Guardian of Calandria | ✔️

Chapter Twelve

          Kira's scent drifted up the winding staircase and through the wooden walls. Addrick growled, pulling a pillow over his head as he rolled on his side in bed. The pillow did nothing to block out her smell. Thanks to his leopard shifting ability, Addrick saw and smelt things other Wilders or humans couldn't. There were times, like now, that it was one of the most annoying experiences he could imagine. Not that Kira smelled terrible. It was the opposite. She smelled like strawberries dipped into a lilac and chocolate base. Sweetness carried on the wind wherever she traveled and it drove him nuts.

Not once in his life could he remember meeting someone as irritating as her. Hot headed, irrational, and dangerous to be around—all things Addrick knew and expected. Yet there he laid in bed, fighting the urge to follow her scent. For nearly a month, they waited for Ry and Demitra in New Calandria. Because nobody other than Wilders could open the fairies glamour and enter New Calandria, inns weren't needed. Leaving Kira needing a place to stay. She slept in his parents former bedroom, putting her scent on everything she touched.

After his parent's died, his childhood home became his, but could never bring himself to clear out the bedrooms of his parents and sister. They remained a museum to their memory. Kira sleeping in the bed his mother and father once shared had been odd to her, but Addrick had insisted. He would not make her sleep on the oak couch downstairs and the bed in his sisters room was made for a three year old child.

Addrick's ears twitched at the sound of Kira walking around downstairs. She'd been pacing for hours since another wave of seer's had left the house. They'd urged her to stop fighting her powers and accept her seer skills within. True to her nature, Kira continued to fight. He didn't understand her reluctance to tap into her true nature. All her life she used her magic, even when she shouldn't, and yet there among fellow Wilders she did nothing asked of her. She continued to claim she wasn't doing it intentionally, but Addrick smelled fear on her whenever she tried to enter the seer's trance.

He tossed the pillow at the door, growling with his animal instincts. Addrick sat up in bed, scratching the claw tattoo on his bare chest. Moonlight beamed through the curtains covering his window. Its angle told him the time, it was well past midnight. Soon the moon would set for the burning sun. Sleep would be an impossibility with Kira still awake and stomping around downstairs. With a sigh, he stood up and walked to the door. He grabbed the pillow and tossed it back on his bed before stepping out of the room.

The upstairs of his house held three rooms and one small room for bathing. Running water had surprised Kira; her reaction to it amused Addrick. She spent close to an hour turning water on and off, looking into the metal faucets as if trying to find the demon bringing them water. For someone raised knowing her ability, she was naïve to the ways of magic.

He leaned over the balcony's metal and gazes at the floor below watching Kira as she paced in front of the burning hearth. With one hand, she played with her Guardian symbol. Addrick closed his eyes and touched his matching tattoo. He'd eventually get used to their magics being connected, he couldn't remember his tattoo burning around his family. But he couldn't ignore the power pulsating through the ink on his arm. It was so long since he'd last been around another Guardian. Perhaps he'd simply forgotten the feeling. After his parents died and word came from Wilders within the castle that Rodyn killed them, Addrick was forbidden to leave New Calandria. The rest of the Guardians set out to collect other children like him and bring them back to New Calandria for safety, none returned. He hadn't been to the castle since the day when everything changed, the day he lost sight of his duty for a single moment. That one day cost him everything. His sister, his parents, and his freedom.

He'd cried for months until he decided emotions were useless and he shut them off. But with Kira, he found it hard to keep them locked away. More and more she brought his emotions to life. Around her, things seemed calmer. He sighed. Her voice rose to his ears despite her whispering. Addrick's lips curled as he pushed off the railing.