The Crystal Warriors Series Bundle

by Maree Anderson

  When Dai-soon paused, presentiment skittered down her spine. Abruptly she stopped sketching, her gaze riveted on the two men. “He’s gonna try something,” she muttered. “Don’t just stand there and wait for it!”

  But Malach stood with his feet firmly planted on the mat, his hands held up at chest-level, palms facing outwards and fingers bent, his elbows tucked in close to his sides, waiting and watching Dai-soon with an intensity that made Jade swallow to moisten a mouth gone suddenly dry.

  A number of things happened simultaneously.

  Dai-soon raised his right knee and swung it forward and up, while at the same time pushing his hips forward to generate more power. “Nae-ryuh Chagi,” Jade heard one of the students whisper. “Axe Kick!” and she had time to think “Oh no!” as Dai-soon’s leg extended almost completely and arced upward, his foot heading toward Malach’s head in a blur of movement that was so fast Jade’s brain could barely register it and—

  Somehow, Malach’s hands shot up and grabbed Dai-soon’s foot, stopping the movement dead.

  Jade instinctively understood that it was barely within the realms of human possibility for Malach to have reacted that swiftly.

  But he had.

  “Impossible!” the man standing next to Jade blurted, his jaw sagging in stunned amazement.

  Jade held her breath, wondering what Malach would do next. Or Dai-soon, for that matter. But the two men did not move nor make a sound. They were frozen in a tableau of silent wills and hidden strength, with Dai-soon perfectly balanced on his one foot and Malach gripping his other foot.

  Then Malach released him and Dai-soon lowered his leg, bouncing experimentally on the balls of both feet. The two men backed away from each other, then stilled, each searching the other’s face for answers.

  “Keu-man,” Dai-soon declared, his voice echoing in the silence of the hall. “Finish!”

  The combatants bowed and the students clapped. Dai-soon approached Malach, clapping him on the shoulder and grinning widely. “A worthy opponent, indeed!”

  Muted approval swelled to open respect as the students crowded around Malach, congratulating him and pelting him with questions.

  Jade allowed herself to breathe again.

  “I told you he would prevail.” Lìli materialized next to her, grinned triumphantly.

  Dai-soon must have seen her aunt gloating for the Grandmaster approached them, linking his arms in theirs to draw them both away from his rowdy students. “Good to see you again, Jade.” He gave her an affectionate peck on the cheek. “I have missed you at our classes. I hope to see you back at training one day soon.”

  When she only smiled and neglected to reply, he gestured to the sketchbook beneath her armpit. “Did you manage some good sketches?”

  She blinked. “Er, I’m not entirely sure. I hope so.”

  “May I see?”

  “Of course.” She thrust the pad at him, embarrassed by his interest.

  He flipped page after page, studying her work, and Jade found herself surprised by the number of sketches she’d managed. She’d been working purely on auto-pilot, completely at the mercy of her muse. Here’s hoping her muse wasn’t having an off-day, and she hadn’t filled half a sketch-book with useless scribblings. She chewed her lip, screwing up her nose as she tried to gauge Dai-soon’s reaction. But the Grandmaster remained as smooth-faced and inscrutable as Jade’s aunt could be.

  “Who did he learn from, Lìli?” Dai-soon looked up from the sketchbook to pin Jade’s aunt with an intent look.

  “He tells me he is completely self-taught.”

  “Impressive.”

  “I’ll say,” Jade blurted, and flushed when Dai-soon chuckled in a knowing way.

  “I understand from Lìli that you are in Malach’s employ for the next month, Jade.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly put it that way, Dai-soon. His, uh, uncle has commissioned me to paint him and show him around Sydney while he’s here.”

  “Oh? And how long is he here for?”

  “A month for certain. After that…. It depends. Why the interest in Malach, Dai-soon?” Jade caught Lìli’s raised eyebrows and remembered her manners in a big hurry. “If you don’t mind me asking, of course.”

  “I would take him on as my assistant if he was prepared to stay for a longer term. He shows much promise.”

  High praise indeed. “Why don’t you ask him? He’s his own man, after all.”

  “Is he?” Lìli asked.

  Jade’s gaze flew to her aunt’s face, but Lìli had that whole inscrutable thing going on again.

