by Lexi Ostrow
“Is there a way to fucking forget the prick?” Stryder grumbled.
“I have slightly similar feelings for him at times, but he sent me. I have my own Word Speaker now. My own love of my life,” he gestured to Kellie a distance away, who waved as if rather dumbfounded. “He thought it was a nice gesture to allow me to say goodbye, as I was distraught the last time.”
A small smile crept over the stern lines of Stryder’s face as he looked at Kellie. “It is amazing what the right woman will do to a man.” He turned his head into the house. “Ciara, I think you’d better get over here.”
The words were shouted, making Alcott wonder just how big the inside truly was. He didn’t have time to try to look around Stryder before he heard bounding steps that sounded like a big dog rapidly approaching, followed by more human-sounding footfalls.
“You do know that when you yell ‘get over here’ in that bellowing voice that Champ is nearly impossible to control?” Ciara’s voice drifted out of the house.
He still couldn’t see her, but hearing her voice was like a hit to the chest. She sounded like herself, though slightly older.
Stryder smirked. “It’s not my fault you wanted a Great Pyrenees and can’t get him to listen” Shaking his head, as if amused at his words, he stepped to the side.
“Oh my god,” Ciara whispered under her breath as her eyes immediately teared up. She didn’t walk past the door though. Instead, she seemed frozen in place, moving only her hand out to him. “This can’t be real.”
The breadth of emotion in her words nearly took him to his knees. Seeing her before him, as pretty as ever, took him right back to the moment he’d been ripped away from her. All the grief and sorrow slammed into him like a tidal wave, causing him to stagger back a step. Regaining his composure, he fought like hell to keep his voice level and his eyes dry.
“Ciara.” It was the only word he was able to get out.
She flung herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck as she buried her face against his chest. An action she had done so many, many times before. Instinct brought his hands up and around her body, cradling her against him in a protective way as he felt the tears dampen the shoulder of his shirt. His hands stroked up and down her body before he realized he was crying too.
Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply. He wanted to remember every sensation of this moment because seeing her again had been every bit as needed as he’d thought. He did love her, but he wasn’t in love with her. Ciara Miller was his greatest failure and his oldest companion, but she wasn’t the love of his life. Kellie was.
Kellie could feel her nerves growing tight like a frayed electrical cord just waiting to spark. Watching Alcott embrace another woman shouldn’t have been threatening to her, and it really wasn’t. It did, however, remind her that there was someone that had come before her. Someone else that would always be important to him.
Her body twitched as she stood a few hundred feet back, waiting for her moment to walk up to the group. When the door had opened, she’d been shocked that a man had answered, as if she’d assumed Ciara had a gift to know Alcott was coming to see her. The surprise had doubled as she’d drank the other Guardian in. Alcott was sexy as hell, exactly what she’d dreamed he’d look like, plus one tattoo. Stryder though, he was head-to-toe-perfection.
She’d been ready to attack him when he’d placed his hand on Alcott and had already started to make the ground rumble ever so slightly, when Alcott had taken care of himself. Even the fact that she’d thought he’d needed her was ridiculous. She was the one that needed him.
Even in that moment, fearing for his life hadn’t been as terror-filled as watching him hug his past Word Speaker. She’d only gotten a glimpse of Ciara before the woman had thrown herself at Alcott, but she’d heard the emotion in her cry. Emotion that had indicated she’d missed Alcott every bit as much as he’d missed her.
Nervously, she wrapped her arms around herself and waited for the embrace to end. Looking up, her eyes locked with the almost ultra-violet blue of Stryder’s, and he smiled. He wasn’t nervous, in fact, he seemed every bit as happy as Ciara did. Nodding at her, he gestured for her to come closer. She wasn’t ready and politely shook her head. Stryder mumbled something that was too quiet for her to hear from across the distance, and a moment later, Ciara released Alcott and stepped back beside her husband.
Alcott turned, cheeks glistening with tears, and it melted her heart. He was always so strong, so in control. He’d needed his first Word Speaker in the same way she’d always need to see her father one last time. He waved his hand for her to come closer, and even took a few steps toward her. With her heart pounding in her chest, she had a whole new fear — that she wouldn’t be good enough for him in Ciara’s eyes.
When she finally crossed the small distance, Alcott grabbed her, pulled her to him and kissed her. It wasn’t a passionate kiss, but it was filled with hope. He loved her, and he was just reminding her of that. Ending the moment, she flushed slightly when she realized that Ciara and Stryder were watching. The smile on the other woman’s face was bright and accepting.
Alcott slipped his hand into hers and smiled again. “Ciara, there is someone very important I would like you to meet . . . ”
Epilogue
It was strange, not knowing when Kellie and Alcott would return from their rendezvous with a fictional world. Yet, he wasn't going to intrude. If they needed a week to work out their problems, so be it, they could take a week. Sooner or later he would have to check, if for no other reason than to close the doorway.
He had bigger issues to worry about at the moment. Issues that started and stopped with the helpless teams that had been split apart by Demus’ vile act. Word Speakers might be able to continue on without their Guardian. Not all possessed a soul deep connection that would render them useless, or even cause a suicide, at the loss of their partner. That was not always the case for released Guardians. He’d been watching, on and off for the past months as the ones left alive in the wake of tragedy adjusted — or didn’t.
