by Ford, Lizzy
“Darian!”
The Grey God rose, a guilty look crossing his features. Dusty eyed him, waiting. Darian swiped his towel from another machine and approached.
“I’m sorry. I know you said no,” Darian grated.
“Then why’d you do it?” Dusty asked.
“I didn’t want the cat to stay all alone at your condo. It’s not fair. She’s in my room. I won’t let her out, so she won’t bother you.”
Dusty almost rolled his eyes. He was expecting worse than a cat in Darian’s room. It was the least of Darian’s many offenses.
“We’ll deal with that later,” he said. “Go get ready. I want you to start learning what it means to be in charge of something.”
“Really? Oh my God!” Darian darted towards the house. Dusty sighed, unable to reconcile the Grey God, the man who had been Darian, and the man running gleefully into the house as being one and the same. He hoped, no he prayed, Darian regained himself someday soon.
His gaze strayed towards the barracks, where he’d left Bianca. Regret sat in his stomach. He’d done the right thing. Rather, he’d done the decent thing and spared her further heartache. Yet he couldn’t shake the memory of her body against his, the way she’d looked at him last night. No woman had gotten through his guard ever.
And then he thought of how he’d felt when he thought the vamps took her from his condo. Cold fury replaced the regret, and he knew he’d do anything to keep her from danger. The safest place she could be was with him, and he’d nearly gotten her killed by lowering his guard.
There was a reason he’d severed his connection to his emotions all those years ago. He didn’t need the distraction, but Gods, he wanted her in a way he’d never wanted anyone else! The safest thing for both of them was for him to keep his distance and remain objective. After all, he didn’t think he’d survive the weekend.
He returned to the house to await Darian, not surprised to see Bianca’s black and white cat darting down the stairs. It slinked down the hall and slid into the narrow space of the cracked door of the library.
He almost preferred the idea of death at Czerno’s hands to the mayhem his wards caused. Reminded he didn’t give Bianca the rules he gave Darian and Sofi, he retrieved his phone.
Rules of the house: 1- u don’t leave w/o permission & escort; 2- obey Toni & the other Guardians when I’m out; 3- assume I’ll find out, no matter what u do; 4- ask b4 u do anything or don’t do it.
She grimaced as she reread the text, torn between amusement and disappointment. Darian was right about Dusty being a dictator. His scent still lingered on her skin, even though she’d taken a shower earlier. He’d wanted her, but he kept his distance. His rules made it clear she was just another of his duties.
She didn’t expect it to bother her as much as it did. Maybe that was why she couldn’t stop making cookies.
“Look, sis!”
She shoved the phone in her pocket and forced herself to smile as she faced Jonny, who’d been in training since shortly after she awoke. His face was excited as he held out the contents of his hands.
“A gun?” she gasped. “They gave you a gun?”
“Isn’t it awesome?”
“Jonny, you shouldn’t have a gun! You’re only twenty!”
“Old enough to buy a prostitute in Vegas, old enough to own a gun,” one of the Guardians she recognized as Toni replied as he grabbed a handful of cookies from the counter.
“He’s not getting a prostitute, either!” she replied. “Toni, I don’t think he should have a gun!”
“Overruled.”
“Are you going to teach him to use it?”
“Yep,” Toni said.
Jonny was grinning. “It’s not loaded, sis.”
“Yes, it is,” Toni said, glancing at him. “Why would you carry a gun that’s not loaded?”
“Oh my God. This is a nightmare waiting to happen,” she said with a sigh and a hot glare at Toni.
“We all carry,” Toni said. “You want one?”
“Of course not,” she replied and crossed her arms. “I really don’t approve of this.”
“I’m a man, now, B,” Jonny argued. “I’m old enough, and I’m going to protect you from bad guys.”
Toni gave him an amused look. She couldn’t bear the thought of him returning to the troubled teen he’d been and tried to think of something to say to straddle the line between mothering him and letting him be his own person.
“Man or not, I still worry about you,” she returned. “And I’ll be the first person to yell at you if you do something stupid.”
