Trent: Her Warlock Protector Book 7 (3 page)

Carrie’s squeal was enough to have the four closest tables glaring at both of them. For her part, Elaine scrunched in on herself and barely kept from clamping her hands over her ears. They’d be ringing for at least the next hour. Just another one of the joys of being a freak.
 

“That’s perfect! Then why are you so bummed?”

Because there’s something wrong with me, because there’s something different about him too, because I don’t even know what
I am. Pick one
.

Elaine couldn’t say any of those things, so she settled for the half-truth like always.

“I just want to plan the date right.”

“Well then, my friend,” Carrie started, draping an arm over her shoulder. “You have come to the right place. Let the evil mastermind plan it and you will be getting laid in no time.”

• • • • •

Elaine had to admit that Carrie’s idea of going to Five Points and the French place there Chez Tonton
sounded fun. She wouldn’t exactly call herself a fancy person. Okay, she was a total tomboy, but it might be fun to really show Trent the sophisticated side of the city she loved. If this all worked out, she’d have to take notes for both of them in class for the next few days. Carrie would have earned it.

Hell, by the time she slumped down on her couch in her apartment, Elaine was actually feeling pretty damned relaxed.
 

Mistake.

That was when she finally checked her voicemail and had a new request from her dad:

“Honey, it’s Dad. How’s work? Look, I know it’s short notice, but we’re a few volunteers short this year for organizing the rest of the festival. I know how you feel about all of this, and I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, but we’re really in need and it could be fun, honey, a good bonding time. I know we don’t do that enough and…just call me okay?”

She sighed and shut off her phone. There was no one she wanted to talk to tonight and, with her lack of a rip-roaring social life, a minimal risk that anyone would call her anyway. Her father wasn’t a bad person. Even after her parents had divorced back when she was in middle school, he had worked hard to stay in her life. Still, the thought of being back on the rez, of all that old scrutiny, those were things she didn’t want to deal with tonight.
 

Instead, she went back to her bedroom and opened the closet door. Inside, she’d hung a few handmade dream catchers that her grandmother had woven decades ago. Digging around the floor, she pulled out a few cream colored candles, the hawk feathers and ancient journal she’d stored there as well. Elaine sat on the floor, crossing her legs. Taking a deep breath, she said a quick prayer to the Goddess and then opened the book. The ancient vellum pages were written in English and, while most of the handwriting was her grandmother’s, a few of the front pages were in a script she didn’t know.
 

Maybe she came from an even longer line of Medicine People than she suspected.

Still, she loved everything about the journal––the scent, earthy and deep, of the deer hide skin it was bound in, the thickness of the vellum paper, even the loving script and exquisite cursive that her grandmother mainly had written in. This was an heirloom and a key to her heritage, something to be proud of.

“Oh Grandmother, I wish you were still here,” Elaine said.

But she stopped short of adding ‘I’m so lost’ out loud. She was too scared to reveal that much, to make things that real.
 

Instead, she lit the few candles and flipped the pages to a new spell she was working with. Most never worked for her, probably were things only her grandmother and proper training or, frankly, her full-blooded nature would have been skilled with. However, she was interested in this one. It required she use some aspect of an animal to help her get in deeper touch with her senses. If it was a way to help keep her hearing or smell from going into overdrive, to have more
control
, then it would be worth it for her.

Originally, she’d wanted to use a clipping of Rainstone’s mane for the spell. However, something else had called to her instead. Last time she’d been in Moundville, Elaine had passed by an antique shop and found an ancient necklace, just a simple leather strap really, with one yellowed wolf’s tooth hanging from it. She gripped it in her hand now, feeling the bite of the fang’s tip as it hit her skin. Setting the tooth down, she closed her eyes and began her chant.

“Oh Goddess, hear my cry. Your child of sensation, child of flesh, calls to feel her connection to the wild. Guide me, oh Goddess. Let the Earth Mother be my guide!”

