Bodyguards (11 page)

She whirled around to look at him
and saw him move back, out of the path of sunlight. He was cradling his hand to
his chest; it looked red, swollen...burned.

Vivien’s world shook, and she froze.
One word echoed through her mind again. Vampire? But it didn’t make sense. She
had read stories and seen movies in which vampires were unable to step into the
sun without burning, but Aedan hadn’t been bothered by the sun back when she
had first met him in the park. Why would he be hurt by it now?

She started to step back inside,
an apology already coming to her lips, but she changed her mind and stopped. It
wasn’t her fault, she told herself forcefully. If he hadn’t tried to grab her,
he wouldn’t have been hurt. She had warned him to keep his hands off her,
hadn’t she?

Still holding his hand to his
chest, he gave her a pleading look. “Please, Dame Vivien, it’s too dangerous
for you to go out.”

If anything, his words reinforced
her decision. She stepped outside and closed the door behind her. This was her
world, Brad had told her. It was time for her to explore it.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Lake

In one of the history books she
had read yesterday, Vivien had found the map of a property, a castle built by
some ruler or other. She hadn’t realized it at the time, but it had depicted
this property, the house and the grounds around it. It had dawned on her last
night, when she thought about the beautiful view Brad had showed her over the
cliff.

On the map, at the back of the
castle, jagged lines and dashes had indicated the edge of a precipice. The
castle, it seemed, was built on a plateau in the mountains. One side was
inaccessible because of the cliff, which, Vivien supposed, was a desirable
thing when your enemies wanted you dead. The other side of the property was
bordered by woods and a lake that the map had indicated with small waves drawn
over a rough oval shape.

The whole geography seemed off to
Vivien, but for all she knew this place didn’t obey the same laws Earth did; or
maybe magic had created the whole thing. Regardless, if this was the property
from the map, it had to be the lake Brad had mentioned to her, and since he had
offered to take her to it, she supposed—she hoped—that the shields extended past
it.

After leaving Aedan in the
kitchen, Vivien strode straight out toward the shields. They gleamed softly in
the morning sun, but were farther away than she had estimated when she had
looked outside yesterday. She angled her steps around a strangely shaped
extension that was linked to the house by a long corridor—the room where they
had Passed Through, Vivien guessed.

As soon as she could see past it,
she smiled. The terrain was uneven and descended in a gentle slope, but she
could already see the woods, thick branches reaching high and disappearing
beyond the shields. If the map held true, the lake would be right on the edge
of it.

As she continued toward the woods,
Vivien’s pace slowed right along with her heartbeat. It had been beating
furiously when she had confronted Aedan in the kitchen, but now her irritation
was abating, chased away by crisp, fresh air and the ticking sensation of cool
grass against her feet through her sandals.

The closer she came to the woods,
the more wildflowers surrounded her in every imaginable shade of the rainbow.
The scents were like a symphony, shifting with every gust of wind, sometimes
sweet and delicate, sometimes strong enough to make her a little lightheaded.
Soon, she found herself smiling at nothing in particular, her fears and
confusion from the past couple of days receding as a sense of simple but
all-encompassing serenity rose through her.

She walked along the edge of the
woods, her fingers reaching down to caress the soft petals of tall flowers. Her
eyes turned toward the shade provided by the thick canopy of leaves. She could
see the occasional flutter of wings and hear bird songs, none like anything
she’d heard before...or had she?

From deep inside her rose the echo
of a voice, gentle but firm, telling her to stay out of the woods unless
someone was with her. She wasn’t staying on the grass to obey that voice, she
told herself; she only wanted to get to the lake. Just the same, a small part
of her felt better for not disobeying.

She finally reached the far end of
the woods and had to stop, her eyes widening to take in every detail, the
breath stolen right out of her. The previous evening, she had thought nothing
could compare to the view over the valley, with the sunset casting an almost
eerie light over everything. She had been wrong.

