Bound to Blackwood (8 page)

Lena punched the pillow for the umpteenth time. She was still in shock. Steward of the Watch?
Jesus.
She had no doubt she was being punished, but what she couldn’t work out was whether Thorn had completely lost his mind, or whether he genuinely thought this was a good idea.
 

Lena, Steward of the Watch.
Yeah right. Genius
.
 

She hadn't remade the bed, but considering she’d added to the mess by throwing the pillows across the room she figured it didn’t really matter. She sat up and surveyed the scene. The door of her antique, solid oak wardrobe was hanging off its hinges where she had flung it open. Her clothes had been hastily stuffed into her kit bag and the hangers were scattered across the floor. The bathroom door had fared better, but the same couldn’t be said for the bathroom itself. Through the open door she could see slivers of mirror sparkling on the tiled floor.

Closing her eyes, she tried to remember what had happened in her en-suite, but the details were sketchy. She recalled stomping in with the intention of packing up what little toiletries she kept there but had been distracted by her own reflection.

It was a convenient myth that Vampires produced no reflection. The race established a few of the most commonly held beliefs themselves. The wilder the stories, the easier it was for them to fit in with the human population, and carry out their duties.

The image she faced wasn’t anything new but as she stared, trying to match the girl she saw before her with the responsibility Thorn had laid at her feet, nothing made sense. The rest of the guys wouldn’t be thrilled by the idea either. They'd see it as it was, a promotion, and it would piss them off.
Really
piss them off.
 

Her anxiety rose another notch, her eyes going to those shards on the bathroom floor again. She still couldn't remember what happened to the mirror. The recently healed scars on her hand said enough, however. They hadn’t been there earlier. She must have punched it.

Looking down at her
holdall
, she sighed. What was she going to do? Run away? As soon as she thought it, she knew how ridiculous it was.
 

For a start, no one just left the Order. Second, Lena had never backed away from a fight in her life, so she wasn’t about to start now. She was used to doing things her way. Alone. Now she was responsible for the whole Guardianship and the thought made her feel more than a little ill.

Her phone beeped with a text message. It was Thorn summoning her to the Command Centre. Steeling herself, she headed for the door.

On approaching the Command Centre, she could hear voices inside. She had hoped she would make it there before some of her comrades. Judging by the racket, she was going to be disappointed.

She stood in the corridor trying to get a handle on the situation. Thorn wasn’t there either, but the rest of the team was, and it did not sound good.

“You’re joking right?” Skylar asked with a squeak.

“I ain't. I wish I was.” Definitely Mercury. Considering he was always winding everyone up, Lena could understand why Skylar questioned him.

“Jesus. Is Thorn mad or stupid? Lena as a fucking Steward? What the hell?” Lena swallowed hard as Skylar questioned his friend further.

“It’s true! I swear. I went down to see 'ow Kaden was doin' but Thorn was there. I didn’t wanna interrupt so I just hung about outside for a while. Thorn said it 'imself. He’s made Lena Steward of the Watch.” Mercury’s voice was shrill as he answered his comrade.

“Well if Blackwood thinks I’m taking orders from Lena, he’s got another thing coming. Look what happened to Kaden! She’ll get us all bloody killed,” Phoenix chimed in.

“Listen. I don’t know what this is all about, but if Thorn’s given the order, then what can we do? It might not be that bad. If I know Thorn, he’s set her up for a fall and all we have to do is watch,” Ryver added.

Damn him
. The horrible thing was that Lena knew Ryver was right. She wasn’t qualified for this job, at all.
 

She felt, rather than heard, someone behind her. Feeling sheepish for skulking in the corridor, she span round to meet Thorn Blackwood’s muscled chest.
Wow.
He was enormous. She wasn’t particularly short, but at six foot seven, Thorn positively towered over her.
 

And just like that, she forgot what she wanted to say. Was it something about not really hovering in the corridor?
Yes, that was it.
What came out was more like, “I… erm. Well. Um.”
How embarrassing
.
 

