Hard to Handle by Christine Warren

Author:Christine Warren [Warren, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: paranormal, Gothic, Fiction, General, Fantasy, Romance
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2017-02-06T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The phone rang well before Drum had any intention of clawing his way to consciousness. Try following wild monkey sex with a frantic battle against the forces of evil and see how perky you felt after less than five hours of sleep. He let voice mail take the call. Seven seconds after the ringing stopped it started up again.

He cursed. In his head, because he lacked the energy for full-on vocalization. Ash stirred beside him.

“You should answer.”

No, she was the one with the power of audible speech, he thought. She could get it. He lay still. The ringing stopped only to start again after five seconds.

Did Warden training cover the ability to lay curses on people? If so, maybe he should look into enrolling after all.

“What if it is important?”

He managed a grunt, which he supposed signified progress, and a twitch of his fingers. She still had him beat.

And the phone kept ringing.

A finger poked hard between his ribs, and Drum muttered a word that would have made his mother’s wooden spoon quiver. A superhuman feat of strength brought his fumbling hand to the bedside table and closed his fingers around his mobile phone. He tried bringing it to his ear, but Ash’s head lay nestled in the way, forcing him to switch hands. He brought the device to his other ear and winced when his burned shoulder protested the movement.

“H’lo?”

“About time, lazybones,” Maeve chirped into his ear. “It’s after nine and you’re still lounging in bed like a pasha, hm?”

“Hanging up now,” he muttered, sliding his thumb around in search of the appropriate button.

“Wait! I have news. You’ll want to hear this, Michael.”

“Doubt it.”

“Well, I know that Ash will. I think I found a way to find those other Guardians.”

Ash stiffened against his side, her supernatural hearing allowing her to eavesdrop without difficulty, and lifted her head to meet his gaze. Drum knew this because his own eyelids had finally opened in reaction to his sister’s news.

“How?”

“After you left last night, in such a hurry”—Maeve emphasized the last phrase with a note of mischief—“I had an idea, so I decided to do a bit of research online.”

Drum scoffed. “Online? You? How long did Ma’s computer hold out? Three minutes?”

His sister sniffed with disdain. “Don’t be a child, Michael. I asked Meara to help me.”

“I’d have thought she’d have left right after we did.”

“Don’t be daft. You think she came all the way from Cork just to stay for dinner? She’s visiting with Ma through the weekend.”

“Oh, right.” He hadn’t been thinking all that clearly over the last couple of days. He should have known that.

“What did she find?” asked the distraction snuggled against him. She had raised her upper body and braced her forearm against his chest, while her gaze monitored his expressions.

“Right, then. So, what did you come up with?” Drum asked.

“Well, I got to thinking that no matter how ancient the Guild and the whole Guardian organization might be, in this day and age there would have to be something about them floating around on the Internet.

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