“Bring our meal to the chamber,” Lachlan ordered one of the talem who carried a tray of bacon and other meats. Just because I’d fed tonight didn’t mean I’d eaten.
“Yes, sir.”
I strode from the hall, pushing open the French doors leading to the wide courtyard that separated the Domum—the formal, official rooms of the estate—from the residence, where I lived and trained with my warriors.
“Tell me that wasn’t what I think it was,” Benedict said once the doors were firmly shut behind us, inching his way forward to walk in front, his eyes scanning the courtyard for any possible enemy.
“The lass inked herself with your seal, Alek.” Lachlan’s stride matched my own, just as it always did when we were anywhere outdoors. “At least, I’m assuming she did the inking herself.” His eyebrows rose in question.
“If I’d mated, you’d know,” I growled. The whole fucking immortal world would know if I’d found the one female fated for me. After over four-hundred years of wondering if she’d show up, I’d made my peace with the possibility that she never would, that fate was an unforgiving bitch when it came to the losses our species had suffered during my reign.
Not that I’d condemn any female to the torture of living at my side.
“She’s getting bolder,” Ransom noted with a whistle as we approached the steel door to the residence. The Domum may be every inch a palace, but the residence was a fortress by my father’s design. I’d simply kept the security updated with modern technology.
“She’s a pain in my ass,” I snapped as the door opened before us.
“My king, Hawthorne awaits you in the chamber, as well as your meal,” Serge announced with a bow of his head.
“Weren’t you just in the foyer?” Ransom asked as we swept by.
“I was told you were headed this way,” he answered with a slight curve to his lips.
“Fast fucker,” Ransom muttered.
Speed was the only gift given to the talem, and Serge had become a master of it.
We passed through the entry, and my senses told me there was no one upstairs. Good. Only invited guests and the four warriors I kept on my council were allowed unescorted entrance here.
“Do we really have to put up with all the nobles for a week?” Lachlan asked as we made our way to the back of the house, passing my office, the dining room, the sitting room, a commercial-sized kitchen, and the den, which Hawke had outfitted with an eighty-five-inch television and surround sound. He said it was for watching football.
Personally, I thought he liked to hear the bones break.
“It’s tradition,” Benedict said over his shoulder as he descended the stone staircase first, his hand on his hip holster. I didn’t bother telling him that Hawke was the only other male in this house—it was good for him to be on alert.
Complacency was our number one enemy.
Complacency had killed my parents.
“Don’t tell me you aren’t enjoying having those sweet, doe-eyed things warm your bed,” Ransom shot from behind us.
“I have no problem taking a lass to her bed. I’ll be damned if one sets toe in mine. You let a woman sleep in your bed, and you may as well unpack her suitcase into your closet,” Lachlan said as we reached the riveted steel door at the bottom of the staircase.
My senses stretched along the tunnels that ran in both directions and found them empty. Given the party, our soldiers weren’t training in the compound as usual, giving us a moment of relative quiet.
Benedict placed his palm on the biometric scanner, and a dozen steel bolts unlocked before the heavy door opened.
“It’s about fucking time,” Hawke snarled.
“There’s a party going on if you hadn’t noticed,” Benedict countered as we entered the chamber.
The space was cavernous, large enough to fit at least fifty warriors, but tailored only to the five of us. A black, onyx table rested in the center space, accompanied by five heavy chairs. A wall of monitors consumed the right-hand wall, with a few other notable computer stations spaced out along the back. To the left was a well-equipped kitchen, stocked with enough food and blood to last the five of us an unpleasant year in case of emergencies. A bathroom lay beyond that, and in the corner was a collection of couches and bookshelves with a television to keep us occupied if we ever needed that year.
My parents hadn’t made it to the safety of this room two hundred years ago.
“So the fuck what?” Hawk fired back at Benedict from where he sat sprawled at the table in one of the massive chairs, flipping one of his daggers end-over-end.
The door shut behind us, and we each took a seat at the table. It wasn’t round. I wasn’t King Arthur. Fuck that. I was in charge, and everyone in this room knew it.
“Has the wolf been dealt with?” I asked Hawke.
“Justice has been served,” he confirmed with a wicked grin and dead eyes. For the rest of us, dispensing the justice of the immortal world was a sworn, sacred duty. For Hawke…well, he got off on it.
“I’ll let Luka know.” The king of the Lycans had agreed with my judgment against his subject, which definitely took the awkwardness out of the impending call.
Death was the penalty for any crime against a female or a child. Period. There was no excuse for the abuse of the fairer sex, and children were far too precious—too rare to ever suffer.
“That leaves the demon issue for tonight if you want this month’s sentences carried out before Aviana gets home tomorrow, and you have a request from the Witch Queen for a private audience,” Benedict said, filling the monitors with the faces of the lower-level demons who had been sentenced to torture for slander against their king.
