To Woo A Warrior (Southern Sanctuary) (2 page)

Chapter Two

“You are such a shit stirrer!”

Charisse raised her glass in
Hadleigh’s direction.  “I’ll drink to that.”

“Don’t think I didn’t hear you
humming. Just tell me why you felt it necessary to start a fight in the chapel?
You couldn’t just let Gaia have her day?”

Charisse shrugged her delicate
shoulders, one of the cap sleeves of her dress sliding down to her elbow as she
reached for the bottle of wine to refill her once again empty glass.  “I’m
sorry okay. I was all prepared to let it go but then just before we walked down
the aisle she leaned in to tell me that she intended to introduce me to
Sergei’s cousin at the reception. That despite the fact that he has a lazy
eye,
is a little slow and has a nervous tick she thinks he
would be perfect for me … since he can swim. As if that makes him perfect for
me just because I’m a Siren … he can swim, hah!”

“
Ummm
.”
Hadleigh rubbed her fingers lightly over the rapidly fading claw marks across
her throat. “And what made you decide to let Gaia think I was the one trying to
seduce her groom away from her at the altar?”

Charisse had the good grace to look
slightly embarrassed. “It just seemed a good idea at the time. I saw her face
when she got a glimpse of you in that dress. For a moment she was as green as
these dresses with envy.”

“True.” Fraser, another of their
cousins leaned across Charisse regarding Hadleigh with bemused wonder. “She
would never have believed any of us could have captured his attention wearing
one of these biological experiments.”

“That’s all well and good.” Hadleigh
managed a gritted smile as she caught sight of one of her aunts glaring at her
from across the reception hall. “But you weren’t the one who had to subdue the
Bride in a headlock ... at the altar for pity sake.”

“Thank Goddess you did.”  Eli,
Fraser’s younger sister commented from across the table. “The way Gaia was
swinging that shoe around like a weapon she could have ripped one of these
gorgeous dresses and made it unwearable.”

“Good idea.”  Charisse picked
up her unused steak knife, grabbed a bunch of material around her waistline and
sawed the knife across a section. “Darn those stilettos Gaia was waving about
were sharp; it looks like she may have irreparably damaged my dress.” Charisse
held her knife out to the rest of the table filled with bridesmaids. “Anyone
else want the knife?”

The rest of the table’s occupants
were too busy using their own cutlery to slice into their dresses to take
Charisse up on her kind offer. Hadleigh grabbed the knife from Charisse who was
still waving it around, her green eyes clouding a little at the amount of
alcohol she had already managed to consume and the appetisers hadn’t even come
out yet.  It promised to be a very long reception as Hadleigh caught the
eye of yet another aunt who sent her a hard disapproving look.

“Fine, but now everyone here thinks
I’m a complete slut bag.  That I would happily sink to ruining my own
cousin’s wedding by making come-hither eyes at the
unibrow
groom until he can look at nothing but me rather than the bride. You couldn’t
have sung your siren song after the photos had been taken?”

Charisse sat bolt upright so
abruptly she knocked over Fraser’s glass. Luckily it was almost empty. “What
did you just say?”

“I said you couldn’t wait until
after the photos to pick a fight? With all the makeup she’s wearing it’s not
like Gaia’s black eye is really noticeable but still you should have waited.”
Hadleigh studied the besotted bridal couple
who
had
made up and were currently drinking from each other’s champagne glass … ick,
tacky.

“No, the
unibrow
thing!  That’s where I’ve heard it before - Christmas!”

Gigi sitting on the far side of the
table laughed. “Yeah you know the carol? All I want for Christmas is a
unibrow
groom?”

“Yes!” Charisse was looking
triumphant.  The rest of the table continued to look confused. “Don’t you
remember what Gaia said to Great Aunt Alma at Christmas?”

Hadleigh shook her head along with
the rest of her cousins.

“Ooh yes, I remember.” Quinn piped
up snapping her fingers.

