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  Winded

  Sherri L. King

  A Shikar story, set in the world of The Horde Wars series.

  Vetiver Device bears the same burden as generations of Device women, protecting her tiny New England island from the Unnamed. Merrymint is a doorway, and Vetiver the key. The last of her witch bloodline, Vetiver calls to the elements to send help in fortifying the island’s wards. She receives not only aid, but her destiny in warrior form.

  Boreas of the Shikar heard Vetiver’s plea through layers of worlds. She called to his Wind, and he answered, bringing with him a storm to close the doorway forever. As for Vetiver, Boreas will bind her lush, ripe body to his, fill her with intense carnal pleasure…and one day his essence. Transforming her into a warrior-witch to stand by his side as wife, lover, protector of the entire human race.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing

  www.ellorascave.com

  Winded

  ISBN 9781419935497

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Winded Copyright 2011 Sherri L. King

  Edited by Kelli Collins

  Cover art by Darrell King

  Electronic book publication July 2011

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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  Winded

  Sherri L. King

  As I begin this story, there is a tornado warning in effect and the wind outside is screaming. If that isn’t a plot device, I don’t know what the hell is.

  Chapter One

  The witch stuck her pierced tongue out at the face peering through the tiny slit in the lace curtains at the window. There was the faint, muffled huff of indignation—expected—and the neighbor’s curtains fell shut. From other houses along the small street, there were more eyes watching the small, dark-haired woman as she bounded up the steep stairs that led to the front door of her ancient, dilapidated Victorian-era house, but it was enough that she’d caught one Nosy Nelly in the act. The others could—and would—stare at her until her door closed shut behind her. It was the same routine every morning when she left for work and merely an encore when she returned.

  In a lot of ways, the houses lining the street were so different from hers. On a dead-end road, her home was the odd man out, older, taller, more ornate than the others. As she walked to the bus stop at the end of the road each workday and back in the evenings, curious eyes watched her every step, as if the neighbors expected her to sprout horns or something.

  If the house and its grounds weren’t so important, if the property hadn’t been in the family for generations, she would have given serious thought to moving. It was, after all, a buyer’s market. But she was stuck with it, with the responsibility it brought, and truth was, she adored it. It had character. The other cookie-cutter houses that had slowly come to occupy the acreage around her family’s estate had none. Neither did their owners.

  Vetiver Device had loads of character.

  When the door opened, Ball, her mutt of a dog who was as big as a Great Dane but covered with the curly, rough hair of an Irish Setter, bounded to meet her with a grin on his face. His muddy brown hair covered a powerful, solid body and he nearly knocked her down with his enthusiasm, for in her hand she carried a brown paper bag—and he knew exactly what was in it.

  “Baked fresh this afternoon.” Vetiver held the bag aloft as she unwound her fuzzy scarf from her neck to hang it on the ancient hatrack.

  It wouldn’t have surprised her if Ball had stood up on his hind legs and taken the bag from her with his front paws. It wouldn’t have surprised her if he’d opened his mouth and said “thank you” before wolfing down the contents. Ball wasn’t like other dogs. For one thing, Ball had been in the family since, well, hmm…

  Before the Mayflower.

  He’d been her mother’s dog until Vetiver had her first period. And he’d been her grandmother’s dog until Vetiver’s mom had started her menses. So on and so forth, for as long as the Device women had been keeping journals, which has been since the year 1600 or so. He was loyal, faithful, intelligent and completely devoted to each female heir from the time of her sexual maturity until the next heiress blossomed into womanhood.

  And he loved cod brain scones.

  Vetiver worked at the oldest and most successful bakery in Merrymint Island’s tourist district. The New England island was tiny, connected to the mainland by one bridge only, or reached by ferry ride, but many went out of their way just to have a meal at The Nut.

  Every Thursday the local fishermen would bring in their fresh cod—The Nut was famous for its fish sandwich Fridays and seafood stew Saturdays—and Vetiver used the castoff pieces to bake Ball his favorite treats. The heads, brains, eyes and cheeks of the poor dead fish would otherwise go to waste, and it didn’t hurt anyone if the customers’ mouths watered at the delicious aroma wafting from the hot kitchen, oblivious to its source. It helped sell the sandwiches by the dozens and that was all that mattered to the staff.

  It also helped that Vetiver was ruler of the kitchen, and had been since she’d taken a job there at age fifteen. One glance at her tri-colored gray eyes and the locals knew her for a Device. No one dared cross her, for more than one reasons. Which was fine with everyone, since she was indisputably the best baker The Nut had ever seen in almost one hundred and fifty years of operation. That, in itself, was a kind of magic—because more than one Device had ruled those same kitchens before her.

