Guardian (2 page)

“Yes.” Althoen answered for me. 

“And the child?” I asked.

Altheon displaced a smidgen of pride.  “I knew you to be a smart boy.”
              Yeah!  I’m nearly a hundred years old. I gave him a fake smile turned up at one corner. 

“The child is half Fey.  She will live a longer life, but there is no way to know how long.”

I didn’t want to do this.  “And I will just sit on a toadstool and watch?  Wait?”

“Basically.  But the alternative could be fatal for us all, so we are counting on your ability to guard her safety and prepare her.”
              I lifted one eye up, “Prepare her?”

“She will no doubt exhibit some magically abilities, but being half human will make it difficult to predict.  You will need to be close to her at all times to assure her safety from herself, her human relationships, her family, and you.”

“Me?” I asked.  I couldn’t possibly be able to...

“You already seem against the idea though I detect an ounce of fear.”
              That did it.  “I am not afraid.  Fine then!  I will enter the human world for the eighteen years.  Let the fun begin.”  I shoved off the rock and stormed off.  I knew I looked like a spoiled child, but I seemed to have no say in the matter.  Fine!  I’ll do it.  But I don’t have to like it!

Eighteen years later...

I looked at the time as I pulled onto the blacktop of the West Fort High School parking lot hiding in the shadows though my bike was far from silent.    Following Grace up the ten mile drive on the Ozark mountain road was dangerous with the speed she’d drive it and today the slick rain water made it worse.  Taking the back roads was a directive of Ginera, Grace’s mom.  Padlocked in the little town of Winslow with the population of less than four hundred wasn’t terrible since I had Grace, but time was not an issue for me until recently.  Twelve miles the other direction and I could be hiking in Devil’s Den near my own people.  That would put me heading home to my world.  Would Grace choose it?  There was a time I could have cared less, but all that has changed.

I saw him before I sensed him, the chains that bind me.  I wanted to break those chains into a thousand pieces and take what was mine.  Grace.   Kinlser’s shrouded force field of glamour kept me at bay when he could get this close to her.  He did it half the friggin’ time just to taunt me and make me stand closer to her making her think I’m a freak.  The disembodied voice came from the car parked in the no parking zone.  I looked everywhere for his bike, but saw no sign of it.  Grace was looking right at him as if she could see him, sense him,
even
almost smell him.  I saw her nostrils flare and turn her head up.  Her draw to nature and its beauty astounded me though his contribution to the air was putrid. She was so much already apart of my world and didn’t know it.  She was meant for my world.

I caught Pike’s laughter and blocked him out.  Sometimes I hated our strong magical mind connections.  Annoying and invading.

Her skin glistened in the morning dew carrying her floral scent over the breeze.  I caught the same torturous link to her that Kinsler did evident by the fact that he lifted his nose in her direction at the same time.  As if all three of us were in a trance!

Then I caught Grace’s thoughts lingering on last night.  Kinsler had stood over her balcony trying to implant simulated thoughts into her brain of making a point to come find him on her own and mindlessly go with him.  She awoke screaming and Danella was in there faster than an arrow on my range could have ever found a target.  Kinsler and I shuffled fists around landing on the ground below us.

“Your summer POS butt needs to take a break from guard duty.  Let someone who can make into what she needs take over.”

“You’re a pompous jerk if you think that means you,” I wiped my lip from the blood.  Lord, years ago I would have gladly handed her over to him.  Now, I couldn’t bear to hear her talk to anyone without my knowing.  Possessive?  Yes!  She will be mine or no one’s.

“Your days are numbered Ian.  She’ll listen to me and you know it,” Kinsler stretched his arms over his clothes to dust off.  As he stomped into the shadows, I felt Grace calm inside back against her pillow for the rest of the night.  Sometimes I wondered if she could sense him as I could.  Kinsler and Grace seemed to have some kind of magnetic pull towards the other that I had yet to figure out.  She knew when he was near and him the same.  I once thought it meant the prophecy had it all wrong since her father is who he is, but blotted out that ending when I remembered who her mother and grandfather were.  There was no way to know and I didn’t intend to find out.

