Her Warriors (16 page)

“How are we going to do that?” Beau wanted
to know.

It all sounded very strange to him, even
though he’d grown up with a magical, priestess mother. He was
coming to understand that the High Priestess—and her new
apprentice—were practicing the magical arts on a whole other
level.

Bettina smiled at him. “Jacki and I have
been working on exactly that today. And actually, you’re going to
play a very large role in the night’s activities. We need your
anger, Beau Champlain.” Bettina turned to look at Geir. “And we
need your cunning, Master Geir. The two together will help us
prevail. I feel sure of it.”

“But we’re not mages. We don’t know how to
do spells,” Geir protested, voicing Beau’s objections as well.

“You forget. You are joined on a soul-level
with Jacki now. She is the one who will draw the magic and allow
you to see what is happening. You only need to direct her in how
best to deploy our magical forces, if you will, Master Geir. And
your bloodthirsty anger, Beau, will fuel the flames and expand the
energy into a fireball of intensity. At least, that’s my hope.”
Bettina shrugged, but kept smiling. “I believe it will work. Jacki
knows the way of it now. We will let her guide the work.”

She held out her hands, taking one of Beau’s
and one of Geir’s, motioning for them to join hands with Jacki.
They formed a circle over Tom’s bed, two on either side.

Jacki took a deep breath as Beau watched
her. She had a determined look on her face. He wanted to help her,
but didn’t quite understand what he was supposed to do here, and
then it happened.

Jacki spoke some words Beau didn’t
recognize, but he felt the power in them. They were magic words.
Spell words. And suddenly the room disappeared and the only thing
that remained was Tom, in the bed, within their circle. Beau was
fascinated for a moment by the pure white glow of the circle formed
by their joined hands and the way the glow extended out to
encompass all of Tom, head to toe. Then he looked at Tom and
realized Jacki’s brother emanated a sickly, dark red color. An evil
color that just looked wrong.

The tiger within Beau roared, sensing an
enemy and Beau’s human side recoiled, then wanted to go on the
attack. Bettina had pegged it right. Beau’s infamous anger rose at
what had been done to harm Tom. Beau knew the other man as a decent
guy, a brave warrior and a good brother to Jacki. Tom was
lighthearted and pure of purpose. He didn’t deserve
this…red…evil…miasma that surrounded him. It made Beau sick with
fury.

And then he felt Jacki’s hand in his,
siphoning off his anger, taking the energy of it and using it to
battle the red cloud that surrounded Tom, beating it back with her
words and her continued chanting. Beau looked at Geir and saw the
other man’s eyes narrowed in concern…and calculation. Beau could
almost see the energy flowing from Geir to Jacki through their
joined hands as she kept speaking words of high magic Beau had
never heard before and probably wouldn’t be able to remember if he
tried. Such was the way of magical words, or so his mother had
taught him.

Beau had never been able to see magic before
and he figured it had something to do with the mating bond. Being
mated to a future High Priestess was going to be interesting if
this was the sort of thing he could expect from the future.

Jacki gripped his hand harder as her voice
rose in volume and he concentrated on the red cloud around her
brother. Was it weakening? Yes. It looked like it was thinning
before the onslaught of her magic. But then it rebounded and Beau
felt a surge of adrenaline in his body as the bestial anger that
was never far from his surface came to the fore. He felt Jacki
using his energy and he welcomed it. He wanted that red cloud
gone.

Geir tugged on Jacki’s hand, Beau saw,
almost as if he were gesturing toward Tom’s left shoulder. And then
Beau saw it too—the concentrated attack on Tom’s heart. That’s
where the poison had taken hold and what it targeted. Beau felt and
saw Jacki redirect her attack. She fought for her brother’s heart
and little by little, it looked like she was winning.

Beau lost all sense of time and space. For
this interlude, nothing existed but the four of them holding hands
and Tom—and the evil thing that held him in its grip. Bettina was
silent for the most part except when she occasionally added her
magical tone to the chant Jacki kept repeating, changing words and
intonation occasionally to battle the red fog that was slowly
giving up its hold on Tom. They were winning, but it was an arduous
battle.

