Woman Bewitched (2 page)

Tears filled her eyes and a lump clogged her throat. She stopped moving her legs. It seemed that running didn’t do her any good anyway. Why bother?

“What do you want with me?” She screamed her question over and over until her throat hurt, but she heard nothing. Finally, her feet touched the ground and a man appeared before her.

The man was ungodly handsome. Tall and blond with thick, muscular arms and a broad chest, he could have passed for her brother at a distance. However, his build and coloring was where the resemblance ended. As she recalled, her brother, bless his heart, was not as perfectly put together as this man was—not that she would have noticed if he had been.

Gold armbands encircled his upper arms, drawing attention to his already distinctive biceps, and a leather vest covered just enough of his chest and chiseled abdomen to make her want to see the rest of him.

“Who are you and what do you want from me?” Marti pressed the voice enhancer tight against her throat, hoping against hope that it would work the way it was designed to without piercing their eardrums in the process.

Her bad luck held and the damned thing squealed again. Marti slammed it to the ground at her feet with a scream. Could nothing go right this day?

The man smiled at her, his green eyes twinkling. A dimple in his cheek gave him a boyish look, though something in his eyes gave her pause. His eyes seemed…old somehow. “Welcome to the Gateway, young one.”

“Young one?” Marti snorted. “I’m hardly young.” Hell, on
her
world many people considered
her
ancient. As the daughter of a defender, she was either blessed, or cursed, with longevity. She supposed which it was depended on the individual. After several lifetimes of watching one’s friends die, it seemed more a curse than anything else. Marti tried to levitate and failed. She glanced around, feeling insignificant. On
her
world she was invincible. But not here, and not on Katkari. What was going on and how had the men on that planet stripped her of her power?

Though the people of her world had no idea, like her brother and father, Marti was a defender of worlds. Somehow the people of Katkari had taken that power away from her.
How?

“I am over one thousand years old.” She raised a brow. “Perhaps I should call
you
young one.” Marti crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “Who are you and what do you want with me?” She glanced around. “And while we’re at it, what the hell is
the Gateway?
”

“I am Garrick the Gatekeeper.” He bowed slightly, his tight leather pants and vest creaking with the movement. “This,” he added, waving his arm around, indicating the circle of light where they stood and the darkness surrounding them. “Is the Gateway.”

Marti was almost tempted to ask if it was the Gateway to hell, but she knew better. She’d just left hell and this place looked nothing like it.

“The Gateway to where?” she asked wary.

“To your fate, of course.” He gave her a look that said she should already know the answers to her questions.

“
Right.”
Marti lowered her hands, resting them on her hips. “Look, mister, I won’t say you aren’t better looking than the last goon who kidnapped me, because you are, and I’m sure you know it. However, you should also know that whatever it is you have planned for me, I will never submit.”

If she refused to become wife to a prince, she sure as hell wouldn’t accept anything less from
him
. It didn’t matter how damned handsome he was.

“Look at this. Perhaps this will alleviate your fears.” He held out a strange device with a myriad of colors swirling over its glossy face.

Leaning forward, she looked at it, then moved away with a shrug. “What about it?”

Garrick glanced at it with a frown. He smacked it with his other hand and then gave it a violent shake. “It is the thread locator, when it works properly.”

Well, that tells me next to nothing.
“If you need to locate thread, I would suggest you go to a market. Don’t run about kidnapping hapless females and giving them a load of crap talking about gateways to their fate.”

“I have not kidnapped you.” He glared at her, his spine stiff. “I am called Garrick the Good. Surely, people would not call me that if I spent my free time kidnapping innocents. I can assure you, madam, I do
not
run about kidnapping people.”

“Uh…I beg to differ.” She indicated herself. “How did I get here if you don’t practice the dubious art of kidnapping?”

She was getting to him. She could tell. His color was off. He no longer only sported the golden tan that made him look so appealing. He looked rather red below that perfect, evenly bronzed skin.

“This,” he said waving his arm again. “Is the Gate To Fate. And I,” he added as he waved his arm to indicate himself, “am the Gatekeeper.”

“What is this
Gate To Fate
?”

“It is the doorway to other worlds—worlds where soul mates cannot find one another. I am charged with seeing to it that the mates are brought together. Not only so they find happiness, but so their unions will ensure the continuation of the space-time continuum.”

Right.

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“You have been separated from your mate. Just like your brother, you have lived lifetimes searching for the one man, or woman, who can make you whole.”

Crossing her arms, she gave the man a stoic look. “Since we’re on the subject, I would like a man, please. While I have absolutely nothing against same-sex relationships, it’s just not something that blows my skirt up, if you know what I mean.”

“Fear not, Marteeka. Your mate is a male and he needs you almost as much as you need him.”

“Oh, just almost as much?” she asked dryly, then crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “Why is it the little woman who always desperately needs the man? Why can’t he need her as much as she needs him?”

Ignoring her question, Garrick continued. “I work for the Wyrd sisters. You might know them as—”

“The Fates!
You
work for the Fates?”
Great! Now I
know
I’m screwed. What have I ever done to draw their attention?
“Why have they turned their sights on me? What did I ever do to them?”

Why does everyone dislike them so vehemently?” Garrick shook his head and sighed. “They aren’t the bitches everyone seems to think.”

“I must agree, in this case.” The guards had been gaining on her. She would have certainly lost her battle for freedom, if not for the timely intervention of the man in front of her. “If not for your, um, transport, the guards that were chasing me would surely have captured me.” Her only concern at the moment was whether she’d been tossed from the frying pan into the fire.
Only time will tell.

If only she could convince him to let her go home, she would never have to worry about Prince Valko or his minions ever again. “When can I go home?” She held her breath, hoping that he wouldn’t deny her.