“Xavier can handle his own. We’re the assassins of the immortal world, not the bounty hunters. Lachlan, check in with him tonight and make sure he’s in control of the situation.” I leaned back in my chair. “What the fuck does Genevieve want with a private audience? Any business she has can be discussed at the monthly conclave, like always.”
“So that’s a no?” Benedict asked, raising his eyebrows.
“That’s a fuck no. Granting private audiences is what leads to everything going to shit. We’ve worked too hard to keep the covenant to let it crumble now.” Keeping all five species, humans, lycans, witches, demons, and vampires, living in relative peace took a delicate balance of secrecy and transparency within the conclave. It made human politics look like child’s play.
“Okay, then I think all we have is the security detail for Aviana’s arrival tomorrow,” Lachlan said, leaning forward to brace his forearms on the table at my right.
I slid my phone free of my back pocket with a smile and called my little sister. “I’ll just make sure she’s on track,” I said to the group while it rang.
It…rang.
It didn’t beep like it always had, signaling that my sweet, beautiful, kind, honest sister wasn’t overseas, tucked away with our aunt like she was supposed to be until tomorrow night.
“Alek?” She answered breathlessly.
“Where the hell are you?” I snapped.
“Oh, Alek, don’t be mad!” She gave me a little sigh, and I could almost see her soft, pleading little smile. “I just wanted to see what it was like here, you know? I mean, you talk about it all the time, and I knew as soon as you showed up with your armored car and band of merry men—”
“I’m not Robin Hood, and that armored car is for your safety!” I shouted. “Tell me where you are, Aviana. Right now.” I focused on the sounds coming through the phone. Birds. Crickets. Humans speaking English. My heart pounded, and my stomach churned at the danger she was in. The borough lines were clearly drawn, and if she’d stumbled into another territory, I couldn’t guarantee her safety unless she was wearing a Alek is my brother so don’t fuck with me t-shirt.
“I’m in the park father mentioned in his journals. Briarwood. The one across from the—”
“Slatemark Opera House,” I growled. “Damn it, Avi, you’re in
demon territory.” I shoved back from the table and stood, my men instantly following.
“I’ll get the car.” Benedict didn’t wait for me to approve, he ran, disappearing from sight before the door had so much as closed. Every man in this room was tasked with protecting the royal family. They knew the multitude of powers in my blood. They also knew that Avi didn’t possess any beyond her considerable beauty and typical compulsion.
She couldn’t even wend—couldn’t shift herself through space.
“I’m on my way. Stay exactly where you are.” I pointed at Lachlan and Ransom, who both nodded. Hawke would only scare the shit out of Aviana, so that introduction would have to wait. Besides, there was no one better to leave behind to protect the compound.
“You’re overreacting, Alek. I’m fine! We’re just enjoying some of this delicious blue fluff the man with the cart sold us—”
“Us?” Cotton candy cart. I knew exactly where she was.
“I have Olivia, of course. I’m not completely naïve.”
She had her bodyguard. At least there was that.
“Just stay there.” I looked to Hawke. “Call Xavier now. Tell him if a demon puts a finger on my sister, I’ll—”
“You’re being ridiculous, but I’ll wait right here, as ordered.” She muttered, “jackass,” before the line went dead.
“Fuck!” I shoved the phone in my back pocket, then reached under my leather jacket and unholstered my Glock as I looked at Lachlan and Ransom. “We go now.”
I focused on the trees just behind the cotton candy cart in Briarwood Park and wended. My skin embraced the ice of the between in the seconds it took to shift places, and then the scent of sticky sugar and a hundred subtle variations of human blood filled my nose.
The park was in the center of Edgemont City, and of the three million humans that lived here, there were less than a few hundred that knew of our existence, all of whom were compelled to keep their mouths shut.
I took a deep breath, sorting through the scents in an instant. Citrus, iron, cannabis, and apples. Vanilla and cinnamon hit me especially hard. My fangs descended despite having fed only a few hours ago. I pushed past that tantalizing warmth I knew had to be a human and caught the light hint of freesia that was Aviana.
“There.” I started down the path at a normal walking pace. The covenant’s first commandment was to never expose the world of immortals that dwelled alongside the humans. Besides, it would have taken precious time to compel any human to forget they’d seen us if we did anything that brought undue attention.
“Son of a bitch.” There was a demon just ahead, headed in the same direction as Avi’s scent, passing an oblivious human jogger.
I wasn’t surprised the jogger looked unbothered by the set of horns that had just blown by. Demons wore permanent glamours. They were invisible to the human eye.
My pulse galloped at the thought of Avi in demon hands, and I increased my pace. We came around the corner of the curved path to see the blue-horned demon shove a human woman out of his path, revealing a dagger in the moonlight.
My heart fucking stopped as if the scent of vanilla and cinnamon was a physical fist around the blood-pumping organ. The blond hit the pavement with a sharp cry, a stack of books skittering around her.
