child that he had when he killed Louisa was still alive when they found her.
He had vowed that day that he’d not take another child through a young death, telling Boss that he’d quit him and the Protectors if he had to go through that again. So since then he’d never had to watch a child die as Louisa had. But the images had never left his thoughts.
His door opened with a loud bang, and he sat up to look at Riss when he entered. The blow to his face was unexpected and knocked him back against the wall. Before he could ask Riss what he was doing, he kicked him thrice and told him to get up so he could hit him again.
“No. What are you doing this for? What reason could you have?” He told him that Jenny needed him. “Unless she is being harmed by someone in my house, I don’t believe you.”
“You left her there.” He said that he’d had to. “No, you didn’t. You took her to your home, then left her to search out answers on her own. Did you know that she has nothing to fall back on now that she’s left your home? Nothing, Valyn.”
He started to argue with Riss when something he’d said clicked in his mind. “What do you mean, now that she’s left my home?” Riss told him what had happened that had her leaving. “She was safe there. Had food and comfort. Why would she leave such a secure environment?”
“Perhaps because she was left alone in your house and didn’t know why she was even there. Or it could be your charming personality that made her want to leave. It certainly does make me want to punch you in the face again.” Spreading his wings, Valyn asked him how long she’d been gone. “I don’t know. I just found out about five minutes before I came here to teach you a lesson. And in this, you have no one to blame for her running but yourself.”
“I did nothing to her.” Riss told him that was the problem. “I don’t understand this. She should have stayed there. Now I will have to find her and bring her back. Where did she go?”
The second punch took him to the floor. He laid there, trying to think why Riss would hit him a second time when he said he’d go and get her, when the other man began talking through clenched teeth.
“You’re a fool. A bigger fool than any man that I’ve ever encountered. You do not order her around like a lost animal; she isn’t one. You do not think that you’re going out of your way to make sure that she’s safe. You do it because she’s your world.” Valyn said that she wasn’t going to be his mate. “It’s much too late for that. The moment that you touched her, she became like us. I’m guessing that we’ll have to explain that to her as well.”
Valyn continued to lay on the floor after Riss left him. He had been a fool. A fool for letting her anywhere near him. He knew what it looked like, but she would be hurt, more so than what the man who had shot her had done. She still had a heart to break, and Valyn was trying his best not to do it.
Getting up, he closed his eyes and searched for Jennifer. When he found her, he started to ask for help in getting her back. But they’d more than likely tell him that he was on his own for doing this, and he left his room for the bar that she was in front of.
“I really don’t want a date, but thank you for asking.” The man talking to her said that he’d not asked. “I’m well aware of that. I was being sarcastic. I want you all to back off before I have to hurt you. I will too.”
She swung her backpack around and clipped one of the four men on the chin. As he was falling down, she rammed her head into the next man’s belly. When he bent in half, clutching his belly, she brought her foot up between his legs and hit him right in his manly parts. Not only did he go down as well, but he also puked on the first man that was down.
Man number three that was trying to harm her was taken care of by Valyn. Just a bit of magic sent the man into the bar without a memory of what he’d been doing. Reaching for the fourth man, he grabbed his shoulder at the same time Jennifer screamed at him to leave her alone.
Valyn had no time to react when the backpack came around and hit him in the head. He went down hard, but was glad to see that the last man had been taken care of too. Wondering if she’d leave him where he was—not that he didn’t deserve that and more—he was surprised when she came to sit by him in the snow, and he asked her if she was all right.
“You moron. What are you doing here anyway? I thought that you have better things to do than to yell at me.” He told her he was sorry. “Yeah? Well, that doesn’t cut it with me. You’re a bully and an ass. I’d rather be anywhere but where you are.”
When she stood up, he did as well. Wiping at the place where she’d hit him, he saw blood on his fingers. Blood—there was so much of it that it took his mind back to the day. He lashed out quickly, trying to kill the man that had killed Louisa, and fell back when he was hit again.
Chapter 3
Galin watched over his friend and tried not to laugh. It wasn’t nice, he was aware of that, but when he’d found him, passed out from numerous head wounds, Galin knew Valyn’s mate had gotten the better of him. Why, he didn’t know, but he was sure he’d find out sooner or later. He looked up when Dusty came in the room with
them.
