The Crystal Warriors Series Bundle

by Maree Anderson

  ~~~

  Chapter Twenty

  Chalcey jerked awake, her ears echoing with an unfamiliar sound. Her heart thudded until she identified the trill of Sam’s mobile phone. Sam had insisted on leaving it with Chalcey in case she needed it. Not that she did. The only person she’d be likely to ring would be Sam. And speaking of Sam, she was probably calling to find out what time to pick Chalcey up from the hospital.

  She answered the call, but before she could speak a voice said, “Sam? It’s Will.”

  “Hi, Will,” she croaked. “It’s me, Chalcey.”

  He paused. “Shit. Isn’t this Sam’s number?”

  “It is. She left me her phone.”

  “Right. Sorry it’s so early. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  He sounded weird. Strained. “Do you want me to give you Sam’s landline?”

  “Ah, no. I was only passing on a message for you, anyway.”

  “Okay.”

  Pause.

  “What’s up, Will?”

  “God. This is so fucking hard that I’m just gonna come right out and say it. My cop buddy, Rick, tells me that they haven’t found any human remains.”

  “Oh.” The chill pierced her bones and her stomach plummeted to her toes. Then relief, washing through her, banishing the chill. Of course there wouldn’t be any remains. There wouldn’t be any because Wulf had already been taken by his crystal.

  “Plus the fire department’s preliminary findings point to the fire being accidentally lit. Most likely a cigarette in a trash can. Christ.” He laughed, and it was a savagely unhappy sound, full of guilt and remorse. “How fucking trite is that?”

  “An accident? But I don’t smoke. My studio is non-smoking, and none of my friends—”

  “The fire started downstairs in the rooms being used for storage.”

  “Yeah. Rick mentioned that already.”

  “Appears more than one person has been smoking in there. And some dumbass chucked a cigarette butt in a trash can full of shredded files.”

  “Oh.” She stared at the wall of her hospital room and tried to think of something to say that would ease the terrible guilt she could hear in Will’s voice.

  “The arson specialist—or whatever the hell he’s called—said that in his professional opinion, the fire might have been contained with minimal damage except it wasn’t only files being stored in the area. It was toner and inks and art supplies and a whole heap of highly flammable crap. God! I should have checked before I let it be used for storage. I should have—”

  “It’s not your fault, Will. It was just an accident.” Or… perhaps the Crystal Guardian’s final petty revenge—spiteful magic that had prevented her from saving Wulf, and consumed everything she’d worked so hard for. Yes. That fit. It was a far more palatable explanation than losing the last chance to save the man she’d loved because of a careless smoker.

  “I’m sorry, Chalcey. Look, if your insurance company gives you any trouble about your contents, I’ll pick up the tab. And if there’s anything I can do for—”

  “Thanks, Will. I appreciate you calling. But I’ve gotta go.” She disconnected before he could say anything more. She knew guilt was eating him alive—yet another person who felt responsible for Wulf’s death. But not Will, not Esmeralda, not even Terrence were to blame for what had happened to Wulf. She was the only one to blame. She was the only one who could bring him back to life.

  Chalcey crawled from the bed and shoved herself into the clothes Sam had brought over in one of her smart designer overnight bags. A quick splash of water over her face, and a scrunchie to tie back her mess of hair, and she was presentable. Mostly. If no one looked too closely.

  Discharging herself was easy. She waited till the harassed-looking admin staff were busy with enquiries, and sauntered on past. She’d sort it all out later. Or Sam would, on her behalf. Sam was good like that, a true friend.

  Facing the world outside was surreal. People and vehicles buzzed past, intent on getting wherever they were going, oblivious that a man’s life was at stake. The long walk zipped by, and it seemed only a blink in time before she stood before the charred remnants of her studio.

  Her breath caught. She had to remind herself to breathe. She could never have foreseen that confronting the wreckage of her life could be so goddamned painful. But it wasn’t her studio—the dream she’d worked so hard to attain—that she mourned. Losing Wulf…. Losing him hurt so bad that she wanted to sink to her knees and howl her pain to the world.

  “Huh. Bet that sure sucks.”

  The words were like a slap in the face, yanking her from the misery that had threatened to drown her. She whirled. And puffed out a sigh. She so didn’t have time for this crap. “Ray. What are you doing here?”

  He detached himself from the shadows of a neighboring building and slouched over to her. “Just keeping an eye on ya, babe. Yanno, in case you need some consoling.” He giggled. His gaze wandered over her, hot and wanting, lingering at her breasts. His pupils were hugely dilated. Illegal substances for breakfast. Nice.

  “I don’t need anything from a loser like you,” she said.

  “Awww, c’mon. No need to get nasty.”

