Sanctify: The Guardians Book 2 Read online

  “Let’s go check with Gris. I am sure that he will want to come.”

  Rose pouted. “But, I was looking forward to some time with just you.”

  He smiled. “Just me? I think I can arrange that. How about a date? Just you and me. Something normal. A date that is what we need.” He looked at her with that devilish grin. “Well, as normal as it can be going on a date with a ghost.”

  Piled into the blue Taurus that had been in the garage, Rose worried her lip. She hadn’t been to the storage facility since everything had been put in there. She had hired movers to take care of her foster parents’ things. It hurt too much to think about them gone, to deal with everything. They would have loved the guys.

  Her foster mother had been the kind of mom that all the kids wanted. Every day after school, she had had cookies or some other snack made with a tall glass of milk, just waiting for her. She would make the greatest costumes for every Halloween. Well, that was until the wasting sickness hit her. The summer before Rose started 6th grade her foster mother became ill. They thought it was just a summer cold, but then she just couldn’t do anything. She had no energy, would get odd fevers . . . she spent every day searching for answers. She would go to this doctor and that, but no one could figure it out. Then came the alternative medicine. She would try anything and everything, but nothing helped. She just became thinner and thinner, and she could no longer go out.

  Right after Rose graduated, they took one last family trip. It was the trip that they took every four years to New Orleans. Dad always tried to pass it off as going to see some family, but it was . . . weird. For one thing, none of them looked anything like Mom or Dad. The family they would see lived deep in the Bayou. Each of them had honey-colored skin and dark hair. Their eyes were an odd brown that looked almost like empty orbs, so dark that you couldn’t see the pupil at all. Dad was as Norwegian in appearance as they come, with his blond hair and blue eyes. Mom was a mutt, as she was fond of saying, with muddy brown hair and hazel eyes.

  Rose always felt weird visiting. The way these people lived was so foreign to anything she understood. The compound they lived in was full of what people now would call tiny houses, able to be moved easily. They had an odd style of speaking that was almost like Spanish but part of the end of the words was left off, and it made understanding them difficult. At night, they would have a big bonfire and roast meat over it.

  An old lady would come and sit by the fire, her stringy gray hair brushing the ground. She had bones and various trinkets woven into her hair. Her eyes were a cloudy gray and gave Rose the heebie jeebies every time they rested on her.

  The Hag would take whatever meat was to be cooked that night and slit the animal’s throat, letting the red blood flow into a cup. She would drink the blood, chant, and then dump some of the blood into the fire. A dark smoke would waft around the clearing, and then she would pass the cup around the fire. Each person would drink from the cup, and it always came to Rose last. She never wanted to drink, but her mom and dad said it was an important tradition. The metallic, cloying taste of blood would gag her, but she would do as asked.

  That last year that they went, Mom had been adamant that they not miss the trip. Dad had held her hand and agreed. There were murmurings and stories whispered in the night of what the Hag could do. Rose never believed them, but her foster mother was beyond rational thinking in her quest for life. Rose thought they hoped that the Hag would help, but the Hag was in similar shape to Mom—her skin wrinkled and clinging to her bones as if the muscle had wasted away. Her voice rasped, and she would stop, coughing until blood trickled down her chin. The last night they were there, the bonfire was larger. The animal roasting was a wild boar, larger than any that had been before. The blood cup was emptied and refilled, making its rounds until it was emptied.

  When Rose drank the last drop, the Hag dropped to the ground, dead. One of the men took her body and put it into the fire; an odd, keening sound filled the clearing. Rose shivered and swore to never come back again, as she ran from the fire and to the tiny house that was for her and her parents’ visits. Her mother had been too ill to come to the fire, and all Rose could think of was curling up next to her. But, the house was quiet. Rose crept in and found her mother cold and unresponsive and her father missing.

