Guardian 2 Read online

  Guardian 2

  Jack Porter

  Ink Riot Books

  Copyright © 2021 by Jack Porter

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  Books by Jack Porter

  One

  “I was thinking last night,” Layla began, her tone lazy and hushed in the pleasant half-light of the igloo we’d woken in moments ago. “Time on this island zips by, doesn’t it? I mean, look at all we’ve been through these last few months.”

  Careful not to wake Hannah, who was still sleeping on the other side of her, Layla held up a few fingers on one hand and ticked them off with the other as she listed our adventures. “We’ve crash-landed on a magical island. Found evidence of an ancient civilization. We released, then defeated Zavier’s power—”

  “Um, excuse me,” I couldn’t help interjecting, “Who released the dark god’s power?”

  Layla’s guilty smile reminded me of a kid caught with their hand in the candy jar. She gave a quick glance to Hannah, who was snoring away, and lowered her voice to the smallest whisper. “Okay, okay. I did that part myself.”

  I didn’t think she whispered out of any need to keep it a secret. She’d already told the girls about breaking Zavier’s crystal and releasing the dark god.

  “Chill out, Dex, I was just checking if you were paying attention.” Layla spread her hand out as if proving a point. “And look at that, for once, you are.”

  “That’s it!” I lunged for her in mock anger. Layla shrieked with delight as I tickled her bare stomach. “Who doesn’t listen?”

  “Aha ha! Dexter, okay! You are the best listener.”

  After a moment longer, I let her bat my hands away. “Thought so,” I smirked.

  Hannah half woke up and kicked Layla into me. She growled, “Shush, you two!” Afterward, she rolled back over, one giant wing curling over her voluptuous body like a blanket.

  I chuckled, lowering my voice again. “Maybe we should just throw a not-quite-awake Hannah at Zavier’s minions next time they show their faces?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t go with Piper instead,” Layla replied, her eyebrows lifted and her gaze holding mine in a level stare. “I heard she called you to heel yesterday when you asked how she was feeling.”

  “Oh yeah, that,” I said, nodding amiably. “I got an earful. Can you believe she threatened to divorce herself from the harem if I didn’t leave her igloo right that minute?”

  “What did you do to her?”

  I shrugged, using a tattooed arm to pull my former co-pilot’s naked body closer to my chest. We were plenty warm thanks to the golden mist I’d gained when Zavier’s dark magic changed its allegiance a month ago, but I loved the way she felt pressed against me.

  “Most of Piper’s complaints were that I was male and breathing.” A bubble of laughter rolled up from my chest as I recalled the way the gold medalist had shaken her fist like she was an old man and I’d just stepped on her lawn. “I’d offered a back rub.”

  Layla’s russet foxtail, with a black fluffy tip, swept over her leg and rested comfortably against my thigh. One would think that women having animalistic features was odd. However, it didn’t bother me in the slightest. This was just how the island worked. It kept life interesting, and in my secret opinion, the sex was way better too.

  “Can’t blame the woman. You are undoubtedly all male.” She pulled back just enough to trail her gaze down my muscled chest and abs before fixing her gaze on my exposed cock.

  One corner of my mouth quirked upward. “Too bad that makes me public enemy number one in her eyes,” I said, sighing. “I’m telling you, I wouldn’t wish a woman three months pregnant on my worst enemy,” I joked. “Even Zavier doesn’t deserve those apocalyptic mood swings of hers.”

  “Oh, goddess!” Layla snorted a laugh, her fox ears pitching forward in mirth. “You’re so bad, Dex. You do know the only reason she’s so short with you is because you’re constantly bugging the crap out of her while she’s upchucking. Don’t worry so much. She’s pregnant, not terminally ill.”

  “I know, I know,” I groaned, sitting up. “I just want to do everything in my power to protect her and make her comfortable. When I see her so tired and sick all the time, I can’t help but hover.”

  Even now, the urge to go visit Piper and make sure she and the baby were thriving ate at me. I compared it to the instinctive need an alpha wolf had for protecting his mate and young.

  My second in command sat up as well. She yawned and gave a small shake of her furry ears and soft tail in a way that was instinctively appealing. “Do what you want, Cap. All I’m saying is maybe giving her a little breathing room might not be the worst idea.”

  “I’ll consider it. For now, I’ll just go tempt fate by checking one more time,” I said, tossing the cloak Megan had gifted me over my head, and pulling on a pair of matching, buckskin pants.

  Hannah’s blond curls bounced a little as she shifted her wings, mumbled a little, and began snoring again.

  Layla’s chuckle followed me out of the igloo as I crawled on my hands and knees through the tunnel. Several drops of frigid snowmelt landed on my body before I was clear and standing in the warm sun.

