Warden (Elemental Paladins Book 1) (22 page)

“
We
have forgotten nothing! We are Wardens – born and raised! Unlike yourself … a stray warden bumbling in the dark! We took you in and offered our expertise and this is how you speak to us? With such disrespect? You are nothing but an insolent child!” Magda’s voice was contemptuous.

Max looked around the room, seeing similar looks of contempt on almost all of the faces. Some, however, were looking at Magda with frowns or looking intently at the floor and she felt herself have another
lightbulb
moment. “Ah, I see. You haven’t forgotten your purpose … you just don’t care.”

“Why you little –”

Throwing out her left hand in a classic ‘talk to the hand’ action, Max interrupted Miss Magda, “Save it! I really don’t think I can stomach any more of your self-righteous, entitled ramblings. Thank you all for your time this afternoon, but I wouldn’t join your band of merry misguided morons if you paid me.”

“Is there a problem?” Darius asked courteously from the doorway. Seems all the gasps of horror had alerted the occupants of the house.

“Yes, Sir Darius. There is a big problem. You have failed to teach your charge the proper etiquette required of her station. I am afraid we simply cannot be of assistance until her unruly behaviour is brought to heel.” Magda replied piously.

Darius gave a low bow in Magda’s direction. “She just doesn’t understand, My Lady, Sirs. She has been so unaware of our world and her own nature. She requires time and patience.”

“Excuse me. That is not true. And please don’t apologise on my behalf Darius! There was no misunderstanding. These people are total hypocrites!” She addressed Magda once again, “And I am not some pup to be brought to heel.”

“I knew it was a mistake to entrust such an important find with people such as yourselves.” She said scornfully, glaring at the paladins and ignoring Max entirely. “You have obviously not succeeded in aiding this woman at all, feeding her misinformation and ensuring she is ill-equipped to deal with her situation in life.”

Max couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She was standing right there! And Magda was treating her people like third class citizens. Max hadn’t really understood the prejudice the paladins had been alluding to the past week. She got it now and sympathised with the resentment Axel always had in his voice when he spoke of them as grunts and foot soldiers. Max opened her mouth to speak – forcefully – but was interrupted by Magda’s prim voice.

“We will allow you these two past indiscretions given your newness to our society. But Max,” Magda paused and locked her cold shark eyes on her, “I suggest you enlist in a better attitude … and better companions.”

She breezed out of the room, followed by her paladins and the remaining five members of the Local Council.

“What the fuck is her damage?” Max blurted out the moment the door slammed shut behind the last bonded knight. She wasn’t expecting the heated silence and barely contained frustration in the room. Max felt her indignation wilt under the weight of the disappointed stares.
Okay
, Max thought,
what the fuck was
their
damage?

TWENTY-FOUR

Ryker could feel the sizzle of change in the air. He knew things were going to explode and it was going to seal all of their fates. He only wished he knew how it was going to end. What’s more, he wished he knew how he
wanted
it to end. If he was being honest he knew what his heart wanted but it had been so long since he had listened to that particular muscle that he couldn’t bring himself to trust it. His mind still fought heroically for dominance so he once again found himself pissed off to the extreme with Max.

Her behaviour was just absolutely unacceptable. How was he supposed to get her to understand the full scale of the situation she was in? They had been trying for days and he felt like he was banging his head against the wall. She was the most stubborn person he had ever met. He glanced at her and found her oceanic eyes turbulent and – surprise – stubborn. He ignored the part of him that was turned on and led with the part that was angry.

“For once, couldn’t you just try to behave? Couldn’t you just try to act like a normal human being? Why do you feel the need to be so antagonistic all the time?” He demanded.

“I’m not antagonistic!” The little she-demon had the nerve to reply.

“Oh, please! How can you even say that with a straight face? In the two weeks that we’ve known you, you’ve managed to make an enemy of a powerful warden, embarrass yourself with the triplet spectacle, half bind us together for eternity, and now you’ve managed to insult some of the most important and powerful people in the world!”

“So I’m not perfect! Sue me!” She yelled back, actually looking quite stressed out to Ryker. Still, they needed to hash this out, so he rebutted;

“Not perfect? That’s the biggest understatement of the year.”