  That was the last time she saw her foster parents. Her mother’s body had been transported back home. Rose had been numb during the funeral, sitting there on her own. Some friends came, but she had no family. Her mother and father had both been only children. The police came and went, but the searches for her father had found nothing. At eighteen, Rose was alone in the world again. She tried to stay in the house, but soon the bank took it, and all she could do was put everything into storage.

  She threw herself into college, spending all her time studying. Before she knew it, six years had passed, and she knew no more about her parents than she had the day her foster mother died and her foster father disappeared.

  “Rose? Rose, are you okay?” Keyne said, his blue eyes filled with concern, sensing her turbulent emotions through their bond.

  Rose shook herself from the memories that held her in their grip, tears running down her face. She swiped at her cheeks. Stupid hormones. She had never cried as much as she did now. “Yeah, just lost in memories. It has been 10 years since I have looked at any of my parents things. It just was too hard.”

  “Oh, sweetie, we will be there with you,” Keyne said, floating back to sit with her. Cool arms circled her, the scent of peppermint and maple syrup calming her.

  “I’ll be okay. I just wish I knew what happened to Dad.”

  “What do you mean? You said they were dead.” Gris looked at her in the rearview mirror.

  “Remember how I said that we always went on a trip to the Bayou? Well, the last time we went was the summer after I graduated. Mom had been really ill, but she insisted that we still go. She died on that trip, and Dad disappeared. They never did find him, and I haven’t been back to the Bayou since. The police said that the encampment wasn’t there. As if I imagined the whole thing.”

  “What do you mean?” Gris, ever the strategist, asked.

  “I guess I should start at the beginning. Every four years we would go visit my foster dad’s family in the Bayou . . .” Rose started.

  Keyne rubbed her shoulder, offering comfort.

  “So, you don’t know where your dad is? And the police never found anything?”

  “No. According to them, no one lived that deep in the Bayou, and when they sent investigators in, they couldn’t find anything.”

  Gris looked at her, perplexed. “Hopefully, we can find some information in your parents’ things.” He pulled the car into the storage facility. “What was the number?”

  “Four b.”

  Gris drove down the road and turned into the row marked four. He stopped next to the door marked b. They piled out of the car, and Rose stepped over to the box next to the garage-style door and punched her code in. The door opened to reveal boxes and piles of furniture.

  “Thirty years of living together, and it fits inside this little eight by twelve room.”

  Gris came up behind Rose and hugged her. “You can’t bottle or store love. This is just the pieces of that, not the actual thing.”

  Rose smiled sadly and entered the storage shed, her hand trailing over a chair covered in a green fabric with roses printed all over it.

  “Mom loved this chair. She said she would sit in it and pray for a baby. They finally got the okay to become foster parents, and then I came up, a toddler whose name was Rose. She said it was a sign that it was meant to be.”

  Memories flooded through Rose as she touched various pieces of furniture. A tear slipped down her cheek as she remembered the good times. Swiping the tear away, she gave herself a mental shake. “The boxes are over here. They should all be marked. I vaguely remember tossing everything on and in Dad’s desk into some.”

  Gris went over and started opening boxes.
“Do you know how many there are?”

  “If I remember right, I think there should be four boxes from Dad’s desk. Mom had another box in her room, and then one that I put the family photos in.”

  “Okay, I think I found the one from your mom’s room.” He held up a picture of a toddler, her curls creating a halo around her head, green eyes shining as she held a dripping ice cream cone. “You were such a cute baby.”

  Rose blushed. Keyne opened another box. “This one looks like a bunch of receipts and bills,” he said as he flipped through the manila folders that were in it.

  The guys kept looking through boxes as Rose walked around the small space, remembering happier times with her parents. In the very back, she found a wooden box sitting on the table that her foster mother loved. She picked it up and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t open. She carried it to the front of the storage room.

  “I don’t remember seeing this before.”

  Keyne looked up at her. “What is in it?”

  “I don’t know. It won’t open,” Rose said, trying to pry the box open.