  She counted to ten. Very slowly. “Look, Ray. You’re a good-looking guy and I’ll bet there’re heaps of girls who’d drop their panties for you the instant you crooked your little finger. But I’m not one of those girls. Now go away. I’m busy.”

  He threw her a sly grin. “Yeah? Doing what?”

  She deliberately rounded her eyes and stared over his shoulder. “Is that a cop car?” She waved. “Hi, Rick!”

  As Ray started to turn, Chalcey drew back her fist and clocked him right on the bridge of his nose.

  He howled, clapping both hands over his face. She followed up by kicking him in the groin.

  He doubled over, gagging and clutching his groin, his face beet-red, eyes bulging. “Last warning, Ray,” she said. “Don’t come near me again.”

  “You hear that, Mr. Walker?” the real Rick said, from directly behind her. “Don’t bother Ms Laureano again.”

  Ah crap. Busted. She swiveled slowly to face Rick. And Will. The grapevine sure moved fast in this town. “Guess I’m up for assault, huh?”

  “I didn’t see a thing,” Rick said. “Did you?” he asked Will.

  “Not a thing.”

  They sauntered over to Ray and each took an arm.

  “Seems to me Mr. Walker might be returning to the scene of the crime,” Will said. “Can’t think of any other reason he’d be hanging ’round my building. Can you, Rick?”

  “Maybe the fire was no accident, after all. What d’you say to that, Mr. Walker?”

  Ray’s answer was a strangled gargle.

  “I think it’s time you and I had another little chat, Mr. Walker,” Rick said to him. “If you can’t speak, just nod.”

  “He’s high,” Chalcey said. “You might luck out and find he’s got something stashed on him.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me,” Rick said.

  “You going to be all right, Chalcey?” Will asked, his face all screwed up with concern and guilt and worry.

  “Yep. I just need a moment. Please. I won’t do anything stupid, I promise.”

  “You better not.” Rick scowled at her. “You know how I hate paperwork.”

  “Call you later, okay, Will?”

  “See that you do,” he said. “Or Anna will be on my case. Worse, she’ll be on yours. And believe me, you’ll get no damn peace if that happens.”

  “I promise.”

  She didn’t bother to ask who had called them when her empty hospital bed had been discovered, or how they’d known to look for her here. She wasn’t interested. Just as she wasn’t interested enough to watch them drag Ray away. She didn’t care what happened to him.

  She turned back to her studio.

  What remained of the building’s entrance had been cordoned off with warning tape. Chalcey ducked under and clambered atop a pile of
rubble, looking for… something. She didn’t know what, exactly.

  Panic seeped into her pores as she stood there, overwhelmed. What the hell had she been expecting? A miracle? Wulf to magically appear?

  She braved a step and a hunk of rubble shifted beneath her feet. She fell to her hands and knees and that was when she felt it, a solid rough hunk of something that didn’t belong there beneath her fingers. She unearthed it from its blackened nest and rubbed it on her t-shirt, hardly daring to hope. Oh. My. God. She’d found one half of the wulfenite crystal.

  She scrabbled in the muck, uncaring of the desperate picture she presented to anyone who happened to pass by. The other half had to be somewhere near. Please don’t make me search through all the rubble. Please!

  Instinct told her to close her eyes. She squeezed her eyelids so tightly shut that she saw stars. She skimmed her palm over the debris, and randomly grabbed the first thing that came to hand. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears. She forced herself to open her eyes, to verify what she already knew. The chunk of debris in her hand was the second piece of Wulf’s crystal.

  She cleaned both pieces of crystal as best she could, spitting on them and rubbing them with the bottom of her t-shirt. She examined them, noting the jagged edges of the breaks, mentally calculating how they’d fit together. A moment of breath-stealing doubt hit her like a punch in the stomach. She shrugged it off. This would work. It had to.

  Holding half of the crystal in each hand, she slowly brought them together, fitting them to each other so that the halves made a whole. There. Done.

  She held her breath, expecting… well… shit! A fucking great clanging sound at the very least. This was mind-boggling, supernatural woo-woo at work here. Shouldn’t something impressive happen?

  But nothing did.

  She climbed awkwardly over the pile of debris until she reached the pavement and stood rooted to the spot, staring at the crystal cradled in her hands. It was an unprepossessing thing. Dirty-brown, jagged and uneven, not particularly pretty. Certainly not the sort of a talisman which could hold the life-force of a vibrant, passionate man like Wulf in its depths. But it had. And it had been her only hope.

  Soul-weary and miserable, she was about to dash the crystal to the ground when the truth smacked her between the eyes. The two halves had fused together into one whole. She held one complete piece of wulfenite crystal in her hands.

  This wasn’t over.