Aviana was only a hundred feet away, just beyond the next curve. I could smell her from here, and yet I was powerless against the overwhelming, unbreakable urge to make sure the demon hadn’t killed the human. The clean-up is a pain in the ass.
I didn’t have time to stop, and in the seconds it took to reach her, I battled the primal, base instinct that called me to the human…and I lost.
I fucking lost.
“Go,” I ordered Ransom and Lachlan, pointing to the path ahead.
They didn’t question me—they valued their lives more than that. Lachlan would grumble at me privately, but never in front of anyone else.
I stopped suddenly in front of the human woman, dropping to my haunches and running my gaze over her frame in less time than it took my heart to beat. The scent of her blood made my mouth water, and I gritted my teeth against the craving. Ordering my fangs and my cock to stand down. Damn, I hadn’t even seen the woman yet, and I was hard—she smelled that good.
“Asshole,” she shouted down the path where the demon had run.
Obviously, it wasn’t a death blow.
“Are you okay?” I growled, annoyed as fuck at myself for checking on a human when my sister was in danger.
She shoved her mass of blond hair out of her face and looked up at me with widening green eyes.
Fucking beautiful. I took in a breath reflexively, then wished I hadn’t, because all I could smell was her.
Oh shit, I was fixating, which was as good as draining the woman right here. A fixated vampire hunted his prey no matter the consequences. The craving was too strong to deny, it would drive us mad.
Fixation, that’s all this was…right? Her blood was calling to me.
“I’m fine,” she said, her gaze flickering down the path again. “He barely got my forearm. But that asshole was chasing two other girls.”
Aviana.
I blinked, trying to free myself of the fixation, the craving, but I didn’t lunge or pounce on her as fixated vampires did. Instead, I took her wrist, testing her pulse. Quick, but strong, and given the change in her scent, flooded with adrenaline. Fuck, her skin was warm and soft. Perfect in every way.
Gravity shifted.
My chest tightened like a fucking vise.
Electricity coursed through my veins.
Every cell in my body screamed one word—mine.
Wait. What the actual fuck?
“See? It’s not bad.” She lifted her arm, showing me the cut, and I bit back a growl. That demon had sliced into her delicate skin and—what if it was laced with poison?
A scream pierced the silence, and we both snapped our heads toward the sound.
Aviana. My heart lurched, worry quickly replaced with icy rage.
“Get out of the park,” I ordered the human. “It’s not safe.” My sister’s cry must have broken the fixation because my body was my own to command again.
“He was wearing a black hoodie and a Halloween mask with blue horns!” She called after me.
I sprinted faster than I should have and turned the corner in time to see four demons— including the one who’d attacked the human woman—advancing on my sister and her bodyguard.
Lachlan shot the first.
Ransom took out the second.
The remaining two stared at me with horror, but not surprise. They knew exactly who Aviana was.
That one. He’d taken a knife to her like she was nothing. I saw red, disappeared and wended, materializing in front of the blue-horned demon. “You attacked what is mine, and the sentence is death.” I wrapped hands around his neck and twisted, breaking his spine. “Justice served.”
The last demon wended, leaving the three bodies behind.
I was going to fucking kill Xavier for this.
“Alek!” Avi cried, her slim figure racing toward me.
“Avi.” I swept her into my arms and clutched her to my chest, cradling the back of her head. I’d lecture this one later. Right now, I just wanted to feel her breathing.
Guilt was heavy and sour in my mouth. How the fuck had I let myself get distracted with that human while Avi was in danger? I’d almost let my parents down. Let our entire species down. The loss of one female was tragic, but the loss of the princess? Unforgivable.
“Are you okay?” I asked her, cupping her cheeks and looking into her eyes. They were pale blue, just like mine. Just like our mother’s.
“I’m fine, I promise.” She gave me a shaky smile.
“Benedict is almost here with the car,” Lachlan told me quietly as Ransom argued with Avi’s bodyguard about the safety of the park.
“We need to get out of here before someone reports the gunshot,” I told Avi. Humans were a nuisance, not that they’
d even seen the demons—
The breath froze in my lungs.
She had. Cinnamon and vanilla. Blond. Green eyes. Impossible. But she’d seen him. Even told me what he’d looked like.
A human had seen the demon.
I took a deep breath.
“Fuck.” The distance of her scent told me she was long gone.
But I also knew I’d be able to track that scent anywhere in this city.
And I would.
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About the Author
Samantha Whiskey is a wife, mom, lover of her dogs and romance novels. No stranger to hockey, hot alpha males, and a high dose of awkwardness, she tucks herself away to write books her PTA will never know about.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my incredible husband and my awesome kids without which I would live a super boring life!
Huge thanks must be paid to all the amazing authors who have always offered epic advice and constant support! Not to mention creating insanely hot reads to pass the time with!
Big shout out to A.H. for making this shine. And thank you to each and every single one of you AMAZING readers who love the these books as much as I do!
Hendrix: A Raleigh Raptor Novel Page 20