Shadow's Awakening: The Shadow Warder Series, Book One (An Urban Fantasy Romance Series) (14 page)

Conner knew all about lust. While he wasn’t quite the ladies man Kiernan was, Conner had had his first woman at fourteen and he hadn’t looked back since. For him, lust was a simple enough urge—not unlike hunger and fatigue. He was tired, he slept. Hungry, he ate. He needed a woman and he found one. Always someone who knew what he wanted. Simple, consenting sex between adults with no ties and no expectations. Attracting them wasn’t a problem. Kiernan was right—Conner wasn’t charming. But his looks had always appealed to women. They liked his size, his strength, the not quite handsome yet not plain face. Oddly, his lack of game put them at ease. Often it took little more than an inviting look at the right time to draw a woman to his bed.

He liked sex, liked the passion and the pleasure. He’d always figured that in return for leaving a woman after a night or two, he’d make sure it was an amazing night. After over a hundred and forty years of pleasuring women, Conner knew how to make a woman come over and over until she fell into an exhausted sleep. How to string out her orgasm until she was pleading to come. He might not be charming, but once he got a lover in bed, she was more than happy to be there.

None of that had anything to do with his reaction to Hannah. When he’d first seen Hannah in the farmhouse he’d thought she was luminous. Beautiful despite her bruises. He’d wanted to protect her. Then she’d been in Glenn’s arms, a knife at her throat. Instead of afraid, she’d been enraged. In a million years he never would have expected her to raise a knife and gut the demon behind her.

Her strength and resilience in the face of her ordeal only made him want her more. He still wanted to keep her safe. He just wanted to do it from his bed with her naked beneath him, her soft skin sliding against his as she twined her legs around him, lifting her hips, hard nipples scraping his chest as he moved over her.

He’d made her uncomfortable last night while they ate. Conner hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her. Despite her fragile appearance, she was strong. She’d survived being held captive by a nest of Vorati for months. Conner didn’t want to dwell on what they might have done to her. Just the thought of the possibilities made him wish he could kill them all over again. Yet Hannah had managed to fight back, to keep her head together and help Conner get her out.

He’d half expected to have a fight on his hands when he’d taken her to the cabin. After all, the first time she’d seen him he’d been armed with knives and speckled in blood. But she’d been quiet in the car on their drive up the mountain, her wide green eyes wary but calm. Conner had no doubt she would have been able to put up a fight if she’d decided she didn’t want to go with him. He was equally sure he would have won, but he was grateful for whatever instinct had convinced her to trust him.

Sitting at the dinner table, watching Hannah struggle not to inhale the simple meal he’d placed before her, a tide of rage had washed through him at the idea that she’d been starved, followed by the first stirrings of lust. Her face scrubbed clean, wet hair pulled back, Hannah should have looked young and defenseless. Instead she’d been alluring, her cautious green eyes a counterpoint to high cheekbones and a lush mouth. The clothes Kiernan had purchased for her were basic and serviceable, the last thing a woman would wear to attract a man. Even restrained by a bra and beneath a loose t-shirt, the curve of her breasts had made Conner’s fingers itch to touch, to mold themselves around their soft weight. She’d felt his gaze on her. Conner had almost heard her inner thoughts as she wondered why he kept staring at her. He’d forced himself to tear his eyes away.

Today would be more of the same.
Don’t look too closely
. Don’t think about what it would be like to get his hands on her. Work on teaching her to shield. Hannah was way off track thinking that Conner was the reason her head was better. It probably had to do with the Vorati being dead. Just to be safe, they’d test it out. See if distance from Hannah would bring her static back. Conner didn’t think it would make a difference, but at least it would give him an excuse to put some space between them.

Putting Hannah out of arm’s reach was a necessity. They only had a few days before he would have to bring her in. He needed to use that time to teach Hannah the basics of shielding. Maybe help her figure out what her skills might be. Not to show her how many different ways he could give her an orgasm.

“Shit,” Conner said under his breath. It was proving more difficult than it should be to rein in his unruly mind. He was a soldier. His life revolved around focus and dedication. Yet every time he allowed his thoughts to drift, they went straight back to the same thing. Hannah. Naked. With him. He’d woken the night before from a dream of taking her from behind, bent over the same table where they’d eaten dinner. She’d been so tight, her slick heat a vise around his cock, moaning as she pushed back against him. Her upper body rocked against the table, cheek pressing into the varnish, her panting breath clouding the shiny surface. The sharp, sweet release, feeling her contract around him as he emptied himself in her body. It had been more real than the last time he’d had sex while awake. When the dream had released him, he’d woken to find he’d come in his sleep. It might have been embarrassing if it hadn’t been so good.

He put his coffee mug, cold and mostly empty, on the porch railing and stood up. His half-hard cock pressed uncomfortably into the seam of his jeans. Might as well take a walk around the cabin to check the wards he’d put in the night before while Hannah had showered.

Don’t think about Hannah in the shower. Naked. Soapy, warm, slippery skin
. The weight of her breasts in his hands, soft and round in spite of her too-slender frame. Conner stepped off the porch, inviting the discomfort of trying to walk with an erection. It was what he deserved for fantasizing about a woman who was looking to him for safety. After what she’d been through, the last thing she needed was her protector plotting to get her beneath him.