“I put Jenny up in one of the rooms on the lower floor. She’s so upset that I don’t think this is doing her a bit of good. I couldn’t even get her to eat anything. But I didn’t tell her that Valyn was here. I don’t think that would go over well. What the fuck was he doing hitting her like he did?” Few knew what ate at Valyn. Galin knew only because when he’d knocked him out, Boss had appeared and told him about the child. Galin didn’t say anything, not breaking the promise that he’d made to Boss about it. “Galin? What are you not telling me?”
“I can’t tell you. It’s not mine to tell.” Dusty didn’t like it, he could tell, but she didn’t ask him again. “I don’t think he was hitting her. I think that when he saw the blood, like Jenny thought, it had him remembering it from some other time.”
“I can see that. I don’t like it, but I see it. Jenny had to have ten stitches put in her cheek, as well as she has a concussion. When I gave her the pain pill before coming in here, she didn’t even ask what it was but took it and closed her eyes.” Galin felt sorry for both of them. For Valyn because he’d carried around the guilt for so long, and Jenny because she was sort of caught in the middle of it. “Galin, do you think this will work out for them?”
“Yes, I don’t know why I think that, especially after this, but I’m sure that it will.”
He looked down at his friend and shuddered when he thought of what he’d come upon. Valyn had been about to slay his mate with his sword. It was pulled from him to a high arc in the sky when Galin hit him with all that he had. Never in all his lifetimes had he ever hit another person, and he wished that he’d been able to avoid it for a lot longer.
“Will he wake soon? I want to have a word or two with him when he does.” Galin laughed. It really wasn’t funny, but to see his little slip of a mate taking on a man as large as Valyn was funny to him. But he knew that she’d come out on top. Of that he had no doubt.
“I’ve never hit anyone before, so I have no way of knowing.” She told him he’d done a good job. “You say that, but I’m sure that Valyn won’t have the same opinion. I hit him hard. But I was frightened, and in such a hurry to stop him that I didn’t think to pull back.”
“If he gives you any trouble about it, you let me know. I’ll set him straight.”
She left him there, and he had to think what he was going to say to Valyn when he woke. It wasn’t a question of if he would, but when at this point. He almost regretted him having the headache that he was sure he was going to have.
The next time he glanced in his direction, Valyn was looking at him. Asking him if he was all right, Galin put his hand to his face and told him he was going to be fine. After helping him sit up on the big bed, Galin waited for him to be upset with him. Not that he would blame him for being upset, but Galin wasn’t going to let Valyn’s mate be killed. That would put him over the edge, Galin knew it.
“Is Jennifer here? I can feel her, but she’s not well.” He told him that she’d been sedated. “I nearly cut her with my sword. If not for you, I would have.”
“I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about me hurting you. I’m very sorry, but as you said, you were about to kill her.” Valyn told him that she was already an immortal, as he was. “Then I’m doubly glad that I saved her. She would have spent the rest of her days in a wheelchair.”
Valyn stood up and so did Galin. When Valyn walked to the window, Galin sat down again. Valyn was hurting, not from the hit to his face but in his heart. Valyn started talking before Galin could tell him again how sorry he was.
“I have no heart to give to her. It’s been taken from me.” Galin was confused by that statement. Everyone had a heart. “Long ago I let my heart harden until it no longer beat except to keep me alive. Now it is frozen there, beating but closed off from love and any other emotion.”
“I don’t believe that, and I can’t believe that you do. You have the kindest heart that I’ve ever known. I’ve seen you with the children here. You are good and kind to them. You have a heart, Valyn. And perhaps it has been frozen for a long time, but I think that Jenny can help you with that.”
“No, I don’t think I’ve anything left, Galin. I know that.” Galin wasn’t sure what to say to him. This was so wrong that he was sure that someone had made a mistake somewhere along Valyn’s life. “What will she do should I have another nightmare as I did? You think that you will be there to save her every time it happens? I don’t think so. And once she figures out that I’m incapable of loving someone, even her, do you suppose that she’ll be all right with that? Maybe tell me that it’s not a problem for her? She is a lovely woman, who deserves better than me.”