“I don’t care, Ryker! Okay? I just don’t care! I am so over this whole thing. I am over you and I am over the other paladins. I am definitely over the other wardens! They’re wrong! They … are … wrong! Our job is not supposed to be passive – It’s active!”

Max was getting less and less coherent and her voice was rising steadily. It was very unlike her, still, Ryker snorted and shook his head, “You really have a high opinion of yourself don’t you? How can you possibly know if they’re wrong or not? You didn’t even know what you were until last week! You need to get over yourself, sister!”

“That’s not true.” Max voiced softly. She felt inexplicably hurt by Ryker’s words. It was clear now he had a very low opinion of her and she hated it. She also hated that she hated it! What’s more, it was really starting to piss her off that everyone believed she was some stupid little girl with no knowledge of the world. She was living in it wasn’t she? She’d been living in it on her own, with no help and no family and no one to rely on ever since she could remember. She was willing to bet she knew more about the world than all of these paladins combined! How dare he stand there and patronise her!

Ryker raised his eyebrows in the arrogant way that made Max want to punch the smirk right off his pretty face, “What do you mean, that’s not true? You had no clue what a warden was or a paladin or even a domain until you met us. And don’t pretend you did. I may have thought you were hiding something in the beginning but monumental ignorance like yours is hard to fake.”

Monumental ignorance?
Now Max felt like crying. She never cried. She really didn’t know how much more she could take from this man. She had been the bigger person these past couple of days since the whole
intercourse
thing. She had taken responsibility like a good little girl and sucked up her hurt feelings in order to keep the peace. But now …

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“So enlighten us, oh sage one …”

“Ryker …” Darius’s growl was a clear warning for him to back off. Ryker knew he should. Max was beginning to look pale, jaw clenched so tight it looked painful and the look in her eyes resembled hurt more than it did anger. Yes, Ryker knew he should back down but he just couldn’t seem to stop himself. He had to make her understand the position they were all in and how dangerous her reckless actions were. She was a hazard to herself and all those around her at the moment with her ignorance and stubborn belief she was right all the time. She was going to get herself hurt … or get his knights killed and that was something he wouldn’t allow, not ever again. Not even for a vulnerable slip of a spitfire. So he pushed a little harder;

“Come on then. You know everything. Educate us.”

“Ryker!” The growl belonged to Cali this time but he was resolute. Max had to be brought down to size, no matter if her delicate feelings got hurt.

“Stand down Cali. If you don’t like how I lead then find someone else to follow.” It was harsh, but Cali was his responsibility and he wasn’t going to fail again. He searched the room only to find the rest of his fellow paladins in various states of unease and obvious objection. But none of them moved. Their loyalties were still clearly with him … for now.

“Well? Go ahead …” He issued the invitation to Max caustically. She raised her head slowly and stared directly into his eyes. Ryker barely suppressed a shiver. The look was somehow ancient; the knowledge in those turquoise depths, profound. He started to feel a little sick in his stomach.

“I may not have known
what
I was. But I assure you, I have always known
who
I was – who I
am!
Do you think I’ve been walking around all these years feeling the heartbeat of the earth under my feet, hearing the secrets of the world whispered on the wind, without realising I was something …
other
? You think I can just walk past a homeless person on the street and not look into their eyes? Or see a stray cat and not feel its hunger? Do you really think I could ignore all of that? Just pretend to be blind, deaf, and dumb? I assure you, I have
always
known exactly who I was and what my purpose is and I’ll be dammed if I’ll let a room full of cowards tell me what my responsibilities are!

“You know, I don’t sleep? Those nightmares you see me have every night? They’re not really nightmares. It’s the world. Every time I close my eyes I hear it – pounding out a rhythm of pain and fear and wrongness. Nature screams it’s agony ... souls beg for mercy ... life cries in pain. The roar of injustice is a perpetual loop in my head. I can’t turn it off, I can’t turn it down. Life scrapes its tortured nails against my gut, peeling layers and leaving nothing but raw flesh in its wake. It’s an acid in my veins, corrosive and scarring. It’s all I hear and all I see; every day and every night. There is no escaping the world. No escaping life. So don’t you dare stand there and accuse me of ignorance. After meeting the rest of your so-called wardens, I might just be the only one who knows exactly who I am!”

