The Gunslinger's Gift Read online

  THE GUNSLINGER’S GIFT

  Guardians of the Light 4

  April Zyon

  Erotic Romance

  Secret Cravings Publishing

  www.secretcravingspublishing.com

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer.

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  A Secret Cravings Publishing Book

  Erotic Romance

  The Gunslinger’s Gift

  Copyright © 2015 April Zyon

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63105-538-6

  First E-book Publication: March 2015

  Cover design by Dawné Dominique

  Edited by Tabitha Bower

  Proofread by Marja Salmon

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2015 by Secret Cravings Publishing

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Secret Cravings Publishing

  www.secretcravingspublishing.com

  Dedication

  To the amazing people at Secret Cravings Publishing, thank you for helping me bring my dream to life.

  The Cravings Ebook Club

  The Cravings Paranormal Ebook Club

  Have you heard about the newest idea in ebooks, the ebook club? Secret Cravings Publishing has two ebook clubs, The Cravings Ebook Club or the Cravings Paranormal Ebook Club, and we invite you to become a member.

  As a new member, you will receive Trouble With a Cowboy* by Sandy Sullivan and Blood Kisses** by H.N. Sieverding FREE, just for joining!

  You’ll also receive 4 BRAND-NEW EBOOKS, specially selected by our Editorial Director, every month in a variety of genres for a total price of only $9.99 for all 4. This comes out to barely $2.50 per book, much less than the retail price and you’ll be able to enjoy your books even before they are uploaded to the popular sales sites. One of several privileges of club membership.

  *Trouble With a Cowboy, a western, erotic romance:

  18 wheels had her heart until one hard-up cowboy found her kickin' up her heels and propositions her to take his bull to Vegas.

  Jacie Hawkins drives big wheelers for a livin'. Something not a lot of women do. Littleton Oklahoma is just a dry stopover for a few hours of rest and relaxation at the nearest bar. Jacie needs to find a hot cowboy to release some of her pent up frustrations on for the night, but wannabe's aren't her style.

  Tucker Marshall needs a big-rig driver to haul his prize bull to National Finals Rodeo and he needs one fast. Who would have thought he'd find one shootin' pool at the local bar dressed to kill and takin' numbers?

  Can some slashed tires and an ornery bull bring two hard-headed people together for some fun in the sun and a little more?

  **Blood Kisses (Nightwalkers 1), paranormal erotic romance:

  Ashleigh Brown, the author of the popular Nightwalkers series, lives a quiet life free of the limelight. She keeps her real identity secret by writing under the pen name, Victoria Allure. She soon finds herself in a bind when she's kidnapped by a group of handsome vampires seeking Victoria. She then agrees to meet their Master, who's a huge fan of her books. But instead of meeting him, she accidentally crosses paths with her rock star crush. He is the sexy muse behind Nightwalkers and the man she based the hero in the series upon. She would do anything to meet him but little does she know her crush has a secret...

  We will try to match your books to your preferences, however, if you’re a major paranormal fan, we suggest you join the Cravings Paranormal Club. Everything is the same except that three of your four books will be paranormal. The remaining book will be of a different genre.

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  · our monthly newsletter

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  To join, visit the Secret Cravings Publishing website. At the bottom of the page you’ll see a button for the club. You can sign up there and share your preferences for genre, format and heat level with us. You will be charged, automatically, through PayPal, only $9.99 every month. Your books will be shipped within 1 day after PayPal payment has cleared. You may cancel at any time by clicking on the “unsubscribe” button located on the Cravings Club tab at the bottom of our website and keep the FREE BOOKS as our gift.

  We hope our Secret Cravings books will delight you each and every month.

  Best wishes,

  Beth Walker

  THE GUNSLINGER’S GIFT

  Guardians of the Light 4

  April Zyon

  Prologue

  In every generation, in every breath of humanity, there is a whisper of a sound. There is a moment in time when the realization of what is real and what isn’t shifts and changes for people. There are also those that watch from the sidelines. Those that aren’t exactly on the side of darkness, but don’t necessarily walk in the light, either.

  And then, there are those that walk to their own tune, that play their own music, and to hell with everyone and everything else around them. There are some that are broken, that are hurt so many times, that they feel as if getting back up again would be too hard, but they do it all the same just so that they can fling it back into life’s face that they did.

  One of those beings would be Sophia Anne Duffy, or, as the foster kids would call her, Sad.

