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By Lacey Thorn
Excerpt is unedited and subject to change in final copy.
Willow slipped through the trees drawing closer and closer to the soothing waters that burst over the
island shore in waves. The drums of war seemed never ending lately, a constant echo in the air. Willow
finally reached her watching place and settled in to keep her own vigil against the invaders who
overran their shores. It wasn’t long till she felt the presence of boats in the waters just off shore. Willow
smiled, anticipating the flow of water through her veins, a gift from the Goddess of Altair. Eager for what
she knew she could do, what she must do for her people.
She stepped from the trees her long black hair falling to her waist in waves the sides gathered back in a
yellow sash. Just yesterday it had been bound tightly in a long thick braid that designated that she was
as yet unclaimable. But today was the day that marked her twenty-first summer and her hair would be left
unbound now with only the sides pulled back from her face with a yellow sash. The sash would remain
until she was claimed at which time her hair would never be bound again. Her green eyes flashed as
she threw her hands over her head and called to the waters in the tongue of her mother’s people—in
the tongue of the Goddess of Altair.
“I call to the Goddess, hear my plea. Let the waters flow through me. Fill me with thy icy cold, embrace
me with warmth untold. Of salt or fresh, from earth or air, where water flows I am there. The Goddess’
blessing on my call,” Willow threw her hands from her body and the waves broke from shore surging
back out from where they had come carrying the boats of others far from shore. “A watery grave for one
and all.”
She turned to leave when her task was complete and was startled to see both Drago and Ulrik Mederra
standing behind her watching.
“A Guardian as we suspected,” Drago nodded to his brother Ulrik.
“We have waited patiently for you Willow,” Ulrik told her. “You can no longer hide from us. We have
already received permission to claim you and take you home with us.”
“I cannot leave!” Willow shouted angry to be trapped by these two large warriors. Willow was tall at five
foot eight but the Mederra were giants at six foot ten inches of brawny muscle. They both had long dark
brown hair and soft green eyes the identical shade of hers. “The waters call to me and I must stay and
listen.”
“No,” Drago stated shaking his head and stepping up to her. He quickly wrapped her in his arms turning
her so that her back rested against his chest her wrists locked in his grasp her arms forming an x
across her chest beneath his. “Now is the time to listen to your mates and go with us.”
“I have no mates,” Willow stated, hating that she could not use her powers against them, had never
been able to, as she did against the other warriors who bothered her. But the Mederra had been waiting
for this moment, for the yellow ribbon and what it represented.
According to Warrior Law all women who had reached their twenty-first year were claimable. Any warrior
who wanted to would be given a chance to claim the woman he wanted as long as his brother also
wished to claim her. For warriors were always born as twins with the occasional arrival of triplets.
Because of the vast number of warriors each group of warrior brothers, be they a duo or a trio, would
only be allowed to mate with one woman. Once a woman was chosen she would be claimed by the
placing of the mates’ clan upon her lower right abdomen just above her skirt.
Ulrik kneeled at her feet and removed a cylindrical weapon from his belt. “You do now,” he told her as
he placed it onto the flesh of her right lower abdomen and placed the symbol of the Mederra, a white
tiger on her. “Now you are Willow Mederra.”
“Never,” she fired back at him. “So now I wear your mark. I am not a possession to control. I am a
Guardian.”
“You have left us no choice,” Drago told her refusing to feel remorse for his and Ulrik’s following her
and claiming her in the darkness of night. They wanted to claim her openly, had already spoken with her
fathers and received their blessing and consent but Willow hid from them every chance she got. They
should have headed home to their mother Erin and their fathers long ago but had stayed to wait for
Willow to reach the age of claiming instead. Their baby sister Erika was mated to the Savari now and had
two children of her own that they had yet to even see. That would all change now that they had finally
claimed the woman that they had both fallen so hard for. Since the first moment that they had seen her
they had both felt drawn to her and as they had watched her, spoken with her, they had both learned
that love was indeed possible.
Willow was everything that a warrior could crave in a mate. She was strong and beautiful on the inside
and the outside. They had sensed right away that there was something different about her and had not
been surprised when they had followed her one night and seen her command the water with words and
gestures. She spoke the tongue of their mother and something about her called to their souls
demanding that they claim her and take her to their home. She was their other half, the one woman who
could and would complete them.