With a wave of his hand, the viewing windows to a few chosen people opened. Three contained Word Speakers who had lost their partners. All of which were the last ones struggling to cope with the loss. Two seemed to be adjusting in the months after the tragedy, and one was likely lost forever.
It broke him to see a mother of a young child so heartbroken. Jeannette’s Guardian had developed cancer, and the world would have taken him sooner or later, but to loose him the way she had was taking its toll. He feared he would never have her back in his ranks. Looking at her as she cried silently while cradling a little girl in her arms, he realized that losing her to a normal life was not a problem. Warriors needed to be strong, and Jeannette might have faced her final battle in losing Andrew.
Another wave, and the windows shifted, this time opening nearly twenty— all containing released Guardians who were struggling to make it without their partners. Watching them and listening to some cry and others rant, he knew what he had to do. If he was going to be a leader, he had to start by mending his broken.
He stared intently at every window. Closing them, one by one, he assessed which pairs needed him more and which were the more powerful. He would need the latter in a fight, even if they had no Word Speakers any longer and wouldn’t be matched with another. Over and over, he closed them until he was left with only two — an ice demon and a special ops warrior. Both needed him, and from what he could gather, both needed each other in a way he would never have imagined.
Read on for a sneak peek at Worlds of Frost (book 3.5) coming September 2016!
Marie looked out across the dry, cracked Vegas desert sand and sighed. As a creature of ice, she was not exactly cut out for desert living. In fact, she’d disdained every moment of it. Both when she’d first been paired with Zach, and after when he’d released her. Tears welled up in her eyes at the thought of her Word Speaker. At the thought of his death.
It didn’t matter how
many months had passed, she’d never expected an attack, and, therefore, they hadn’t been prepared for one. A werewolf Guardian and a Word Speaker had found them while they’d been hiking in Red Rock Canyon. The battle had been over before it had even begun — with Zach falling to his death. The rest was a bit of a blur because her demonic nature had taken over, and in an icy rage, she’d destroyed quite a bit of the canyon and their attackers.
Ice flowered up on the ground beneath her feet. Emotion made it much harder for her to control her gifts, which was why she’d come out to the desert space between the Strip and Primm. She’d wanted to be able to mourn as ice demons did, by encasing themselves in ice.
She knew the heat would likely melt the ice far quicker than she was ready for, but it didn’t matter. Her people had traditions, and until she gave in and allowed herself to accept Zach’s death, she would never heal.
“Marie, we need to speak.” A voice she hadn’t heard in nearly a decade spoke from nowhere.
Turning, she wasn’t shocked to see the man that had begun her journey standing before her. A man in a trench coat with silvery blue eyes and a beguiling smirk. A man she’d wanted to kill for disturbing her peace when they’d first met.
“Unless you came to tell me you can bring Zach back from the dead, we have nothing to speak of. My kind might be nothing more than a construct in a novel, but I am compelled to follow through with the traditions I have always believed were mine. Traditions created by a people that were perceived to be demons because of the battles we fought and the powers we could wield.”
The man sighed, showing a strain of age on his face that Marie had never thought she would see. He looked weary, bone-tired and ready to give up. His sigh only furthered her opinion.
“If I could bring him back I would. He died in a fight that shouldn’t have never occurred. But he is dead, Marie. It’s been months, and its time you moved past it. You have a life in this world, and you can still fight if the time comes.”
A spray of ice shards shot from the ground, landing helplessly at the man’s feet. “If I wanted to fight in your war, but I don’t.”
“You won’t stay frozen forever. It’s Vegas and nearing the summer.”
“You say that as if I’m too stupid to realize that on my own, which I’m not.” She allowed the slow chill of the freezing air to creep over her skin. “I do have a life here. One that I will not waste. I will do my best to be exactly what I was while Zach was alive, a protector. I have a job I adore and miss, but I cannot move forward until I embrace his death.”
He took a step forward, hands raised in a mock surrender. “When you emerge, you won’t be the same person. Your heart will have hardened like the ice you encase yourself in, even if you don’t have to be frozen long.”
If her eyes had been able to flash like so many people thought ice demon’s could, they would have then. “I have no intention of being the woman I was. I was written to a battle clan and survived because of the paranormal gifts the author gave me. Yet, I have never been the demon the name indicated. I was always weak, quick to love and quick to forgive.”
She heard the crackle of ice and felt the icy hand of redemption slowly creepy up her body as the process began. Looking down, she saw that her feet were encased. She smiled then, a cruel expression that was unlike any she’d ever done before.
“When I emerge, I will be a better version of myself. I will protect without loving, I will kill without remorse should I change my mind about your war.” The noise continued, and she welcomed the cold as it grew stronger with every inch of ice that formed. “I welcome the ice. I grant it access to do as it must.”
The words were her last as the ice finished forming a cube-like structure around her body. It wouldn’t be long before her body shut down, entering in a deep sleep to combat the cold. When she awoke she would have no emotions left; No pain or hurt, and certainly no hopeful fantasies of waking up to learn the past months had been a dream. She watched through the slightly distorted angle of the ice as the man’s face hardened.
Then, like the only other time he’d come since assigning her to Zach, he vanished without a trace. Leaving her in the middle of the desert to freeze.
