“By spying on me?”
Her breath hissed between her teeth. “I haven’t been spying on you. I’ve been waiting for the evil to reveal itself.”
“And?”
The air prickled with an unspoken warning. Did he have a premonition of what she was about to tell him?
“I sensed something when I caught sight of your female,” she forced herself to tell him.
“Something? That’s a little vague, isn’t it?”
The heat went from smothering to suffocating. A trickle of sweat inched down the curve of Rainn’s back.
“Look, the Oracles didn’t give me a manual,” she snapped. Did he think she enjoyed having her head stuffed with images she didn’t understand and a weird spidey sense of evil? Or perhaps he thought it was a real chuckle to be expected to fight that evil with nothing more than her powers. Powers that weren’t exactly created for battle. “They didn’t even speak to me. They branded your image in my brain and sent me away with the warning that the entire world was depending on me. I’m doing the best that I can.”
He blinked, as if caught off guard by her sharp reprimand. Not that he was willing to concede defeat. Even as his anger faded, his features hardened into a stubborn expression.
“Brigette isn’t evil.”
Rainn had to bite her tongue. His naïve refusal to admit the female Were might be anything but his long-lost cousin who just happened to stroll into his casino was wearing on her nerves.
“Perhaps not,” she conceded, “but it surrounds her.”
“Which is all the more reason I need to find her.”
“Just don’t…” Her words trailed away. Ulric was male. Extremely male. Which meant telling him not to do something would only ensure that he would do it.
“What?” he demanded.
She hedged. “Be blinded by your need for a family.”
“I’m not blinded.” He lowered his gaze, as if trying to hide the vulnerable need that darkened his eyes. “I just want to know what happened.”
“Fine,” she said, knowing she’d pushed him far enough. “I’ll be along to watch your back.”
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. Nothing less than a miracle.
“Chiron won’t be happy when he discovers that we’re both gone,” he groused.
“I left a voice mail on his phone that we were taking his jet,” she said. “I’m sure he’d rather have me here to protect you.”
He made an exasperated sound. “I don’t need protection.”
She shrugged, not wasting her breath by arguing. “Plus, Chiron has a mate to help him run the resort now,” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken.
“Yeah.” Unexpectedly, Ulric’s hands clenched. “I suppose he does.”
She studied him in confusion. “Does it bother you that…”
Her question went unasked as there was a sudden sound of a door opening. Moving as one, Ulric and Rainn surged to their feet, both of them turning toward the front of the cabin.
There was no one there. In fact, the cabin door was sealed tightly shut.
Then, the scent of granite filled the air and a tiny gargoyle climbed out of the hidden compartment built beneath the floor.
“Levet,” she breathed in surprise, watching as the demon spread his wings, which were nothing like the leathery wings of most gargoyles. Instead they were a dazzling shimmer of gold and red and blue. Of course, there were a lot of things different about Levet. Including the fact that he was barely three feet tall and possessed the strangest belief that he was a Knight in Shining Armor.
Over the past weeks she’d become accustomed to seeing him waddling around Chiron’s private offices. And, if she was honest, she’d secretly enjoyed watching how easily the tiny demon could piss off both Chiron and Ulric.
“Why is this heap of metal moving?” Levet complained, his gaze moving toward Ulric, who was regarding the creature with a horrified expression. “Oh. It is you.” Levet reached up to rub one of his stunted horns, his expression petulant. “You interrupted my nap.”
Ulric sliced his hand through the air. “Who else is hiding on this damned plane? Elvis?”
Levet sucked in a sharp breath, his wings fluttering. “He’s alive? I knew it!”
“Arg.”
Ulric pivoted on his heel and stormed to the back of the jet. Disappearing into the private bedroom, he slammed shut the connecting door. Rainn heaved a sigh.
This evil-fighting gig wasn’t nearly as fun as it looked in the movies.
Chapter 4
Ulric barely waited for the plane to touch down before he was storming through the cabin to jerk open the door.
After Levet’s unwelcome appearance, he hadn’t been in the mood to listen to the creature’s endless chatter. Instead he’d headed into the back room and stretched out on the bed. He’d been exhausted after his long run through the desert and the emotional turmoil of his morning. The last thing he wanted was seven hours trapped with a yapping gargoyle he wanted to choke. Plus, he suspected he was going to need to be at full strength to deal with whatever was waiting for him.
He was a male who liked to be in control. Of everything. But in the past twelve hours he’d had his fundamental belief in his past revealed as a lie. First had been the shocking revelation that Brigette was alive. And then he’d discovered that he was the featured star in an Oracle vision that warned of an impending evil.
He wasn’t sure which was bothering him the most.
A scowl marred his brow as his heart gave a sharp lurch. If he was being honest, he’d admit that it was Rainn’s betrayal that hurt the most.
Not surprisingly, he’d desired Rainn since her arrival in Vegas. She was gorgeous, clever, and exotically mysterious. Lust-worthy on an epic scale. But it’d taken a very long time for him to learn to trust her. Now that his faith had been shattered, he felt as if something important had just died deep inside him.