“No, B, Dusty will kick my ass first,” Jonny said, a haunted look crossing his face.
“You got that right,” Toni agreed.
She didn’t doubt it and felt somewhat satisfied her brother at least knew there would be consequences to any stupidity. Jonny wouldn’t listen to his nagging sister, but he’d darned well listen to a man as terrifying as Dusty could be.
“Can I see your phone?” Toni asked, breaking their tense silence.
She handed it to him.
“Not one of ours,” he said, examining it. “I’m gonna put a tag in it. Where’d you get it?”
“A friend,” she replied. She watched as he pulled a small pouch from his pocket and unzipped it.
“What friend?”
“None of your business.”
“As long as it’s not tagged by anyone else, I don’t give a shit,” he said with a faint smile and took the battery out. “Looks clean.”
He messed with it for a few minutes then reassembled it and placed it on the table. Jonny took it before she could and looked through her addresses.
“Watcher?” he asked. “Who’s that?”
She snatched it from him and tucked it in her pocket.
“Is this code? Are you seeing someone?” Jonny demanded.
“Better not be,” Toni seconded.
“I don’t think not dating was one of my rules,” she retorted.
“Oh, it is,” Toni replied with a wink. “Boss put you on the top three to evac when shit hits the fan. It’s not because of your cookies.”
She shook her head, not sure what to think of his words.
“Anyway, I’m going to practice shooting things,” Jonny said, rolling his eyes at the look Toni gave her. He grabbed a handful of cookies and left.
The oven timer buzzed, and she turned away from Toni, not wanting to deal with him any longer. He left, and she gazed at the plates full of cookies around the kitchen.
She didn’t know what else to do. She felt wired, her emotions in turmoil. Darian was gone, Jonny distracted by his newfound gun, and she in need of a friend. She flipped through her address book, gaze settling on the Watcher’s name. He seemed the most approachable of everyone she’d met.
She hesitated then texted him. Do you want to come by for tea and cookies?
I do indeed!
She smiled at his reply, relieved, then texted Dusty.
I’ll leave dinner in the oven. Have a good afternoon.
Chapter Eight
“Kinda looks like Armageddon.” Jenn’s voice was quiet in Dusty’s ear.
“Yeah,” he replied, peering again through the binoculars. He lay under bushes on a hill overlooking the resort area of the clubhouse with another Guardian. It was teeming with vamps, and he’d set up several Guardians around the country club to conduct surveillance on the vamps’ activities.
“We can put the explosives around the perimeter,” another Guardian to his left said.
“They were seen stringing up motion sensors earlier. I’m expecting a report on their security later,” Jenn replied. “I’ll forward to you, Jimmy.”
“How many we got so far?” Dusty asked.
“We tracked three hundred that flew into Miami or Orlando. No way of tracking how many drove. Talon booked up all the surrounding hotels. He’s got space for almost nine hundred. I think that’s an optimistic count on our part.”
“Tw
o surveillance teams in place,” Jimmy added. “We’re tagging everyone we can. Talon’s a no-show though.”
“To preempt or wait,” Jenn murmured.
“Set up something for tomorrow night,” Dusty replied. “We’ll start by taking out what’s here and the warehouse where he’s storing weapons. Precision strikes, Jimmy, none of that messy shit.”
“Messy shit later, boss?”
“Yeah. I’d like nothing more than to round them all up into a stadium and wipe ’em clean. Toni, you gettin’ all this?” Dusty asked. He positioned the earpiece of his communication headphones better.
“Yeah, boss,” Toni replied.
“Coordinate a plan to evac the humans from the hotels. Jimmy, rig them as well, just in case. I don’t intend to take any prisoners. Jenn, I need to know where Czerno is staying, what his plans are.”
“I’ve got a partial on that one,” she replied. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Send me coords.”
“Don’t have to. He’s in your condo building. Got there a few hours ago.”
“Fuck,” he breathed. “He knows I won’t take the building down with all the humans.”