I let Danella attend to her as I would remain on the balcony keeping silent watch over her safety.  Kinsler may have the horrid agenda of trying to turn her away from me, but I haven’t spent almost eighteen years shielding her from his claws to lose her now.  He’d just have to damn work harder, and damn still lose! Nevertheless, the suspicion would never go away, a small doubt that
refused
to go away.

Grace stepped into the front double doors of the main office and accepted her tardy slip, sniffed the air nonchalantly, and looked around the office behind her.  “Thanks, Mrs. Jociline,” she told the secretary as she eyed who was behind her.

Pike. 

The human world knew him as Christian.  His humored way of making himself appear saintly.  Too bad the sneering look didn’t make it hold up.  He made the assumption that the humans would be too curious about the name Pike.  I reminded him once of the two kids we were rudely approached by in kindergarten that involved a little dirt and a lot of rocks.  The rocks won I think.  Their faces didn’t.  However, Pike was the only one to get pinned for the job and carted off to kindergarten jail.  The time-out corner.  Man, human school sucked back then too.  The two rotten twin beasts who instigated the fight got off clean, Demon and Darcy.

Who would name their children that?  Human or not.

Pike tossed his head in my direction where I stood invisible to any human eye, but not to him.   Pike smiled for my benefit at her when she turned and saw him for a second time, making a point to look him over.  He really enjoyed that. Her nose did the same lifting affect in his direction and it made her eyes draw up into some type of confusion.  She was thinking of Pike camping in the woods.  Odd!   I angered fast at her thinking next about how hot he was.  She thought about the way the guy smells after that.  She was too infatuated with smell and too focused on anyone else but me.

She would head next to our already started Trigonometry class, so I appeared quickly and headed into class with my tardy slip in hand before she arrived.  I was seated and watching when she walked in.    The jerk seated at the front of the class whistled as she passed making her blush and it took everything I had not to lay him out on the floor.  That wouldn’t bring the human holiday of Halloween any closer by screwing up all I had worked hard for though, so I let it ride.

Josie, the air headed bimbo who smelled like laundry detergent, was behind me coughing as Grace passed.  She was an annoying presence who just never seemed to take a hint.

  Grace sat in the assigned seat beside me and I allowed myself a small smile in her direction that always made her sigh with pleasure.  I craved those lips turning up into the genuine smile that she only ever gave me.  Sometimes she’d sigh long and let her thoughts get her down because she believed me to only see her as a friend.  Would I even get the chance to tell her how I really feel?  I sighed my own agitated release.

   I raised an eye to indicate that she was late to class and where she might have been all in one look.   With her stare, she was pondering internally why I had given her so much more attention lately.  Her overactive female mind was always thinking the best or the worst, but never just what it was.   But how could she when she didn’t know who she really was or why I acted as I do.  Sometimes the circles I sent her in left her so exasperated, that she’d growl silently and leave me hanging with her mirror imaged vivid thoughts of what I’d surely like to do with those soft lips of hers.  Her eyes would watch my lips and her thoughts would...well, too often I had to walk away before I gave into temptation.  Our entire future depended on just a few more days.  I could wait.  If only I knew if she’d choose me, my world, her world, or walk away horrified by the prospects of it.  She handled “freaky” well so I leaned on the hopeful side of her being with me for all of our unnatural lives together.  The road was long ahead of us either way.  If she said no, I would have to live without her. 

Josie glared at Grace getting attention from me.  A satisfactory smile traced her soft, pliable lips as she silently played me up in her mind and willing Josie to back off.  I loved her hope.  I just
hoped
it was what she really wanted after she knew the truth.
 

She kept watching me from behind her soft, silky hair trying hard to look like she was reading.  The sunlight caught it just right making her eyes shine even in the dull of fluorescent light.  She caught my smile as I watched the words on the pages in front of me stare back at me and say nothing.  She was all I could think about.

The annoying Ben coughed and lifted his leg out beside him to get Grace’s attention.  I kept my jealousy to a minimum since Grace assumed I had nothing to be jealous about, but I’d spurred Ben in alternate directions on more than one occasion that left him bereft with anger and confusion towards my efforts.  She didn’t think the boy liked her too much, but I knew different.  He thought he was
in love
with her.  Yeah, buddy.  I know the feeling.

