“Close your eyes. You must be calm to help,” he cautioned. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
The little body on his back, acting like a power pack, Cord loped down the stairs. He lifted the huge cylinder and set it aside, being careful to place it so it appeared he’d been able to tip it off. Scooping up the woman, he tried to ignore the burst of need exploding up his body. Carefully he carried his burdens up the stairs.
Carrying both of them created an enthralling mix of power and pleasure pouring into his starved frame. What they were to him was magnified by the years he’d endured without even a taste of what he craved much less this new, indefinable mix of whatever it was they supplied.
Placing the woman carefully on the floor, his hand went to her leg without hesitation. She was in shorts, the damage painfully evident. Passing over it, he felt crushed bones, mangled arteries and dying muscle. Even with the little one on his back he didn’t have the strength to fix it all, so he swiftly did what he could with the arteries and veins she needed to ensure a healthy leg. The rest modern medicine could set, but the tiny blood vessels would have been beyond them.
He grabbed a kitchen towel off the back of a chair and draped it over her leg to hide the ugly reality from the little miracle on his back. No child should see that. He shifted so Minuet would be facing away from the pale form of her mother when she opened her eyes.
“Okay. You can open your eyes and get off, honey.”
Her little body slid off and she dashed around him, grabbing the purple bear as she went to her mother’s side.
“Mommy, wakes up!” Grasping a limp hand, she franticly shook it. Power was building in the room as Minuet struggled to wake her mother.
Cord gathered deceptively frail pink shoulders under his arm. “Mommy is sleeping and that’s good. Her leg would hurt her very much if she were awake,” he tried to explain and calm the tearful child. Her vibrations at this level of distress could echo too far. She was so young. There was no way to explain the cost of that much white power flowing across the countryside. His own actions were compounding those dangers, but he couldn’t do otherwise.
From the first rose petal scent to penetrate his booze-induced fog he’d be helpless to overcome the instincts that brought them to this moment. Rose petals and pink pajamas. Who knew these were the tools that compelled him to forsake sacred vows and his last hope of redemption from a God who didn’t know him.
The directive he’d rejected was a perfect theory, long and involved yet elegantly simple. His commitment to the mission had dragged him through endless decades of remaining sentient for one last service required by his beloved creator. To save the humans, all he had to do was kill the woman and her child.
Chapter Two
This isn’t right, pounded through his brain. Nothing was as it should be. The plan had been perfect, freaking brilliant, but no one had said anything about a tiny white power miracle, pink pajamas or rose petals. And how was his animal nature actually offended at the thought of killing them? Animals don’t get offended.
Minuet wasn’t exactly a white witch. She was something else. The little girl clutching her mother’s hand was so much more than anyone had been before. He’d like to use that as an excuse for his inability to follow the plan. She was a new development, a twist of fate and genetics who might save them all. It could happen. Apparently anything could happen in this new reality.
His eyes went to the alabaster face of her unconscious mother and he knew the truth. Minuet might indeed save them, but every drop of innocent blood shed from this moment forward would be on his head. He wasn’t strong enough to kill this woman.
Merciless animal instincts came with a price it seemed. Logic was not an unstoppable response, logic was always a choice. What his creators seemed to have miscalculated on was the amount of instinct remaining in his system.
Cord’s hand tightened on Minuet’s shoulder. “Where is the phone, honey?”
Minuet never took her eyes off her mother’s pale face. “Phone man sick. Him come tomorrow.”
So they were moving in, not out. That explained his not being aware of them. “Does Mommy have a cell phone?”
Minuet nodded. “In a floor.”
“Where? I need it to call help for Mommy. Try to remember exactly where the cell phone is.”
A fresh tear raced down her cheek. “I dop it inna floor. Mommy put me bed and go find phone. No more Mommy.” Her silvery voice shook as she finished her story.
“Mommy is going to be fine. She’s just sleeping real deep.” Cord glanced at the ornate grate cover on the floor heating vents. The swirling brass was decorative but certainly left enough room for a cell phone to fall through. “It went down one of those?” he asked while pointing at the kitchen vent.