She rocked back and forth on her hips and repeated the incantation twice more as the book instructed. Then there was a blinding pain lancing through her. Scared, Elaine tried to stand but couldn’t as spasms wracked her body, making muscles cramp and bones ache. The shaking started then and her head struck the wood of her floor.

That was the last thing she remembered––the impact and the pain.

• • • • •

The next thing she knew, Elaine awoke naked in a field across from a small house on the outskirts of Tuscaloosa. Sitting up, she smacked her lips, trying to chase away the harsh taste on her tongue of something gamey. Also, oddly, something coppery.
 

“What the hell?”

When she looked down, Elaine saw only her own flesh, no clothes to be seen, and her arms and legs had dozens of small cuts on them, as if she’d run through a bramble bush. The only thing on her entire body was the wolf’s tooth necklace and she didn’t even remember slipping it on. Gathering a loose branch and some long grass to her chest, she slid back into the woods and tried to think about how to get the next few miles home to her apartment.

She didn’t even have her cell.

Cursing to herself, she wondered if doing the ritual in reverse would help, if she could will herself back home. Elaine decided to try it again. It beat being picked up for indecent exposure or trying to explain to the nearest neighbor. Cradling the wolf’s tooth in her hand and scared about the pain, Elaine prepared to do the spell again.

But something stopped her.

A familiar scent wafted into her nostrils.

It was a mix of a deep woodsy musk as well as sharp aftershave, all laced with something else, maybe lavender.

It was
Trent
.

Squinting toward the house, Elaine looked at the nearest window and saw familiar amber eyes staring back at her.
 

“Oh crap!” she blurted out, before running deeper into the forest. Goddess, maybe he hadn’t seen her. Surely if he had, the date was off, unless he wanted to do a date at the mental hospital because that had to be where she was headed.

• • • • •

The thing about his assignment for the Corps was that while both his human and animal sides were drawn to Elaine, Trent still didn’t want to be here. This wasn’t the assignment he’d wanted. It was an outpost too far from battle and the real work of hunting down the Knights Templar and their cleric assistants to stop them from killing innocent Wiccans. That’s why he’d become fully initiated in the Corps, and that’s why he was fighting now. He certainly hadn’t signed on to babysit novice witches, even if the current one was by far the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

That was why he was dialing up one of his superiors back in D.C. at only eight a.m. Maybe he could get out of this go-nowhere assignment if he tried hard enough. It took only one ring before Logan MacCulloch, one of the most decorated generals of the Magus Corps, answered. That figured. The man was not only a living legend but one of the most disciplined of the hierarchy of Corps leadership. If there was a way to answer before the ringing, he probably would do that too.

“Lieutenant Williamson, I wasn’t expecting another progress report until Wednesday. You must have upped your plans to be reporting early. Did you have a chance to tell Elaine everything?”

His commander’s Scottish accent was usually subdued in person but carried more deeply over the artificiality of the phone. It threw Trent a minute before he answered.

“Something like that. We have plans to speak in private this Saturday, and I’ll be telling her everything then. I don’t know if the Knights are here yet searching for her. I think the intel from the Seers might not be right. I think she’s more than just able to communicate with animals.”

Logan gave a “hmph” on the other end. “Is she able to shift, like you?”

“Not sure yet. She might not even know herself. You know how hit and miss untrained Wiccans are. They never know the extent of their own powers.”

“True. Be careful on that note. You know the Corps rules. You help them find their roots, bring them into our fold, and teach them of our rituals.”

“Including helping them reach their potential with sexual awakening, bingo. I’ve been coached in everything. Look, I’ve only fought for the Magus Corps, and I’ve never helped educate a new witch. Hell, I’ve never even thought about initiating.”

“There’s no pressure on you to fully initiate her. Keep protection with you at all times. After all, lad, I was over three hundred before I found a witch I wanted to share immortality with. You just get Elaine up to speed with her true nature and protect her. Get her to agree to training with the Atlanta coven. That’s all.”

