The Guardian Michel (Brotherhood of the Guardians #1)

By Laura Browning

Lilly Evans has a past she's buried from everyone, including herself. From the moment she meets the mysterious Michel de Valois, memories she'd just as soon forget push their way from dream to reality. When she realizes he is a vampire, the horror of her past could pull them apart forever.

Michel recognizes Lilly as soon as he sees her. What he doesn't know is if she can accept the past they share and the vampire he has become. To regain her love and save her very life, he'll have to call on his brothers, The Guardians, for help. In the end, the choice is between Lilly's life and her love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laura Browning
• Release date: Jul 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466061880

Laura Browning

Laura Browning graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in Journalism mainly because a wise person, namely her father, suggested Journalism might be a steadier income than trying to write romance. She has worked in television markets in Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri and North Carolina. In 2001, she won a Regional Emmy for her work writing and producing. After dealing with reality for far longer than she should have, the urge to spin stories from the fiber of fiction outweighed her desire to report only the facts. Now she combines her writing career with teaching English. Browning lives in the South with her husband, son, and a menagerie of animals that runs the gamut from horses to a lizard. When she's not writing, she enjoys reading, photography, baking and contemplating actually having time to ride her horses.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Lilly parked her pickup in front of the Perfect Place rental office in Charlevoix. Summer was over, and the tourists had gone home. Perfect timing as far as Lilly was concerned. She’d heard fall in Northern Michigan was great, especially once the summer residents fled south. The air had a cool, crisp clarity that excited the photographer in her. It might mean sweaters and windbreakers, but if she could translate this crispness to into her pictures, a little shiver in her bayou blood was worth the price.

The Perfect Place’s front door dinged with that annoying a-customer-just-walked-in alarm. It wasn’t that she didn’t want help, she just didn’t like the feeling someone was hovering and watching. It resurrected really bad memories. Lilly much preferred exploring places without an overzealous clerk breathing down her neck. But today, help was fine. The drive had been long, and she was beyond tired. All she really wanted was to find the perfect person in the Perfect Place, get the keys to the perfect house she’d rented, and find the directions on how to get to her own perfect place. Perfect.

May I help you? A sleek-haired brunette slinked in from a rear office, her designer jeans all but painted on her perfect hips and thighs. Lilly preferred her jeans with room to move. Being a photographer often meant a lot of bending and twisting, something it would be difficult to do in jeans that fit like compression shorts.

Lilly formed an immediate picture of bending down to get a tight close-up of a flower right before falling over and crushing it because she’d cut off the circulation in her legs. No. The whole body-hugging designer jean thing was not for her.

Thanks. I’m Lilly Evans. I need keys to my rental house. I faxed the paperwork to this office last week.

The brunette looked her up and down with that dismissive smile attractive women reserve solely for females they’re sure represent no competition. The attitude might have pissed her off at one time, but at the moment, she was too tired to care.

Of course, Miss Evans. The smile never wavered. It could have been as painted on as her pants. I have it all right here. Not many people want to rent this time of year.

The perfectly polite conversational gambit. Now Lilly was supposed to explain why she was renting at this time of year. Then I guess I’m just fortunate that this is the time of year I want to rent.

So much for the explanation.

What was it that you do? The woman asked again in that casual voice. Ah. A more direct attack. Apparently her perfect patience had run out.

Pictures. I’m a commercial photographer.

Oh, like school pictures? That kind of thing?

Bitch. Tired as she was, Lilly realized she would just have to screw with this one. Nudes. You might have seen some of my work… and she named a couple of magazines known for their rampant sexuality.

Lilly nearly laughed aloud as the brunette worked at picking her jaw up off the floor. Chew on that Miss Manicure. She certainly was not going to tell the rental agent what she was really here to do. Nature photography. She had an Ansel Adams fetish, and it was time to either exercise it, or exorcise it. But the last things she wanted to hear were suggestions on the best place to get a shot of…fill in the blank with some picturesque barn or cabin.