“I sorry,” Minuet whispered. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Shhhh,” he comforted as her guilt added to the mix of emotions she was projecting. “No one is mad, honey. We need to call the doctor to help Mommy. Have you met the people in the house next door?”
Cord had several problems now. He didn’t have a cell phone. He didn’t have anything to tie him to this century except the necessity of a vehicle. He looked like a scary homeless person and he had to get these two into the hands of medical professionals. Normal people would take one look at him and assume he’d broken in and attacked them.
“Aunt Molly. She coming,” Minuet responded as if he should have heard the footsteps hurrying across the lawn.
She was right, he should have. Damn! An aunt person would really dislike finding him bending over these two. He had to be acceptable to this family unit. It was imperative. Fuck!
“Minuet, would you help me one more time?” he asked softly. There was no time to do things the right way. No time to explain what he was about to ask her.
The little tear-streaked face turned up to his with a tiny smile. “I does it. Aunt Molly afeared of messy dagon. Now you pretty.” The last was said as someone hurried up the porch steps.
Cord glanced down at himself in mild panic. Minuet’s idea of making pretty gave him an instant image of a pink puppy. Thankfully he only had two legs and jeans were still on them, but the cloth was clean instead of dirt streaked. Above them his T-shirt had lost both stains and wrinkles. His hand went to his chin and found a close-cut beard.
“Be good dagon. No magic. It a rule,” Minuet informed him in a whisper.
“Good rule,” Cord agreed, and turned his head as a woman opened the front door calling for Minuet and Kelly.
So that was her name, Kelly. It fit. “Minuet, my name is Cord. Let me do the explaining when she comes in. Okay?” he whispered quickly.
Little Miss Miracle nodded just as the woman entered the kitchen and gasped.
Cord straightened slowly so he wouldn’t startle the short, dark-haired woman. She didn’t look a bit like Minuet or Kelly. In her housecoat, it wasn’t hard to see that her body size held none of the long, lean lines Kelly possessed, though she wasn’t fat.
“Oh my God! What happened?” she exclaimed, pausing in shock at the scene.
Cord nodded seriously. “There was an accident in the basement. Minuet flagged me down. Do you have a cell phone, ma’am? I’m afraid I left mine at home this morning and I can’t locate a phone to call paramedics.”
Cord attempted to appear sincere and concerned as the woman at the kitchen door added a punch of earthy power to the emotions swirling around the room. He was forced to breathe shallowly to avoid an overload, but it didn’t matter. There were three in the room with him, three powerful elements of nature.
Deep beneath, the muscles of his back moved to the inevitable response to the power surrounding him. Two of them were upset, seeking assistance. The third was in jeopardy. He’d known this would happen. He hadn’t known they were three. Apparently they didn’t know they were three either.
If Minuet was forbidden from letting Molly see her magic, Kelly had no idea Molly was gifted. They certainly weren’t blood sisters.
Molly rushed toward Kelly, her eyes on the kitchen towel covering Kelly’s leg from the knee down. “How bad is it? Oh Minuet, Aunt Molly’s here. Everything will be all right. I promise, baby. Who are you? I saw the lights. I knew something was wrong…”
Her words rushed together as the woman sank down beside Minuet. Cord stepped back as he felt her gathering her gift. Molly was very busy trying to distract everyone with the deluge of words. Her hand fluttered to Kelly’s ankle and Cord grabbed the back of a kitchen chair to keep from falling on his ass.
Molly drew on the earth as she demanded it heal the serious wounds in Kelly. Ruthlessly she took from the surroundings. Power rushed through Molly into Kelly’s leg, and Molly’s eyes flashed up to Cord in wide-eyed surprise.
Apparently she had no idea what he was. None of them seemed to know anything about what they were. He almost laughed at the absurdity of it. Cord was a creature of the earth. His kind were created, not born, they were the earth as much as they were flesh. Animal was as close as human words could come to identify them, but they certainly weren’t any type of beast this world knew. They had blood DNA but it was the mix of elements that made them the soulless creatures that they were.