“I will send you there as soon as the thread locator finds it.” He frowned down at the device, gave it a good whack with the side of his hand and then showed it to her with a smile. “There you go. What do you think?”

Marti glanced at the device, her mouth dropping open as a photo of her stared back at her through the device. She looked happier than she ever remembered being as she stood in the arms of a gorgeous, dark-haired man who looked upon her as though he adored her.

How she wanted that. Marti wanted a man to love, who would love her in return, more than she would ever admit to anyone. She blinked, her eyes burning. Her heart clenched as she stared at the image and forced away the tears that threatened to fall. How many times had she wished for a man to look upon her with such devotion? How many times had she prayed for such utter happiness?

She thinned her lips, hardening her heart against the pain. And how many times had life denied her the very thing she held most dear?

Clearing her throat, Marti stiffened her spine as well as her resolve. She stared Garrick in the eye. “Send me home to my brother. There is no fairytale romance for me, or for him. If my brother and I can only have each other, it will have to be enough.”

* * * *

“What is it about these females?” Urd asked no one in particular as she strode away from the scrying cauldron. Her disgust was evident. “They are never happy. They whine, whine, whine. They think of nothing but me, me, me.” She waved her arm in a dismissive gesture. “They are all the same.” She scowled. “I say we let them all suffer. They can rot on their lonely worlds. Why should we help them when they never appreciate us? None of them appreciate us.”

“Urd is right,” Verdandi said as she joined her sister, wrapping her arm around Urd’s shoulders, most likely to show her solidarity. “Look at how she stands before the Gatekeeper as though ready to do battle.” She snorted. “As if
she
could do
him
harm. He has seen battles the like of which would give the chit nightmares.”

“Sisters, sisters,” Skuld said as she clapped her hands. “You know what the happiness of these women means to the fate of mankind. Do not begrudge the entire universe its right to exist.” She stopped, waved her arm over the cauldron and stared down into it. “Besides, Lena is happy and she appreciates us. If we win them over one at a time, we have still won them, have we not?”

Peering down into the cauldron, Skuld watched the future with a small smile. “Remember what the all-father said, my sisters. Without the existence of humans, our lives would be ever so boring.”

Skuld glanced at Urd, seer of the past. “What would you do if you could no longer see and weave the happenings of the past?” She turned to her other sister, Verdandi. “What would you do if you could no longer weave the fabric of the present?”

Moving around the cauldron, she seated herself and placed her hands primly in her lap. “Have I not already told you that the future as it remains is not bright? Must I tell you again that we must continue to reweave the fabric of time or even
we
could perish?”

Standing again, Skuld moved to the cauldron and peered into the smooth surface. Lifting her arms, she began to weave the threads only she could see. Around and around her arms moved, and then she moved them back and forth. The threads fluttered about in a graceful dance as she continued to weave Marteeka’s new future. “You both know that for us, time is fluid. Everything happens at once. We must change her past and present as well as her future. I need your help or I cannot complete the pattern.”

With a sigh, Urd and Verdandi joined her. Their arms also moved gracefully as the three sisters continued to reweave the threads of fate.

Kyl watched the other defenders and wondered what they expected him to do. “I don’t understand why we’re here. We have no idea where the females have disappeared to.”

“Well.” The female defender cleared her throat. “We have it on good authority that we should be right here, right now. Something is supposed to happen, though we have no idea what.”

“Who is this good authority?” Kyl frowned. “There is no psychic here.”

“Perhaps not, but let’s just say that we have a trump card and leave it at that, shall we?” Artu said as he patted his woman’s hand. “We have no idea what to expect. We were just told to expect something.”

Sitting back, Kyl watched the others, his fingers drumming on the table in front of him. What did they think to do, sit here until one of them came up with an idea? If that were the case, they were in for a long, long wait. By the looks of them, this group wouldn’t know a good idea if someone shot it out of their ass.

Patience, defender. You must have patience. Your answer is coming faster than you think.

His fingers stopped moving and he looked to the others. Did they also hear the voices or was he going mad all by himself?

“I think we should tell them,” Lena said to her mate as she pushed away from him and stood. “Many of you don’t know how we met.” She turned away from her husband who kept shaking his head in an attempt to dissuade her from talking. “I was brought here from a planet in another galaxy, possibly another universe, from what we can figure out. We have yet to find my planet on a star map.”

She paced around the table. “I was on my planet, running to keep fit, minding my own business, I might add, when the Fates snatched me up and dumped me on Artu’s world. They insisted I was his mate.” She smiled back at him, giving him a look that Kyl was sure the rest of them could have killed to receive, including him.

“They were right.” She turned to look through the window before continuing. “I believe they were also right when Skuld whispered to us that something momentous would happen here today. She also said we must form an alliance.”

Turning around to face them, she pinned them all with a glare in turn. “Gentlemen, are we going to just sit here and argue, or are we going to form this alliance? When the time comes, will we be ready for whatever fate awaits us?”

“This is ridiculous.” Kyl stood and began to pace. “Do you expect us to believe that the gods have placed you here and that these…deities have told you to come here for a sign?”

Good god! The woman is crazier than I am.
That was saying something since he’d been hearing voices all day. His father had warned him that this would happen. He’d said that if he spent too long alone that he could go mad from seeing those he cared about and protected die. Seeing his friends die year after year had finally taken its toll…apparently.

Perhaps he
really
had gone mad and this
alliance
wasn’t even happening at all. What if this meeting wasn’t taking place anywhere but in his own tortured mind? What if all of these people didn’t exist?

Kyl clenched his fists in an effort to keep his fears at bay. The last thing he wanted or needed to do was pick a fight with another defender. He couldn’t shake the idea that, as impossible as it seemed, this was real and the people sitting in this room would rather help him than hurt him. That alone kept him from doing something stupid.