Title: Save a Horse, Chapter Twelve
Author: Maggie
Archived: www.geocities.com/Margaret_Mary69 and www.taintedfiction.com
E-mail: [email protected]
Feedback: Welcome if Constructive or at least not too
mean, LOL
Genre: Dark Hunter… for info on Cannon Characters go to www.Dark-Hunter.com
Rating: PG (for now)
Disclaimer: Any characters you recognize are the
property of Sherrilyn Kenyon. She retains all rights
to the characters and does not authorize this work. This is solely for mine and
hopefully my friends’ amusement. No money is being made off of this story.
Notes: A Dorian Squire goes on an adventure. It
might be more than she planned on. This may contain spoilers through Unleash
the Night. Thanks to Luna for her excellent and speedy job Beta-ing this.
“Did I hear you
wrong or did you just say I was going to spend the night…. Er
day with you?” Tad asked his squire incredulously. “I thought I wasn’t your
type.”
“Don’t get your
hopes or anything else up Romeo,” Jenny ground out as she turned a corner
heading through the streets of downtown. “It was a bad choice of phrase. I
merely meant that since you can’t stay with Anthony and there is no time to get
to your place I’d take you to my downtown loft… where you can sleep on the
couch.”
“Couch? You’d make your boss sleep on the couch
while you lie comfortably in your bed,” the man asked as she pulled into an
underground garage. “Maybe I should just sleep in the car then. It’s pretty
dark down here.”
“Yeah and how long
do you think it would take security to start asking questions about what you
were doing here, especially with that nasty cut on your arm,” the squire shook
her head as she pulled into a parking space. Getting out of the car she told
the man, “Come on up. I have a first aid kit I can use to patch you up. If
you’re nice I might even let you use the spare the bed in my study.” She winked
as she headed for the elevator.
“Ooh promises,
promises. Be still my heart,” the man grinned wearily as he got out of the car.
He winced as he shut the door, the pain of his wound finally seeping past the
adrenalin of the fight.
The hunter followed
his squire to the elevators at the far end of the garage. Ignoring the main
elevator she moved over to one marked “private” and slid a key card in a small
metal slot before pushing the call button. The pair got in then Jenny punched
in a code along with her penthouse loft number and they were off.
“Guess you believe
in personal security too,” Tad nodded as the elevator stopped on the top floor
and they got out.
“Something like that,” she told the man as they walked across the entry
way to another secure door she opened.
Turning on a light
she ushered the man into the room. He whistled as he took in the space. It was
comfortable in a homey sort of way if you ignored the apparent antique relics
that were housed in numerous glass cases around the room.
The hunter moved
toward the first case in his path, reaching out to touch what appeared to be an
ancient knife. “Hey is this real?”
Jenny moved quickly
over to the man blocking him from his quarry, “Yes it is. Please don’t touch…”
she looked around the room and sighed, “Don’t touch anything, okay? This stuff is worth a lot more than you’d think.
It’s why I have the black out blinds on my windows to protect them from the
sunlight,” she added pointing at dark shades in all her windows.
“Ah they weren’t
installed for me,” the hunter tried to joke but the wane smile was ruined by a
grimace as pain once again shot through his arm.
Noticing his look
the squire waved for him to follow her into her kitchen. “Come in and sit down
at the breakfast nook while I get the kit to patch you up.”
“It’s not that….”
Tad started to tell her but was cut off.
“Don’t bother
telling me it’s not that bad. I’ve seen that look on my brothers’ faces before.
Sit,” she pointed at the bar stool next to a high counter of fine finished
oak.
“Well unlike me they
probably didn’t have the advantage that they would be healed by dream hunters
once they went to sleep… if they were just allowed to sleep,” he grouched as he
saw the girl coming at him with antiseptic and bandages.
“Uh huh, well until
said dream hunter shows up to heal you I don’t want you bleeding out all over
my furniture. Besides I’ll just feel better if I do something okay,” she asked.
Her weariness caused her voice to falter a bit letting the hunter know how
shaken his new squire truly was about the events of the night.
Patting his squire’s
hand as she dressed his wound, the hunter smiled wanly. “Okay. Sorry I’m such a
bad patient. I’m much better at playing doctor,” the man added wiggling his
eyebrows when she looked up.
“You’re
incorrigible,” Jenny told her boss though she smiled as she said it. At least
horrible flirts were something she knew how to deal with.
“You should see how
bad I can be when I’m not dead tired from a long flight followed by two
impromptu fights,” the tall man boasted as she cleaned up putting the first aid
supplies away.
“I’m sure. Come on
and I’ll show you were you can crash for the day.”
At his tired nod,
Jenny led him out of the kitchen past the living area and down a hallway.