  “This one perfectly captures the man, Jade,” Dai-soon said, indicating one of the sketches. “It is a raw, powerful rendition—the best of all of them. Don’t you think so, Lìli?” He held out the sketch-pad to her.

  Lìli scrutinized the proffered page. “Ahhh,” she breathed. “His soul, his essence shines through. It is him. Beautiful work, Niece.”

  Jade made a grab for the pad. “Let me see that.” And when Lìli gave her superb evils said, “Pretty please?”

  She studied the head-and shoulders sketch she’d dashed off while Malach had been poised motionless, waiting for Dai-soon to strike. She tried to view it objectively, dispassionately, as she’d been taught when self-critiquing her work at art school.

  Malach’s face sprang from the page and the impact of the sketch struck Jade like a physical blow, overpowering her with the power and honesty of those hastily drawn pencil lines. She wondered if Dai-Soon and Lìli saw everything that she saw—Malach’s inner strength and the single-minded determination in the jut of his jaw, the pain of losing someone he loved etched in the deep lines bracketing his mouth, the longing for redemption shadowing his eyes….

  They were both right. It was brilliant. She’d even go so far as to say it was the best work she’d ever done. That single sketch, each of its stark charcoal lines and subtle shadings and smudges, was the culmination of everything she’d learned. She’d drawn something unique and utterly compelling. Silently she gave thanks to the muse that had taken control of her pencil for that short but significant period of time.

  She flipped page after page, scanning the other sketches. They were all good. Very good. She’d be proud to call them her own under any other circumstances. But Malach didn’t live and breathe in those drawings. There was some indescribable quality in the living, breathing man that was absent on those pages. She hadn’t managed to capture him.

  “Jade!”

  She tore her attention away from the drawings and glanced up to see the real thing striding toward her with a dangerously predatory gleam in his pale blue eyes. If he’d been a big cat in a zoo, he’d be prowling his enclosure and eying up members of the public for their suitability as snacks right about now. Or perhaps eyeing up a potential mate. He was hyped, high on adrenaline, in the throes of a typical male animal’s reaction after a good, hard, fight. He wanted her. And from her body’s instant response, her dry mouth, racing heart, flushed skin, dampened panties, she didn’t mind a bit.

  “Jade.” He grasped the hand she’d unknowingly outstretched toward him, pulled her in to his side and pressed a kiss to her cheek. It was a chaste kiss, the sort of kiss that wouldn’t offend even the most prudish person. A perfectly acceptable public caress. But it rocked Jade to her core.

  Her sketchpad dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers, unnoticed in a heady rush of comprehension. The impossible had happened. Aunt Lìli’s spell had been a complete success. She loved Malach.

  And as she inhaled his scent and clenched her fists to prevent herself from ripping open the front of his borrowed uniform and nuzzling his chest, Jade realized something else. Truly falling in love with Malach, without the aid of a love-spell, would have been a complete disaster. If she truly loved him, how on earth would she bear knowing he loved someone else? And when the time came to set him free, how would she survive it?

  Thank God what she felt for Malach was an illusion.

  Oh, it might feel t
erribly real to her, and she might be suffering all the textbook symptoms she’d read about, dreamed about, yearned for, but it wasn’t real.