The terrain sloped down in front
of her, so that she stood a few feet above what looked like a shallow bowl
carved in the landscape. In the center, the reflection of the midday,
bright-blue sky glittered softly in the water as the breeze created small
waves. On the left side, the woods came right to the edges of the lake, some
trees with spider-like roots sitting half on land, half in the water. On the
right and further away, the vegetation was sparse, with clusters of small trees
or shrubs spread out along the waterline. Whatever lay beyond those, Vivien
couldn’t tell because the shields came down to the ground maybe twenty or
thirty yards from the lake.

Pushing herself into motion again,
she started down the slope, and nearly fell when her sandals slipped on the
dewy grass. She took them off and kept them hooked on her fingers as she
reached the edge of the lake where a few large, smooth boulders advanced into
the water. A flash of something that felt like a memory flickered to the surface
of her mind, and she knew, as clearly as if she had tasted it already, how
fresh the water would be if she cupped her hands in it and drank deep.

She tiptoed onto the boulders,
warm from soaking sunlight, and came to the very edge of the water where she
looked down. She was almost shocked to see herself as she was, a young woman on
the verge of turning twenty; why had she expected a child to look back at her
from her reflection?

Feeling a little silly, she sat
down, her legs dangling over the rock so that her toes skimmed the surface of
the water. She let her gaze drift over the lake and its surroundings while her
thoughts drifted over everything that had happened. Had it only been two days
ago that she had last talked to Anabel, that she had sat in a coffee shop with
her peers, preparing a school project and making a fool out of herself in front
of Brad? It felt like a lot longer than that.

And the rest of that day, with
Aedan and his knives in the woods, with Brad and his show of magic back at the
house, seemed like little more than a bad dream. Some aspects of what was
happening certainly felt like a fairytale—she, a princess hidden from enemies
in a parallel world with a wizard for a bodyguard—but the deaths that had
occurred, Anabel’s kidnapping, even Brad being wounded the previous night were
all the stuff of horror stories. As for Aedan...she wasn’t certain in what
category he belonged.

When she heard small sounds behind
her, she was sure for a moment that Aedan had come after her, and the resentment
she felt toward him started to rise again. She quickly remembered how sunlight
had hurt him, though; he couldn’t have come. Which meant...

Looking over her shoulder, she met
Brad’s eyes and found herself smiling before she was even aware of wanting to
do so.

“Sit with me?” she asked.

For a second, maybe not even that
long, Brad hesitated, and one word—proper—rang through Vivien’s mind like a
warning bell. Soon, though, he was bending down to remove his boots. Her smile
widened a little more, and she looked back at the lake to hide it from him.

* * * *

Aedan’s frantic words stayed with
Bradan all the way to the lake, urging him onward. “They might be waiting for
her behind the shields! If she crosses them on her own...”

As concerned as he was, though, Bradan
couldn’t imagine that Vivien would be reckless enough to walk through the
shields by herself. She had seen the guards in action, she knew what they could
do, and she wasn’t stupid.

It had taken Bradan a little
longer than usual to get dressed, both because his healing arm still bothered
him and because the remnants of an indistinct dream made him uneasy. By the
time he was done, however, and striding downstairs at Aedan’s side, he knew
exactly where to look for Vivien. She might claim she didn’t remember, but he
was sure she had more memories than she realized. The view from the cliff had
touched her, he just knew it. And there was another place that she had loved as
a child, as much as the cliff if not more.

When he reached the top of the
slope and looked down, he wasn’t surprised to find her seated on a boulder, her
feet batting at the water in what looked like an unconscious gesture. He had
half a mind to tell her how worried she’d made them, which was as close to a
scolding as he could imagine himself giving her, but when she turned that
bright smile on him and asked him to join her, all he could do was smile back
and obey.

He sat by her side, leaving enough
space between them to be proper. This early in the morning the water was cool
enough that he curled his toes in surprise. It had been a long time since he
had swum in the lake.

“The water gets warmer in the
afternoon, if you feel like taking a swim.”

“I didn’t bring a swimsuit,” she
said, a little wistful. “Maybe we could go back and grab one. And some coffee
while we’re at it.” She paused, and when she continued, her voice was lower.
“Or we could just stay there.”