  “Come on, they’re still warm.” The scones would stay warm for as long as she desired, but there was no call to point it out. Ball knew it as well as she did.

  Vetiver nudged him to the side with her hip and led the way deeper into the house. The enormous kitchen was dimly lit by an overhead chandelier hung from the vaulted ceiling, shining over a small, sixties-era café dinette. She set two plates, one for her and one for Ball, laid his scones out nicely for him—he was tall enough that he could eat from the table without the use of a chair, though no doubt if it had served him to pull back a chair and use it, he would have done so—and took from the bag her own dinner, wrapped in wax cloth. A huge pumpkin and raisin muffin roughly half the size of her plate, the second one she’d eaten today. Soft and sweet, dense and sticky, it was her favorite autumn delicacy.

  The two dined in comfortable silence, listening to the wind muttering in the trees that surrounded the house and its grounds. The scent of nutmeg and pumpkin mingled with the savory aroma of Ball’s meal r
eminded her of years past. Good years, all of them. But how many were left? The world was getting smaller every day. There were too many people and not enough space for them all, especially not here on this very special island. The Merrymint of her ancestors’ childhood years was gone. In the place of forests, meadows and parks there now bloomed allotment housing and luxury condominiums.

  It wasn’t easy, being what she was, doing all that she had to do, with so many curious eyes upon her. Strangers, newcomers, who didn’t understand why the Device family was so well respected in the community. City folk, her granny had called them. They had started filling the empty spaces of land during her childhood, so Granny had understood them better than Vetiver ever could. City folk—people who had no respect for the mystical purpose of the land on which they planted their plain, pillbox houses and two-car garages.

  Vetiver knew it would only get worse with each passing season. She owned less than twenty acres of precious land now. The house sat at the front edge of the plot, and it stretched out behind like a mighty arm, shielding the island from trespassers. Much of the property had been portioned off in her lifetime by her mother, who couldn’t afford the taxes that kept skyrocketing higher each year. Eventually, Vetiver would have to sell some of the land too. Maybe. Probably. It was how the new world worked. Her family might be one of the originals in this country, but that legacy meant diddly-squat when the taxman came calling.

  “Things could be a lot worse, right Ball?” she asked aloud, knowing her companion would have intuited her thoughts just as he had hundreds of other Device women over his preternatural lifetime. “They may call me a witch but they don’t believe it. It’s just a word to them. An insult. We know differently, and I’m better at finding money than Mom was.” She winked at him and he smiled his toothsome grin, already finished with his dinner. “Still, it’s not money that’s the problem these days, is it?’ She absently fingered a long, twisting lock of nearly black hair. “I could own half the island and there would still be overcrowding. I could stop wearing the piercings, the morbid clothes, the heavy eyeliner, but with so many new residents, someone is still bound to notice the really weird stuff and that would make my life hell. Better they just think I wear tri-colored contacts and enjoy the grungy emo look. Bah.”

  Ball shook his head, trod over to his water dish and took a deep draught. He didn’t drink like a dog. He didn’t use his tongue to lap up the liquid. Rather, he lowered his muzzle into the bowl and drew the water in much like a horse at a trough. Vetiver assumed that from his point of view, it was probably a more civilized way to drink.

  A heavy sigh exploded out of her. “Why can’t the neighbors just go on holiday for the weekend? There’s so much to do, I’ll have my hands full enough without having to worry about witnesses.”

  Outside, the breezes muttered. The trees seemed restless this evening too. They sensed Vetiver’s maudlin mood and reflected it. She needed to think more upbeat thoughts before a real storm brewed. It had thus far been a relatively calm season and she didn’t want to upset anything by brooding on things she couldn’t change.

  The equinox approached. She felt it looming, boiling in her blood with the threat it promised. It would be her second Warding ritual performed without her mother and grandmother beside her. She was a coven of one. Well, two, if she included Ball. He certainly would. Nonetheless, Vetiver was overwhelmed by the task ahead of her.

  Now was a dangerous time. She needed to watch her step, even as she struggled to muster the power needed to bind the island against the evil just waiting in the wings to seize it. Vetiver had to be sure no one saw her, but more than that, she needed to ensure no one saw what she was keeping out of and off the land.

  This was no solstice ritual. That was easy enough. It was more a celebration than a task or responsibility. A time of blessings. The autumnal equinox would test her limits. If luck held, the nosy neighbors who most liked to watch her every step would have something interesting to watch on television or something.

  It was risky.

  It would be an immense undertaking.

  Someone would see.

  A frown playing at her mouth, Vetiver took the dirty plates to the kitchen sink and washed them. She stared out the little square window over the basin. The glass was old, handmade, and distorted the view with the imperfections of a long-lost art. All of the windows in the house were original and they would never need replacing. Nothing in the house ever broke or wore down. Just to add a hint of normalcy, Vetiver let the paint peel on the outside and allowed the old iron fencing to gather some rust, just a few necessary cosmetic flaws that didn’t need to be addressed. They drew curious eyes to superficial matters while more important work was being done right beneath their noses.