Instantly Hadleigh was back sitting
at the Christmas table. Thanks to Quinn’s ability to read others memories and
project them she wasn’t surprised to find herself in an unfamiliar body. 
From the looks of the thin tanned arms and tight red short sleeve top she was
in second Cousin Maureen’s body.  Maureen was the biggest gossip in the
family.  She had an uncanny talent for being in the right place at the
right time to witness or eavesdrop oh so accidentally on all the good
stuff.   Just like Christmas day when she’d managed to sit herself
next to long lost Great Aunt Alma. 

Following the death of her meld
husband 22 years ago Alma had quit her job on the council and high tailed it
out of the Sanctuary to travel the world on a never-ending series of cruises.
If it hadn’t been for the salmonella outbreak on the Queen Regina it was
doubtful they would have seen her this past Christmas at all.

Alma’s sudden appearance had
surprised the entire family.  Turning up looking rested and elegant,
passing for a well-kept 60 year old when she was in reality well over one
hundred. Her slim figure stylish in a French cut cream trouser suit and
complimentary silk blouse that Hadleigh sensed Maureen felt a twinge of envy
over. Alma’s only real acknowledgment of her age was her grey hair but even
that was styled short and elegantly flipped out just above the shoulders.

Alma looked slightly out of place
amidst the family mayhem as if she had forgotten what it was like to be part of
the quirky community. Yet there was fondness in the gaze she passed over the
one hundred odd family members present sitting down to eat at the long trestle
table Auntie Magda had set up in the shade outside her home. Many of the older
generation of aunts and uncles were kissing and cuddling as if they had been
apart all year. That was the thing about meld matches; once you found that
special someone and made the commitment then it was like you couldn’t keep your
hands to yourself. Certainly the younger single generation had become used to
all the public displays of affection and ignored the fact that many of the
older couples went for long ‘walks’ into convenient linen closets during family
gatherings. Though it was often disturbing to note when it was your own parents
doing the disappearing.

Maureen observed that Alma’s focus
seemed to be on the four youngest members of the party. Ten year old CJ and his
older brother by two years
Jonty
playing with
their
dog Pepper. And Gigi’s baby sisters, Chase and
Brynn
, the twins, who at a coltishly 16 years of age were
showing early promise of beauty with their fairy tale long white blond hair and
matching violet eyes. Luckily for the male population the twosome were more
interested in books than boys. That day they were reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of
War and Ashes in the Wind by Kathleen
Woodiwiss
;
exchanging the books at the end of every chapter.

Quinn sped up the memory triple
fast, which made Hadleigh feel slightly nauseous as the family group finished lunch
in record time …
urgh
.  Then abruptly the memory
ground to a halt. Maureen had a cup of coffee in her hand and a large slice of
untouched Christmas pudding on the plate in front of her. Hadleigh couldn’t
figure out why they had stopped at his point in the memory when Maureen
suddenly leaned back tilting her head slightly so she could, ah, hear the
conversation between Alma and her older brother Edward who was seated on the
other side of Alma. Good old eavesdropping cousin Maureen.

“I know it was you Ward.”

Hadleigh couldn’t see Great Uncle
Edward through Maureen’s eyes, but she could picture him, close cropped grey
hair, serious brown eyes, no doubt dressed in blue jeans and a comfortable
shirt.

“It’s a crime to want my baby sister
to come home for a visit?”

Alma huffed a small laugh. “You
could have just asked Ward.  Salmonella was a bit drastic don’t you
think?”

“No.” Edward responded in a teasing
tone Hadleigh didn’t think she’d ever heard before. “An iceberg would have been
drastic.”

Alma laughed freely this time. “And
very hard to explain in the Bay of Bengal.” Alma let out a small sigh. “It’s a
wasted visit Ward, I can’t do it anymore.”