Opening a door halfway to the end, she led him into what was clearly a make
shift study. Walking in, she moved chairs and a few odds and ends to the sides
of the room then grabbed some bedding out of a wicker chest in the corner.
“This is really a
second bedroom though I know it looks more like a study at the moment. The daybed
against the wall will pull out to give you more room than it appears at first,”
she told him as she started to set the bed up for the man. Waving him away when
he tried to help, she told him, “Sit down in my office chair before you fall
down. There is a guest bathroom across the hallway that I keep stocked pretty
well. There’s more blankets in the wicker chest, extra linens in the hall
closet which is just past the bathroom and my room is at the end of the hall.
When I wake up I’ll run over to your place and grab you a change of clothes.”
“Any sunlit rooms I
need to worry about,” the hunter asked moving to sit down on the bed once it
was made.
The young woman
shook her head. “I’ll go around and double check but there shouldn’t be any
rooms with blinds open. I have a balcony if I want to really catch some rays
without destroying anything I’m working on here so all the rooms that face the
outside have the protective blinds.”
Tad grinned, “Sounds like you have as much of an aversion to light as I do.”
“Not really but my
artifacts do. If I’m home I’ll open the blinds in rooms that aren’t currently
getting direct sunlight… but I’ll resist the urge today. After all, I did go to
a lot of trouble to make sure you didn’t go up in smoke,” she teased as she
headed for the door.
“Yeah and I do
appreciate it.” The hunter told her. She nodded and started to close the door
when Tad called her back, “Jenny, seriously thanks. I’m grateful for everything
you’ve done tonight.”
“Everything,” She
asked with a mischievous grin.
“Well everything
except having a psychotic brother who wants to kill me… Oh yeah and all the
damage you’ve done to my fragile ego with your rebuffs.”
Shaking her head,
his squire confided, “I think given what I’ve seen, your ego will survive.”
With that she winked and closed the door leaving the man to his thoughts. Tad
briefly considering taking a shower before he bunked down for the night but
realizing he had nothing to change into gave up on the thought. He winced as he
stepped out of his pants and shirt to slide between the bedcovers. His last
thought as he drifted off to sleep was that it had certainly been an
interesting first night in
Down the hallway his
squire was wrapping a towel around her body having just stepped out of a hot
shower. Checking the caller ID on her nightstand as she dried off she saw that
Jon had called. She wasn’t sure if she was going to find an apology or an order
to check in on her message service and frankly she wasn’t in the mood to deal
with him either way. She’d handle her insanely protective brother better after
a few hours sleep.
Dropping the towel
on a chair she pulled on a nightshirt and climbed into her four poster bed.
Minutes later she was dead to the world herself, the stress of the night
finally having caught up with her.
The young squire
woke up with a jerk, cutting off a scream before it could waken her house
guest. She couldn’t totally piece together the nightmare she had been having
but she remembered enough to know that it was related to daimons and her
brothers being stabbed. Shaking her head she realized she was going to have to
find a better way to let go of stress if she was going to survive this job with
her sanity intact.
Looking over at the
clock she saw a few hours had passed. Tad would still be down for the count but
it might not be a bad idea to run over to his house to get the clothes she
promised. She could also trade his car for hers at the same time. It meant
she’d either have to drive him home or call him a cab but it was better than
her having to take a cab over to get her car back. Plus it was a good excuse to
give the sporty vehicle another test drive under less stressful conditions, she
grinned to herself.
She quickly got up
and pulled on some clothes. Looking at herself in the
mirror as she put her hair up in a ponytail, the squire noted she didn’t look
ready for a night out on the town with the bags under her eyes but she was just
running an errand for her boss anyway. She was dressed for a day off, in sweats
and Happy Bunny Tee shirt that said “Don’t Blame Me, I was Born Awesome.”
Thankfully she already arranged a few days off from the museum. She had figured
she’d need it with Tad arriving. She really hated when she was right about
things like that.
Heading out of her
room she paused as she walked by her closed study door. It sounded like the
hunter was still asleep within the safety of the room. She headed down the
hallway, grabbed her car keys and bag then headed out to face the day.
Getting into Tad’s
sporty ride it seemed a shame despite her fatigue to not enjoy the car a bit
more than the short jaunt to his place would allow. So she decided to take the
long way to his place via the highway and a stop at Starbuck’s for a Frappachino. She really liked Peaberry’s
better but they had been bought out the mega-conglomerate the year before.
Sometimes big business sucked and she had no trouble telling her dad and older
brothers that either. They found it amusing that it would be a simple cup of
coffee that would turn her against the evil corporate empire she was born into
to be truthful.