  “What better way to hide than in plain sight?” her mother often said. “Let them look, let them wag their tongues, so long as their talk is all based on the lies we show them. The truth would frighten them and no matter how tempting it might be, we can’t shock them by revealing what we are.”

  But her mother wasn’t here now. Both Vetiver’s mother and grandmother had died in a car accident. It was a strange twist of fate that two powerful women should be undone by one careless turn of the wheel. The drunken driver of the other vehicle hadn’t been hurt too bad—had even been discharged from the hospital that very night, with only minor scrapes to show for the great harm he’d done.

  He had died in his sleep that night. It wasn’t Vetiver’s doing. Not directly. She’d wanted revenge, of course she had, but she’d been too mired in her sadness and mourning to have even dared.

  Ball had avenged her family in her stead. When he’d told Vetiver—through the bond they shared—what he had done, Vetiver had felt oddly numb about it. She wasn’t glad for what her familiar had done, not exactly, but neither was she unhappy about it. It didn’t matter how she felt in the end, because killing the one responsible hadn’t brought her family back.

  “Maintain balance,” Vetiver muttered, using an old, well-worn towel to dry off the dishes. Still looking out into the emerald darkness behind her house, she repeated the litany that had been instilled in her since birth. But the world wasn’t balanced and she was only one witch. How was that fair?

  Ball leaned heavily against her, his shoulder pressing into her hip. She reached down and absently scratched behind his ears. “Let’s take a walk.”

  Chapter Two

  Vetiver waited until she was absolutely certain none of her neighbors could see her before she let Ball off his leash and took down her hair from its messy ponytail. Her curls spilled free, the wind tugging at them playfully until they were a storm cloud about her shoulders and back. It was chilly; of course it was, this deep into September. But she was untouched by the cold.

  She had changed clothes before leaving the house, leaving behind the trendy layers of mall-purchased tops and silver-riveted jeans dyed the deepest black. Now she wore a loose shift of the softest handspun cotton, the same smoky color of her eyes—she was only truly comfortable in the clothes she made herself. Manufactured clothes felt too much like plastic and metal on her skin. Her arms were bare but for an old silver armband that she always wore high up on her left forearm—she was a lefty, so the band must be worn on her projective hand, her hand of power. She was also barefoot, the better to feel the soft moss and rich earth sighing beneath her sensitive soles.

  Vetiver knew if anyone saw her now, they would never have believed she was twenty-seven years old. Right now she looked no older than a teenager—the Device women were renowned for looking far younger than their years, which would be nice when she was in her sixties but was more of a bother now than anything. People hardly took her seriously as it was, unless they were island natives who knew her family well enough to respect her for her name, at least. But she would never complain aloud. It was good to know she would age gracefully. Right now, though she looked young, she felt old from the weight of her burdens.

  Her vegetable garden was do
rmant for the rest of the year, the harvest over and done. Her plot of cotton and herbs—always planted intermingled to give the puffy white fibers a cleansing scent—had already been tilled, the earth covered and enriched by a good infusion of manure, fallen leaves and fertility spells read from her Grimoire. She visited each tree, checking to ensure none were afflicted by parasites or disease. And the deeper she wandered into their midst, the easier she could breathe.

  The connection she felt to her land was strong. Its vitality fueled her own. She tended it well and it tended her, so that now her stress melted down from the top of her head, her shoulders, her rigid back becoming more elastic until it seemed her cares and worries seeped out of her feet and were absorbed by the earth. This island may legally belong to many, though really it belonged in whole to her and her bloodline. But it seemed that these remaining acres were the most sacred, and so she kept to her property line as she strolled with her dog.

  The breeze of the season was what struck her most vividly; it was so precious and unique to autumn. Opening her mouth to taste the air was like biting into a crisp apple, with all its tart effervescence exploding on her tongue. The ground was still warm from summer, but only just, and the grasses were cool against her toes. Newly fallen leaves, already crinkled and brown from being shed of their mother trees, rustled like the sigh of a mummy’s corpse being moved. The scent of evergreens now pervaded, the sweeter scent of all the blooming flowers faded to memory. The land was in transition.

  Vetiver was in transition too. She felt this truth deep in her soul and wondered what consequence it would bring.

  Ball watched her with a patient eye. He was always patient. The only constant in the world she could really count on. He gave the appearance of acquiescence, but in reality he always led the way on their walks. It wasn’t that he was in front of her—he was always positioned carefully at her side—but Vetiver knew very well that he was guiding her.