“Can’t or won’t? There is a big
difference Alma. Look at us.  Really look at the family. Here right now,
even with only a fifth of our number present we might look strong, but you can
sense we are dying out, the family grid growing weaker. It’s inevitable if
things continue to go on as they have.”

“Has no one stepped up? No one even
tried?” Alma sounded angry.

“Yes, a couple of years ago
Maybelle
took up matchmaker duties.”

“
Maybelle
!
 That ditz?”  Now Alma sounded horrified.

“She was willing to try. Long story
short; three marriages - three divorces.”

Alma smothered a small gasp. “The
council allowed non meld marriages to occur?”

“We were desperate. But the fall out
was worse than we could have foreseen. The current generation, well, they’re
very anti-marriage now.”

Alma snorted softly in amusement.
“Ward, every generation is anti-marriage. You forget yourself, man about town,
out with a different girl every week until I put
Annabeth
in your path.”

“And I thank the Goddess every night
for your actions.”

“But you didn’t at the time I
recall. Of course back then I was only just coming into my powers, I grew much
more subtle in my approach as the years passed.”

Now it was Edward’s turn to laugh.
“That is not the story I hear from some of the younger generation, the stories
they tell of your meddling ways still make me laugh.”

Alma joined him chuckling. 
“Ungrateful little snots, the lot of them.”

“You know they still call you the
Sherman Tank.”  Edward teased.

Then a new voice broke into the
conversation.  Suddenly I was yanked out of second cousin Maureen and
found myself across the table with a coffee pot in hand
;
splashing liquid over the brim of an already overfilled coffee cup.

“Subtly can kiss my ass, match me.”

Instantly I knew I was in Gaia’s
body, filled with her memories of the day and not just that day, I was assailed
by a completely alien feeling of despair. No wonder Gaia had gone a little bit
gaga, behind her sweet exterior hid a soul deep need to be a wife and mother
that bordered on painful. Gaia had overheard the tail end of the conversation
between Alma and Edward from across the table as she’d stopped to refill
someone’s coffee cup.

“Gaia, this is not the time.”
Edward’s modulated warning tone would normally have Gaia quivering in her shoes
and apologising for her outburst.

But not today, not with this ray of
hope that was suddenly within her grasp. Ignoring Great Uncle Edward, the Head
of the family council, Gaia remained solely focused on Alma.  “Match me!”

“Be careful what you wish for little
girl and how you go about asking for it.” Alma’s brown eyes sparked with anger
and strange little golden flecks that flashed and winked.

“I’ve been asking the Goddess every
night for fifteen years. I’m tired of waiting, of being patient. I’m
thirty-five years of age and I’m not getting any younger or any more fertile.
So fuck subtly! Match me! I don’t care if he had one eyebrow and doesn’t speak
a word of English.  I want a husband and babies.”

Those little flecks of gold in
Alma’s eyes flashed
searingly
bright making Gaia want
to look away but unable to do anything but maintain eye contact.

Suddenly thanks to Quinn I was back
in my own body, staring up the length of the table at the weird confrontation
going on between Gaia and Great Aunt Alma. It was almost strange to hear Alma
with my own two ears.

“Done little girl, done. But every
wish needs to be
earnt
.”  Alma cast her gaze up
and down Gaia’s long flowing flowery
smock
dress
giving a little moue of distaste. “One stormy night soon you will have your one
eye-browed foreigner but to catch his eye and keep it you need to start wearing
fitted tops, low cut fitted tops.”

 “And that is that.” Quinn
looked around the table at each of her cousins, her blue eyes glowing softly.
Back at the wedding, back in real time. “Gaia threw away all the hippy muumuus
and started wearing tube tops and three short weeks later Sergei turns up at
Gaia’s house seeking shelter from that hideous storm, speaking hardly more than
five words of English. He took one look down her top and the rest as they say
is history. Trust me, I’ve seen the memory you don’t want me to share it with
you.” Quinn’s delicate shoulders shuddered under the weight of that memory and
the many others she held.