Over the past year, she’d listened to her ex, Jeff, dissect her need as if she were some sort of bug under the microscope of his psychology expertise. He’d never understood her need to express herself through her photographs—pictures as he called them. That was part of the reason he was now an ex-boyfriend.

The brunette handed Lilly the keys, in a hurry now to have her gone. Here you are, Miss Evans. I hope you’ll enjoy your stay in the Charlevoix area.

It was obvious she didn’t really mean it, but Lilly didn’t care. She had the keys to the place she was renting, and she was more than ready to start another chapter in her life. The further behind she could leave parts of it, the better.

Thanks, Lilly smiled at the other woman’s discomfort, but she had met her type before: women who spent hours grooming to make everything perfect and held the rest of the normal female world in contempt.

Lilly left the building to return to her truck but paused for just an instant. A trickle of awareness shivered down her spine. Someone watched her. She shook her head, tried to dismiss it, but the feeling lingered. A major head case. She’d been told that a lot over the years. Still, she would look. She always did. A quick peek over to the wide windows of the Perfect Place showed Lilly it wasn’t the rental agent, so she glanced furtively around as she unlocked the truck. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a quiet street in a small resort town in northern Michigan.

Really, Lilly, you are so paranoid, and it’s way too early to be starting that again. She slid behind the wheel. She wasn’t sure what she would do if she looked around some day and did find someone staring. Go postal? Hard to do unarmed.

She put her hands on the steering wheel. Her short, bare fingernails dug into the vinyl. Would life be simpler if she could be like the rental agent? Lilly would never have talons like her, that was for sure. Adjusting lenses and tripods, and hauling equipment around didn’t mix with worrying about chipped acrylics.

Work was where her focus had to be. Nothing else. No memories and certainly no dreams. Practical, that was her. Practical Lilly Evans. She was not fanciful in either looks or thoughts. Sure. Right.

Just tell that to her nightmares.

Lilly checked over her shoulder automatically for any oncoming traffic, and then put the truck in gear to pull out. Tires screeched and a horn blared. She jammed the brakes and looked over her shoulder again. A sleek, sapphire blue sports car idled just off her rear bumper. It was one of those low-slung things that screamed money, at least more money than Lilly had ever had, or was likely to have.

Where had that come from? She would swear the damn car hadn’t been there just a second earlier. The windows were tinted so it was difficult to see inside, but the driver flashed his lights signaling Lilly to pull out ahead of him. She waved, trying to be polite, but saw no answering acknowledgement behind the dark tint.

Everything would have been cool, but a few minutes later when she looked in the rearview mirror, the car still followed her. Call her paranoid, and a lot of people did, but she was a magnet for unmarked police cars, so Lilly was careful to stick right to the speed limit. She certainly didn’t need her first experiences in a new state to be with a state trooper. It didn’t look like a cop car. Wasn’t that what people always said right before they got pulled?

As she left town headed up the coast, the road straightened out. In a matter of seconds, the blue sports car accelerated with an angry snarl that left Lilly’s pickup behind like it was standing still. Was it possible to be irritated and relieved? She was relieved the car was gone. Relieved it wasn’t a trooper. But irritated with her rampant paranoia.

****

He’d watched her as long as he dared. He had just walked out the coffee shop door when he caught her scent and searched frantically until he found her. His instincts would never let him forget, but he still feared to believe them, to trust them. Not after all this time. He had dreamed of her, but hardly dared to believe that this time it was true. Many women possessed her coloring, her beautiful honey hair and creamy skin, but never in all these years had he inhaled her unique scent. Now his body thrummed with the need to go to her, take her. His. She had been once and would be again.

As soon as he saw her leave the rental office his gaze lasered in on her. His Liliane. By some miracle of God, she had come back after all these years.

But not to him.