“I got a plan for you,” Jimmy said with a smoky laugh.
“Jim, Toni, meet me at HQ. Darian, with me.” Dusty closed his eyes to Travel and opened them, arriving to his favorite room in HQ, the war room. Three walls were covered with digital maps, the fourth with a blank projection screen. He’d used the excuse of HQ moving to Miami a year before to upgrade everything in the room. It hummed with electronics. Darian’s eyes were huge. He hadn’t said a word most of the day, taking in Dusty’s world with fascination.
“We gonna blow something up?” Darian asked.
“We are,” Dusty replied.
Jimmy appeared, Jenn his ride. Toni trotted down the stairwell leading to the main house. He flipped a switch to display an aerial of the country club on one wall and Dusty’s condo on another.
“Evac and implode the building before dawn,” Dusty said. “I want to make it uncomfortable for our friend here in Miami. It’ll be a good distraction while we rig the country club and other hotels.”
“I can do that,” Jimmy said, a slow smile spreading across his face.
Dusty gazed at his condo building. He never considered anywhere home. Every few years, he had to move anyway; they all did, for security reasons. His condo was as Bianca had said, boring with no color and no character. He was rarely there anyway.
So why did he feel a twinge of loss at the order to send it up in flames? It had something to do with Bianca, with destroying where he’d started with her.
“Dusty, can I go to watch the building explode?” Darian asked.
“We’ll watch it from here,” he replied.
“Jimmy, I’ll schedule the condo for 0530. That gives you three hours. Is that enough?” Toni asked, whipping out his PDA.
“Yeah, good,” Jimmy confirmed.
“Bring in the explosives teams to prep the country club and hotels. As soon as the condo goes up, have them start,” Dusty directed. “Jenn, start intel feeds every thirty minutes starting now. Toni, ready evacs, just in case. I hope to disrupt whatever it is they’ve got planned for tomorrow night. Everything needs to be ready, especially if the hurricane shifts to make landfall.”
“Got it,” Toni said and sat, logging into the computer at the table.
Jimmy jogged out of the basement war room, and Jenn disappeared.
“I’m glad I got the cat,” Darian murmured. “I hope you get him, Dusty.”
His words were hushed. Dusty didn’t have to ask who; he knew Darian’s painful history, thousands of years as a slave to the sadistic Black God. Dusty couldn’t kill him and didn’t expect to. If anyone could, it would be Darian while Damian was away. Dusty’s eyes returned to the image of the country club.
This is where it’ll happen. This is where I die, he thought. He looked at Darian, recalling Sofi’s warning. Once Dusty died, someone had to take care of the girls. Darian was excited and anxious, but the mention of Czerno made his features darken.
“Darian, I wanna give you a new rule,” Dusty said. “No matter what, you will always, always protect your family first. Sofi and Bianca. You understand?”
“I know that one, Dusty.” The Grey God rolled his eyes.
“At all costs. Even your own life. You will not fail them, even if you face Czerno himself.”
Darian looked at him uneasily. “I promise, Dusty. You’ll be here to help me. I won’t face him alone.”
With a sinking feeling, Dusty understood Sofi’s concern better. Darian was scared, unsure. He had no control of his own powers, and he’d not yet been tested in a confrontation with the man who enslaved him. Dusty didn’t know if a few months of Darian having his own mind back were enough to erase thousands of years under the control of another.
He had a feeling the worst was going to happen, and the sense he wouldn’t be the only one who died this weekend if he had to depend on Darian made him feel sick to his stomach.
“Toni, if at any time you feel the girls are in danger, evac the girls and then everyone else,” Dusty said, turning to his XO.
Toni looked up with a frown. “You going somewhere, boss?”
“Not planning on it. Always good to have a backup plan.” He glanced at his watch, suspecting where Bianca would be. “I’ll be back.”
He Traveled to the common area of the newbie barracks, where Bianca lay on her stomach across the couch in front of the TV. Jonny was sprawled on the floor in front of the TV, asleep.
“Hey,” she murmured.
