Her Warriors (5 page)

Whoa
. He hadn’t meant to get quite so
serious. He needed to lighten the mood, but Geir wasn’t much good
at conversation. His social skills were already stretched and they
had only just arrived. He definitely had an uphill battle on his
hands here, but he wasn’t a quitter. Geir smiled as he finished off
the steaks and began putting them on plates.

“Besides…” he tried for a joke, “…have you
seen the tiger stronghold in Iceland? It’s really cold there on the
glacier. I may have a fur coat, but I don’t like to freeze all the
time.” They smiled as they helped themselves to the side dishes
they had all helped prepare. He put the sizzling steaks on the
table. “Should we call Tom or bring him something later?” he asked,
thinking of the missing man from their group.

“He’s sleeping,” Jacki said, a worried look
on her face. “I peeked in on my way here. I’ll bring him a plate
later.”

They started eating and conversation lagged
a bit while they dug into the tasty meal. Geir was glad he had
planned ahead. The steaks had come out very well and the side
dishes complimented the meal nicely. He’d made a good showing for
his first luncheon and he felt quite a bit of relief about it.

“So…Tibet?” Beau prompted after they’d had a
chance to enjoy their food for a couple of minutes.

“Yeah. Tibet,” Geir repeated, trying to
recover his train of thought. “They wanted me to stay on and teach,
but a seer among the snowcat elders told me I had a different road
to travel. My path was with the Nyx, she said. I offered myself to
Ria as a Royal Guard and came up through the ranks to become Master
when the old Master could no longer keep up with the duties. He
died shortly after that, which caused great sadness to all of us
who had trained under him. He was well loved and much missed. But
it helped that I’d had his blessing to take his place. The
pantera noir
took me in at first for the sake of my aunt,
but after the old Master named me his successor, they welcomed me
on my own merits and I found my true calling, as the snowcat seer
said I would.”

And wasn’t Geir just the gabby guy today? He
almost didn’t believe how many words were coming out of his mouth.
Usually taciturn and silent, he had worried about being able to
converse with his guests. Turns out, he needn’t have worried after
all. He was almost having a hard time shutting up. He decided he’d
heard enough of his own voice for one meal.

“So, what are your plans?” Geir asked Jacki
and Beau.

Beau gestured to Jacki, letting her speak
first. “Well, the first thing I need to do is help Tom get better,
but I decided to do that here because the High Priestess is coming
here to train me. I’m going to join her order.” Jacki’s face
flushed in the most charming way, almost as if she was embarrassed
or excited—or both. “I never thought about being a priestess, but
it feels right. Something happened during the battle…” her voice
trailed off and Geir thought back to what she had done during the
last battle in North Carolina.

“When you cast that amazingly powerful
spell?” Geir prompted. “That was a masterwork of magic, milady. You
saved the day and stunned all of those who saw it happen, myself
included.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, sounding a little
flustered, as if shy of what she had done. “That was when it
happened. I was so scared, but yet…I felt more power flowing
through me than I’ve ever felt before. I didn’t understand what was
happening. I’m still not really sure how it all occurred, but one
minute I was praying and the next, the flow of magic came into me
in a rush, allowing me to turn the tide on the evil spell. It was a
really amazing feeling.” She took a sip of her tea, her eyes still
very distant in memory. “Bettina came to me a few days after and
explained a few things. She also instructed me to come here. She
said she’d arrive shortly to begin my training. She…uh…she wants to
name me as her successor, though I still can’t really see it.”

“High Priestess?” Beau seemed as shocked as
Geir was.

“If anyone has that kind of power, you do,
Jacki. Don’t doubt yourself. Few beings in this realm could have
done what you did on that battlefield.” Geir was used to giving
small pep talks to his students who sometimes doubted their
abilities. He was glad he knew what to say to take the uncertainty
out of her eyes. She smiled at him and he felt like the sun had
come out on a rainy day.

“Does Bettina plan on stepping down or
something?” Beau asked, bringing them back to the practical.