  Chalcey clutched the crystal to her chest like it was the most precious thing in the entire world and strode from the wreckage of what had once been the most important thing in her life. She left that part of her life behind without a backward glance or a single regret. She was focused on one thing and one thing only: Finding the Crystal Guardian. And when she found him, he would give her back the man she loved or she’d make him eternally sorry he’d been born.

  She half expected to be put through some major hoops before she was “allowed” to find the little store selling crystals again. But Pieter must have decided that she’d suffered enough for the moment. She walked to the same café where she’d met Mr. Chapel, the tight-ass finance broker, and when she slid her gaze to the neighboring store, there was Pieter’s store. In exactly the same place. Whoop-de-fucking-do. She’d marvel over that some other time.

  She charged through the door, her eyes tearing as her vision fought to adjust to the too-bright light.

  He was there behind the counter, just as he’d been twenty-nine days ago, when this all began. This time, he was polishing crystals with his handkerchief. “Chalcedony,” he said gravely.

  “Pieter, I presume. Also known as The Crystal Guardian.”

  He inclined his head. “You presume correctly. How may I help you, Chalcedony?”

  How could he help her? Chalcey’s hand twitched. It took every ounce of will she could summon not to smash him in the face with Wulf’s crystal. “Don’t fuck with me, old man. You destroyed everything I’ve worked for and you nearly killed me in the process. And—”

  “What makes you think I set fire to your building?”

  “Oh, come on. You’d have me believe it was an accident? Please.”

  “It could simply have been your delightful Mr. Ray Walker, seeking to punish you for rejecting him so thoroughly.”

  “If you know about that, then you’ll also know Sam both rejected and ejected him, too. Why punish me, and not her? I’m not buying it.”

  He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Fate moves in mysterious ways.”

  “Spare me the bullshit. Fate is a vindictive old man who gets off on making me suffer, and making my friends feel guilty for things they had no control over.”

  “I can give you back everything you hold so dear, Chalcedony. All you have to do is ask.”

  “I don’t care about my dance studio. I don’t want everything. I just want Wulf.”

  “I see.”

  She clenched her fingers around the crystal. “No, you don’t see. You don’t have a fucking clue. So I’ll spell it out to you in plain simple words that even a warped, centuries old bastard with a shriveled heart can understand. You took Wulf from me. I love him and I want him back. Now.”

  “Wulf is not mine to give.”

  The old guy was a tough cookie, she’d give him that. “All right, Pieter. I’ll play your little game. What do I have to do to get Wulf back? Anything at all. Name it and I’ll do it.”

  He smiled at her then, a smile filled with eons of regret and sadness. “Be sure of what you want, Chalcedony. Be absolutely sure.”

  “I’m sure. Name your price.” The words were barely out of her mouth before she was transported to another place. Another world.

  Wulf’s world.

  She was ten years old. She’d cuddled her favorite doll each night until she’d been taken by the Stone Warriors. Her doll had been left behind, along with her ma and her da, and everything else she loved.

  Terrified and terrorized, she stood before hundreds of greedy-eyed men, shivering despite the unrelenting heat. When she wouldn’t move, couldn’t move, a man yanked her this way and that. His rank sweat crawled over her, clogging her nose, making it even more difficult to breathe.

  Someone yelled from the crowd, demanding a proper look at the merchandise. The man grabbed the neckline of her chemise and ripped it from neck to hem. The crowd roared with raucous laughter. She sobbed but she knew better than to try to cover her body with her hands. That would only provoke a humiliating punishment. She locked her knees, willed herself to remain upright.

  They called this place the Choosing Block. Her, and the others like her who’d been stolen, called it Hell’s Rock. The slab of stone felt rough and hard beneath her bare feet, grounding her, forcing her to realize that this was a reality and not a nightmare as she’d prayed.

  Harsh voices called out, vying to bid for the prize…. Her.

  She whimpered and dared rub the still-painful brand on her upper arm. Her eyes stung with tears. She burned with shame as the bidding continued and her face, her body—everything about her—was publicly discussed. She’d been told numerous times that she was pretty. She’d been proud of her blonde hair and dimples, the way she could run and jump and keep up with her older brothers. Now she wished she was ugly. Deformed. Unwanted.

  After it was over, her new master came to claim her. He yanked her up over his shoulder, then descended from the Block. His fellow warriors congratulated him. They slapped her rump as he pushed his way through the crowd.

  She knew that she would never see her home or family again. This was her life now. She’d heard enough talk to know her fate. Raped by her master. Forced to bear child after child until her womb dried up.

  She prayed for God to take her soon.

