Read Online Guardian by Shannon Mayer - Free Book Online Page A

citizens in their former lives. I shook the thought off. Be that as it may, it wasn’t just the adults of the pack being hurt. There were a number of children there, and I’d seen clearly what happened to them in the middle of the fire-fight.
    Liam touched my elbow and I turned to follow him. While we weren’t in the open, we weren’t exactly hiding ourselves.
    “What do you want to do?” We tucked ourselves behind a small stand of trees. His question was excellent because I had no fucking idea.
    No weapons, no Blaz, no way across the moat, possible alarms set into the earth, and quite possibly some sort of magic fire that could fry us to a crisp. Not really good odds.
    A shuffle of feet spun us both around at the same time. Liam put himself in front of me and I had to shift to the side to see around him. A man stood across from us, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes wary as he took us in. Dark hair and blue eyes, a slim build and a fair muscle tone I could see under the layers of clothes. He would have been handsome if not for burn marks that melted his skin into wax art on the left side of his cheek and around his eye. Still, I’d learned that more often than not it was the pretty ones who would turn on you. Russian spewed out of his lips and I shook my head. “English or not at all.”
    “Witch.” Liam breathed. Ah, shit.
    I stepped around Liam. If anyone was going to get hit with a spell, it was going to be me. The witch lifted an eyebrow at this move, but didn’t lift his hands. Which meant, at the moment, he wasn’t trying to spell us.
    “You two, you are not with those ones?” He tipped his chin toward the hunter’s fortress.
    “No. You?” I queried, knowing he might lie. Also knowing Liam could smell the lie on the witch.
    The witch spat on the ground, a grimace twisting his face. “Bah. They are scum. Steal a book of spells and use it to torment those weaker than them. I am Val; I belong to the local coven. But more than that”—he drew a slow breath—“are you the Tracker?”
    Liam growled quietly under his breath and my eyebrows shot up. “I am.”
    “I believe we have a friend in common, then.”
    I waited for him to continue, keeping my surprise to myself.
    Val tipped his head from side to side. “Doran said I might run into you; that you might need some help, since you always seem to find trouble.”
    I should have known. Beside me, Liam stiffened, but then slowly relaxed. Somehow, it wasn’t a surprise that Doran had his hand in this.
    I didn’t hold my hand out. “Rylee, and this is Liam. He isn’t fond of witches, so I don’t suggest you come any closer.”
    Val nodded. “Fine. You are here to rescue someone from the hunters like me?
    “Who did they take from you?”
    “My brother. He is not strong enough to become a full member of the coven, so the hunters, they took him. They did this.” He touched a finger to the melted skin. I wondered why the other witches didn’t heal it. But maybe that wasn’t possible with a magical burn like that? Or maybe he was just using it as fuel for the fire, so to speak, a secondary motivation to go after the hunters.
    More thoughts whirled inside my brain. I didn’t know how much help Val would be if he wasn’t strong like Milly and Pam. Still, another set of eyes and hands wasn’t a bad thing when we were on unfamiliar territory. And since Doran sent him, I figured we could trust him. “We’re just here to kill them all.”
    Val threw back his head and laughed, his hands clutching at his sides. We didn’t join him and it took a good twenty seconds for him to realize I wasn’t joking.
    “Seriously?” He blinked several times as he calmed himself. “You are just two. I see the wolf would be full of power, but you, what can you do? I sense no power in you, no matter that Doran said to be careful of you.”
    I smiled at him. “It’s a surprise.”
    For some reason that satisfied him. “Well, perhaps we can surprise them