OBSIDIAN GUARD BOOK 2

CHAPTER 5 OLLIVANDER IN IRONSPIRE

POV Ollivander

Ironspire didn't smell like a city; it smelled too good. It was suspicious, sweet, and scented like a trap.

I had been moving through the Lower Circle for three days, my hood pulled low and my movements calculated to be as unremarkable as a shadow on a cloudy day. After a lifetime in the Obsidian Guard, where the air was a thick, metallic soup of sulfur and ash, the atmosphere here was nauseatingly pleasant. Flowers. Fresh bread. Clean water.

It was a "paradise" built on the backs of monsters, and I was here to find the cracks in the foundation.

My Queen wanted names. She wanted weaves. She wanted to know who was killing her Thanes and stopping her from recruiting high-value weavers to her army. I had already gathered the basics.

The city was ruled by the Syndicate heads, the Twelve. I'd spent hours in the local taverns, listening to the whispered legends of the "Family." They spoke of Alistair, the iron-fisted King; Saffron, the healer who could cheat death; and Dante, the man who could unmake the world with a snap of his fingers.

But it was the one they called the "Heart Weaver" who loved to roam the Lower Circles that I saw first. Gideon.

I followed him from a distance, my feet silent on the cobblestones. My body, still aching from the Queen's "parting gift," felt heavy in this thin air. I watched him move through the marketplace. He wasn't like the Thanes.

The Thanes were rigid, balanced by the stones they wore. This man... this Gideon... moved with a terrifying, raw physical presence. He didn't need stones. He was the stone.

He was massive, his shoulders broad enough to block out the sun, his knuckles scarred in a way that spoke of a thousand brawls won by sheer brutality. Every few minutes, I saw his hand twitch, a rhythmic, pulsing movement that seemed to sync with the world around him.

His Heart-weave. He wasn't just watching the crowd; he was likely hearing their heartbeats, clearly at a great distance and without a gem to assist him. The thought made the hair on my neck stand up. Could he feel heartbeats this far? Could he feel mine? Could he feel the way my pulse spiked every time he turned his head?

I ducked behind a merchant's stall as Gideon stopped. He wasn't looking at a crate of fruit. I watched, mesmerized, as those huge, violent hands delicately picked up an apple. He didn't crush it. He didn't strike it. He just... looked at it.

For a second, the mask of the "Syndicate Monster" slipped. He looked bored. He looked like a predator without a prey, exactly as the Queen had predicted. My Queen called them soft. She called them weak.

But as I watched him, I didn't see weakness. I saw a coiled spring. I saw a man who was hungry for something the city of flowers couldn't provide.

Suddenly, Gideon spun around.

I didn't have time to vanish. I froze, my breath catching in my throat. His eyes, sharp and predatory, swept over the crowd, landing inches from where I stood behind the hanging silks of the stall. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, rhythmic drumming that I was certain he could hear across the street.

"You there," he called out, his voice a deep, gravelly rumble that vibrated in my chest.

I felt the blood drain from my face. I reached for my earring, the one embedded with an obsidian stone, ready to shatter my own psyche before I let a Syndicate member take me.

But he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at a street urchin who had tried to lift a coin from a nearby purse. Gideon moved with a speed that defied his size, his hand snapping out to catch the boy's wrist. He didn't break it. He just held him, his expression unreadable.

"Too fast," Gideon grunted, leaning down to the boy's level. "You're breathing too hard. They can hear you from a mile away. Try again when you can stay calm."

He let the boy go and tossed him the apple he'd been holding. I watched the boy run off, and when Gideon turned back to his patrol, his gaze lingered on the silks where I was hiding. He didn't see me, I was sure of it, but he frowned, his hand moving to his chest as if he'd felt something.

He moved on, his heavy boots echoing against the stone.

I kept following him, my shadow bleeding into his as he moved toward the outskirts. He eventually met up with Jasmine, the Pheromone Weaver, in a quiet clearing where they just stood, watching the trees sway in the wind.

Her scent was legendary; they said it could turn any human into a mindless, lustful, primal beast. From this distance, I hoped I was safe from her influence, but I stayed close enough to hear them talk. That was my weave; it wasn't strong, but I was an Elemental Weaver who could make the wind carry words across distances no human ear could bridge.

"You really don't feel it, do you?" Jasmine asked. Her voice was thick with the very allure she was radiating, a shimmering gold in the air. She stepped closer to Gideon, her eyes searching his face.

Gideon didn't move. He didn't even blink. "I feel it," he said simply. "But my heart beats for my Family, Jasmine. Your weave can't change the rhythm of a man who owns his own pulse."

He reached out, a massive hand resting briefly on her shoulder, a grounding, platonic touch that seemed to steady her. "If anyone catches the scent and comes looking for trouble, let them. I'll break them before they get within ten feet of you. Just breathe, let go."

Jasmine let out a jagged breath, her shoulders dropping as she truly relaxed. "You're a freak, Gideon. A wonderful, terrifying freak."

I watched them, the massive warrior and the intoxicating queen of air, and I felt a spike of something that the obsidian stone couldn't protect me from: lust.

Gideon wasn't just a weapon. He was a shield. He stood there, unyielding against a power that was turning my insides to liquid, purely out of loyalty to the woman beside him.

I watched the way the sun caught the scars on his knuckles, the way his heavy boots were planted firmly in the dirt, and my heart hammered a frantic, desperate rhythm.

I was a spy for a Queen who owned me, a woman who would never let me go. I had never minded being her pet; she had saved me from a far worse fate. However, for the first time in my life, I felt the terrifying pull of a different kind of ownership.

I wanted to be his.

My heart beat into my ears, my mouth going dry. My blood was pulsing, rushing to my shaft as it hardened, heavy and ready. For Jasmine's weave to affect me even at this distance, bypassing the obsidian's protection, was frightening.

But as I watched Gideon stand guard over his sister, his gaze occasionally sweeping the tree line with predatory precision, I knew I was in real trouble.

It wasn't just the pheromones. It was him.

I had my report. I knew who they were now. I had to go back to report to my Queen before I lost my mind.