If Thorn noticed that she had just made a complete idiot of herself,
again
, he didn’t show it. Instead, he said, “Come on Steward of the Watch. Let’s go and face the music.”
 

Yeah, great idea.
Lena would rather take an afternoon stroll in the sunshine.
 

Thorn led the way and Lena followed like a little terrier at his heels. Not for the first time tonight, she thought, “this is not going to be fun.”

As soon as Thorn opened the door, the room fell silent. The Guardians span around to meet their King, each nodding their heads in respect. Once Thorn had returned the nod, all four looked at Lena.

No nodding of the head there. No respect either, she suspected. She couldn’t blame them and wanted to say so, but, like the socially inept moron she was, she stayed quiet. The men returned their gaze to their King and waited.

“So you’ve all heard the news then?” Thorn glared at Mercury as he said it and the Guardian shifted his gaze to the floor.

Thorn looked annoyed that he hadn’t been able to break the news himself, but Lena thought he ought to be used to it by now. It was difficult to keep a secret in the Order. Well, unless you were Kaden. That man wasn’t just Keeper of the Watch, he was Keeper of the most dangerous of secrets too, and his defences were nigh on impossible to breach.

“Well, just so you can hear it from the horse's mouth; I have appointed Lena as Steward of the Watch.”

The statement met with silence and Lena wondered if they had all been hoping that Mercury was having them on after all. Hearing it from the King has just quashed whatever faint hope they may have held. Oh
well.
 

It was Mercury who piped up first. “Scuse me, My Lord, but I 'ave to ask, why? We aven’t had a Steward for nearly a thousand years.” Mercury wasn’t that old, but he knew his history.

Thorn’s eyes flashed bright gold as he inhaled deeply and Lena winced. She had only ever seen him look like that on a handful of occasions and every single time he had been furious. Mercury must have noticed the look too because he quickly added, “Obviously I’m not questioning your judgement.”

“Obviously not,” Thorn replied, his tone dangerously even.

Mercury gulped. The Order was not given to questioning commands or edicts, so it was clear to Lena that her comrades were really not happy about this new announcement. They’d ask Kaden for the reasoning behind strategy decisions, but they'd never questioned orders, especially in front of Thorn. This was about as bad an endorsement as she could get.

“Lena is the best Fallen tracker we have and her swordsmanship is second to none. We’ve been reactionary for too long and Lena is the only one of us with enough knowledge of Fallen movements to deputise for Kaden,” Thorn said.

Lena’s eyes widened as she met Thorn’s gaze. For the second time tonight, he'd left her dumbfounded. Having lost the ability to speak and determined not to impersonate marine life again, she just nodded at him. He returned the gesture, exchanged a hard glare with the rest of his audience and headed for the door.

As he left he said, “Lena, I’ll see you in my office in five.”

Lena pushed out a hard breath.
Now what?
She honestly didn’t have a clue. She’d never been in charge of anyone except herself, and look how that had gone. She might be an excellent tracker, but Kaden’s current condition was completely her fault. Looking at Phoenix, Skylar, Mercury and Ryver, it was obvious they knew it too.
 

Deciding the best strategy was just to grab the Vampire by the fang, she said, “Any questions?”

Unsurprisingly it was Mercury who answered. “Yeah, I got one. What’s the plan,
Steward
?”
 

She gave the only answer she had. “We find Eden of House Greenshire.”

Mercury just nodded.

They stood in silence for a few minutes. When it was clear that there was nothing else to say. Phoenix, Mercury and Skylar stomped out of the room. Lena was relieved. Now that it was just her and Ryver, she relaxed a little. Despite what he'd said earlier, he was still her friend.

Not really knowing what else to do she smiled weakly and said, “Surprise!”

Ryver gave a quick laugh and Lena felt the tension bleed out of her shoulders. The feeling didn’t last long though as Ryver’s eyes hardened again and he said, “Jesus Christ, Lena, this is serious. Don’t fuck it up.”

“I wont." Even to her own ears, she sounded pathetic. She felt miserable, but Ryver laid a comforting hand on her shoulder as he passed her on the way to the door.