“Not that I know of.” Jacki bit her lip as
worry seemed to return to her expression. “I think it’s more that
she’s worried about what’s coming. If she were to fall, she wants
the succession to be secure, to avoid chaos in the leadership. I
don’t understand it all, but I decided back in North Carolina,
before ever agreeing to come here, that I would do whatever I could
to make this happen. Not for myself, but because I feel the same
sense of dread about the future. I’m not a seer, but my aunt is,
and she’s offered quite a few warnings of late. And now, even the
seas are forbidden to us because of the leviathan. It’s not a good
time to be a selkie and someone’s got to take a stand against the
evil that threatens us all.”

Geir felt such pride in her in that moment.
This was a woman of deep integrity. A mate he would be proud to
call his own—if they were truly meant to be together—and one he
would work to be worthy of for the rest of his life.

Jacki enjoyed having lunch with the two
tigers, but in the back of her mind, worry set in. Tom wasn’t
getting any better. If anything, he seemed worse.

Back in North Carolina, during the battle,
Tom had chosen to try to protect the small lake and had been
overrun by the evil magic sent against them. Despite his enormous
personal magical power, he had fallen.

When they had planned out their positions
before the battle, Tom had relegated Jacki to the small stream that
connected to the lake. He’d probably thought he could stop anything
that might come their way before it got to her. She knew that Tom
was trying to protect her, but only Jacki had known what her aunt,
the seer, had told her.

Aunt Sophia had given Jacki very detailed,
secret instructions about where she should be and when. Her aunt
couldn’t say what, exactly, would happen, but she insisted that
Jacki—and Jacki alone—needed to be at that stream at the appointed
hour. She had given Jacki very specific instructions not to tell
anyone. Aunt Sophia knew as well as Jacki did that the men in their
family had a noble, protective streak a mile wide. If Tom had known
that Jacki was going to face the bulk of the danger, he would have
been right there at her side. But their aunt had been adamant that
Jacki had to face whatever would happen at the stream alone.

Jacki thought she understood now. By being
on her own, she had reached out for help, praying to the Mother of
All. And She had answered in the most amazing way. If Tom had been
there, Jacki would have naturally pooled her magic with his and
they would have tried to fight the evil alone. They would have
tried and failed, and probably died, never calling on the Goddess,
never receiving that miracle of Her intervention.

Jacki was coming to the realization that Tom
had hidden the full extent of his injury from her—and from
everyone—while they’d been in North Carolina. He had fallen under a
magical
attack, after all. Although he’d had superficial
cuts and scrapes that had healed already, there was no evidence of
what she suspected was a gaping, magical wound that could not have
been treated by the doctors in North Carolina. No, the persistent
wound that plagued Tom now was on a different plane. It was a wound
to the soul. To the heart of his magical core.

And it had festered in the time since the
battle.

She sat with him after lunch, trying to
figure out what to do for him and worrying.

“Tommy,” she fussed at him, her heart
breaking as she sat by his bedside. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?
Why did you hide this?”

His deep brown eyes fluttered open. Seal
eyes. His beast was very close to the surface.

“Didn’t want you to worry, Twirp.”

She gave him a teary chuckle at the use of
her childhood nickname. Only Tommy had ever called her that.

“Well, you suck at that. I’m really worried
now. What can I do to help you get better?” Her words were soft and
filled with choked-back tears.

“Don’t think there’s much anyone can do.
Just hold my hand little sis, and don’t cry for me.” His words
trailed off and she took the hand he held out to her as his eyes
closed.

She could feel him slipping away and the
tears came, no matter his instructions not to cry.

A while later—it could have been moments or
it could have been hours—Jacki felt warm hands descend on her
shoulders. She looked up to find Beau behind her, his gaze on Tom’s
still face.

“What can I do to help?” Beau asked when he
realized he had her attention.

“I don’t know,” she replied, helpless. She
stood, placing Tom’s hand gently at his side. He was unconscious
again.

She made to move past Beau but he stopped
her, his hands gentle on her arm.

“Hey now,” he said softly. “Come here.”

He opened his arms and she stepped into his
embrace, grateful for the small comfort as she leaned against his
chest and cried silent tears of despair. Beau rocked her gently in
his arms until she calmed, but she didn’t move away. There was
something so strong and safe about Beau’s muscular arms around her.
She felt protected in a way that wasn’t threatening to her
independence. She felt cherished. Almost…loved?