Melodramatic…but there it was.
The jet rattled over the runway of the small airfield on the coast of northern Wales. This remote area wasn’t built for such a large plane, but Ulric had ordered the pilot to land as close to his old lair as possible.
They at last came to a lurching halt and Ulric impatiently waited for the outer door to open. Behind him he could sense Rainn move to stand a few feet away.
After what felt like an eternity, the outer door released, and the steps began to automatically lower. Ulric didn’t wait for them to reach the ground. With one powerful leap he was landing on the rocky soil next to the runway. A second later he felt a breeze as Rainn used her power to touch gently down beside him. He glanced over his shoulder, pointing a finger at the gargoyle who was about to follow them. “You. Stay here.”
“But—”
“This isn’t a debate,” Ulric snapped.
The gargoyle pouted. “Hash brown, you are not the boss of me.”
Ulric snapped his brows together. “Hash brown?”
“I think he means hashtag,” Rainn said in her soft, annoyingly calm voice.
Ulric threw his hands in the air. “How have you survived so long?”
“My winning personality.” Levet pulled his lips into what Ulric assumed was a smile. “It’s a gift.”
“More like a curse.” Ulric sent the creature a warning glare. “Stay here.”
Levet’s wings drooped. “Mangy hound.”
Ulric stepped toward the jet. “You—”
“Shouldn’t we be searching for your female?” Rainn hastily prevented a childish squabble.
Ulric cursed beneath his breath before turning to jog away from the plane.
“You might want to grab my clothes if you don’t want me prancing around naked. And try to keep up,” he warned Rainn as he kicked off his boots, then shed his garments before he released a burst of magic to shift i
nto his animal form.
He could not only move faster as a wolf, but he wasn’t bothered by silly things like regret or duplicity or even anticipation. There was nothing but the spongy ground beneath his feet, the salty wind that was blowing from the ocean, and the distant smell of home.
Angling toward the cliffs that dropped dramatically to the rocky shoreline below, he tried to ignore the female who easily kept pace beside him. Something that was next to impossible considering her soft, misty scent that teased at his senses.
Dangerously distracted, Ulric barely noticed the fog that was rolling in around them. Or the strange way the ground had gone from soggy to crumbly. As if it was disintegrating beneath the weight of his body.
It was the silence that at last had him slowing his pace. His homeland had always been isolated. That was one of the reasons his father chose this particular spot. But it hadn’t been desolate.
Unnerved by the howling emptiness, Ulric changed back to his human form.
“Shit,” he breathed, revulsion crawling over his skin as his gaze skimmed the tumble of stones that used to be sturdy buildings.
Rainn moved to stand next to him, handing him his clothing. “Where are we?”
“My home.” Ulric quickly dressed, anxious to have something covering his bare skin. It wasn’t modesty. He was a werewolf. Being naked was more natural than being clothed. But he didn’t want the nasty air brushing against him. “Or what used to be my home.”
Glancing over the pockmarked ground that was a sickly gray color, she looked like she wanted to back away from the decaying village.
“I assume it didn’t look like this when you were here?”
“No.” His gut twisted. He wanted to throw up, but he refused to allow himself to mourn the destruction of his childhood. Not now. “Damned humans. They ruin everything,” he rasped.
Rainn sent him a startled glance. “The destruction wasn’t caused by humans.”
“How do you know?” Ulric demanded, not hiding his suspicion.
Granted, he’d expected the place to be in disrepair, but it looked like it’d been coated in nuclear waste. What else could cause a corruption that’d spread deep into the earth?
“The wind speaks of evil,” she whispered.
“The wind?”
“Open your senses,” she commanded.
Ulric growled in frustration. He was a wolf. His senses were always in hyperdrive. Then, a breeze rippled past him, brushing over his skin like a spider web. “Magic.”
She grimaced. “Evil.”
“Yes,” he agreed, sniffing the air. It was oddly stagnated. As if it’d been trapped in the fog for centuries. “I can’t determine a species.”
“Neither can I.” With a visible effort, Rainn forced herself to move forward, her expression distracted, as if she was using her powers to search the area. “Which should be impossible.”
He followed, instinctively needing to protect her from the thick pulse of danger in the air. Immediately he was angry at himself.
“And people claim that I’m arrogant,” he muttered.
“You are,” she assured him, brushing her fingers through the fog. She released her breath on a low hiss, recoiling from the thick mist. “But mine isn’t arrogance. You can conceal footprints or use magic to mute your scent, but you can’t disguise your movement through the air around you.”
Was she joking? Ulric stared at her in genuine amazement. “You can tell everyone who has been here?”
She shook her head. “Not if they were just passing through. But I can tell if they had a lair here. Or if they used magic,” she explained.
Ulric tried not to look impressed. He was supposed to be sulking, not admiring her skills.
He gestured toward the fog. “Can you sense anything?”
“It’s not precisely fey.” She paused, then released a grunt of frustration. “The only thing I know for sure is that it’s old. Really, really old.”
