It was so dark here. Wherever here was.
Searching around her on hands and knees, she tried to gain some hold over the situation she found herself in. The ground beneath her was cold and hard, slimy like wet cave rock. She made her way only a few feet, it couldn’t have been any more than that, when she bumped headfirst into a wall. With a curse at the unexpected obstacle she stood and felt her way up the wall, all the while straining to see something, anything, in the impenetrable dark.
The wall veered inward sharply and her hands reached for empty space. It hadn’t been a wall after all, but an enormous boulder or shelf of rock. And even without seeing or feeling her way further, she knew something horrible was waiting just beyond the slab.
Stop. You don’t want to know any of what lies beyond this rock, a stranger’s voice—a husky female voice—warned in her head. In fact you don’t want to hang around here at all. Get out now while you can.
But she couldn’t see to find her way out. It was just too black, with no light to guide her.
Get going and fuck the light. If you don’t leave now, find some way out of here, you’ll never see the light again.
Niki couldn’t waste any more time worrying about the darkness, not after hearing the stark power of warning in that voice ringing through her aching head. With the loss of sight, she had to rely heavily on her other remaining senses. The cold felt like the handle of the cellar door of the house she’d grown up in as a child.
She realized that she was underground.
The smell of the dank was the smell of the Earth gone wet and stagnant and cool. But beneath that smell was the faintest scent of sun-warmed sand, a slight perfume she might never have noticed had she not been concentrating so hard on each detail of her surroundings.
Turning away from the horrifying enigma of the stone boulder, she followed that scent in the hopes that it would carry her away from the grave omen of mortal danger that permeated this place. Despite the darkness, she hurried, feeling a strange crawling sensation at the base of her neck, as if something terrible were dogging her every step.
For a chilling moment she feared that if she looked behind her now, she would be able to see all too clearly that which had been invisible but scant moments ago.
Niki experienced a monstrous, overwhelming fear unlike any other she’d ever felt before…and despite the blinding dark, she began to run as fast as her shaking legs could carry her.
* * * * *
“The plane stalled in midair and crashed in a field in Kansas.”
“How would you know all this, Desondra?” Cinder asked his aunt, not a small amount of suspicion lacing his tone.
Desondra swiftly darted her golden eyes in Tryton’s direction.
“That is one of the many things I must discuss with you upon our return,” he told the group.
Desondra’s dusky bronze skin paled alarmingly.
Cady noticed this but ignored it, for she already knew Desondra’s secret—as did the other women in the room. Instead, she zeroed in on what Tryton had just said.
“What do you mean ‘upon our return’? Our return from where? What’s the point in us leaving for Seattle when the woman is already dead?”
“She isn’t dead,” Steffy interjected.
All eyes turned to her.
Steffy’s face was as silvery pale as the blonde roots that peeked out beneath her short, spiky purple hair. “The Daemons took her. That’s why the plane crashed, that’s why we have to go—we have to find her.”
“But go where?” Cady growled, impatient as always to have all the facts laid out as soon as possible. She hated not knowing what they might be in for, damn Tryton and his enigmatic ways. Damn Steffy for being precognitive and just as secretive about it. And damn Sid for being so calm in all of this chaos. She almost swatted his rump in her frustration.
Steffy took a deep breath, then released it, sounding just as frustrated as Cady. “I don’t know.”
“Yes you do,” Tryton said calmly. “You just need to concentrate. Think of where we might find this Niki Akitoye. If there is any one among us who can lead us to her, it is you, and we are counting upon it.”
“Raine didn’t tell us she would be taken in midair,” Emily bit out. “Why wouldn’t she have warned us of that?”
“Perhaps she didn’t foresee it. She is but a Shade after all. She is not all powerful,” Tryton suggested.
Grimm’s jaw tightened at the reminder that Raine, however helpful she might be, was still dead. Still an outsider. Still so far out of his and everyone else’s reach.