Wariness and fear marked her movements. Her posture reminded him of that awful time so long ago. Surely fates could not be so cruel to her yet again, but he could smell her fear. What had happened to her that so much distrust shone from those beautiful eyes? She had the cautious, alert look of an animal that knew it was hunted. His eyes darted swiftly around. If Liliane was here, then was her sister? He shook his head. Not possible.

Still in a state of disbelief that after all his searching he had simply stumbled upon her, he followed Liliane until he was sure where of her destination. There were only so many rentals out this far. He pressed the Porsche’s gas and shot past. He had seen her face better then, but he had also seen the defensive turn of shoulder and head. Had God given him back his Liliane only to make her so wary he might never have a chance to approach her?

****

Several more miles and she reached the turnoff. The pavement ended. Now she was on a gravel road, and one that didn’t even appear to be maintained by the state or the county. Trees towered along both sides, mostly pine with a mixture of maples, oaks and the ghostly white trunks of the birch. The photographer in her liked that. The contrast of light and dark had always fascinated her. It was one of the reasons she liked to do so much work in black and white, but the child still lurking inside her cringed at the shadows.

A small sign marked the street number and Lilly turned down an even narrower drive. She had wanted isolation, and it looked like she was going to get it. Maybe too much. The trees closed in around her, and Lilly was tempted to turn the radio on just to hear some noise. Better yet, she would turn her truck around leave.

She had gotten used to life in the city. It wasn’t great, but it paid the bills. What had she been thinking, trying to ramp up her photography from carefully staged studio shots to fine art nature photography? Did she really think she could compete with such greats as Ansel Adams? Did Lilly Evans really think she could outdo the master of the perfect light and moment?

Could she stand the isolation with nothing at all to distract her from her own thoughts? That might be the biggest question of all.

Lilly’s fears eased when she reached the clearing where the house stood. She laughed when she saw it. A log cabin. She was truly turning into a complete rustic, but at least it had the barn she’d requested, and a small turnout area. Lilly had already decided she was not going to lug equipment into the woods on foot. Four-wheelers petrified her, so she figured a horse was the best way to travel. But that was for later. First, she had to get settled.

Unpacking was a breeze. She carried only two duffel bags of clothes, two bags of groceries and six cases of photographic equipment and lights. After dumping what there was of her wardrobe in the drawers in the small bedroom, Lilly stored the groceries in the kitchen. Most of her time she spent setting up her a studio in the spare bedroom. She might be trying her hand at nature photography, but that didn’t mean she would turned her back on the studio for magazines. Those paid the bills.

The best and most surprising fact about this location over others she’d considered was access to high-speed internet. Lilly had been surprised when the rental agent said she could hook into it this far out of town. She had mumbled something about an international financial analyst in the area, but Lilly hadn’t paid much attention. She just needed high-speed access with good bandwidth. Access in the middle of nowhere was an unexpected bonus.

It was late. Shadows stretched across the small clearing by the cabin. Even though Lilly knew she didn’t have much light left, she was anxious to relieve some of the tension of the trip. For her that meant finding at least one perfect shot. She had been so busy packing and moving, it had been several days since she’d had a camera in her hand. With the smallest of her digital cameras hanging around her neck, Lilly headed outside, promising herself she would not go far. The lure of the brightly colored trees was too much to resist. She checked her compass before setting out. She’d learned long ago not to trust her sense of direction, and she shivered at the memory, quickly pushing it away. Hide and seek was not much fun if you were always the one being hunted.

She soon lost herself in the delicate light and shadow filtering through the leaves, which were just beginning to change with the waning of summer and the onset of fall. Lilly loved this time of year. Underneath the canopy of riotous colors, there was always a subtlety to the changing season, death before rebirth. That idea intrigued many people, but the eternal question was what sort of rebirth? Sometimes new life was little more than abomination. Lilly had seen plenty of that already.