Trying to clear his head, Conner walked the perimeter of the cabin on autopilot, assessing each ward he’d placed as he passed it. The wards were simple spells designed to set off a silent alarm if a Voratus got within a hundred feet. Conner didn’t have access to anything more elaborate and he lacked the skill to design something better himself. These might be basic, but they’d get the job done. He didn’t need them to work forever, just long enough to keep them safe while they were at the cabin. They could only stay a few days. Any longer and he could guarantee there would be problems.

There was no way anything could be between them. It was impossible. Hannah had a whole new life ahead of her as a Shadow. Conner had no doubt that she had power. If she’d been weak she would have crumbled long before under the pressure of the nest and their torture. Once she was safe with her people, Hannah would discover a new future, one filled with potential. Conner was a Warder—destined for a solitary life as a soldier. No long-term lover, no relationships with outsiders. And no possibility of anything with a Shadow. Not ever. Hannah was beyond off limits. All he had to do was convince his mind and body to stay away from her.

Chapter Seven

The small black phone vibrated, buzzing and skittering on the weathered planks of the dock. Zach wondered why he bothered to put the phone in silent mode when the vibrations made as much noise as a ring. A quick look gave him the number on the screen before he turned his attention back to the quiet marsh. When the tide was in, his feet could almost skim the surface of the water. Now it was a meter below him and slowly rising. The morning’s catch of two pounds of shrimp rested in the cooler between Zach and his cousin. Kate took a long, slow pull from her beer.

Though they were first cousins, born the same year to twin sisters, Zach and Kate looked almost nothing alike. They shared the same tall, lean, athletic build, and icy blue eyes, but there the similarities ended. Kate loved to tease Zach that he was what you got when you crossed an angel with a surfer. Tanned, with shaggy blond curls, Zach’s form and face gave no hint of his age or power. His eyes might have been the same ice blue as his cousin’s, but they were often lit with humor or affection.

Kate, like Zach, appeared no more than mid-twenties, as opposed to the sixty-odd years she really was. But her long dark hair, sharp cheekbones and serious expression lent her an air of wisdom. Zach poked fun at her for that. The least responsible one in the family and Kate was the one who exuded competence and reliability. Closer than the sisters who had born them and died young, Zach often thought that he and Kate were two sides of the same coin. The phone buzzed again, interrupting his thoughts.

“Are you going to answer that?” Kate asked.

“No,” he said. “Not today.”

Mist hovered over the glassy water like lonely spirits raised to life. Of all the places he’d lived, Zach loved this small barrier island best. The marsh before him was gilded by the newly risen sun, grasses swaying in a light breeze. Humid, salty air flavored every breath, clean in the early spring. In a few months the air would drip heat and only the locals would find it easy to breathe. Their deep-water dock meant good fishing and shrimping when he and Kate were too lazy to take out the boat. His family had owned the rambling home behind him for decades, though it had only been a full-time residence for the past twelve years.

Kate had needed the calm of the island. The cycle of life was so clear here. People lived and died, fished and ate. Simple. Watching the ocean birds hunt their meal, diving and swirling in the pale sunlight, Zach could almost forget the weight of his responsibilities.

“You should just leave the phone in the house if you’re not going to answer it,” Kate said.

“Maybe.” He didn’t need to look at Kate to know she was draining the last of her beer. “You shouldn’t drink so much,” he said.

“You’re the college student. I thought beer is what’s for breakfast,” she said. He heard a rustle beside him, then the short gasp of carbonation as she twisted off the top of another bottle.

“Kate.” He said her name on a sigh. “Time is growing short. The balance is shifting. You need to pull your head out of your ass and get in the game.”

“My head is fine where it is. You don’t have to do this, Zach. You could let things play out without your help. Just because you can see the future doesn’t mean you have to stick your nose in it.”

“Like you?” he asked, the first shade of emotion coloring his voice. “Turn my back on my birthright and lie around drinking all day? Wasting my life?” He waited for her to respond. When she remained silent, he continued. “You’re full of shit, Kate. If you really believed in letting things play out, you’d be bonded to Ben with three or four rug-rats running around. Instead you’re holed up out here hiding from who you are.”

“Touché.” She raised her beer in a mock salute. The phone beeped to signal a voicemail. “How many times are you going to let him call before you answer?”

“I don’t know yet. They’re already looking for the girl. She doesn’t have much time before they find her.”

“And?” Kate asked, waiting. Zach sighed. This was the comfort and irritation of his relationship with his cousin. Kate knew him too well.

“And I want to try to buy them some time.”

“You want me to do a spell,” Kate said.

“I think that’s the easiest way. Nothing big, just enough to cloud their vision. It doesn’t have to last forever.”

“It won’t be easy. Not unless you have something of hers to anchor it.”

“Not exactly.” Zach shook his head. “If I did, I wouldn’t be bugging you for help.”

“I need a little time to think about how to put it together. Give me a few hours.”

“Yeah.” Zach planted a hand beside him on the dock and levered himself to his feet with fluid grace. “I have class in an hour so I have to hit the road. Will you be ready when I get home?”

“Sure. Be a good boy at school,” she said in a singsong voice.

Zach flipped Kate his middle finger and ignored her snort of laughter. She’d never understood his masquerade as a college student—she didn’t get that he liked the few hours of normalcy in his otherwise bizarre life. His bare feet slapped the boards of the dock as he headed to the back of their sprawling house. He snagged the handle of the cooler on his way, thinking briefly of the shrimp and grits he’d talk Kate into making for dinner. If you couldn’t enjoy the simple things, none of the rest was worth a damn.

Chapter Eight