“Then I can come back to D.C. like a good boy? Maybe you’ll want to send me out to Nowhere, Mississippi, next. Thanks but no thanks,” Trent finished, wishing that talking with the other man didn’t make him feel like a child. He could only blame the centuries of age difference between them for that. He was hotheaded and he knew it, but the whole thing grated. “I want back on the front lines. Anyone can collect a new Wiccan.”

“No, they can’t. It takes a special type within the Magus Corps to do this job. You have it wrong. The older ones of us almost always work collecting the new witches. It’s the first few decades you train in combat and fight the Knights head on so you’ll be ready for this work.”

Trent sighed and felt the wolf pacing just beneath his skin. He agreed with the restlessness.
 

“If it’s so important then why didn’t I get sent until after I messed up?”

His assignment in Washington had gone rogue.

“Because I think you’re ready. To save the next generation of Wiccans is the highest calling we have and it does take the most finesse and skill because the Knights will stop at nothing to kill and torture them first. Don’t forget that. Just because you haven’t seen them yet, doesn’t mean they don’t already have plans in place.”

“I know,” he said, starting to pace behind the couch. “It’s like you quote verbatim from the rule book.”

“And who do you think wrote it, lad?” Logan prodded. “You aren’t getting reassigned, and, yes, until you actually complete something again and succeed the rest of the Corps isn’t sure about your place anymore.”

Trent choked. He stopped pacing so quickly he almost dropped the phone. Fumbling with it, he brought it closer to his ear.
 

“What?”

“I believe in you. I fought for this assignment to be given to you. I’m only saying that you don’t have many other champions. Save Elaine and prove your worth, Lieutenant Williamson, or I might not be able to help you anymore.”

“Logan…General MacCulloch wait–”

There was a click on the other end that left Trent cut off and keenly aware of how alone he actually was. Sighing, he shoved his phone in his pocket and was about to hurry to his room to go back over his dossier on Elaine when he heard it, a shuffling in the copse of trees by his house. Looking up, Trent caught a now-familiar set of doe eyes go wide before him.

Elaine was out there, naked except for some shrub she held over her breasts. Her hair was flowing free, thick with knots and brambles. Unbidden, Trent opened up his nostrils and noticed the change in Elaine’s scent, something wild and musky clung to her, deep and dark. The wolf form he often took was howling deep in his bones.

She was like him
.

Before he could move, she bolted into the forest.

“I WASN’T EXPECTING you today, sweetheart, but I really appreciate it,” Elaine’s father said, standing up to hug her.
 

Efrim Blackhawk wasn’t too tall, maybe a couple inches taller than her, but he was where she’d inherited her athletic build and, of course, the olive-skin and dark hair. Now nearing sixty, her father’s hair was slate grey and pulled back in two long braids. Wizened eyes regarded her and she wished he didn’t always seem like a puppy, too eager for any treat she’d bestow on him. It was too much pressure for her.

Chewing the usual tumult back, she faked a practiced smile for her father.

“Well you wanted to know if I could help out with the Moundville Native American Festival, and I knew you were short-handed. I wanted it to be a surprise for you.”

Her father smiled and kissed her cheek.
 

“It is. It’s a great surprise. I wasn’t sure you’d want to do it, even if we’re pretty strapped.”

“What happened?” she asked, falling into an easy rhythm with him as they settled at the kitchen table. She automatically dipped into the ginger snaps he kept in a jar there. They’d been a favorite of her grandmother’s and then a necessary staple even in the years after her death. “Usually everyone wants to help out.”

“Mary broke her ankle last weekend, and she does the final booth and vendor arrangements. If you could help with the final set up details and calls.”

“And?” she said, knowing it was never just that.

“Well, Mary also runs the funnel cake stand.”

“So you need me to learn the art of funnel? Frying some batter and all that?”

“I know it’s a lot.”

“I’ll help,” she said, patting his hand, feeling the way the creases were deeper than before. Maybe she needed to work harder to get him to quit smoking. “It doesn’t mean I’m doing this yearly.”

“Honey, the tribe–”

“Doesn’t need me, and one day I’ll move to Atlanta or Nashville or someplace bigger.”

And hopefully find my place.