Steffy ignored all of this and went to sit down in Tryton’s chair before the great, roaring fireplace. There was always a flame, always warmth here. She let it lull her. Let it calm her as she watched the hypnotic dance of the flickering fire light.
Where was Niki Akitoye? Where could they find her? And how could they save her—
“I know where she is,” Steffy said, hearing the wonder in her voice as she realized that she did indeed know exactly where to look for Niki. “Oh my god, it worked.”
Tryton smiled knowingly at her. He’d always been the one with the most faith in her precognitive abilities. She felt a sudden wash of pride that she’d been able to help them in this small way. That she might yet be able to help save the missing woman who was in so much grave danger.
“Where must we go?” Edge spoke at last, ever the most serious one in the group. Always ready to fulfill his duty, whatever, wherever it may be.
“Egypt,” Steffy said with a smile, rising from the chair.
“Egypt!” came the collective gasp from many in the room.
Tryton and Grimm remained conspicuously silent.
“Yes,” Steffy continued. “The Giza complex if you want me to be precise. I think she’ll be crawling out of a hole about a mile west from the Great Sphinx, near a dilapidated parking lot, in but a few short minutes. And we really have to hurry,” she frowned, feeling an altogether new urgency take her. “Something is chasing her.”
Grimm came forth, arms outstretched, and they all gathered around him. Touching him, holding onto some piece of him, ensured that they would all Travel safely with him. An instant trip across the miles and dimensions, safe in the cocoon of Grimm’s enormous power. In but a second they would all be in Egypt, awaiting Niki Akitoye and whatever was rushing after her, ready to fight to the death to protect the strange woman none of them had even met yet.
All because Raine had willed it so.
* * * * *
Niki’s arms and legs pumped in time with her racing heartbeat as she sprinted to get as far away from her unseen pursuer as she could. How long she’d been running was a mystery to her, but her sides and lungs ached with a sharp and blinding fire unlike any pain she’d ever experienced before. It had been a long time, was all she knew for certain.
And still she ran.
She knew without having to see, that whatever gained behind her was not something she wanted to have to face, no matter the cost. She had to escape it. Her life depended upon it.
Bright spots danced before her eyes and she wondered briefly if she might pass out or expire from a heart attack in mid-run.
Bright spots—wait! She could see again! Only barely. But enough to know that somewhere up ahead there was a light. Silvery and faint, it called to her and she followed. Finding some secret store of energy locked deep within her, she ran even faster, ignoring her pain and weakness and fatigue as hope soared within her breast.
Not far now. Yes, she could see it, up ahead. A sliver of moonlight. The scent of warm sand was greater now, and growing stronger with each running step she took. Less than a quarter of a mile up ahead she would find salvation from the darkness.
Her heart nearly stopped beating as the thing behind her let out a great, bellowing roar of rage.
If she’d had enough breath to spare, she would have screamed. This was the first real proof that something was indeed chasing after her. Up until now she might
have been able, later on, to chalk it up to paranoia. But it seemed her instinctive panic had helped to get her moving fast enough to save her life, because whatever was after her, it sounded really pissed that it hadn’t caught her yet.
The roar came again, louder this time, closer.
Niki’s breath whistled in her burning lips, stretching the flesh of her seared lungs like helium rushing into a balloon. She’d heard that sound before, long before now…oh sweet god, how she’d prayed for so long never to hear it again.
It was one of them. One of those ghastly creatures she’d tried so desperately to convince herself were just figments of her overstressed imagination. It was a monster, right out of her past, only this time she knew for certain it was real and not a hallucination.
Damn fate. Damn life. She wished she’d died long before this moment, in ignorance and relative bliss, without this affirmation that these abominable things did indeed exist.
Anger rose in her breast, usurping the primal fear. Fury, the likes of which mortally alarmed her, boiled in her blood. For years she’d been avoiding the burn of rage, the rush of anger or even aggravation. Horrible, terrible things happened when she became angry. People died. Lives changed forever in but the blink of an eye. It was why she was so cautious, so careful in everything she did. She must never lose control.