  ~~~

  Chalcey slammed back into her own body with a lurch. Her skin was sweat-slicked, mind tormented and sickened by what she had experienced.

  “Do you still want him, Chalcedony?” the old man asked.

  She closed her eyes and v
isions of the girl-child raced through her mind. Chalcey felt the girl’s terror again, so real and so strong that it threatened to overwhelm her. She sent the girl’s spirit a silent prayer, and then forced her from her mind.

  Wulf had told her about his world and his customs. His people auctioned women of child-bearing age only. The women sold were never forced to lie with their buyers—that was each woman’s personal choice to make. Always. And there were harsh punishments and hefty fines levied upon any man who dared believe that he had the right to force himself upon a woman he’d won on the Choosing Block.

  A woman could choose to leave the man who’d won her at auction after six moons if she so wished—no questions asked—and the auction brokers would pay her half her auction price. Many chose to stay with the men who’d chosen them, and raise the sons they bore. Others chose the Choosing Block again, eager to accumulate enough wealth to purchase permanent living quarters and servants of their own. And some women petitioned to set themselves up in a trade. Given the rigorous training demands of a warrior culture, there were plenty of opportunities for women to set up shop, or cook and clean, mend clothing and the like.

  Wulf claimed that a woman’s choices were respected, as were the women themselves. And Chalcey had believed him.

  But the brand the girl had on her arm—the painful brand Chalcey remembered rubbing—was no “ceremonial mark of acceptance into the fief” such as Wulf had described.

  He had also told her that any young girls taken were cared for by a group of old women until such time as they came of age. So why was a ten-year-old girl—a child—standing on the Choosing Block shivering in fear?

  Which version was true, Wulf’s or Pieter’s?

  Chalcey shuddered, fighting the chill in her soul, desperately not wanting to believe what she’d just experienced, but so afraid that it was true. It had felt true, felt so very real.

  She peeled open her eyelids. “Is it true? Is what I just saw true?”