Those were the memories she never talked about. Not to her ex-boyfriend, not to the therapists, not to anyone…ever. In her case, the truth would not set her free. It would get her locked up in the psych ward. Because of that, she had convinced herself her memories were simply the nightmares of a childish mind.

She reached a small clearing. Hills bordered it to the east, and everywhere there were tall trees surrounding it. Late afternoon clouds scudded in off the lake and banked up. The ever changing and shifting lighting fascinated her. Lilly wanted to capture the patchwork of sunlight and shadow falling on the grass and the trees. She snapped picture after picture. The more she clicked, the more she could forget her latest ex-boyfriend, forget the chance she was taking with her career and even forget for a few minutes the memories that haunted her days and nights.

As the clouds overwhelmed the setting sun, the light faded, the temperature dropped, and Lilly shivered. She had filled a memory card and the camera battery was starting to weaken. It was time to head back.

Retracing her steps was easy enough. What she hadn’t expected was getting creeped out again with the feeling someone was watching her. It was the same as she’d experienced when she’d left the rental office in Charlevoix, only even stronger than before. Lilly refused to stop and look. That would be giving in to panic. She refused to let anyone see just how afraid she really was. Perception was everything. If those hunting her didn’t know she was afraid, then they might be less cautious and show themselves. Where had that come from? Now she was creeping herself out.

When she spotted the cabin through the trees, Lilly sighed with relief. Still it was so tempting to break into a childish run to finish the last few feet into the clearing. Some nature photographer she was going to be if she kept getting the shakes every time she went into the woods on foot. Memory snapped at the edges of her brain again, but she pushed it back forcefully. These woods were different. They didn’t stink of damp and decay like the bayou. It wasn’t like her childhood. This was different.

Lilly frowned and pushed the thoughts back. They weren’t memories. They weren’t real. How many times did she have to tell herself that? She had been told to forget it, so why couldn’t she? The angel had told her never to think about it, and she had done her best to remember that order.

Still, by the time Lilly reached the door to the cabin, her breath rasped shallowly. One hand on the door latch, concentrate, and slow your breathing. Come on, Lilly. Get a grip.

She slammed the door behind her and leaned against it, shutting out the silence, and shutting herself in a cocoon. To make her feel more secure, she turned the lock. though she knew a locked door was little protection from her fear. Her hands shook as she stuck the earphones of her MP3 player into her ears. She punched the button and increased the volume, letting the pounding beat of the rock rhythms drown out her thoughts and her fears.

Lilly brought her laptop into the living room and settled down on the couch. After it booted up, she pulled the memory card out of her pocket and stuck it in the slot on the side. She liked to look through everything first as a slide show. It was easier to weed out pictures that didn’t speak to her in some way. She relaxed as she watched the photos flip by, but then she noticed something out of place in one picture so she paused the show and reversed a frame.

There was one advantage to shooting in RAW format. The photos were incredibly detailed. She had been shooting at a high shutter speed. One one-thousandth of a second, and what she had noticed was blurred. Things didn’t blur at one one-thousandth of a second. Was it a flaw in the camera? Lilly checked the other pictures. Not a dust spot. Those tended to stay in the same place. This moved from frame to frame. It seemed too large for that anyway.

There was always the possibility that the camera’s digital programming was screwed up. Lilly hated that. It was her favorite camera, her first digital. She would try cleaning it tomorrow, maybe that would help. Lilly tried enlarging that section of the photo, but it didn’t really seem to help and she finally had to give up. Her eyes started to droop, so she shut down the laptop and simply lay down on the couch for the night, too tired to even put sheets on the bed. She wouldn’t sleep much anyway. She never did.

****

He had watched her that afternoon in the woods as well. He tried to tell himself he was simply making sure she was all right, but he knew better. He had to have a glimpse of her, just one more to reassure himself it really was her, that it wasn’t just another case of wishful thinking on his part. Even after so many years, he would never forget her. And this time it was her. He was sure. He had waited so long.