  And thank God for that.

  ~~~

  Chapter Eleven

  Jade trundled past the snazzy pizza joint on Burns Bay Road and mulled her choice of workplace. Working at the pizza joint would have meant a little more of a sleep-in every morning, plus considerably less leg-work. Still, she couldn’t complain too much. Starting work at a sparrow’s fart had its compensations. Namely a three-thirty in the afternoon finishing time, and an understanding boss who didn’t throw a tantrum if she had to whiz off to deal with a crisis—provided Jade made up the hours some other time, of course. Carlo might be understanding as heck when it came to family but he was first and foremost a businessman.

  Even at the unholy hour of six-forty-five in the morning, the steady hum of traffic was well on the way to its usual ear-grating fever-pitch, and Jade was once again extremely grateful her family home was close enough to the café for her to walk to work. Even breathing exhaust fumes was preferable to the frustrations of nose-to-tail peak time traffic or being stuck on the bus with God-knows-who squashed next to her.

  Despite the traffic, Lane Cove was a nice place to live—an area she would never have been able to afford to buy into under normal circumstances. For Jade, it had always been a suburb of contrasts. Although primarily a residential area, it was also home to several large businesses. Its extensive shopping area, which snaked across both Longueville and Burns Bay Roads, comprised small specialty stores, numerous restaurants and cafes, and a pub: the Longueville Hotel. No points for originality when they named that one.

  The area boasted a few historic properties but there was a general impression of modernity. And despite the area’s close proximity to the city, the townhouse complexes dotted along the main road simply shrieked suburbia.

  The restaurants and cafés in the area were somewhat ethnically diverse, to say the least. Chinese, Middle-Eastern, Thai, Italian, Malaysian, Indian, and even a Japanese sushi bar and seafood restaurant. And the people who lived and breathed the food served up in those places represented a melting pot of ethnicity, too. Even so, they contributed to a true-blue community feel in Lane Cove that Jade thought was often lacking in other Sydney suburbs.

  She rapped on the door to let her boss know she’d arrived, and was startled by Carlo’s mustachioed face as he peered through the door. He opened the door and flipped the café sign to Open.

  “Whaddya doing here, Jade? Bit early for you ta be wanting a coffee fix, innit?”

  “Ha ha. Are you gonna let me in or am I going to have to walk over you?” She lifted a foot to display her chunky-soled black shoes. Hint, hint.

  He merely grinned and twirled the drooping ends of his luxuriant moustache. “Oooh. Feisty. I like that.”

  “I know.” She pushed past him to enter the café and stopped dead in the act of reaching for her apron. It wasn’t hanging on the hook, as it usually was. It was around the waist of the stacked, blonde twenty-something behind the counter. “Who’s the newbie, Carlo?”

  “That’s Gemma, our new barista. I hired her yesterday. Gemma!” He clapped his hands imperiously. “One extra-strength latté for the lady whose shoes you haveta fill. Chop chop! And it better be good or you get the chop! Hahaha, just joking, hey?”

  Gemma eyed him with trepidation, visibly gulped and “chopped” to i. She thumbed the grinder on the espresso machine, filling the café with an ear-piercing whine and the aroma of freshly ground coffee beans.

  Jade swiveled to confront her boss. Hands on hips she pinned him with the most evil glare she could summon. “What’s going on, Carlo? Is hiring this Pammie Anderson lookalike, your not-so-subtle way of telling me I’m fired?”

  He shrank beneath her accusing glare. “’Course not. You’re like another daughter ta me, Jade. But you’re supposed ta be taking a month’s leave. So whaddya doing here?”

  “What? A month’s leave? Who told you that?”

  Carlo steered her to a chair, pushed her to sit in it with one meaty hand, and plumped himself down opposite. “Old guy. Name’a Stone. Came in yesterday morning soon as we opened and told me you was needing some time off. Is it Mei? She taken worse?” He grabbed Jade’s hand across the table and squeezed it hard. “You shoulda told me, Jade. I woulda cut back your hours, given you time off—no questions asked.”

  “It’s not Mei. She’s fine. Well, not fine but… you know.”

  “Yep, I knows.” Carlo sagged back in his chair, obviously relieved. “That’s good. I’m glad she’s hokay.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.” Jade dragged her thoughts away from Mei to smile at Carlo’s daughter when she brought over the coffee. “Thanks, Maria.”

  “You’re welcome,” Maria and Carlo responded simultaneously.

  Maria dimpled and then scurried away to serve a customer. Jade picked up her cup and was about to take a sip when she realized Carlo was watching her with worried eyes. Beads of sweat pearled on his brow and he blotted his forehead with a large striped handkerchief.

