Page 28 of Shamrocked
My cheeks burned. I didn’t think they’d notice if I groped Aidan a bit, but at least Ivarr agreed we’d be freeing Doran, rather than Aidan’s grim prediction.
We pulled off the interstate and started the winding path up and down the steep, wooded, narrow blacktop road toward Noble Point. A sense of familiarity hit me, a surge of homesickness that I hadn’t expected. I didn’t have the best relationship with my parents, now divorced and remarried with new families that had never felt like mine. They’d left the area long ago, and I didn’t have anyone here I’d ever cared to come back to visit. My best and only friend was Vivi, and we’d escaped to college and then decided to live in Kansas City, far from the trailer park where we’d grown up and the rich kids who’d made fun of us.
We’d never looked back.
But these wooded hills stirred something deep inside me. A longing for something I hadn’t realized I missed. Or maybe that ache was for Doran, my prince I’d searched for as a child. What if he’d been waiting nearby, frozen in stone all this time, wondering why I’d abandoned him? The thought fucking wrecked me.
We paused at the top of Noble Point while Vivi consulted the map to get our bearings. Aidan felt me shivering, and tugged my hands up inside his jacket. She stepped off the bike and came over to me, turning the map around so we were oriented with the lake behind us.
“It looks like we could drive back around this side of the hill, but it’s a couple of miles out of our way before the road curves back down to the bay below. Do you remember that one trail we used to take home from school? I think that’ll get us close, and then maybe we can just cut through the woods.”
We’d always taken the quiet, wooded routes home from school, both because we loved the outdoors, and to avoid the bullies. “Yeah, that trail is just over there, I think.”
Aidan signaled the rest of the riders and they cut their engines. I climbed off his bike and hopped in place a little to get my blood flowing. Excitement coursed through me. We were close. We had to be.
My smile faded as I watched them arm themselves. Like in my painting, Aidan pulled two curved sheaths out of the storage saddle on his bike and belted them around his waist. Then he slipped on a backpack with the gargoyle’s head poked out of the top. I wasn’t sure if I’d need the statue or not—but it didn’t seem right to leave my connection to Doran behind.
Ivarr had an actual broadsword strapped to the side of his bike that he slung over his back. Keane had some kind of massive gun that he locked against his side. He saw me watching and winked at me. “Flame throwers work great on demons, as long as I don’t catch the forest on fire around us.”
My stomach clenched with dread. I didn’t want any of them to get hurt. Let alone… I swallowed a massive lump in my throat and put on a bright smile. “So what weapon did you bring for me?”
“Me,” Warwick slid up beside me and looped his arm around my waist. “I’m your most secret, deadly weapon of mass destruction. You point, I fire.”
I gave him a suspicious look, hoping that he didn’t intend to just whisk me away like they’d planned. I’d be royally pissed. Like seriously. Furious. I thought that very hard at him, but his eyebrows only lifted innocently, his eyes sparkling like faceted emeralds.
The other guys carried a motley assortment of sawed-off shotguns, blades, and Vivi’s biker had a wicked-looking battle axe in one hand and a dagger in the other. I thought she’d come close to me and Warwick, but when she met my gaze, she shrugged and stuck close to the guy she’d been riding with. Naturally, he gave her a besotted grin. Hopefully she’d be safe enough with him.
The trail we’d used as kids was overgrown enough that we had to walk single file. Aidan took the lead, with me behind him, and Warwick on my heels. There hadn’t been much snow or ice, thankfully, or the trail would have been treacherous. Some snow still packed against roots and rocks, but nothing on the hard-packed ground of the trail. My thighs ached by the time we made it to the curve that lead away from the lake and toward the trailer park where Vivi and I had both lived. The lake lay through the trees to our left, and though the leaves were gone, there were enough pine and cedar trees that we couldn’t see the waterline.
“It’s a bit steep,” Aidan said, concern lining his brow. “It might be slippery.”
Ivarr scooped me up in his arms, making me squawk like a strangled chicken. “Put me down.”
Ignoring me—but giving me a huge, hopeful smile—he started down the steep terrain littered with stones and dead fall. “Aidan had you all to himself for three long hours. Though I’ll warn you, if you grab my junk while we’re hiking down to the lake, I can’t guarantee we won’t end up flat on our backs, sliding down into the water.”
“Hold up,” Aidan called softly.
Ivarr paused and Keane and another guy moved around us, slipping their way down the slope. “Let them scout ahead. See if anything’s lying in wait.”
My anxiety ratcheted up a notch as I watched Keane weave through the trees. If something happened to him… to any of them…
Ivarr shifted me in his arms, lifting me higher so I could put my face against his throat. “None of that, now, treasurekeeper. We have a duty to see to your safety, first and foremost, but secondly, to eliminate Balor’s minions in the mortal realm. You can’t keep us from this duty, but trust me when I say that each of us is a formidable weapon that’ll make any demon hesitate, even our human comrades.”
“And if… when,” Aidan corrected himself when I leveled a narrowed look at him, “we free Doran, we’ll be damned near invincible.”
A low whistle floated up toward us, and Ivarr continued moving downhill. I glanced back over my shoulder, and saw Vivi safely in her guy’s arms too. In fact, she was staring up at him with a stunned look on her face. Aha. Maybe my gorgeous friend had at last met her match.
I studied the man carrying her. He wasn’t the normal slick, handsome, expensively dressed man she normally went after, but speaking from experience, that wasn’t a bad thing at all. He was strong, and tall enough that he didn’t have difficulties carrying her, even though she was nearly a foot taller than me, and he certainly handled her like a priceless artifact. Mr. Rough and Tough had turned to putty in her extremely beautiful hands.
We cleared the trees and stepped out onto a pebbled beach.
“Vivi, left or right?” I asked.
“Um… left.”
“Do you feel anything?” Ivarr asked me softly. “Any hint that we’re going in the right direction?”
“Not yet. Is that bad?”
