Page 4 of Custodian

“Yeah, well. I’m full of good ideas – just ask me,” he gave a rude snort.

The beautiful woman was eyeing him quite differently now and he saw calculation in her gaze as well as lust if he wasn’t mistaken. He was more than a little surprised when she reached out, grabbed his long-forgotten drink and tossed it back in one healthy swallow. Dana cringed but didn’t cough or gag as he suspected she would have.

“The impurities in that concoction …” she shook her head, blue-grey eyes suddenly locked on his; “What if I said you could help me create such a cure, right here, right now? What would you say?”

Mordecai nodded his head, vigorously, “I’d say, aye!”

“I take it that would be another way to say yes?”

He snorted, “Yeah, honey. That means ‘yes’.”

She pursed her lips, “But what if the cure required a sacrifice? The biggest possible sacrifice that existed?”

“Like my life?” he guessed, feeling his paladins tense over the possible threat. But Mordecai wasn’t worried. He was back to believing the redheaded beauty was intensely deranged and although he was concerned for her mental welfare, he held no such fears for his physical person.

“Not your life, no.” She responded, “The life of another – made with the sole purpose for restoring balance to the elements.”

He felt his eyes widen in surprise, “The life of another?”

Dana nodded, her own eyes intense, “Someone you have never met. May never meet.”

Mordecai thought about that for a moment. Would he be willing to sacrifice the life of a total stranger? He would have liked to have said no. That such a decision was not his to make. But the echo of death and grief hollowing out his mind and body even as he conversed with the very attractive crazy female in the run-down tavern on the banks of the Danube, was enough to have him nodding his head. Besides, none of it was real. He was half drunk, with the other half of him nothing but an exposed nerve ending. And the woman in front of him needed the facilities of a mental institution more than she needed the air she breathed. So he opened his mouth and answered;

“Yes. I would sacrifice anything to stop this happening again. Even the life of another.”

The eyes in front of him seemed to swirl like a hidden galaxy for a second before subsiding dully as Dana spoke, “So be it.”

***

It wasn’t until the following morning when he woke up to a shining, naked Goddess in his bed that he realised he had made the biggest mistake of his life. Dana had looked at him, eyes coloured vortexes of pure power and he had known; she was real. He had sat in a hell-hole of a bar, drinking illegal moonshine from an old jam jar and cursed out Mother Nature right to her face. He had then proceeded to make very drunk but still very passionate love to the Creator all night long. But it wasn’t until she stood, naked and shimmering with tears in her eyes and a gentle hand over her womb, that he fully recognised the true ramifications of his actions. The gift, the cure, the sacrifice she had warned him of? It was to be his child –theirchild. The look of horror and shared sadness in Dana’s eyes did nothing to alleviate his growing terror. Knowing that a goddess also feared what was to come – what they had set in motion – had made him violently ill all over the thin mattress. When he had managed to pull himself together, Dana had disappeared, and he had known he had just altered the course of the world. But in what direction, he could not predict.

ONE

Present Day

“Okay, so what’s the plan?” Aiden asked, eyeing his liege who had been sitting as still as a statue for the past fifteen minutes. Given the way Mordecai had driven like a manic rally driver to get to the historical house perched on the cliff, Aiden had figured he and his fellow paladins would have been wrestling their liege to the ground in order to talk some sense into him. But Mordecai had simply stopped in front of the house Garrett was staying in and proceeded to ...glare. Nothing but glare. The frigid silence and unnatural stillness from his liege scared him far more than his temper did. Mordecai wasn’t really a cold man as most in their society thought. Aiden knew he looked indomitable with his fair complexion, ink-black hair, large six-foot-five frame, and unwavering cool green eyes. But at his core, he was a man filled with warmth and humour and a steadfast sense of duty and loyalty.

Aiden was a life paladin along with Tobias, whilst Madigan and Bastien were both death paladins. They had been bound to Mordecai since graduating the Paladin Trials when they had been little more than thirty years old. Mordecai had been even younger, at barely twenty. Sixteen hundred years sharing each other’s brainwaves had made them all something closer and stronger than even family. But then, that’s what a bond between a paladin and a warden was supposed to be. At least, it used to be when their population had the numbers to allow natural bonds to take place, and relationships were permitted for more than just procreation or duty.

The bond forged between the five of them had certainly been a natural one. Aiden had felt the instant connection to the Scottish Warden of Death the moment he laid eyes on him. It had been the same with his fellow knights. When Aiden had arrived at his very first training centre, he’d been a cocky little shit. Although he hadn’t been born a warden, he had been gifted with the element of life. The highest-ranking domain there was for a paladin. When you threw in the fact that he was also born a potentate, well, he was the first to admit he had tickets on himself. He had not been too impressed to learn he would be rooming with five other young men in the most rudimentary of accommodations; nothing but a piece of material over some sticks as shelter and makeshift pallets on the unforgiving ground. As such, he had blustered, ranted and raved, demanding the best sleeping plot and the best blankets.

He hadn’t been all that big at the time, and his muscles were non-existent, unlike – and unfortunately for him – most of the other trainee paladins he was sharing space with. A few of them took exception to his piss-poor attitude and because he didn’t have his older brother with him to help fight his battles like he usually did, he had soon found himself flat on his back. But, instead of letting the other two paladins rightfully kick his butt, Tobias, Madigan, and Bastien had stepped in and saved it. They had been inseparable ever since.

“Aid?”

The softly spoken voice in his head returned him to the present and he turned to see Madigan watching him with a raised brow.Right; liege quite possibly having a silent aneurysm right this moment. Time to focus.

“Mordecai?” Aiden questioned for a second time.

Nothing. Nada. Zippo.

Looked like Aiden was going to have to poke the bear to get an honest reaction out of him, “My Lord ... Sir?”

Mordecai finally threw him a disgusted look, “Cut that shit out. You know I hate it when you call me that.”

Aiden did know. They all knew. For all his apparent primp and pomp, Mordecai was nothing of the sort. He despised the airs he felt he was forced to wear in public and it had been many years since he had demanded they call him Sir or Lord or any other such titles of dignitary.

“What’s the plan?” Aiden asked.

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