  “Here, let me see it.” Gris took the box that was sanded till it felt almost like glass, it was so smooth. He turned it every which way, and it wouldn’t open. He couldn’t even feel a seam to indicate that it opened at all. “That is odd. Maybe we should take it back to the safe house and look at it later. I think we found all the boxes and put them in the car already.”

  A rattle sounded, and Keyne yelled, “Hey guys, we have company!”

  Gris and Rose ran to the open door and looked out. Coming towards them with a stumbling gait were four men. Each stumbled as if strings pulled at their feet, similar to a puppet being manipulated to move. One of them stretched his arm out and a blast of air pushed Keyne away from the car.

  Gris ran out, pushing Rose ahead of him. “Get in the car! Keyne, you okay?”

  “Yeah, remember can’t die.” Keyne ran and floated himself into the car, just in time to miss another blast of air. “GO!”

  Rose clutched the seat ahead of her as Gris slammed the gas pedal down. The car lurched forward and raced towards the four men.

  “GRIS! You can’t hit them,” Rose yelled, but Gris never let up on the gas. Two of the men jerked out of the way, the other two were thrown onto the hood of the car and tumbled off. Gris continued to drive, swerving around a corner and out of the storage facility. He kept looking in the rearview mirror, but no one followed.

  “What the hell, Gris?” Keyne yelled. “How would anyone know we were coming here? Or even that Rose had this storage chest.”

  “Someone must have looked into it when we disappeared. It is the only thing that makes sense,” Gris responded. “That, or he has some blood to track us.”

  “Gris, we have to go back. What if they are hurt?” Rose asked.

  Gris looked at her through the rearview mirror with an incredulous stare. “Rose, did you not see the magic? You want to go back and see if they are hurt? Those things are not human anymore.”

  She looked at him puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “They were once upon a time human. But they gave their souls to a master for power. That master now controls them, as you saw. The master can look through their eyes, see what they see, speak for them, make them move. If he is strong enough, he can even use his magic through them.” He paused. “Once again it looks like you are courting danger.”

  “Why? I haven’t done anything?”

  Keyne laughed. “No, nothing. You just helped to bring down an R.C. city, you’re pregnant with a child that has never been created before; fathered by a demon. You have a mysterious past that no one understands . . . . No, Little Mouse. You might not have personally done anything, but something within you causes chaos to ensue.”

  Rose sat back, thinking. She knew that Keyne was only speaking the truth, but it still rubbed her wrong. The rest of the trip home she spent looking at the box in her lap, memories running through her head.

  Chapter Four

  Gris

  As the little blue car pulled into the garage, they saw a motor bike that wasn’t there before. Gris grinned, “Looks like Niall has finally been able to pull himself away from the office. Rose, I cannot wait for you to meet my brother.”

  “Gris, today? Really couldn’t he have timed it a little better?” Keyne grumbled.

  “Why? Have a hot date tonight?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact I do. I was taking Rose out.”

  Gris looked at Keyne then Rose, jealousy snaking its way through his gut.

  “Looks like you will have to cancel.” Gris wasn’t too upset at the thought of Keyne having to change his plans. Why hadn’t he thought to ask Rose on a date? Romance wasn’t something he was good at. Maybe he needed to start being more strategic in his relationship with Rose.

  Keyne glared at Gris and stormed into the house.

  Gris came up behind Rose and hugged her, nuzzling her neck. “What has you thinking so hard, Muisje?”

  She was silent for a minute before answering. “When I am startled or scared, my body wants to shift into my mouse form. But I fight it, now. Will it hurt the baby if I shift?”

  “I don’t think it will hurt the baby. When we see Mags, we can ask her. She would know more than me.” He looked into her eyes, searching them. “Is there something else, Muisje?”

  Rose worried at her lip. “There is so much about this new world that I just don’t know about. Why can I only shift to a mouse? Couldn’t I at least be a tiger or peregrine or some other predator? What can a mouse do other than cower and hide? I feel like I am just weighing the two of you down, and I don’t like being the helpless maiden.”