  Sophia wasn’t sad, though. She was actually a soft hearted and joyful girl. She adored her big sister, and while she missed the mother that she had never known, she lived life to the fullest, because to do anything less was just unheard of to her.

  She was removed from her father’s tender loving care—if you could call getting beaten every, single day tender loving care—at the age of fourteen. Through it all, though, Sophia was content. She knew that one day all of it would change. She knew that one day there was a man who was going to come into her life and be everything that she hadn’t had in her lifetime. He was going to be special because he would put her first in all things.

  Fia lived for that time and that man.

  Each day, she listened to the whispers of nature around her. She hid in plain sight because the very Earth protected her when she asked for it to. She loved being a part of the world as much as she loved her sister, but it all paled to the love she had built up inside of her for a man she had never met. A man that she only knew through
the songs on the winds, through the knowledge that lived and breathed inside of all beings on Earth, and would live and breathe inside of humans, too, if they actually took a moment to listen.

  Sophia listened. She listened to the stories that seemed impossible—of a goddess that had walked the Earth so long ago, of warriors brought back to life through her will, and of a man that had been destined for her even when he had lived his life in the true Wild West.

  She listened to it all, and it was only that knowledge that had kept her from breaking down, kept her positive, day in and day out. When anyone else would have given up, when any other would have let go, she had held on and persevered because she knew that one day he would need her. One day, she would save him just as he would save her.

  When that day came, however, it literally took her by storm, one she wasn’t so sure she would survive.

  It was a day like any other. She had taken on a painting job for an older couple who lived on Vashon Island, just a few miles off the coast, and had been enjoying it. She had felt it though—the change coming on the winds—and had done everything in her power to finish the painting early, so that she could start the future that she had been waiting for so long.

  Sophia had finished and opened the windows to ensure that the paint would dry before she walked out of the house and into the backyard. She turned her face up to the skies and smiled. Mother Nature was all but hugging her in that moment—the feeling of the sun, the fresh air from the ocean, the breeze, all of it was perfect.

  She heard voices, then. She had thought at first that it was finally Billy come to find her, but she was wrong. It wasn’t him. As quickly as she had that thought, she ran off into the woods behind the property, hiding in a tree and pulling the thorns and thistle in front of it, so that she was hidden and protected. Sliding down, she slowed her breathing so that her heart would stop racing.

  What happened next had been a massive surprise. A very large man approached her hiding spot on utterly silent feet. She had held her breath, and when he spoke, she was shocked. He knew things that no one other than her sister had known. With those softly spoken words, he won her trust and that of nature protecting her. The thorn and thistle moved away, and she stepped from her hiding place.

  When she walked back with him, she was stunned when the man she had been dreaming of her entire life walked around the side of the house. For several minutes, she couldn’t understand what he had said, all she could think was, Billy. He had finally found her.

  And he didn’t have a clue what and who she was to him, that much was clear when he looked at her in disdain. But she wouldn’t give up hope. She couldn’t, because she knew that they were meant to be, just as it was clear that Vivian and Jason belonged together.

  Sophia was surprised and glad when Vivian allowed the man to remain behind with her while she and Jason went back to the mainland, because she wanted some time alone with Billy, if only for a couple hours.

  She hadn’t known then that a couple hours would turn into the night from hell.

  Chapter One

  Two weeks after returning to The Mountain, James saw her again. Sophia Ann Duffy.

  Pausing in the corridor, he watched her walking and talking with her sister. They were such opposites. Vivian was a bold woman, not just with her red hair and take-charge attitude, but she had a presence about her that said she wouldn’t take crap from anyone. She’d bonded with one of the oldest, yet still functioning, Guardians, Jason.

  When they had found Vivian, she’d been on a story that had quickly led them to hunting down Vivian’s sister on the job. The monsters had targeted Sophia because she was one of the thirteen rarest women alive, a Vestal Virgin, destined to bond with a Guardian.

  There was something about the dark haired beauty that called to him. Unfortunately, if he focused on her too long, he ended up with a headache. One the medics were stumped by, since there was absolutely no medical evidence to support it.

  The doctors might be clueless, but the other Guardians knew something. At least that was his guess, given the looks he’d been getting from Gaius, Hector, Jason, and Mercury. Even Alexander, who pretty much hated James’ guts, was giving him that same knowing stare. They knew something, and they weren’t telling him, which was seriously pissing him off.