After her stop at
Starbuck’s she headed back to Tad’s house. Putting his car safely away in the
garage, she locked it up then headed inside. Dropping off the keys on the
kitchen counter she headed out into the hallway and noticed that Tad hadn’t
even had time to unpack his suitcases before their jaunt to Lodo.
Sighing, she briefly
considering just taking his luggage over to him and letting him pick out his
own clothes but that would be rather rude especially considering he might be
taking a cab home. It wasn’t like she wasn’t familiar with guys’ clothes anyway
considering all her brothers. She grabbed the bags and carried them up to the
master suite. Opening them on the bed she quickly found a pair of slacks and a
dress shirt as well as a comfortable tee that would go with the slacks in case
he didn’t want to go with the business look today. She also grabbed some socks
as well as a pair of briefs… though the latter had her thinking she so wasn’t
paid enough to go through the man’s things. The squire threw them all into his
overnight bag assuming anything else he would need would be in there.
She started to head
out when she looked back to a well worn UTEP sweatshirt lying on the top of the
suitcase. It couldn’t have been Tad’s as she was pretty sure he’d been a hunter
too long to be an alumni of the school but she could tell from the wear it had seen
as well as the way it was placed in the suitcase it had some significance to
the man. A gut feeling prompted her to add it to the pile of clothes she was
taking and she was out the door.
Jenny stepped off
the elevator and back into her apartment having gotten back to the building
without incident. She headed down the hallway carrying Tad’s clothes and
stopped in front of the still closed door to the front bedroom. It didn’t sound
like he was awake so she left his things right outside the door where he was
sure to find them.
She headed into the
living room intending to sort through the mail she’d brought in with her. It
was then that the buzz from her Starbuck’s treat started to wear off. The young
woman felt a killer headache coming on; one that only sleep would cure. Sighing
she looked over at the clock. She still had some time until sunset. Maybe she
could take a quick nap and be up before the hunter was. With that thought she
headed back to her room and her cozy bed.
A short time later
Tad woke from the comfort of his dreams. The Oneroi had been kind to him both
in giving him some peaceful dreams for a change and healing him while he slept.
He could barely tell where he had been cut though the wound should still be raw
and sore. He stretched as he stood grimacing at his clothes. He wasn’t looking
forward to putting them back on.
Sighing he pulled
his pants on and opened the door intending to at least wash his face and see what
he looked like. He was brought up short by the sight of what appeared to be his
overnight bag sitting in front of his door. He picked it up, as well as
sweatshirt lying on top of the bag.
Smiling, he
remembered when he had gotten the sweatshirt. Little did his former squire know
when he teasingly made him take the shirt that it was a lot more appropriate
than the young man thought. The squire was long gone
but the sweatshirt reminded him of the man. He was the last person Tad had
truly cared about and trusted. Shaking his head knowing that he didn’t need the
melancholy that line of thinking would lead to he picked up his bag and went
back into the study to see what his new squire had seen fit to bring him.
A short time and a
shower later, Tad was feeling a bit more himself. He’d changed into a pair of
khaki pants and a simple white button down shirt with the sweatshirt on over
it. It wasn’t that cold in Jenny’s place but made him feel a little less at sea
to have something that reminded him of good times close at hand.
Walking down the
hallway he noticed Jenny’s door was still closed. Deciding she probably was
catching up on more sleep after their long night and her earlier errand he
decided to let her be for a while.
The hunter wandered
out to front room, peaking out to make sure she had left the blinds down before
he got too far into the room. Seeing it was safe he strolled over to her mantle
first, his attention drawn to the pictures lined up there. The centerpiece was
a large family photo in an ivory frame. It looked like it must have been taken
last Christmas as Jenny looked much the same as she did now. The Christmas tree
in the background and year printed in the lower right hand corner didn’t hurt
his deductions either. Okay so he had a little help but he figured it out
himself.
Carefully separating
the frame from the ones around it, he picked it up for a better look. It was
only fair. With his luck and previous experience to go on, the rest of her
crazy family could be preparing for the next wave of attacks even now. He had
to admit it was a handsome looking group. An older couple who were probably
Jennifer’s parents stood in the background. They looked like they had seen a
lot in their lifetimes but the laugh lines that formed small wrinkles around
their eyes said it hadn’t all been bad.
In the foreground
branching out from the center were two young men. Tad had no trouble
recognizing one as his attacker from last night, Jonathan. The other looked a
bit taller, with blonde hair and a charming smile; he could pass for a daimon
if not for the sparkle of life in his eyes. Still, despite the more serious
look of the man next to him, something told him Jon was the younger of the two.