Ulric nodded, not pressing her for information she couldn’t give him. At some point he intended to discover who or what was destroying the land his father had loved, but for now he was more interested in finding Brigette.
Unfortunately, the fog was muting his senses.
With a rare caution, Ulric inched his way over the brittle ground. It crunched like honeycomb beneath each step and he had a horrifying fear it might suddenly collapse. He didn’t want to know what was lurking underneath the bleak wasteland.
At last reaching the center of the decimated village, he squatted down to brush the dirt away from a stone foundation.
“Ulric?” Rainn crouched down beside him.
Ulric breathed in deeply, welcoming her soft, misty scent as it wrapped around him. It somehow managed to combat the creepy smog that shrouded the area.
“This was our cottage,” he told her, his voice thick with an ancient pain.
“Your parents?” She touched the foundation, her eyes closing as she concentrated on the stone beneath her fingertips. “Yes,” she at last breathed. “Along with your sisters.” She paused before she released a low moan. “Oh.”
He studied her delicate profile, unable to squash his flare of concern. “What’s wrong?”
“I can feel the pain. The sadness. It’s imprinted in the stone.” She slowly opened her eyes, sending him a puzzled glance. “Why are you so faint?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your essence isn’t as strong as the others,” she clarified.
Ulric flinched. Her words had touched a nerve he’d tried to forget over the past five hundred years. After all, it was bad enough to have his pack slaughtered while he was hauled off to the slave pits of the Anasso. But to accept that he had wasted precious time with his family because of his stupid pride…well, that hurt more than everything else combined.
“I spent several years in London,” he said, his voice rough.
She arched her brows. “A werewolf in London?”
A wry smile curved his lips at her deliberate attempt to lighten his mood.
“Something like that. My father…” His smile faded as the words caught in his throat.
“Go on,” she urged.
He glanced around, his regret combined with a near unbearable sadness.
“My father chose this location for his clan because it was isolated. Peaceful.” He shook his head. “He was a scholar, not a warrior.”
“While you were a warrior, not a scholar?”
“Exactly. I became restless,” he said, remembering the nights he’d run over the distant dells to release his pent-up energy. He was a young male who wanted a thrilling adventure. He dreamed of bloody battles and claiming his place as leader of his own pack. Or perhaps fighting the vampires who were spreading across Europe. Now, he felt an aching sense of loss for the beautiful homeland that was forever destroyed. “I didn’t appreciate what my father had created.”
He felt something brush his shoulder. Her fingers? Or a breeze she created with her magic? Either way, it was a comforting gesture that allowed him to gather his composure.
“None of us do,” she assured him. “Not until we actually leave home.”
Ulric studied her delicate features, wondering if she missed her family since coming to Vegas. Then, he quickly slammed shut a mental door on his curiosity.
He was still in sulking mode.
Instead, he allowed his thoughts to drift back to his flight from the village after a particularly heated argument with his father.
“I intended to travel back to the Continent to find one of the packs who were vying for dominance. I arrogantly assumed they would welcome me as a soldier, and eventually as their leader,” he admitted. “Instead I stayed in London.”
“A female?”
Was there an edge in her voice? Jealousy? No, that was silly.
He shook his head. “Regret. By the time I reached the city I’d realized that I didn’t want to leave my home or my clan.”
His confession seemed to catch her off guard. “So why didn’t you go home?”
A good question. It’d taken only a few months in London to make him realize the place was a cesspit. The humans happily dumped their filth in every gutter, allowing it to contaminate their surroundings. And worse, the thick coal smoke coated him in black dust each time he stepped out of his cramped rooms in the back of a bakery.
“My pride demanded that I spend at least a few decades fending for myself,” he said with a shrug. “Probably not a bad thing. I learned how to live among the humans. And how to fight without the protection of my pack. Things that helped me to survive.”
“Was there a specific reason you did finally return to this place?”
“My mother tracked me down.” A genuine smile curved his lips. He’d been drinking in a local pub, looking for a fight, when his mother had strolled through the door. She shoved aside the human males who’d tried to grab her as she’d marched toward Ulric and pinched his ear to pull him out of the pub and down the street. He’d nearly cried with relief. He was going home. “She was worried about my father.”
“Was he ill?”
“No, but he’d become obsessed with some scrolls he’d discovered hidden in a burrow,” he said. “She was concerned he was focusing too much on his studies and not enough on his pack.”
“What kind of scrolls?”
Ulric shrugged. “I’m not sure. By the time I arrived he’d sealed the burrow and was back to his old self. Less than a year later we were attacked by the vampires.”
Turning her head, she glanced around the annihilated village. “Did they do this?”
Ulric’s hands clenched. He’d barely realized they were under attack before a large troll had smashed in his head with an iron mace.
“I was knocked unconscious and hauled onto a goblin ship before the battle was over, but even if they had destroyed the village, they don’t have magic that could have lingered for over five hundred years.”
A female voice floated through the fog. “Welcome home, Ulric.”
Conquer the Darkness Page 5