But maybe this time, of all times, her anger would serve her far better than her caution.
God, she hoped she wouldn’t have to put it to the test. Impossibly she strained to run faster, ever faster, towards the sliver of pale light just up ahead.
When at last she reached the source of the illumination, she almost screamed in sudden frustration. The beacon of light was small—too small—peering through but a small hole in the ceiling of the strange, earthen tunnel. But she couldn’t give up, couldn’t let this setback deter her, for surely the monster at her heels was but seconds away from snatching her up in its clawing grasp.
She had to get out. Now.
Niki could just fit her hand through a crack in the stone. With a jerk and a grunt, she pulled at that opening, and a rain of dust and earth showered upon her. The hole was wider now and her hopes soared. Desperately, she punched at it and more earth fell away. A waterfall of sand followed, coating her from head to feet, smelling like the salvation of open air and warmth. Her laugh of triumph sounded mad even in her own ears.
Another roar, this one almost on top of her now, and she gritted her teeth for one last desperate attempt to widen the hole just enough for her to climb through and escape to freedom beyond it. She struck at the opening, jerked and pulled at the overhead crevasse in growing panic and frustration. Rocks and sand and debris stung her hands until they bled and throbbed and swelled.
And finally, at last, a massive chunk of cement or stone or something really heavy, fell down at her feet—barely missing her head, though at the moment she wasn’t sure if that was a lucky thing or not, considering her pursuer was so close she could smell its fetid stench. Bright, silvery moonlight streamed in, bathing her in a halo of illumination. She giggled, though it sounded more like a growl, and scrambled to climb her way up and out.
When she was free, she collapsed on her side upon the sandy ground, shaking. The warmth of fresh air had never felt or tasted so deliciously sweet.
“Get up, Niki, you’re not out of the woods yet,” she warned herself unsteadily, testing her voice around giant gulps of air.
But her body was so tired. Running full out again seemed beyond her now.
With what last little strength she possessed, she crawled to her hands and knees, scurrying away from the hole behind her, uncaring what direction she headed in—so long as it was away from that thing following her.
Niki had made it no more than a few dozen feet when the ground exploded upward behind her and she knew, at last, after all the struggle and pain, she was well and truly caught.
The past five years had all been spent in solitude and in caution for nothing.
Chapter Four
Tryton looked around the moment the world rematerialized again. Indeed they were in Egypt, a place he’d never thought to visit again. It held far too many painful memories for him…
But everything, it seemed, was coming full circle at last. Millennia after millennia had passed over the world, but still there was no escaping fate, not even after such a vast stretch of eons. Not for humans, not for Shikars. And especially, certainly, not for him. A full reckoning was due and had been for a very long time. And perhaps, after all, he had not yet paid his debt in full.
A shudder quaked the earth, drawing his eyes to the source of the disturbance.
A Daemon ruptured a chasm in the ground, its body erupting from it like a wash of pure evil. The creature, at first glance, was one not so different from any Tryton had seen in the past, but another look showed that perhaps in small ways it was. This one seemed more humanoid than any other he’d previously encountered. Its skin was still bubbly, slimy and scaly at the same time, black and brown like sewer sludge and undoubtedly smelling just as foul. Its teeth were tusks in its mouth, but the face still held the lips, the nose and the forehead of a human. It possessed anatomically correct arms and legs, fingers and toes…it was a grotesque caricature of a Homo erectus. Not quite yet a Homo sapiens, though, thank all the gods that ever were.
Lord Daemon had grown so powerful that he was finally drawing closer to the secret of golem resurrection, it seemed. It was only a matter of time now…and time, unfortunately, was something the Lord of the Horde had in spades.
Just as Tryton did.
Indeed, all the secrets Tryton had kept over the years were way overdue in sharing with his team.
Damn it. He hadn’t wanted things to be this way.