She looked up at him as the thought crossed
her mind and was caught by his golden gaze. Time seemed to stand
still as his head dipped, his mouth drawing slowly closer to
hers.

And then he kissed her. Time stilled as the
most gentle and respectful of kisses touched her lips. His warm,
piney scent engulfed her, sparking something inside her that had
lain dormant for a very long time. And then he rumbled against her.
She broke the kiss, startled. Had he just…purred?

Jacki didn’t know a lot about tigers, but
she knew that if a lion shifter did that kind of thing—purring in
human form—the consequences were pretty profound. As in
mating
profound.

Jacki couldn’t handle this. She stepped away
from Beau and headed for the door at a fast pace. She was thankful
when he didn’t follow. She was just a little too distraught right
now to deal with any other majorly life changing experiences.

She fled through the house and found herself
back in the large kitchen. Geir was still there, but she didn’t
really want to see anyone right now. The door to the back garden
beckoned, but she couldn’t be rude to her host.

He must’ve seen something in her expression
because he stood and immediately came to her. He stood close and
something within her wanted to lean on his strength. Surely someone
who was a
Master
had enough inner peace to go around. She
needed some of that right now.

“What’s wrong?” His strong hands were gentle
on her shoulders as he touched her. He was warm and comforting
rather than intimidating, which was odd considering he was such a
badass sensei. “Is it your brother?”

Mutely, she nodded, breaking down again. It
was too much to bear. Tom had always been her rock, her solid
ground. The one who bandaged her skinned knees and let her tag
along on his adventures in the ocean and out of it. They’d been
inseparable as children and had even maintained a reasonably close
relationship during their rough teen years. Tom was older, but he
never got too impatient with her hanging around, and she had
idolized her brother most of their lives.

“I knew when I saw him get out of the van
that something was very wrong with him,” Geir admitted, rubbing her
shoulders with a light touch. “Can anything be done?”

“I don’t know. It’s a magical injury, not a
physical one. I’m hoping that when Bettina gets here, she’ll be
able to help him. Have you heard from her at all?” Somehow, Jacki’s
hands were placed flat against Geir’s chest and she felt the
reassuring beat of his heart. She didn’t remove her hands, even
after she realized the intimacy of the pose she had unconsciously
adopted.

“No word yet, but Ria told me to expect her
sometime today. Surely the High Priestess will be able to help
him.”

She knew Geir was trying to sound positive
for her sake, but she heard the thread of doubt in his voice, no
matter how hard he tried to hide it. She felt the same way and it
all just became too much. She slid her hands up around his neck and
rested her ear against the comforting beat of his heart, glad when
his arms came around her somewhat hesitantly.

“I know what it’s like,” he said softly,
surprising her.

“What what’s like?” she whispered, not
moving her head from his chest.

“To lose a brother by magical means,” he
replied, shocking her a bit. “I left Iceland because my older
brother was killed by a mage. I don’t think I ever want to go back
to that cold, depressing country. Losing Thorson was almost more
than I could stand.”

She heard the deep, heart wrenching emotion
in his voice, even though he spoke in tones hardly above a whisper.
She got the feeling this was a secret he didn’t share lightly.

“I would spare you that pain if it is within
my power. If there is anything I can do to help you and your
brother, I will do it. You don’t even need to ask.”

She lifted her head from his chest then and
looked up into his icy blue eyes. She had thought them cold at
first, but in truth there was a white-hot fire behind his gaze that
warmed her, even as it enchanted her.

“I’m so sorry, Geir,” she whispered, raising
one hand to cup his stubbled cheek. She saw the devastation in his
gaze as he thought about his lost brother, and his determination
that she would not lose hers. Why he should care so deeply for her
family was hard to fathom, but there was a sort of connection
between them. Perhaps it had been forged in the battle when Geir
had been the only one left standing to help them all get down the
mountain. But it had been there even before—when she’d decided to
trap him inside her final spell—a dome of protection that he wasn’t
able to break alone.