by Cynthia Eden
“Can’t have that.” A voice that was a thick rumble. “You’re done.”
His gaze craned toward the man who’d attacked him. Only it wasn’t a man. It was a monster—half stone, half winged devil. All nightmare. And it was so strong.
“Done,” his attacker said again as he drove Leo straight down, sending the Lord of the Light crashing beneath the waves of the ocean.
***
“This is the end for you, Keri.” Rose put her hand on the other woman’s shoulder. They’d just docked and she knew that Simon would be showing soon. That means it is time for the human to get away. Keri blinked and stared up at her. “I want you to walk away from the dock. I want you to go back to your home and I want you to forget everything you learned about Simon and paranormal creatures.”
Keri stared up at her.
“Monsters aren’t real.” Rose forced a smile. “Tell me that.”
“Monsters aren’t real,” Keri repeated.
“Remember that. And go have a great, normal life, okay?”
Keri nodded, and then, without another word, she headed off the boat. She jumped onto the dock and landed easily. She didn’t look back as she left.
Rose’s shoulders sagged. One problem down. Hopefully. She bit her lower lip as she glanced around nervously. When would Simon be showing? Julian and Rayce were below deck, probably prowling like caged tigers, but they knew the drill.
Do not show yourselves. Not yet.
She heard the whoosh of wind picking up and her gaze shot upward. Hell. What part of low profile had Leo not understood? Seriously, if he messed this up for them again…
That’s not Leo.
A giant beast slammed into the boat—a beast that was a terrible combination of man and stone. Huge wings spread from his back. His face was distorted, his teeth enormous, and his blue eyes…
They blazed.
“Collecting you,” he rasped.
The boat shuddered beneath his weight.
She didn’t know who that guy was but…he was obviously Simon’s errand boy. She just hadn’t expected such a large errand boy. Or one with such big claws. And teeth. And massive wings.
And one made of stone. “What are you?” Rose whispered as she backed up.
He took a sliding step toward her.
Fear stole her breath.
***
“Something is wrong,” Julian said as his gaze shot upward. Someone—something—had just landed on the boat with a thud—and with enough force to send the whole boat rocking. He inhaled and his body tensed as he caught the new scents in the air. Brimstone. Magic. Fear. “Rose is afraid.” He lunged for the stairs that would take him above deck.
Rayce grabbed his shirt. The material tore. “Shit, man, wait! You know the plan! She’s supposed to get taken.”
He snarled at his friend. “She’s afraid.”
“That kind of goes along with the whole getting taken part. We knew this was going to happen. Now man up and do your job. We’ll track her. We’ll find the others. We’ll kill the freaking Collector—”
But a scream had just cut through Rayce’s words. Rose’s scream. And the boat rolled hard again. It shuddered—and the thing begin to sink.
He and Rayce both ran up the stairs. They exploded onto the deck to see that the place was being wrecked. Destroyed by a big, stone beast.
“Oh, fuck no,” Rayce said. “Tell me I’m not staring at—”
A gargoyle. He was—they were both staring at the massive figure of a stone gargoyle. One of the worst shifters out there.
And the bastard launched into the air, holding Rose tightly in his arms.
“No!” Julian bellowed.
“Relax.” Rayce slapped a hand against him. “You’ve seriously got to chill out. We knew someone would come for her. Granted, I don’t think we expected that guy…”
Gargoyles were supposed to be extinct. Fucking hell.
“It’s all right. We’ve got this.” Rayce sounded far too confident. “The plan is working just as she said. They took the bait.”
The gargoyle had taken her.
“Now we hunt…” Rayce glanced around the rapidly filling boat. “And we get out of here before we have to take a swim.”
Julian bounded off the boat. No humans were around, so they’d missed the whole freaking gargoyle show. And that gargoyle, it was moving helluva fast. Already the thing was a mere speck in the sky.