“We’ll never know if you don’t give her a chance. Or yourself one. What do I tell her when she wakes, Valyn? That you’re not here and have gone someplace to sulk? Because that is just what you’re doing, sulking like a small child without his treat.” Galin wanted to hit him again and leave him where he landed. “I can’t believe you, of all people, are doing this to someone that you’re supposed to love. Not to mention what you’re taking from her because of how you treat her. Neither of you will ever find another person to love you if you leave her. It’s a set deal that you and she are a couple. You’ll never know the feelings like I have for Dusty. Or the feeling of a woman holding you when you’re down. You’re taking so much from her, and you don’t even care.”
“I care a great deal. But I have nothing to offer her.” Galin thought of all the things he could say to him, but didn’t. His mind was set, and that was all there was to it. “I’ll give her money and a place to stay. But I can’t mate with her.”
“Then you are going to be the unhappiest man alive.”
Galin left him then. He didn’t want to even be in the same room with him any longer. Making his way down the stairs, he pulled Dusty to him when she asked him if Valyn was awake. He hated that his friend was doing this. Hated it even more when he knew that there was nothing he could do to change his mind.
“I’m going to talk to Jenny when she wakes up. Tell her that she’ll have a house to live in and money enough so that she won’t be without again. But he won’t go to her. He said that he had no heart in him.” Dusty pulled away from him a little and stared at him. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. She’s going to be safe, but she’ll never have a man love her like I do you.”
Going into the living room, he noticed that Michael was there. Telling him that he wasn’t in the mood to talk to him right now, Michael nodded. But he sat down when he did. He didn’t have anything to say to him, so he let him speak.
“Jennifer is going to leave here when she can. And I’m going to take away his connection to the girl when she does. He won’t be able to find her, no matter what.” Galin asked him if that was all right. “He will not love her or give her a chance. It’ll be best for them both if they go their separate ways.”
“I suppose, but I do worry about Valyn. I can’t think that he’s had an easy life. Not for a very long time.” Michael said that he hadn’t, that some were not meant for this line of work. “But he did it for so long. You’d think that we would have figured that out before now, before it came to him losing his mate.”
“I’ll go and talk to him, tell him what I’m going to do. Perhaps that will motivate him enough that he could see her once more.” Galin didn’t think that would work any better, but didn’t say that to Michael. “The young woman, she is mending well? I heard that he hurt her.”
“He did, but she’s going to be fine. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. He was in a bad place and she tried to help him. I think he feels worse for it.” If he had a heart that was open for love, Galin supposed that he would.
Michael left him then, and it wasn’t long before Galin heard the shouting. Just Valyn’s voice, not Michael’s. And when Valyn came storming into the living room with him, Galin stood up, ready for anything that he dished out.
“Did you know what he is going to do? He’s going to take my connection f
rom her. What if she’s hurt or needs something?” Galin asked him why he’d care. “I would like for someone to think how this is affecting me for once. I do not want her hurt because I can’t love her.”
“So you say. But I for one am glad that you won’t be able to haunt her. And you will. You’ll be near her, without her knowing, and that will be worse than taking her as a mate and not loving her.” Valyn growled low and full of menace. “You don’t frighten me, Valyn. Not anymore. You’re just a sad man that has nothing left, or so you say.”
When Valyn stalked out of the room, he heard him shouting for Jenny. Galin sat down. He’d either find her or he wouldn’t. It was out of his hands now. When it got quiet he figured that he’d found her, or his wife had taken him to task and kicked him out of their home. She would do it too.
Getting up when things were just too quiet, he found Dusty standing outside the door to one of the bedrooms. Going to her, he pulled her away from the door and into the kitchen. She told him that Valyn was in the room with Jenny and she was afraid that he’d harm her.
“He won’t. I know that with all that I am. He might be cruel to her, but he won’t hurt her physically.” She told him that wasn’t very reassuring. “Yes. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to do either.”
“Valyn needs his ass kicked. Several times over. To think that he has the most wonderful person in the world just in front of him, and the fucktard is pushing her away.” Galin laughed and Dusty glared at him. “You know that I’m right. He is stupid for thinking that this will end the way he wants it to.”
Galin told her what Michael was going to do. “I don’t know what that will solve. Not for either of them. But perhaps she’ll be able to find someone to care for her someday.”
Galin had to go to work, and he knew that Dusty was missing a few things as well. So he helped her get ready to leave and told her that it would be all right. Not that he really thought it would, but he thought that something would happen if they were there or not.
Valyn_Mystic Protectors_An Angelic Paranormal Erotica Page 3
