Page 4 of Guiding Desire
He rubbed his neck again. Maybe he could get medical to give him something topical later—he checked his screen again—if there was anything left of his neck by the time his shift was due to end in six hours.
Atsomepoint,Orreyaccepted the pounding headache that had been building in his skull. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, not while he was on duty, and it wasn’t like the crowd would be any quieter or less rambunctious because he wasn’t feeling one hundred percent. Most certainly not once the top-notch Guardian teams came into view, waving and smiling.
Orrey was supposed to keep both eyes on the crowd, but the Guardians would break left and right to shake hands, pose for photos with the crowd, sign collectibles. Orrey wasn’t a Guardian chaser himself, but seeing the unfailingly tall and broad-shouldered elites greet the crowd of regulars like him with unabashedly wide smiles and easygoing attitudes, he could see why people liked them, wanted more of them.
“Conduit Solara!” someone shouted to Orrey’s left. To his right, someone yelled, “Karmine! Kiss me, Karmine!” and from in front of him, “Warrak! It’s Warrak! He’s so tall!”
“Please remain behind the barrier,” Orrey said, not for the first time. Two Guardians were shaking hands to his right, but he didn’t have the wherewithal to pay attention, his eyes being drawn to a wandering parasol instead.
The group of four women he’d noticed before had split up, and two were pushing through toward where Orrey was, causing other people to shove and curse.
Orrey tensed.
“Karmine!” the one with the parasol yelled.
Orrey didn’t follow exactly what happened next, but the woman with the parasol dropped it so it obscured Orrey’s view of her companion. He saw the move for what it was, distraction, and lunged forward.
“Stop that!” he yelled, made contact with the parasol and the person who’d used it as a shield to scale the barrier.
Either because he’d been in the sun too long or because the Guardian chasers had taken some self-defense, Orrey ended up getting shoved back.
He braced for both impact with the ground and a talking to from his superior, but the impact at least didn’t come. His fall was broken by a solid body, and a cool hand gripped his sweaty one, immediately steadying him.
Orrey felt the zap or static energy at the touch, something that always seemed to happen around him when he accidentally brushed past someone.
“Sorry,” he said, righting himself. He tried pulling his hand away but found he couldn’t. He turned to see a Guardian loom above him, blue eyes staring, black hair framing smooth, rose-beige skin. “Sorry,” Orrey said again.
“Hey, Sen, don’t be mean to the protector,” someone said.
Orrey turned toward the speaker. Guardian Karmine Mirol, unless he was mistaken. And Guardian Mirol was posing for a pic with both the parasol lady and her buddy. Behind them, one of the protectors walking with the Guardian Parade was running and shouting.
Orrey was going to get an earful for this, possibly a professional demerit. He wasn’t sure whether they could demote him, but any promotion he’d been hoping for probably wasn’t going to happen for the time being.
He tried to move toward the two women, do his job, but the other Guardian was still not letting go of his hand, which would prove to be a whole different flavor of problematic.
Orrey straightened. Then looked up. The Guardian was more than two heads taller than him, which most of them were, but Orrey had never been so close to one. “Excuse me, Guardian. My apologies for the incident, I meant no offense. If you could release me—”
“No,” the Guardian said.
“I…no?”
“Shit,” the Guardian said, his neck muscles visibly tensing over the collar of his expensive shirt.
“Are you still trying to get out of this, Senny?” someone said from behind the Guardian’s right shoulder, a Conduit, going by his smaller stature and the smooth cut of his suit and flashy sunglasses. The man was less impressive, though his rich brown hair shimmered in the sun and was neatly styled in an extreme part on the right of his head.
“I just. Fuck me. Fuck this day,” the Guardian said. Then he bent forward, which had Orrey leaning back as far as he could. “You. Name?”
Shit,Orrey thought.I might get fired for this.“Protector Orrey Acton, Guardian.”And I have no Hound-fucking clue who he even is.
“And why the fuck are you a fucking protector?” the Guardian said, though it seemed more a comment than a question in need of answering.
Just then, three more protectors arrived, two from Orrey’s left, one from his right. One of them was Nedam, her eyes wide and her smile gone when she saw Orrey in the Guardian’s grasp.
“Ladies, let’s let Guardian Mirol go and get your IDs scanned,” Nedam said.
Another protector, second rank, going by her uniform, came up to Orrey and the Guardian still holding him. Guardian Mirol was also walking over now that the two Guardian chasers were being dealt with.
The second rank looked up at the Guardian. “Guardian Warrak, apologies. We have it from here. If you could release my colleague for debriefing?”