He sat across from her, elbows on his knees, watching her. She wore a T-shirt and shorts that revealed her shapely, soft legs.
“I’m mad at you,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “You shouldn’t have given Jonny a gun.”
“He’s a man now and a Natural,” he replied.
“I don’t like it.”
“It’s who he is.”
She sat up and gazed at him, chewing her lip in a way he knew to be an indication that she was troubled.
“We’ll teach him how to use it,” he assured her, taking in her loose curls and large eyes.
“Something bad’s going to happen, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Why do you say that?”
“Someone told me.”
“Maybe,” he said. “You’re safe, though. The first sign of trouble, you’ll be evac’d.”
“What about you? Are you safe?”
“I fight. It’s what I do. I take a risk every time I go out.”
Her frown deepened. She rose and approached, resting back on her heels in front of him, close enough for him to smell her musk and feel her heat. He touched her automatically, stroking the side of her face and tucking errant curls behind her ear.
“You came to say farewell, just in case,” she assessed.
“Something like that.”
He took her face in his hands and drew her to him, kissing her once again. She leaned into him, and he pulled her against him. The sense of peace and calm at his core returned as her energy flowed through him.
“Stay with me,” he whispered.
She touched his face, then his hair, her cool power soothing him. He wanted to lose himself in her warmth and liveliness on his last night. Something bad was going to happen when he faced Czerno. Without Damian and Jule and with Darian not yet able to take his place as the Grey God, he wasn’t going to walk away from this weekend alive.
She awoke alone. Stretching, she couldn’t ever remember feeling so relaxed or deeply sated. Or sore. She grimaced. She wasn’t surprised to find him gone. Her skin smelled of their lovemaking, her hair and the sheets of him. She recalled the unforgettable night with a deep flush, still feeling his hot mouth and touch branding her body.
She was in one of the main rooms of the mansion. She looked down at the swing of a necklace grazing her chest. It was too short for her to see clearly, and she crossed to
the mirror on the other side of the room.
He’d given her his necklace, as if marking her as his. She fingered it and took in her glowing features. She changed clothes, ravenous. Her phone vibrated as she trotted down the stairs, and she glanced down, smiling to see he’d texted.
Stay inside the gate.
Puzzled, she started to respond when someone rushed down the stairs by her. She recognized the petite blonde, who wrenched open the door and ran.
“Sofi!” Toni bellowed, tearing after her. “Stop, Sofi!”
Stay with Sofi. This text came from the Watcher. Bianca jogged after the two, who raced towards a small crowd at the opened gate of the compound. Her breath caught as she saw Talon leaning against a black car.
The devil was with him.
“Darian!” Sofi cried.
Darian was cowering at the gate-line, his wide shoulders hunched and his frame shaking. Toni snatched Sofi’s arm before she could reach him, then grabbed her as she neared.
“He can’t enter,” he said harshly, angry gaze on the devil. “Dusty’s wards keep him out.”
“They’ll come to me, my friend,” the devil replied with a small smile. “Won’t you, Darian.” The devil’s smile grew as his cold eyes took all of them and settled on Bianca’s necklace.
Bianca shivered and moved closer to Toni.
“I was a bit pissed this morning to have my condo blown out from under me and quite a few of my vamps vaporized,” the devil said, glancing down at clothing displaying signs of burns and plaster. “Thought I’d return the favor.”
“Darian, come here,” Sofi called.
“Stay where you are, Darian,” the devil replied, gazing at the blonde. “It’s been awhile, love. Ready to take your place?”
“You don’t want to do this, Czerno.”
“Between the two of you, I think we’ll have a good time,” he said, gaze returning to Sofi. “Darian, bring me Sofi. Talon, shoot Toni.”
Toni pushed both women behind him, and Darian took a teetering step towards him. Darian’s eyes were glazed and still, his confusion clear. Bianca cried out in surprise as Talon unloaded on Toni. The Guardian staggered, and Darian took Sofi’s arm. Sofi dug her heels into the ground. Bianca grabbed her other arm, instincts screaming.