To heal Kelly, Molly had gathered life force indiscriminately, thinking she was calling on the organic world to lend its assistance. And she was. Earth Witch simply had no idea organic could walk on two legs. Her call had required a response from his body and she’d pretty much drained him with it.
Pulling out the kitchen chair, he sat down heavily. The fact that he could bleed, that his body usually resembled a mammal didn’t make him a true one. Trees bled. Even rocks could in their own fashion. The stark reminder of what he was didn’t change what he wanted. What he was no longer willing to live without.
“What…what are you?” Molly stuttered as she stared at him from the floor beside Kelly.
Kelly coughed as her body jerked slightly. Minuet clutched her mother’s hand to her wet cheek.
“Mommy? Mommy, wake up?” she asked hesitantly.
“Soon, baby,” Cord responded to Minuet first. Kelly wasn’t waking up if he couldn’t help her, and Molly had done a damn good job of stripping him of most abilities. He lurched to his feet and concentrated on moving normally as he stepped around Kelly’s head and went down to one knee beside Minuet.
He regarded Molly. “You done?”
“I don’t know. Depends,” Molly answered cautiously. “What are you?”
“Not a threat to you. You know that now. I helped her sleep so she wouldn’t feel the pain. I have to help her wake up. Do you understand?”
He was asking her to understand what she’d just felt. She knew enough to use her gift and feel the power she’d bled out of him. Mostly he wanted her to come to the conclusion she could control him if she wanted to. It would make her feel safe and accept him more readily. There was truth in that conclusion. It just wasn’t the whole truth.
As Molly stared at him, Cord’s hand drifted over Minuet’s hair in a light caress and came to rest on her shoulder. It appeared he was gently giving the child physical comfort. Again that was true, mostly. Molly’s slight dip of chin was grudging consent but enough to work with.
He slowly laid his other hand on Kelly’s brow, his eyes on Molly to strengthen the impression that she could stop him at any time. Kelly moaned softly.
That was all the attention he could give Molly. Looking down at the beautiful woman slowly opening violet-blue eyes was an action he had no hope of resisting. In that moment, her consciousness came to life and he was truly lost. She awoke and he would never be forgiven. So be it. Cord smiled into the eyes of the future.
“Hey. How are you feeling?” he asked softly.
“Mommy!”
Minuet launched herself on top of her mother, trying to wrap arms around her neck. Kelly struggled to sit up and hold her baby. Cord slid an arm under Kelly’s back to lift both so Kelly was sitting with Minuet in her lap. The move was natural. His hand remained lightly supporting them.
For a moment, Kelly’s head dipped to rest on Minuet’s head, both of them sheltered under his body. Cord dragged in a deep breath, soaking up the perfection of that moment.
All too soon Kelly’s head lifted, bringing their faces intimately close. “Who are you?” she whispered. The hesitancy in her voice brought him back to reality.
“I’m the guy Minuet called when you were in trouble,” he answered calmly.
“Right. I thought you said she flagged you down,” Molly declared with a frown.
Kelly’s head jerked to look at Molly in surprise. Cord immediately shifted to help Kelly stand. Minuet clung to her mother, making getting up difficult. Cord helped Kelly. Lifting easily, he maneuvered her into the chair he’d been sitting in.
“Minuet does not make mistakes about people,” he told Kelly conversationally, ignoring Molly for the moment as she also stood.
Sitting in the kitchen chair, clutching Minuet, Kelly’s expression was priceless as she glanced at Molly, as if afraid Cord would say something she couldn’t explain.
Cord straightened. “You’re right, Molly, I did lie. That was before you helped Kelly feel better. The need for subterfuge has passed.”
“Ah.” Molly’s hand nervously fluttered to her neck. “Um. Well. I don’t think… I mean, I saw the lights…” Her glance touched Minuet’s head.
“Minuet called you telepathically after I carried Kelly up from the basement,” Cord stated flatly. “She’s too young and upset to be coherent, but you brought your cell phone in the housecoat pocket, didn’t you?”