On either side the
pair, a darker haired younger man wearing a
Turning his gaze
back to the center of the picture, he was struck by the easy smile on his young
squire’s lovely face. She was crouching in front of the four boys. She really
did look like a sweet person when she didn’t have her feathers ruffled about
something. He’d have to work on getting on her good side he supposed. Sighing he
set the picture back down on the mantle.
The hunter glanced
at various other pictures on the mantle. There were individual ones of each of
her presumed brothers as well as her parents. There were a few that were
ambiguous enough to be unclear in their identity. He was tempted to take them
out of their frames and look for any names or dates on the back but with his
luck, Jenny would walk in if he tried it.
A few pictures of
his squire were scattered among the rest though not in any environment he would
have expected to see her in. They mostly
looked like dig sights; a few looked like the deserts of the Middle East while
others may have been the wild regions of
He moved across the
room and opened a glass case to remove the large flat looking knife she had
chased him away from earlier. It seemed to be made of some sort of copper
alloy. It was a bit over a foot long. The cutting end was rounded in an almost
half circle shape while the handle had a bizarre design that almost resembled
the figure you would find on an old Indian totem pole. He shook his head; no it
was less recent than that though very intricate. He struggled to remember where
he had seen the image before.
Tad must have been
lost in thought because the first hint that his squire was awake was a gasp
from across the room. He turned to watch the girl, bear feet practically
stomping across the floor as she came to stop in front of him and started to
reach for the blade then stopped, apparently afraid some harm might come to it
by wrestling it out of his grasp.
He smiled at the
girl, “Good morning. Nice knife though I don’t think it’s been sharpened in a
bit.”
Jenny glared at her
boss. “Would you please set that down where you got it… carefully.
It isn’t some cheap trinket to be played with. It’s a Timu…”
“Ceremonial Burial
knife from Pre-Incan Peru, right,” he asked with a raised eyebrow. “It’s a big
national symbol to the Peruvians or something… That makes it what, at least 700
years old?”
The man almost
laughed at the shocked look on the girl’s face but he didn’t think that would
go over well so he held his peace.
She nodded,
“Actually it’s a little over 900 years old. It was part of a set that was found
in a rare intact pre-Incan grave. That is a Sican
deity’s image on the handle.”
”I wouldn’t mention that last bit where Artemis might hear. She can be rather
jealous,” he winked.
Taking a deep breath
and reminding herself to remain calm she couldn’t stop her foot from tapping as
she barely punched out the next sentence. “You. Still.
Have. Not. Put. It. Back!”
The hunter gently
set the piece back in the case then stepped back as the girl gingerly closed
the door on the case. Only then did the tension in her shoulders start to ease.
He was about to
thank her for his clothes when she turned tensing again as she thought to ask
him, “How did you know what it was anyway and why are you snooping around my
house? What else have you gotten into?”
Raising an eyebrow
the hunter grinned, “Which question should I answer first? Let’s see, I broke into your safe then I
raided your fridge and got butter in the jelly when I made myself some toast
and to top it off I’ve been going through your phone speed dial lists to try to
find out who all your friends are.” At her cross expression he sighed and sat
on the couch. “Honestly, I woke up, found my clothes…thanks by the way… got
dressed and then started roaming to kill time until you woke up. I had been
looking at your family photos until I eyed the artifact nearby. I figured you
needed the sleep after last night.”
A conciliatory shrug
wasn’t much but it was more than he thought he would get so the hunter was
grateful when she gave it before plopping down in the chair across from him.
“Fair enough I suppose. I did need some rest. Are things usually so nuts?”
He offered the girl
a lopsided grin. “Not usually on my first day. Generally my squires don’t tag
along when I’m hunting so it shouldn’t be so hazardous in the future for you at
least.”
Jenny nodded, “Hint
taken. No more tagging along uninvited though you have to admit I came in handy
this morning.” When he nodded she continued. “You’re welcome for the clothes.
When I picked them up I traded your car for mine so I’ll have to drive you home
unless you want to catch a cab.”
“Actually if you
don’t mind taking my bag back to my place I think I’ll take a cab now that it
should be dark outside.” At her frown he explained as he stood, “That way I can
start to learn the lay of the land down here. I’ll walk around a bit then grab
the cab home to finish settling in.”
”Is there anything else you need me to do tonight,” the squire asked.
Tad started to shake
his head then grinned as he opened the door to her entry way. “Just make sure
none of your family is waiting around to ambush me when I get home.” He winked
and walked out the door before she could respond.
Jenny started to
laugh until her eye caught sight of the ceremonial knife the hunter had been
holding when she found him. Realizing he had never explained his knowledge of
the artifact she shook her head. “I’m thinking that there is a lot more to you
than meets the eye Tad. I just hope I last long enough to find out what you’re
hiding and why.”