“Leo is up there,” Rayce said, still sounding too confident. “He’ll have the guy in his sights.” But then he shook his head. “Gargoyle. How the hell did that guy get involved in this mess? And how is he even alive? I thought the witches took out the last of them centuries ago. I mean, shit, I remember the old wars…the witches cursed the knights to change. They were shifters not born but made and…” His words stumbled to a stop. “Oh, damn.”
Not born but made. Just as Rose was a vampire who hadn’t been born but made. She hadn’t been created through a bite—but by magic. Just like a gargoyle.
“I think we might have been missing a few things with the Collector.” Rayce wasn’t sounding so confident any longer. “A few other things that good old Leo neglected to mention to us. Like, you know, the fact that the Collector had a gargoyle at his beck and call.”
Julian’s nostrils flared. “We need to track, now.”
“I told you, Leo has sights on them, he has—”
The water erupted to their right as Leo shot up from the waves. A drenched, bleeding Leo. “Freaking gargoyle,” he muttered as he slammed onto the dock.
Rayce closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Shit.”
“It’s okay.” Julian rolled back his shoulders and let his claws slide out. “I can track Rose. I can always track her now.”
Shock flashed on Rayce’s face. “Oh, no, man, tell me you didn’t. Tell me you—”
“I can always find what’s mine.” He marched toward the small building that waited to the right—Luke’s building, the one the guy used to store their vehicles for use on Key West. Julian unlocked the door with a quick twist of his hand. His motorcycle was waiting inside, exactly where he’d left it when he and Rose had first gone sneaking toward the Pandora. Two other top-of-the-line motorcycles were nearby. And a dozen other high-end cars. “Pick your poison,” Julian said. Then he jumped on his motorcycle. Moments later, he was revving the engine. “And try to keep up.”
***
The stone beast flew to the ground, and his grip never eased on Rose. When he hit the earth, she heard the heavy thud of impact, and she was pretty sure the ground sank a few inches beneath his weight.
Her breath heaved out of her lungs and her heart raced in her chest. She looked up at him, wondering what would happen next. There was only one word for that guy…scary. He was so beyond anything she’d seen before.
He put Rose on her feet. “Don’t…run.” When he spoke, his voice was deep and echoing.
Run? Where was she supposed to run to, exactly? Rose risked a look around—she was in the swamp. No, the Everglades. When they’d flown, she’d looked down and noted the saw grass marshes and mangrove forests—stretching for miles. She’d seen the snaking wetlands. She’d seen the gators. She’d heard the cry of a million insects.
Her captor roared and her gaze shot back to him—only to realize that he’d completely turned to stone. No more weird half-man, half-stone combination. He was pure stone. She inched forward, lifting her hand to touch him because he appeared to be a giant, snarling statue.
Just when her fingers were about to tap against the stone, a man’s hand broke through the statue.
She jerked her own hand back, jumping a bit.
Then his second hand broke free. As she watched, he smashed his way free of the stone. Soon the beast was gone, and a man stood in his place. Tall, muscled, with dark brown hair and blue eyes. And naked. Because, of course, wasn’t that the way with shifters? And this fellow…he was definitely some kind of shifter, just a kind she ha
dn’t seen before.
“You…didn’t run.” His voice wasn’t quite so thundering now. Still deep but, not beast-mode deep.
“Why would I run?”
He raised one brow. “Because you were just kidnapped by a gargoyle?”
“Is that what you are?” She studied him again. Yes, it fit. “Interesting.”
He grunted. Then he caught her wrist in his hand. “You should have run.”
“But I’m in the middle of nowhere. And I haven’t gotten what I came for.”
The guy slanted a wary glance her way. “What’s that?”
“The others. I’m ending his collection.”
His gaze hardened. “He’s going to end you.”
The words didn’t really sound like a threat. More like a sad fact. The guy even looked sad in that moment. But he was still dragging her through the Everglades. They cleared a particularly vicious twisting path and then…
She saw it. The hidden base. No, not a base, a prison.