Molly’s hand grasped the right pocket of her housecoat reflexively, giving away the truth. Cord continued looking down at Kelly.
“You have always tried to conceal Minuet’s abilities, just like your mother taught you to blend in and appear normal. Just like your friend Molly is so good at appearing normal. Why do you think the two of you are such good friends? You are sisters. Not by blood, you are drawn to each other by something much more binding. The three of you keep secrets. You don’t need too. Not from each other.”
“Molly?” Kelly asked hesitantly.
Her first question going to Molly told Cord how deeply Kelly trusted Minuet’s judgment. It would have been far more natural for her to question the strange man in her house, but she didn’t need to. Minuet had called him.
Cord pulled out a kitchen chair for Molly and invited her to sit with a sweep of his hand. She did so with a deep sigh, her eyes moving from Cord to Kelly.
“I have a…um…a gift. I don’t talk about it because it’s so strange to normal people. I can sort of use the energy of living things. Not animals or people, I use, ah, draw from plants, the earth.” She paused as her eyes went to Cord again.
He could feel her looking at his back as he opened a cupboard for glasses. She reached for him with her senses, trying to probe him. This time he blocked her. Molly tried again and he gently pushed back as he filled two glasses with water and set them on the table in front of the women.
“You’re being nosy, Molly,” he said softly.
“What are you?” Molly asked again.
Kelly’s eyes bounced between them. “What’s going on?”
Minuet was sitting quietly in her mother’s lap, her head on her shoulder, nearly asleep. Cord reached down and picked up the child.
“Come to Cord, honey. Mommy needs to drink and rest.”
Minuet went to him willingly, wrapping little legs around his chest as arms circled his neck, her head dropping to his shoulder. Kelly’s jaw went slack for a second as her daughter relaxed in the tall man’s arms.
Cord pulled another chair away from the table and sat facing them. “We’ll get to me. How about you?” he nodded to Kelly.
Both women stared at him as Kelly started speaking. “I have a thing too. A lot like yours only my strength comes from air. I can influence the wind. I know where it’s been. It tells me things and it strengthens me.”
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Molly nodded but didn’t take her eyes off Cord. “That leaves you,” she said with a frown.
“My name is Cord Windweaver. I have a place up on Correl Mountain. Minuet called me when she realized you were trapped in the basement,” he stated to Kelly. “You’d passed out by the time I arrived. The old heater tank had crushed your leg. When I got you into the kitchen, I couldn’t find a phone to call the paramedics so Minuet called your friend Molly. Miss Molly used her gift to repair your leg. Then you woke up.”
Both women drank the entire glasses of water he’d set in front of them, replenishing power. He wondered if they knew why they needed it. There was silence for a few moments.
“Cord, that wasn’t the question. Why is my daughter, who is very uncomfortable with strangers and men in particular, sleeping on your shoulder?” Kelly asked. “I know she reads people. That’s why she has a hard time interacting with them. I’ll give you the latitude her trust earns. Now tell me why she contacted you?”
Looking into Kelly’s eyes, Cord struggled with his answer. He couldn’t lie. Damn it to hell. If it were Molly pressing him for an answer, he could give her just enough to stem her questions. But it was Kelly, and his response to her was writing the future. She deserved to know that, but he would do almost anything to keep that burden from her. Seemed there were a few more things he didn’t know about what was happening now. Apparently his drive to protect her was a rock-solid mandate he couldn’t escape. Along with it came the impulse to shield her from…well, anything that she might not like.
Minuet lifted her head. “Cord dagon. Him save mommy and Minuet.”
“Dragon?” Kelley asked her daughter softly. “You mean he’s the friend you sometimes talk to? The one Mommy thought was an imaginary friend?”
“No, dat my dagon. Cord Mommy’s dagon.”
Cord controlled his features to remain calm. Such simple words, the logic of a child and it was entirely complete. It was frighteningly revealing.
The two women were struggling with the concept of dragon. Cord took advantage of their silence.
WickedBeast Page 2