Grace’s thoughts spawned a mental picture of Kinsler and made my body sit up straighter.    He was bothering Rachel, the photography girl, with his irritating habits.  Kinsler poked the girl with his pencil top on the back of her neck forcing her to tense and duck down into her seat in retreat. She tried to ignore him and even tried to get the teacher’s attention, but Kinsler was styling the glamour around him and displaying once again what a jerk he was all for Grace’s supposed benefit.  He didn’t wish to face that he’d spent all of these years building Grace up to hate him instead of hopelessly following his lovesick ways.  Oddly enough, she never hated him and I had no friggin’ idea why.

Well, I knew her.  She just didn’t hold too much animosity for even the ruthless and cunning evildoers of the human world.

Self absorbed in the notion of Kinsler possibly ever gaining her affections, I looked up too late to catch the gummy bear pegging Kinsler on the back of the head.  He whirled and glared at Grace, the savior, with a fake smile and then mouthed the words,
“Drop dead, princess!”

Grace was hurt, not angry.  Obviously displeased with both of them on this little display, I wanted to shake some sense in her and shove a fist in Kinsler’s gut.  Grace looked above the classroom door not even noticing my irritation.  She laughed that wonderful tinkling laugh of hers all in the act she was playing for the dipwad. Kinsler continued to glare since he knew she was thinking of ways to ward off his evil and mend his wicked ways.   She had the first part right.

She didn’t look back up to anyone after that, but somehow she knew he watched her.  Her thoughts said as much.  Pike helped with my inner curses at Kinsler to back off of her getting much more graphic with his revenge tactics.  Pike popped his knuckles reminding Kinsler of what he’d done to him after I’d finished with him last night for getting too close to Grace.  He still sported the bruises on his face more than Pike or me.

Grace was alternating back and forth in her mind about Pike and Kinsler deciding who knows what.   I didn’t like her even thinking about them. Finally, the incessant human high school test was over and Grace stood to leave.  She ignored me thinking I surely didn’t notice her, but her mind was racing with making herself to force the avoidance.   She knew I’d stepped up the attention lately and it piqued her brain to not know what I was up to.  She left ahead intending to stand outside the room and wait for me with the same intention she always did...to secretly look me over as if I never knew she was doing it.  In junior high once, she commented on my wardrobe choice and hinted that I should pick colors other than gray or black.  The next day, I wore a green shirt from my court successfully making her eyes the essence of pure intrigue.  Needless to say, it achieved the acquired reaction that she herself requested.  From that day, I wore green more often than not waiting each time with abated anticipation for her “silent” reaction, for her mind was never, ever quiet on the subject.  Punishing myself with hearing her describe me the way she did was deadly reminder that I had somehow changed my venue along the way. I wanted her to be mine. 
Only mine.
  And I would do anything I had to do to make it so.

She would hate the day she knew I could read her like this.  She thought of my jeans now front and back.  Pictured them even from her own perspective.  Thought about things she shouldn’t be.  Hell, that killed me.               

Kinsler suddenly had the interrupting inclination to mind his way to her and convince her to follow him to the woods.  I nodded to Pike quick as a thunder bolt and we had Kinsler by both arms, glamming ourselves out the side emergency exit, and on the back basketball court before Grace had time to look back and see any of us missing. 

She would be off to English.  And safe!

After taking care of another one of Kinsler’s daily kidnapping attempts, I headed to the classroom she sat in wanting just to see her. 
Just
see her, know she was safe. 

As I watched her through the door invisibly hearing my own heart drum a little harder at finding her beautiful face looking bored-like at the classroom wall.  Selfishly, I wanted time alone with her to hear her voice, see her smile at me.  I forced her to see me. 

Her face brightened, but no smile.  She mouthed a “no” and said way too loudly, “What?”

She looked around to be sure no one heard her and I froze waiting for the teacher to comment.  Bloody hell.  I backed away to be sure no one, especially
that teacher
saw me.  Sometimes when Grace thought about what she wanted, she could make it happen.  Keeping her safe from that was like a full time job.  And in that classroom, it was the most important job of all.  Coach Stanton, the
teacher
, was not who he seemed to be all the time.  Grace’s best interest were not what he took to heart.

Outside the door, I nervously paced the floor clean watching and keeping one eye on her the entire time.  I ran a hand through the mess of hair that almost reached into my eyes when I yanked on it too much stressing about Grace.