“It used to be a government research facility,” he said, his grip hard on her. “Guess it still is…only the research isn’t quite so scientific any longer.”
She counted two armed guards at the entrance to the facility. It was a long and squat building, snaking back toward the tall grass. There was a helipad to the right, and a chopper sat there, its blades still moved gently, as if it had only recently landed.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Rose blinked, certain she’d misheard. “Why?”
His smile was cold. “Because it’s going to hurt…and you’re going to die.”
No, I’m not. Julian is coming. Everyone is getting out of here. “I think you chose the wrong team.”
“I never chose anything.”
“Trust me, buddy, I know the feeling.”
He frowned.
Before he could speak again, the doors to the building opened. A blond man strode out, a grin stretching from ear to ear.
“My last piece!” Simon cried out. “How absolutely wonderful!” He rushed toward her, and she almost expected him to rub his hands in glee. “And you just offered yourself up to me. I mean, does my luck get any better?”
No, it only gets worse.
A whole lot worse.
“Take her inside,” he barked to the men with guns. “And you…” He pointed to the gargoyle. “Kill anyone who comes after her.”
A gargoyle against a panther…stone against claws and teeth…. “Wait,” Rose began. “Don’t—”
The guard on the right lifted his gun. The bastard fired it at her. The tranq slammed into her and she let out a cry of fury. In the next second, she was on that fool. She yanked the gun from him and slammed it back against the side of his head. He went down.
Another tranq went into her back. Her lips parted and—
She fell. But Rose didn’t hit the ground. Someone had caught her. She forced her eyes to stay open and she stared into a blue gaze…a gaze that held no emotion at all.
Gargoyle. “I told you…” His voice was still tinged with sadness. “You’re going to die.”
And her eyes closed.
***
Luke Thorne was the Lord of the Dark. He was the devil in disguise. He was the baddest of the bad. And he was pretty sure all of that shit should be on a t-shirt.
He flew back to his island, expecting to find his guards waiting to meet him on the dock. Guards. Friends—same fucking thing to him.
Only he didn’t see Julian.
He didn’t see Rayce.
He didn’t even see Marcos.
And his boat was gone, too. What in the hell? Everyone knew the rule about his boat. No one takes my boat.
He stalked up to his house, royally pissed. It was a good thing he’d left Mina in their little slice of paradise. He was trying not to show his dark side to her, at least not too much. And the ass-kicking he was about to give? She wouldn’t like it…because the woman had some kind of soft spot for Julian and Rayce.
Who had a soft spot for an assassin?
The same woman who loved the Lord of the Dark.
He used a burst of magic to make his front door fly open. “Hey, bastards!” Luke thundered but he knew they weren’t inside. His senses were more acute than any shifters…
They weren’t there, but his twin brother’s stench was all over the place. Luke jerked to a stop. “Oh, hell, no.” Leo had dared step foot on his island? Did he want a slow death? Was he begging for one?
But…Leo wasn’t the only person he smelled there.
Rose had been here.
And…Leo started rushing through his house. He headed for the cells—cells he’d used to house some of the worst paranormal beings on earth. Those cells should have been empty.
One wasn’t. A human was inside. A young kid who actually waved to him when Luke appeared.
“Uh, hi, there,” the kid said. “I’m Francis, but my friends call me Frankie.”
Did he look like the kid’s friend?
Francis smiled. “Is it time for me to go home yet?”
“What in the fuck is happening?”
Chapter Sixteen
Julian had to ditch his motorcycle. The swamp was too thick and he knew he could travel a whole lot faster on foot…and in panther form. So Julian jumped off the bike and yanked off his clothes. Then he was slamming onto the ground, hitting down on all fours as the beast clawed for his freedom.
And Rayce was right with him. When Julian’s head swung to the right, he saw his friend shifting next to him. He didn’t know where Leo was. They’d left the guy as a soggy heap back at the dock.
