two lonely people who needed each other. No, correction, two lonely, stubborn people.
Speaking of stubborn, Sean followed Andrea upstairs and into her bedroom. Andrea sat down on the bed, pulled off her shoes, and stretched her aching feet as Sean unbuckled the sword and laid it across the dresser.
Andrea studied the moonlight on the sword as she rotated her ankles. “Can anyone wield the sword but a Guardian?”
Sean gave her a quick, questioning look. “Legend says no.” He skimmed his fingers over the sword, then came to sit on the bed next to her. Right next to her. The mattress dipped with his weight, and as annoyed as Andrea was at him, she realized she’d come to like the sensation.
“Does that mean you’re not sure?”
He shrugged, his shoulder brushing hers. “It means legend says no. The Guardian must be descended from the original Guardian of the clan, and he is chosen in a spiritual ritual.”
“So I hear. What I mean is, if I took the sword and stuck it through a dead Shifter’s heart, would he turn to dust?”
“Actually, I have no idea, love.”
Love. It was difficult to stay angry at him—not that he was right—when he called her love in that warm voice. “As I understand, the original sword was made by a Fae, right?”
Sean nodded, looking curious at her questions. “Created by a Shifter smith and a Fae woman who wove her magic through it. A Fae bastard had wanted a sword made so he could trap and torture Shifter souls with it, but the Fae woman, his sister, turned the tables on him and made it so the sword released the souls instead. That’s the story, anyway.”
“And she made it so the sword can’t hurt Shifters, right?”
“I didn’t say that. If I stick its sharp point into a live Shifter’s body, he’d be a bit pissed off at me. But I’d only stick it in someone if he was dying already or into a crazed feral who needed to go down.”
“You would,” Andrea said. “But what if someone else got hold of it?”
Sean’s gaze went sharp. “Has my dad been talking to you?”
“Dylan? No. Why?”
“Because he told me tonight that Callum had planned to grab the sword. He’d wanted to use the fact that he had it to intimidate other Shifters into following him. It could work, I think.”
Damn Callum anyway. Was this what the Fae warrior had been talking about? The danger if she didn’t bring him the sword? Why would a Fae care if Shifters were angry at their Guardian? It made no sense to her.
“Doesn’t Callum’s Shiftertown have its own Guardian?” Andrea said. “Why not take his sword?”
“Mine is the original sword made by Niall O’Connell and his Fae mate. The others are later copies. Much more symbolic if Callum stole this one. Besides, his Shiftertown’s Guardian is a bear, and I’m not thinking even Callum would risk pissing off the Ursines. But Liam is new at being leader, and Shifters like to test new leaders. Callum’s clan’s protecting him now, but they know as well as Callum does that if he tries anything else, we’ll take him down, and that will be the end of him.”
Andrea drew her feet to the bed and wrapped her arms around her knees. Sean spoke with firm finality, no regrets about the violent justice he’d mete out. But Shifters walked a tightrope now that they lived in Shiftertowns—if they turned against each other, it would be a disaster.
“I think Callum just got bored,” she said. “In Colorado, we were still pretty close to basic survival, no thoughts of conspiracies and that kind of thing. Survival, mating, and raising cubs—that was it.”
Sean looked at her sitting next to him, all folded in on herself, her eyes gray like a misty evening. What male wouldn’t want Andrea under him in the night, those beautiful eyes darkening with desire?
“I think Callum’s not wrong that we’ve gotten a little comfortable,” Sean said. “We have food and shelter, time to pray and love and play. Families are staying together and growing larger. So of course we have to start fighting each other for power.”
Andrea gave him a wry look. “When you force different species to coexist on the same patch, there’s bound to be friction. Look at your Dad and Glory.”
“I’m not wanting to at the moment, thank you very much. A better example is you and me.”
“Cross-species mating?” Andrea said with a little smile. “Can it possibly work? We could go