  I stretched and made my way for Piper, Megan, and Yua’s igloo a few yards away. I stopped to scratch Salem’s ears. The black cougar cub we’d adopted was showing promise in his training. But he never quite responded to me as much as he did Megan and the other girls.

  I couldn’t blame him. They were prettier to look at.

  Standing to leave again, a sudden sharp stab of pain pulsed through my temples. In an instant, my good mood darkened. These crystal headaches, I’d taken to calling them, were coming more often. Giving my head a shake to clear the sudden double vision that had been plaguing me for the last month, I continued on toward Piper’s igloo.

  The girls didn’t know about this minor issue yet, but I suspected I already knew its cause. My magic was outgrowing Layla and Hannah’s ability to help me contain it. I was becoming too powerful, the growth of the magic bestowed upon me by my crystal outpacing the creation of new goddesses.

  This had happened before, but the worst it had caused was a little extra grogginess.

  These headaches, however, were sharp warnings telling me that I needed to find another
goddess to help keep my magic from going beyond its limit. It was almost like a temperature gauge telling me the engine was dangerously close to overheating.

  Piper, though, was more important than a little migraine. She was the worse off between the two of us, I was sure. As if to bring truth to my words, I heard whispered groans from within the igloo, and the desperate pain of it urged me faster.

  As I entered and stood, I noted the only difference between our igloo and this one was the number of animal pelts lining the floor, which helped to protect the three girls not yet blessed with a crystal’s resilience to extreme weather.

  Otherwise, they were pretty much at the same melting status. It was becoming annoying, almost. Constructed hastily, the igloos had been surprisingly comfortable, and we’d stayed in them ever since.

  But I supposed it was about time to build something that would last in all seasons, like a cabin.

  I followed the source of the groaning to the small pallet that held Piper bundled up in its warm furs. I pulled one of those furs away to find her body, small compared to mine, curled up in a fetal position.

  She was clutching her stomach. Her dark hair clung with sweat to her forehead and her beautiful skin waned ashen.

  Something was wrong.

  “Pipes?” I said, carefully kneeling beside her and letting my warm cloak of golden mist envelop her. “What’s wrong? Where does it hurt? How’s the baby? What can I do to help?”

  Once the mist settled over her body, she seemed to relax a fraction, but she wasn’t good. She had a fever. I could feel it in the warmth of her skin.

  “Such a worrywart,” she quipped, but her eyes were sad and her voice was wavering. “It’s warranted this time though, I think. I’ve got some kind of bug bite. Wouldn’t you believe it? Even with the snow. And it must be something I’m allergic to, or maybe it’s toxic,” Piper said, curling into me.

  “It must have sensed the warmer air within the igloo and burrowed in,” she continued. “I felt a pinch last night but thought nothing of it. Then I began puking. Again.” She smiled wryly despite her condition. “Of course, that wasn’t too out of the ordinary.”

  The healer shivered and let out another whimper of pain, sending a blast of panic through my core. I held her close and kissed her cheek, not knowing what else I could do.

  After a moment, she continued, “But then the site grew inflamed and I suspected trouble. I sent Yua out to fetch a couple of medicinal plants that might be in her garden or the surrounding area, but that was two hours ago. The symptoms have changed. My leg is killing me. I can feel it swelling up.”

  “Did you see what bit you?” I asked.

  “I didn’t see it. But Dexter, I’m so afraid something’s going to happen to our baby!”

  Tears slipped from Piper’s obsidian eyes and I wiped them away. “Nothing is going to happen to our baby. I’ll go find Yua.”

  “No, wait.” Piper rested her hand on my arm and I paused. “Stay here. I don’t want to be alone if something happens.”

  Fuck! I wanted to yell the word out loud, but Piper didn’t need my frustration right now. She needed me to be calm and in control.

  “What can I do to help you?” I said instead. “There must be something.”

  “A crystal would be nice right about now,” she replied. Her tone was light, but her head drooped back. She was slipping deeper into the fever.

  Clenching my jaw, I tilted her head so I could see her face. She’d fallen asleep. Or at least, I hoped this was sleep. Placing two gentle fingers to her neck, I felt for her pulse.

  It was there, but it was rapid and a little too shallow for my liking.

  Unresponsive, I thought, and wondered desperately what I could do.

  An idea struck me, and I lowered Piper back to the soft, tri-colored fur. “Okay, Pipes,” I said. “This isn’t exactly a crystal, but it might work until Yua gets back.”

  Technically, I hadn’t tried this out yet. It was a theory more than anything, but one that I’d had kicking around in my head for a while.