The panther bounded forward, flying through the marsh as he focused on Rose’s scent. The dank earth was cloying, the swamp rotting, but she was sweetness in that hell. He was bound to her, and he followed her scent wildly. Desperately.
The wolf kept perfect time with him. They’d often run together in the past. Run together, hunted together, killed together, and he knew that before this day was done, they’d spill more blood.
Simon wasn’t going to walk away. There would be no lenience from him. Julian intended to slice the man into pieces—him, and any of the goons who thought they could hurt the paranormals.
They ran and ran, and soon, the tall grass gave way to a clearing. But the panther and the wolf didn’t burst into that clearing. Instead, they kept bodies low to the ground, using the tall grass as cover as they stared at the scene before them.
Two guards were at the door. Just two? Insulting. They’d take those bastards with no sweat. The building was long, stretching, with very few windows that he could see. A helicopter waited just a few yards away.
His nose twitched as a new smell reached him. Brimstone. Magic.
Trouble.
The same scent he’d caught on the boat, right before the freaking gargoyle had taken Rose away. His head turned, following that scent. A man stood there, right on the side of the building, using it for cover. The man’s eyes were locked on Julian.
Julian bared his teeth.
The battle was on.
***
Rose woke to find herself strapped to a table. The straps were heavy and hard, cutting into her. She tried to break free, using her vamp strength but—
“You aren’t going to get out,” a woman’s voice whispered. “None of us are.”
Rose’s head swung to the left. She could move her head, but her arms and legs and her torso were secured too tightly. She saw a cell—and a woman inside that cell. A woman with long red hair and tear-filled eyes.
“You’re the last one,” the woman said, her lips curving downward. “Now he’s going to kill us all.” She shuffled forward and her hands rose to curve around the bars. When she moved, Rose saw the big, black wings that sprang from her back.
“You’re the angel.” Her voice came out like a croak. Her body felt weak, her head foggy—stupid drug. “I know…someone who’s been looking for you.”
A mocking laugh came from the right.
Rose’s head jerked toward that sound.
A blonde stepped forward. Her eyes were so dark they appeared nearly black. “No one’s going to find us. He makes sure of that. Anyone lucky enough to get close…Simon just says they die, and they do. The dead are thrown to the gators. The bodies picked clean. No one saves us. No one frees us.”
“I’m…here to save us.”
The blonde laughed again. “Sweetie, you’re about to lose your heart. Those bands around you are made of metal that is a hundred times stronger than steel. And a drugged vamp? You’re not going to break them. He’s just going to break you. He’ll break us all. Put the pieces together and then have what he wants most as he makes his own monster.”
Her gaze darted around the room. There were two others cells there, but she couldn’t see the people in them. It looked as if she was in some kind of lab. There was a surgical tray nearby. And lots of machines.
“Why is he collecting us?” Rose whispered.
“He’s not collecting us. He’s Frankenstein, and he just needs our parts.” The blonde’s voice was husky. Tired. How long had she been there? “He’s ready to build now.”
The door to that hellish place opened with a swish of sound. Simon strode inside. When he saw that she was awake, he hesitated for just a moment. “I’d hoped the drugs would keep you out longer.”
She tried to fight back the weakness of her body. “Your…mistake.”
“It is…but…I was trying to be kind. If you were out cold, you wouldn’t feel the pain.” He shrugged. “Oh, well. Guess this is really going to hurt you.”
“You don’t have to do this!” It was another woman’s voice calling out. “There are other ways.”
Rose glanced toward the cell near the blonde. A woman stepped forward, her skin a warm cream, her brown eyes filled with a terrible combination of sadness and terror. “Death isn’t the answer.”
“No, witch, you’re right. It isn’t the answer. Life is. And that’s what you’re all going to do. You’re going to give me back the life that was taken away.” He smiled. “Taken away by fucking monsters. You’re going to give me back what I need, and she’ll be stronger than ever. She’ll never know weakness. She’ll never know pain. She’ll live forever.”