Desperate to gain some focal point in the chaos, he roved his eyes over the destruction of the ground, the angry Daemon, and the surrounding area, looking for the woman. Looking for Niki Akitoye.
What he saw stole his breath away, but for entirely unexpected reasons, ones that he would never have guessed if given the chance, which he wasn’t.
Niki Akitoye was a goddess from the past, a woman unlike any he’d seen since the dawn of the golden age of Egypt. A creation of such perfection that she could, and no doubt did, make the heavens weep with envy.
His heart sped up, racing madly in his chest in a way he’d never before experienced in all his endless years.
He was frozen in place. For the first time he knew what it was like to be paralyzed by emotion. And by all the power of all the worlds combined, he craved more of these feelings.
But first, he must save the goddess from the beast that stalked her.
All of this had happened within a few short seconds, but to him it had seemed an eternity. If time could stop, he would have sworn it did for him with his first glimpse of Niki Akitoye. Even sprawled on the ground, crawling crablike away from her attacker, all her dark chocolate skin scraped, bruised and exposed by her cutoff jean shorts and sleeveless top, she was the most glorious thing he’d even laid eyes on.
The Daemon roared as it prepared to launch itself at its prey.
Tryton’s team of warriors moved as one to intercept the monster’s charge.
Tryton raised his hands, drawing desperately upon his full power to call the water from the beast and turn its form to dust in its tracks.
But something happened. And none of the all-powerful could do anything to stop it.
Niki roared back suddenly, stunning them all into motionless silence. She gained her feet in a neat little somersaulting move and faced her attacker. An intense wave of heat that had nothing to do with the desert air—for it was night and cool as the desert could get—washed over them all.
Power, pure and exquisite, invaded Tryton’s pores, but it was not his own. His senses expanded and he knew—he felt—that his comrades in arms felt exactly the same wash of supernatural force as he did. His cock hardened. His heart swelled full to bursting. And on the wind he smel
led the warm musk of jasmine and vanilla. Such a delicious perfume, it made him want the woman with a crazed lust that nearly drove him mad.
A jealous, burning, possessive rage made him wonder if the others—especially the men—felt this intense lust. He wouldn’t have it. He would not allow it. Niki was not for them. This lust was to be his and his alone or he’d kill every last man who looked at her, no matter the cost to his soul or honor.
The power flooded him again, taking away all rational—and irrational—thought.
It was coming from Niki, this magic. The tidal wave of energy, fed and fueled by her rage and overwhelming emotion, had turned them all to stone, unable to move, it seemed.
The Daemon dropped to the ground, mewling and screaming. It bucked in pain. Twitched a few times. And then went still.
“No fucking way,” Cady whispered in shock.
“Scheiße,” Steffy echoed.
“What the hell just happened?” both Edge and Cinder growled in unison.
“How did she do that?” Emily asked dazedly.
“I don’t know,” Obsidian’s deep voice sounded calmer than the others, but only just. “But I intend to find out.”
Grimm, it seemed, was content as ever to hold his own council.
Tryton was beyond words. He’d never seen anything like this, never felt anything like the overwhelming flow of strength and magic that had lashed out from the woman like a tidal wave. It was incredible, it was shocking.
He wanted to feel it again.
With long, determined strides, he approached the woman, who stood still as a soapstone carving, eyes wide with a storm of emotions he couldn’t read or understand. He didn’t know exactly what he planned to do, didn’t know if he would scare her or if she would merely throw her incredible power out to him in an effort to protect herself, and he didn’t care. All he knew was that he had to be near her. Had to touch her. Had to feel the warmth and softness of her tender human skin, and know that she was real and not fantasy.
She didn’t seem to notice him—though her eyes remained wide, they were unseeing, shocked. He caught her up in his arms, holding her so tight he knew he would leave faint bruises upon her flesh. Her scent, her sensual, earthy perfume of jasmine and vanilla, drowned his senses. He fisted a hand in her long, riotous black curls and made her look at him.
Lord of the Deep Page 3