  “Well? Is it hokay?”

  “What? Oh, the coffee!” Jade put down her cup and scrutinized the brew with a critical eye. “Nice silky microfoam, good color.” She took a sip. “Ratio’s perfect. Temperature’s about right.” She put him out of his misery and smiled. “Yeah. It’s pretty good. She’ll do okay.”

  Carlo beamed. “Good.”

  Jade took another sip and tried to focus on why she was here, sitting at a table with her boss, instead of standing behind the counter serving customers. “So what exactly did this guy look like, Carlo? Was he say, seventyish? Average height, slim build, white hair, English-y accent?”

  “That’s him.”

  Figured. “Made you feel instantly at ease? Like, whatever he said made perfect sense?”

  “Yep, yep.” Carlo’s bushy eyebrows drew together and he stroked his moustache, the beginnings of suspicion dawning on his tanned face. “This guy, he know all about you, Jade. Stuff you keep private, yanno? Seemed legit. You telling me he’s some whacko and I shouldn’ta listened ta him?” He drew a deep breath, his chest swelling with outrage.

  Jade sighed inwardly. “No, Carlo.” She patted his hand. “He’s legit. It’s only that I wanted to come by personally and tell you what was going on, okay? I owe you that for being such a great boss. Only I didn’t expect Mr. Stone to be so quick off the mark to… to… sort everything out for me.”

  Carlo clicked his fingers at Maria and bellowed, “Espresso. Pronto.”

  “Right away, Papa,” she called back.

  “This Mr. Stone. He give you any trouble, you tell me, hokay? You and Mei, you are like family.” He thumped his barrel of a chest. “I take care of Mr. Stone for you.”

  “Pieter—Mr. Stone—doesn’t need to be taken care of, Carlo. He’s paying me to paint his, ah, nephew. And he’s paying Grace to look after Mei while I work on the portrait. If anything, I should be grateful to him for giving me such a great opportunity.”

  Carlo’s ears had pricked up at the word “paint”. “But this is wonderful!” he cried, lurching to his feet and addressing the café’s patrons with outstretched arms. “Our Jade is finally becoming a famous painter!”

  “Sit down, for goodness sake, Carlo,” Jade said, mortified by all the attention she was getting from Carlo’s customers. “I’m taking a month off, and then I’ll be back knocking on your door, demanding my job back. So I sure hope you’ve told Gemma her position’s only temporary.”

  “Of course.”

  Maria rushed up with Carlo’s espresso and he grabbed the cup, downed the contents in one gulp and handed it back to her. “Ah. Espresso. Nectar of the gods.” He patted Jade on the shoulder. “See you in a month, Jade.” He winked at her. “Unless you become rich and famous in the meantime. Then you must remember your old boss, Carlo, and paint a portrait of me to hang in my café.”

  He glanced over at the counter an
d frowned ominously. “I haveta talk to that Gemma. She is not smiling enough. Customers like to see smiling faces—it makes them happy. I gotta go teach that girl how ta smile proper.”

  Poor Gemma. Jade vividly recalled Carlo’s how-to-smile boot-camp—and her aching facial muscles—from her first week working for him.

  “Bye, Carlo.”

  He bent to plant a smacking kiss on her left cheek. “That for you. And this—” he planted another kiss on her right cheek “—for Mei. You tell her Uncle Carlo expect to see her soon. I will brew her something special—make her feel better. You bring her soon, hokay?”

  “I will,” Jade promised. She reached into her bag for her wallet.

  “On the house, Jade,” Carlo said, looking very pleased with himself. “You are my official coffee quality control inspector. It is very important job so you must come drink my coffee often, hokay?”

  He was such a sweet man. “Thanks, Carlo.” She pecked him on the cheek before he bustled off to harass Gemma into smiling.

  Jade sipped her coffee and wondered what she was going to do for the rest of the day. She’d never had the opportunity to be young and carefree, and indulge in the things carefree young people supposedly did. Her parents had been pretty strict, and she wasn’t allowed to go to a party unchaperoned until she was sixteen. And even then she’d had a totally humiliating curfew of ten.

  Grace had taught Jade practically everything about being a girl in this day and age. But all Grace’s sage advice about boys and sex and all the other stuff she thought Jade needed to know was a poor substitute for the thrill of discovering it for herself. Hence the Murray disaster. Grace had warned Jade about him, but Jade realized now it was impossible to be discerning about boys when you’re just so darned grateful to be noticed by one—especially a popular jock.

  By the time she’d semi-recovered from that first disastrous attempt to spread her wings, high school was over and she had the rest of her life to have fun. Except Murray had put her off big-time, and she no longer wanted to have that sort of fun. Boys sucked. All they wanted was sex. And who needed boys when all she wanted to do was paint?