Beau fed Jacki his anger and his energy. He
knew Geir was doing the same—only with less anger. The Master was
tightly wound and in control of his human form for the most part.
Only in passion did Geir’s tiger take over, Beau had learned, much
to his surprise. He wasn’t sure he was totally comfortable knowing
such things about another man just yet, but he figured comfort
would come in time. Jacki was worth any adjustment he would have to
make in his thinking and his life.

He kept his focus on Tom, even as he felt
his energy start to stutter. Anger helped him overcome the
momentary weakness as he redoubled his efforts to give all he could
to his mate so that she could direct their combined power.

It was worth every effort when Beau finally
saw the red recede completely. Jacki had won the battle for her
brother’s heart. He was free of the sickly, blood-red taint when
Jacki drew her chant to a close and pulled back her power. Beau’s
vision changed as the spell dissipated. He could no longer see the
powerful ring of white light formed around their joined hands, but
now that he knew it was there, he could almost feel it. He had
learned a great deal more about magic tonight, and about his new
mate’s potential to wield it.

If Jacki could do battle with the horror
that had squeezed her brother in its evil grip after only a day of
tutoring, then given time, she would be a formidable High
Priestess. Beau was weary but pleased with that thought when the
spell ended. He swayed on his feet and saw Geir do the same, but
Jacki looked a little better and Bettina seemed unaffected. Beau
was certain Bettina had been fully participating in the sharing of
energy—he had felt it through their joined hands—but she seemed to
have an almost endless supply of that pure, white, healing magic at
her disposal.

She gave him a little jolt of it before she
let go of his hand and he felt better. He suspected she did the
same for Geir, since they both nodded at her in thanks at about the
same time. She smiled at them and bent to check on Tom.

“He is much better, though still weak,” she
reported. “I’ll stay with him. You three should get some sleep. You
probably don’t realize it, but it’s after three a.m.”

Beau was a little shocked. They had started
their work around nine o’clock at night. If Bettina was right—and
Beau had no reason to believe she would mislead them regarding the
time—they had been standing here for six hours or more. Maybe time
worked differently inside the magic circle they had formed. Or
maybe his perception of the passage of time had changed because
they had been so focused on helping Tom.

Either way, physically, it made sense. Beau
ran a hand through his hair and realized he was exhausted. Bone
weary. Ready to get horizontal and stay that way for several hours
at least. Geir looked just as tired and Jacki only marginally less
so.

“Tommy looks a lot better,” Jacki said,
running her fingers over her brother’s hand.

Jacki bent to kiss Tom’s cheek, combing his
hair with her fingers. It was clear she loved her sibling very
much, but she was also really tired. When she straightened, Beau
reached for her, encouraging her to lean on him.

“You have turned the tide,” Bettina
confirmed. “I will watch over him to make sure it stays that way,
but I think the three of you, working together, were enough to
chase the worst of the darkness away.”

“What was that red stuff?” Beau asked,
wondering. He’d never seen anything like it before.

Bettina smiled at him, cocking her head.
“Your connection is even stronger than I thought if you were able
to perceive the taint. Did you see it too, Master Geir?”

Geir nodded. “I have never seen the like,”
he admitted. “I’ve never been able to perceive magic before. I
assume that’s what it was, right?”

Bettina clapped her hands together with
clear satisfaction. “Exactly right. You were seeing it through your
mate’s eyes. Sharing her power as she connected with you to direct
yours. This is wonderful. You three are working very well together
already. It will be exciting to see how your powers evolve. But for
now…” she looked back at Tom, “…I believe you have saved his
life.”

Jacki sobbed—just once—and Beau tightened
his arm around her. She was crying, but it was with relief. Fatigue
probably had something to do with her emotional outburst as well,
but Beau didn’t mind. She had done something amazing here tonight
and saved her brother as a result. She was entitled to her moment.
She’d been strong for so long—leading them through hours and hours
of hard, magical work—and she never once complained or backed down.
Now though, when all was secure and her brother was out of the
woods, she deserved a bit of relief, and all the emotional support
he could give her.