Max was so angry she swore she could feel the ground shaking beneath her feet. In fact, the chairs were beginning to rattle, the windows were trembling and the door burst open to allow for a gust of heated air to rush through the room like a locomotive. All of her calm, all of her logical thinking, all of the reasons why she was supposed to keep her powers in check no longer seemed important. She wanted to make them hurt the same way she hurt.

“Max! Max! Stop! Calm yourself. You don’t really want to do this.” Someone yelled.

She watched in fascination as birds landed in the open doorway and kangaroos lined up in the yard. She could hear the ocean pounding the sand and feel warmth spread from her centre and settle in her palms. “What I want is to be left alone unless you actually mean it when you say I’m important, that I’m your friend and you care what happens to me. I am more than a name. I am more than my past. And I will always be more than my future.”

“We believe you.” Diana kept her grey eyes zeroed on Max’s. “We believe you Max and we’re all sorry. You’ve been misunderstood and underestimated but we can see you now.”

Max tilted her head and felt her hair dance around her face as if controlled by static electricity. “You see me?”

Diana, allied to the domain of loss and grief smiled and nodded and said the one thing Max yearned to hear; “We can see you.”

Max released her powers on her next breath … and felt her whole body go rigid as she fell hard to the floor, her stiff limbs jerked and shuddered and her neck arched into a painfully uncomfortable position.

“What the hell is wrong with her?” Ryker shouted, trying to hold her flailing limbs.

“She’s having a seizure.” That was Diana. Her calm voice was the complete opposite to Ryker’s panicked one. “Don’t touch her. You’ll only do more harm, just make sure everything is out of her way. She should stop in a minute.”

Max would have smiled if her jaw hadn’t been clenched so tight. Diana seemed to know what she was talking about. Perhaps Ryker had been right all along to wait for the paladin of death to arrive. Max had no choice but to give herself up to the convulsions and was glad her eyes were closed so she couldn’t see the look of horror and disgust on the knights faces. Hopefully she would pass out so she wouldn’t have to deal with the aftermath. Two minutes later though she discovered her hopes were fruitless for her body stopped its jitterbug routine and she was left to face a whole room full of brittle silence.

“Max. Can you open your eyes?” Although Diana spoke softly, Max still hissed as her headache flared to life. She needed a dark quiet room, like yesterday.

“Max? Come on now. You’re scaring everyone.”

“Well we can’t have that now, can we?” She jeered. “Wouldn’t want to worry the poor paladins over little ‘ole me.” She cracked her eyes open and her worst fears were confirmed. All seven knights were crouched around her with varying expressions of concern, guilt and pity. It was the pity she couldn’t handle. Going to push herself up, she swore colourfully as she realised her limbs were not going to cooperate.
Shit!
It was going to take her days to recover from this and all she wanted to do was get the hell out of dodge.

“I can make that happen faster for you if that’s what you really want?”

The ambiguous words from Diana had her focusing on the curly haired gypsy. “Huh?” Oh, she was
so
articulate right now.

Diana’s full lips quirked, “You were talking out loud. I can heal you almost instantaneously and then you can be on your way if that is your wish.”

Max narrowed her eyes, or at least attempted to. Her muscles still weren’t behaving themselves properly. “What’s the catch Azrael?”

Diana laughed outright at that. “The Angel of Death, huh? I like it.” She focused her soft grey eyes on Max once more, “The catch? You need to accept my vitality.”

Before Max could voice her denial Ryker butted his big fat head in, “Good luck with that. We’ve been trying to get her to recharge for days. The woman is the stubbornest, most infuriating female on the planet!”

“Shut the fuck up Ryker!” Cali snarled before Max could snipe at him. She felt her jaw drop in sync with Ryker’s. Had Cali just told the king of self-righteousness to shut the fuck up? He opened his mouth but couldn’t get a word out before Diana started in on him too.