  Sighing, he watched as Sophia disappeared around the corner of a corridor intersection, and his headache let up. “What the fuck is going on?” he muttered to himself.

  Giving his head a shake, he continued on his way to the base’s main hub. He couldn’t keep thinking about Sophia, no matter how often his mind went to her. She didn’t seem to want to see him, so it really didn’t matter if he wanted to talk to her. She avoided him all too well in a place he knew better than she ever could.

  “James, about time,” Mercury said.

  Acknowledging their leader, James then nodded to Helen, their tech guru, and took a chair near her. “So, what’s the news?”

  “Eric updated me early this morning. He’s found our guy again and is tracking him now. He needs backup out there,” Mercury answered.

  “So, you’re shipping me back out to Miami?”

  “No, Alexander’s already departed to assist him. Gaius is having fits again, understandable of course, but still, we need to keep an eye on him. He wants to go out there, but we all know how that would end up.”

  Yeah, Gaius on a rampage to get the man responsible for Emily, his soul mate, being hurt wouldn’t go well. Godzilla had nothing on Gaius when he got his back up about something and went looking to kill someone.

  “So, I’m here why?” James asked. He didn’t get why he’d been summoned, especially since he’d been off training. Mercury didn’t interrupt training for any reason.

  “You and I need to talk.” Mercury moved to the door and shot James an expectant look.

  Groaning softly, James rolled his eyes and followed the man. They went through the halls to Mercury’s office, where James took the chair he was pointed to. “What do we need to talk about?”

  “About you getting your head out of your ass and seeing what’s right in front of you.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s been two weeks since you got back, and while I agreed at the time with the others to keep my nose out of it, enough is enough.”

  “Again, I’m going to have to go with ‘huh’?”

  “You and Sophia. Deal with it, sooner rather than later,” Mercury said.

  “There’s nothing to deal with, Merc. She’s a great girl and all, but she wants nothing to do with me. Which, given how my head practically explodes with pain any time I’m near her, it’s probably a good thing she’s avoiding me like she is.”

  Mercury shot James a look and scraped a hand through his hair. “I can’t believe you have no clue,” he muttered. “Do you remember what I told you about the medallion when I brought you back?”

  “Yeah, don’t let anyone shatter it, as it’s as effective as having my head removed. Which, in my case, is pretty much the same thing.” James was obviously missing a key point, though, because Mercury was giving him a look that called him an idiot nine ways of Sunday.

  “There was more to it than that. It wasn’t that long ago, and even with the brain damage you suffered, you should remember it.”

  Frowning, James thought back. The medallion would give him life as long as it wasn’t shattered, or he didn’t lose his head. It would help to guide him to stay in the light, but couldn’t override his own needs and wants. If he gave into the darkness that surrounded them then he’d become one of the Evil Ones.

  Then, it hit him. It would direct him to the one woman in all the world that was his—his heart, his light, his soul mate. “Shit,” he breathed out. Sophia Duffy was his soul mate.

  And he’d pretty much done everything in his power to drive her away because of the headaches. The headaches! He let out a groan and pressed a hand to his eyes. No other Guardian had a medallion in their head. It made sense all of a sudden. He
was getting the headaches because the medallion was trying to draw him to her.

  “There we go,” Mercury said. “I knew all you’d need was a nudge.”

  “Fucking hell, Merc. Why didn’t someone point it out sooner? She hates my guts right now. I did everything I could to push her away, and I succeeded. She won’t get within more than thirty feet of me anymore.”

  “Well, then, you have a hell of a lot of work to do. I’d watch out for Vivian, though. She’s a very protective older sister, and Jason’s been teaching her hand-to-hand combat tactics. While you might beat her on the draw, I figure she’ll take you down out of sheer determination and whatever women have that makes them stronger than we men could ever hope to be.”

  Mercury got to his feet and came around the desk. “Now, get out of my office and figure out how to win your woman back. Soon, too, or she might just be handed off to another Guardian by whatever power lays within the medallion.”

  “Can that happen?” James asked, in sudden horror.

  “Hell if I know, but it’s a power beyond anything I understand. It might just decide you’re not worthy of her and give her to someone that will actually treasure her for the gift she is. And that may very well mean you’re out of luck, permanently.”

  “Shit,” James whispered. Popping up to his feet, he got out of there quickly. No way in hell am I losing my only hope at staying in the light to another Guardian. The mere thought of Sophia being touched by another man made his stomach turn. She was his.