Bettina looked at Jacki with kind eyes. “You
three should go get some sleep. Tom will be okay for now. The evil
has been battled back and tomorrow we will do one last spell to
bring him all the way home. For the moment, he is safe and you are
exhausted. Go rest.”

Jacki nodded at her mentor and Beau helped
her out of the room, Geir preceding them to open the doors along
their path. All plans for seduction and passion went flying out the
same window that had taken almost all his strength. There would be
no repeat of the pleasure they had shared tonight, but Beau
couldn’t work up the energy to do more than have a tiny moment of
regret. He was still with Jacki, and they would rest together. That
was enough for now.

They landed in Jacki’s room, which was
closest. Thank goodness all the guest rooms had king sized beds.
Beau didn’t get much farther than the bed before his strength gave
out. He helped Jacki into the center, then promptly collapsed on
one side, while Geir did the same on the other. That was the last
he knew for several hours.

Chapter
Ten

Geir felt really hung-over when he woke the
next morning. The bedside clock said he’d only had, at most, four
hours of sleep, but it was clear Jacki and Beau had had even less.
They were nowhere to be seen and Geir suspected, from the scent of
cooking bacon wafting down the hallway, they were most likely in
the kitchen.

Geir went over yesterday’s events in his
mind as he rousted himself out of Jacki’s bed and headed for the
bathroom. He realized there was much to be done today and no time
to lose. He moved through his morning routine on autopilot while he
thought about how best to juggle everything he had on his list for
the day.

But first, breakfast.

It wasn’t as awkward as Geir had
half-expected it to be, thanks mostly to the presence of the High
Priestess and Beau’s surprisingly joyful mood. He made jokes
through the meal, causing them all to laugh at his nonsensical
humor. It was such a change from his normal angry and gruff
demeanor, it was refreshing to see. Jacki had wrought that change
in Beau. Geir wondered what kind of changes she would make in him
as well…if he stayed in this threesome.

It still didn’t feel exactly right to his
human sensibilities to be in three-way. It wasn’t what he’d been
raised to expect. It wasn’t necessarily anything he had ever
thought about. And although he felt the mating bond deep in his
soul, he wondered if the other two wouldn’t be better off without
him weighing them down.

It was quite clear that Jacki had affected
Beau for the better. But what had she brought out in Geir? So far,
she’d only spiked his animal side into gaining control over his
human form—something Geir had worked to avoid most of his adult
life. His training was all about control, and she made him lose
it.

Try as he might, he couldn’t figure out how
that was a good thing.

They had barely finished breakfast when duty
called in the form of Bronson, one of the young Royal Guards,
knocking on the kitchen door. Beau got up to answer it and it was
pretty clear from the look on Bronson’s face that something was
up.

“We caught the guy,” Bronson announced as he
entered the kitchen. “He walked into a trap on the perimeter by Tad
and Mandy’s place. They’re bringing him here. Tad says there’s a
room in the barn that has been reinforced to hold prisoners.”

That was news to Geir, but then, there were
a lot of nooks and crannies in his new home that he had yet to
discover. Tad’s quick tours could only cover so much each time they
did one.

“Looks like our plans for the day have
changed,” Beau said, leaning back in his chair and stretching. Geir
could see he was keyed up despite the casual pose.

“Jake wants Master Geir and the priestesses
to be on hand, if you wouldn’t mind,” Bronson asked somewhat
bashfully, looking at Bettina with a flush on his cheeks.

“That means you get all of us, son,” Beau
stated, standing up, his posture brooking no argument. “No way am I
letting you have all the fun, G. Plus, someone needs to watch over
the safety of the women while you’re all busy with the tango.”

“He’s not a terrorist, Beau,” Geir said with
good-natured humor as he too rose and started putting dishes in the
sink.

“Might as well be,” Beau grumbled. “I’ll get
my gear. Don’t go anywhere without me.” Beau gave the ladies a
stern look before he took off down the hallway at double time.