She looked around the Command Centre at the high tech equipment and her eyes stung. She felt completely lost. Her brethren didn’t trust her and she knew, for all he had said, that Thorn was testing her. She was determined not to fail, but she didn’t have a clue where to start.

The stinging got worse and she felt a tear trickle slowly down her cheek.
Goddess in Glory, she was in trouble.
 

Chapter 5

“You’re late, Steward.” Thorn said as Lena walked into his office.

Technically, she was only two and a half minutes late, but that was beside the point. Kaden’s words still echoed in his mind and he didn’t want to show a moment of weakness. Normally, it never even occurred to him to worry about things like this, but after his “Lena will make a great Steward” speech, he wasn’t so sure he could afford to be so nonchalant.

Lena just nodded at his reprimand.
Well, this was a first
. He expected some sort of rebuke at least. He scanned her face, looking for any sign of emotion, but it just wasn’t there. At least she’d regained that part of her M.O.
 

The corner of his mouth tilted upward as he remembered the mouth flapping she furnished him with earlier. As amusing as it had been, he had to admit, it didn’t really suit her. No, the composed, emotionless woman in front of him was much more Lena’s style.

"What are your thoughts on the Greenshire girl?” Thorn asked.

Lena’s head snapped up so quickly it was like a bomb had gone off in her neck. Her midnight-blue eyes flashed wide as if he had surprised her with the question.

“The Greenshire girl?” Lena’s voice trembled as she said it.
How odd.
 

“I cannot allow the
Onærelen
to stand and I fear Heath’s time is running out. Clearly getting into the Fallen Archives is not going to work without a full scale assault.” Thorn could see the misery in Lena’s eyes as he mentioned the archives and he felt his chest constrict a little. The feeling confused him, but he pressed on. “So, what I want to know is, if you were me, what would you be doing?”
 

She searched his face as if she were considering the sincerity of the question. Thorn stayed quiet. For some reason, he didn’t want to interrupt her thought pattern. He hadn’t had to deal with Lena on a one to one basis very often, but he was surprised to find he wanted her to trust him as she trusted her Keeper.

“The Fallen aren’t as antiquated as we think they are. Since Asher
Fell
, they're a lot more organised. He's setting up Command Centres, small cells of operation. Their attacks on us, and humans, are far more coordinated than they ever used to be, but they still move around a lot, and, like us, don’t have the keys to Faerie. Keeping records safe would be a problem. We've digitised a lot of our records, why wouldn't they? I’m betting there’s a lot stored virtually, so I’d get Mercury on the case. If the guy can hack MI6 then Fallen archives shouldn’t be a problem for him.”

Well now, why hadn’t he thought of that?
“What else?”
 

Lena’s brow knitted. “I would go back and talk to Heath. Where did he go in those early searches for Eden? We know he didn’t find her, but someone else may have seen or heard something. Maybe we can cross-reference it with whatever Mercury comes up with? It's got to be worth a go.”

Thorn knew he shouldn’t be surprised at her ingenuity but he was. The Lena he knew was a fight first, ask questions later kind of girl. He had no idea she could be so insightful. Her ideas were sound though and what’s more, he agreed with them.

"Alright. You go and talk to Mercury. Ryver’s pretty good with this sort of thing so he can help too. Since Skylar’s still sulking, you can get him to assist. If the archives are held on a server somewhere, there’s going to be a lot of information to process. You and I can talk to Heath.”

He saw rather than heard her gulp and he wondered what part of what he had just said incited the reaction. No doubt, it was the thought of telling the rest of the guys what to do. Well, she had to do it sometime, so it may as well be now. He wasn’t about to cut her any slack on that front and by the way her sharp eyes narrowed at him, she knew it too. She simply nodded and turned to leave.

“We still have three hours before sunrise. Speak to the Guardians and meet me in the dining room. We’ll grab a sandwich and head out to Heath’s tonight."

She didn’t turn round as he spoke. Instead, she looked back at him over her shoulder, nodded once more and sashayed out of the room. It was definitely a sashay.
Did she normally walk like that?
He had no idea. He did know he wouldn’t mind if she did.