  Zavier’s black mist could enter a body, move it at will, and possibly heal it with enough energy. That’s how the dark god could animate the dead, right? He’d done it with all the guardians we had encountered so far, even the giant spider that had been alive when we’d met him.

  Worst of all, he’d done it with the living corpse that he’d used to kidnap Hannah.

  Then I had gained control of the mist, which was now golden. So could I use it in the same way?

  Not to resurrect a corpse, but to heal?

  I hoped that I could, because unless I was imagining things, Piper’s breathing was slowing down.

  Two

  I had never tried anything so complex with my golden cloud of mist. Well, except for the one time I tried and failed to shake it off.

  That had been a wasted two hours. The mist was controlled by my will, yet no matter how hard I’d tried, I couldn’t seem to place it anywhere other than where I was currently standing.

  Now, I touched my crystal with my fingers and focused on what I wanted the mist to do. The crystal lit up, glowing blue with my magic, and my headache grew worse.

  But I pushed past the pain and imagined a strip of mist snaking its way toward Piper’s body.

  The mist did exactly what I requested. This was almost second nature to me. Maybe because I had witnessed Zavier doing exactly this.

  “I hope this is a more pleasant experience for you than it was for me, Pipes,” I said, allowing the first section of mist to gingerly push past her lips.

  It was the oddest sensation. I could literally feel what the mist was doing within the healer before me.

  Like a metronome, I could feel her heart beating as loudly as if I had my ear pressed to her chest. The mist traveled down her passageways and into her lungs, and I sensed a slight weakness there, though I didn’t know how, exactly.

  Basically, I could feel her lungs struggling for breath.

  I could fix this, I knew. It was intuitive. Like the first time I’d drawn magic from my crystal.

  I sent my magic to the slight hitch I could feel in her lungs. Pneumonia? That was likely, I thought, considering the frigid temperatures she’d had to endure. Her immune system was working overtime to keep the baby safe, spread too thin to keep every ailment at bay.

  Either way, it was fairly easy to fix. I cleared away extra moisture and any inflammation. Satisfied, I slid my mist further down to the core of the problem.

  The bite was on her calf, and the first hint of venom seeped into my magic even before my mist found the wound site.

  If I had to describe it, I would’ve said it was like something bitter that coated the tongue. My fingers twirled the crystal back and forth as I poked and prodded the venom. This ailment was more difficult to heal because I didn’t know how it was affecting Piper, but I was sure with enough energy and time I could crack the bite’s code.

  Drawing more power from the crystal, I sent wave after wave into the venom that tried to bust past my defenses. I couldn’t allow it to keep spreading. It was literally slowing down her heart rate.

  A few tense minutes passed, during which time I succeeded in containing the venom within a small area near the bite wound. As soon as I did, Piper’s heart sped up to a normal rhythm again.

  “That’s it,” I told her, patting the young mother-to-be’s hand. “Almost done.”

  But even as I said it, my confidence faltered. I’d contained the venom at the source, but extinguishing it was another matter.

  No matter how many waves of magic I sent to lick away the toxic substance, the venom would slowly begin seeping back into the space I’d blocked off.

  There was also something else foreign at the site, but I was doing all I could just to keep the venom at bay.

  Suddenly, blinding pain stabbed into my head, and the light from the sun reflecting off the igloo’s walls was too bright.

  “Damn it. Does this shit ever end?” I growled.r />
  This was a terrible time for my crystal’s energy to begin having a negative effect. Gritting my teeth, I focused through the thrumming ache in my skull.

  After two more attempts to extinguish the venom with little luck, I decided to give it one more go. This time, I pressed considerably more magic into the wave, willing it to wash over every inch of the space I’d created.

  If this didn’t work, I wouldn’t know what else to do. As the wave hit, Piper’s body spasmed a fraction, distracting me. “What the—?”

  I didn’t get to finish my sentence. The top end of Yua’s staff smashed squarely into my face.

  “Back, get back!” she hissed.

  Like a cord being cut, my magic ended. Most of the mist pulled back and regrouped around my shoulders. I noted there was a little less of the mist than before.

  Had a piece of my magic broken off inside Piper’s body?

  “Yua!” I complained, bringing two fingers to pinch the bridge of my nose, wanting to take preventative measures in case it started bleeding. “That was no gentle love tap. If you wanted me to scoot over, you should have just asked.”

  Yua bumped me with her hip as she pulled back the fur on Piper’s shapely leg and inspected the wound.

  “Sorry, but you needed to be stopped before you did any further harm.”

  “Harm? I was healing her. She was feverish and lost consciousness,” I replied.

  An anxious look crossed Yua’s face.