He saw again what he had noticed earlier in the day. He frightened her. Somehow, she sensed his presence. So unlike most humans. He mingled with them every day, and they never suspected who he was, what he was. He would have to back off, find some way to meet her as a normal human being would. But if she already perceived him as a potential threat from this distance, how could he possibly ease her mind? The last thing he wanted was to resort to any kind of power he could exert. He wanted her to accept him as he was.

Chapter 2

Lilly settled into a routine, but one not quite as ambitious as she had planned. She was having problems making herself go into the woods. So far, most of her nature photography tended toward lighthouses and lakeshore shots. Nothing could hide on a sandy beach.

Lilly could be working in her studio. She had a list of shoots to get done and deadlines approaching. In order to complete them, she needed to buy a few props, but it was too tempting outside. A thunderstorm brewed over the lake, unusual for this late in the year, but it brought with it the most incredible lighting and cloud formations. Lilly longed to photograph the storm moving in over the water. Work would wait. If she was going to produce the caliber of pictures she needed, she had to take advantage of the moment. Studio work could be done at night, when she couldn’t sleep anyway.

Lilly gathered a handful of memory cards, extra batteries, a tripod and two cameras—one with a wide-angle lens and the other with a zoom attached. It was easier to work with two cameras than try juggling lenses. The seconds wasted changing lenses could be an ideal moment that could never be recaptured.

That was one of the reasons Lilly loved still photography. It captured the moment, a blink of an eye, and froze it. It stopped time. There were so many of those moments in her life that it seemed her brain had worked in just that manner ever since she was a child. With the exception of a couple of memories she could never seem to halt, the rest of her life she viewed in snapshots. Lilly viewed everything in her mind like a slideshow.

She piled camera, lenses, and tripods in the truck and drove to the lake. This part of the Michigan coastline was so varied, from sandy beaches to rocky cliffs. Lilly loved it and loved the relentlessly blowing wind. As she set up some of her equipment at the base of one of those cliffs, her heart pounded with excitement. In the distance, roiling gray and black clouds churned closer with their slanted sheets of rain appearing almost purple in the light. But it wasn’t the color she wanted to see, it was the contrast. Light and dark. Black and white. Sunlight and shadow—always, always the shadows.

Lilly mounted the camera with the wide-angle lens on the tripod. She would try experimenting with shutter speeds and apertures to see what kind of effects she could achieve. The zoom she would reserve for whatever struck her fancy. Lilly clicked, adjusted, clicked. Another reason to love digital cameras—they were so quiet compared to the film cameras, not to mention being able to instantly check a bad photo and get rid of it. God, how that had saved on expenses.

Despite her love for the technology, Lilly still kept one of her old film cameras. It had been her first real camera, bought with her earnings from part time jobs. Although she didn’t use it any more, Lilly hung onto it as a reminder of how hard she’d worked to get away from her childhood and make her own way. Her ex called her cameras a crutch, a way for her to hide while she pretended to be involved with the people around her. To Lilly it wasn’t a crutch, it was a necessity. Lilly had her reasons not to want involvement with other people.

She brushed back her hair. Standing into the wind as she was, she didn’t have to worry much about it. It stayed off her face naturally except when the odd little gust, buffeted off the cliffs behind her, teased the back of her head and blew a strand forward.

Lilly picked up the big zoom lens, loving the weight and feel of it in her hands. There was power there, power to freeze time. Scanning the horizon, she zoomed in on a few gulls, winging, diving and standing still in the wind. She followed one to the surface of the water only to see it abruptly cut its dive short, and with a startled cry, wing up and away.

Something moved in the water several hundred feet offshore. Lilly zoomed in closer and could make out the indistinct form of arms and a head. A swimmer on a day like today? Was the person crazy? Or was someone in trouble? Lilly clicked. The swimmer drew closer, but on a path that would intersect the shore north of where she stood. So, not someone in trouble, simply an idiot with a death wish swimming while a storm