  Gris smiled at her. “I don’t have the answers to all your questions, but I think we can at least help with your training some. That will make you feel more in control.” He took her hand and pulled her towards the door. “Come on. I want you to meet my brother.”

  Rose

  Rose stopped in surprise. Upon walking into the living room, she saw a photocopy of Gris standing in front of her. They looked just alike, down to his mocha skin and the sharp brown eyes that took her in.

  “So, this is the mystery woman Gris has been going on about.” He walked over and put his hand out. “I am Niall, and you look so much better now than you did last time I saw you.”

  Rose felt heat rush to her cheeks. The last time Niall had seen her, she had been unconscious from Esson’s torture. She shook Niall’s hand, jumping in shock from the electric spark that traveled up her arm. The smell of pine and sea air filled her senses. She looked from Niall to Gris to Keyne and back to Niall in shock. How can this be? I am already mated!

  Niall looked at her then to Gris. “Well, this is . . . surprising. It also explains why I have been okay with going against protocol.”

  Gris looked from Niall to Rose. “What do you mean?”

  “It appears that Rose is more special than we knew. She is thrice bonded.”

  Rose stood there in shock. How? She had just gotten used to the idea that she, Gris, and Keyne were bonded and now they were adding another into the mix. It was just too much to take in, especially when she was so raw from looking at her parents’ things. She spun and ran to her room tears pouring down her face.

  Gris

  “ROSE!” Gris yelled.

  Keyne rested his hand on Gris. “I will go to her. You need to talk with Niall.”

  Gris nodded, but he was not happy. Keyne seemed to always be the one to comfort Rose. He wanted to be her knight in shining armor, not Keyne. And now he had to deal with his brother competing for Rose’s attention.

  “Gris . . .”

  “No, I am not ready to talk about this,” Gris grumbled, and stormed to the basement. He felt the need to hit something.

  Niall followed Gris down the stairs. “We will talk about this now!” He tore his tie off and threw it to the ground. His shirt followed, and he stood bare-chested in just jeans. Gris turned to him and threw th
e first punch. Niall jumped out of the way and danced to the side. His cool demeanor contrasted with the anger radiating off Gris.

  “She is mine!”

  “Apparently, she is both of ours.” Niall dodged another fist but was caught unaware by the foot aimed at his side. He fell back and rolled to his feet. His anger started to rise to meet Gris'. “What is wrong with you? You know the mating bond is not something we can choose.”

  “We have shared our whole lives. My mating bond was not up for sharing!” His fist connected with Niall’s chin. They continued to throw punches and verbally spar until both were soaked in sweat and heaving, gasping for air, neither conceding to the other.

  “STOP!” Rose screamed at them. “I am not something to be fought over!”

  Niall and Gris stopped, dropping their arms. “No, you aren’t,” Niall said.

  “This isn’t about you, Rose!” Gris growled.

  “It’s not?” Rose raised her eyebrow. “Gris, you were so excited for me to meet your brother, and now you two are fighting until you can barely stand? Is it really not about me? About our bond?”

  Gris hung his head. Rose was right, it was about the bond. He wanted Rose to himself and having to share with his brother . . . . This was harder than he thought. Guardians were meant to mate with one, but Rose was pushing everything that was the Guardians, and in that, she was pushing him from his comfort zone.

  “I’m sorry, Rose,” Niall said. “Gris and I, have always competed, and bashing each other seems to be our go-to method to work our feelings out.”

  Gris walked past Rose, still not able to talk about his feelings. “I’m going to go shower.”

  Rose moved to follow him, hurt evident in her eyes, but he didn’t turn to comfort her.

  “Let him go,” Niall said. “He will cool down in the shower and then be able to talk. It is his way.” He walked over to Rose and slid to a seat on the floor.

  She slid down next to him.