Bradan would have liked nothing
better than to say yes. It wasn’t that easy, though. On Earth, any shield he
put up to protect her would eventually fail; any use of the Quickening there
was bound to dissipate sooner rather than later. Here, not only could Bradan
accomplish more with the Quickening, he also could count on the channelers that
had come before him. Shields had existed over the castle and its grounds for so
long that Bradan had only needed to channel at them to reactivate them. Even
after decades of disuse, they’d sprung back into place, more complex than he
could have hoped to accomplish on his own.

He could have offered to take her
home for a little while, but a few hours spent there would mean days in
Foh’Ran, and they couldn’t afford to lose that much time.

“When things have calmed down,” he
said slowly. “When we’re sure you’re safe—”

“We,” she cut in. “You mean you
and Aedan.”

There was heat in her tone when
she said Aedan’s name, the same anger seeping through from last night.

“You have to understand, all we
want is for you to be safe. Everything we do or say revolves around that.”

If there was one thing Bradan
wished he could convince her was true, it was this simple fact. From it was the
source of everything he and Aedan had become. If she didn’t trust them, how
could they hope to help her?

“That oath you took,” she said
with a small nod; maybe she did believe him. She considered the lake for a
little while before turning her face toward him and observing him with the same
intensity. “Are you going to ask to swear it again in front of me, too?”

The question took Bradan aback. He
was about to ask what she meant by that when one word clued him in: too. Why
would Aedan want to do such a thing? Did he have second thoughts? It had been a
lot longer for him... Long enough for his determination to waver?

“If you want me to swear to you,”
he said slowly, holding her gaze, “I will. If it’ll help you trust me, if it’ll
make it easier to be around me—”

“I do trust you,” she said very
fast. After a beat, her cheeks pinked, and she looked away again when she
added, “And I don’t mind being around you. I like you. I thought you knew
that.”

Bradan had no clue how to answer.
He did know she liked him. She’d made it clear when she had asked to go out
with him. He’d never guessed her interest before that, though. He’d never dared
imagine she could see him as anything more than a friend. Even now, he could
hardly believe it.

“Dame Vivien,” he started, but she
interrupted him right away. Her face whipped toward him once more, and she
clasped his hand, squeezing it tightly.

“No. Don’t call me that. That’s
what your brother calls me, because he doesn’t know me. But you do. Don’t you?”

He dropped his gaze to their
hands, resting entwined on his thigh. She had beautiful hands with long,
elegant fingers. The ring on her thumb gleamed softly; so did the mark on his
wrist, a reminder of what and who he was.

“Whether I know you or not,” he
said in a low voice, “what matters is that you are Dame Vivien, and I am your
guard.”

He tried to pull his hand free,
but she refused to let go.

“Is that all?” she insisted.
“You’re my bodyguard, and that’s all it is for you? Your oath? Your duty?”

She spat that last word as though
it were a curse. Bradan met her eyes again, expecting to find her angry once
more, like when he had backed away from her offer at the coffee shop. Instead,
all he found in her features, in her quivering bottom lip, was pain—the same
pain any person whose affection was denied would feel, he supposed. At that
moment, the mere thought that he was causing her pain was unbearable.

He squeezed her fingers gently and
asked with a small smile, “Do you remember the very first time you had a crush
on a boy?”

Vivien blinked twice, very fast,
clearly taken aback by the question. “The first time... You mean, my first
boyfriend?”

“Not necessarily. The first time
you looked at a boy and wanted nothing more than to talk to him, be with him,
but at the same time you were scared he’d make fun of you if he realized you
liked him.”

Her expression changed, and he
could see that she was searching through her memory. “Second grade,” she
finally said with a tiny grin. “My best friend and I both liked this one boy.
Carlos. We’d chase him around all through recess, and he’d pull our pigtails as
payback.”

“Did you ever see him again when
you were older?”

She shrugged. “What does that have
to do with anything?”

Bradan hesitated. Was he making a
mistake? What he felt for her didn’t, couldn’t matter, not in the face of the
oath he had taken. But she had asked why he was doing all this, and this was
the only way he knew how to answer her.

“I was six when I had my first
crush on a little girl. She was a year younger than me, and she was the most
beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” He swallowed hard and finished in a whisper.
“She still is.”