They pulled into the gas station a few moments later, and she parked in the back of the lot. While they waited for his friends to arrive on foot, Olivia made a quick call to Georgia, who thankfully was fine. The elderly woman claimed that Aiden had been the only person to come asking about her and Jamie, which meant that the Casus had likely followed her scent to Connie’s house, just as Aiden had suggested. Unnerved by the chilling thought, Olivia fought to put a smile on her face as she twisted back around in her seat and chatted with Jamie some more. The little girl still seemed remarkably calm, considering what they’d just been through, and she couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in her clever little mind.
Though Jamie was like a human child in so many ways, Olivia knew that her niece was far from what the world would consider normal. Her Merrick blood might have been dormant, but she was still a Mallory. Once a powerful, diverse clan of witches, the clan’s magical powers had been bound by a curse—and it was because of this centuries-old curse that the Mallory now magnified the emotions of all those around them. All of which meant that Jamie would carry a tremendous amount of power trapped inside her body as she grew older. She would also eventually suffer from the curse, the same as her mother and her aunt Chloe. But Olivia didn’t care that Jamie wasn’t normal. The fact that she wasn’t human certainly didn’t make her love the little girl any less, as Aiden had suspected.
And yet she couldn’t help but worry, not only about the dangers that lay ahead but whether she understood enough about the world of the clans to be a good protector for Jamie.
You’ll learn what you need to know, because you love her. Because you love her enough to do whatever it takes.
Silently praying that she wouldn’t fail, Olivia tucked a fuzzy pink blanket around Jamie’s small body as the child cuddled up with her teddy bear to watch a Disney movie on Olivia’s iPod. She’d just turned around and settled back into her seat when Aiden said, “That’s Kellan and Noah over there.” He nodded toward two dark, muscular men who were making their way across the empty parking lot, and she shook her head, wondering what it was about these guys. Did all the Watchmen look like this? The one named Kellan was tall, and nearly as gorgeous as Aiden, though he looked as if he’d just taken part in a vicious fight, his face scraped down one side, his black T-shirt ripped at the shoulder. He had auburn hair a few shades darker than her own, so that it appeared almost black in the moonlight, and piercing blue-green eyes that were still glowing unusually bright, attesting to the fact that he was something more than a mere man.
While Kellan’s heavily muscled physique reminded her of a professional football player, the guy walking beside him could have stepped right out of a rock video. He was attractive in a dark, sinister kind of way, his long body wrapped entirely in black, the corner of his sensual mouth bloodied from their run-in with the Casus. His thick black hair was spiky from the wind, and despite being human, his eyes burned a pale, unusual shade of blue, almost like that of the creatures that had just attacked them. Trying not to stare, Olivia wondered if Aiden had been completely honest with her about Noah’s species, but couldn’t imagine why he would have lied.
“I need a few minutes to talk to them,” Aiden said in a low voice, the gruff edge to his words making Olivia wonder if he didn’t care for the way she’d been looking over the other two men. Not that that made any sense either, but then, it truly seemed a night for the bizarre. To be honest, at this point she didn’t think anything could surprise her.
She didn’t realize how lost she was in her own little world until he barked her name so sharply it made her jump. “You in there?”
“Sorry,” she murmured, gesturing her hand toward his door. “You go on and talk to your friends. We’ll wait for you here.”
SO THIS IS IT, he thought, shutting the car door and heading across the tarmac. Crunch time.
If he was going to pass her off to Kellan, Aiden knew it was now or never.
Glancing back at the car, he felt the idiotic urge to go and toss Jamie’s blanket over Olivia’s head. He didn’t want the guys ogling her, knowing damn well that they would. Noah’s reputation with women was nearly as sordid as his and Kell’s. And Olivia wasn’t the type of woman that a man could miss. Everything about her was designed to draw a male’s attention, from her smoky gaze to her full mouth, and that red hair of hers was something else. Even with the fiery strands tangled around her face from their earlier scuffle on the lawn, she looked delicious. Touchable. Earthy and soft and warm.
She’d actually put her trust in him to get her and Jamie out of there alive, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it, even though he knew it was dangerous to make too much of it. To allow it to mean anything to him. Who knew what she was really like? What she was really after? Women were tricky creatures at the best of times. After a lifetime of experience, Aiden knew this as a given fact, just as he knew that he’d do well to stay as far away as possible from the very female, very human Olivia Harcourt. And yet he couldn’t do it.
Alarm bells were going off left, right and center in his head, but he ground his teeth and ignored them. It just wasn’t going to happen. He couldn’t simply walk away, knowing her life was in danger, and leave her under another man’s protection.
Hell, even if he passed her off to Kellan and tried to protect her from afar, he knew the Lycan would charm his way into her pants the second he got the chance. Then Aiden would end up having to kill Kierland’s little brother, and he’d have the bloody wolf at his throat night and day.
Thanks, but no thanks.
“So is that the little lady?” Kellan asked when they drew closer, the Watchman’s curious gaze trained on the car…and the captivating woman sitting in the front seat. Kell drew in a deep breath, pulling in her scent, then gave a low, rumbling groan. “Oh, man. This just isn’t fair, Ade. How come I get stuck with Winston and you get the yummy redhead?”
“Don’t start,” he warned, taking note of the Watchman’s bloodied knuckles and battered face. Kellan looked as if he’d single-handedly taken on the entire force of Casus himself, and Aiden sent a questioning look toward Noah, who responded with a slight roll of his shoulders. Ever since the crap that had gone down in Washington the month before, when Kellan had unknowingly hooked up with a female Casus who’d been plotting against them, the Lycan had been playing an increasingly dangerous, risky game with his safety—one that was worrying everyone who cared about him.
“Where’s the kid?” Noah asked as he turned his attention toward the car, his ice-blue gaze searching the windows. Though they’d gotten off to a rocky start when they’d first met, Noah had quickly proven invaluable to their unit, and Aiden liked the guy’s dry sense of humor. He also admired the human’s wicked fighting skills.
Answering Noah’s question, he said, “She’s cuddled up in the backseat watching a movie.”
“She isn’t freaking out?” Kellan asked, his concern obvious as he eyed the gouges the Casus’s claws had made in the Honda’s doors. “Looks like the bastards hit you guys pretty hard.”
Aiden shoved his hands into his pockets and frowned. “She’s holding together a lot better than I would have expected. But I imagine her nightmares are going to be bad.”
Kellan all but vibrated with leftover adrenaline as he finally looked Aiden in the eye. Rolling back on his heels, he said, “Well, knowing how you feel about humans and kids, I guess I’ll go introduce myself and let ’em know that Noah and I will be taking over from here.”
Without any conscious direction from his brain, Aiden’s hand shot out and caught hold of the Watchman as he started to move past, his fingers digging deep into Kell’s powerful biceps. “Not. So. Fast.” He ground out the words, his throat feeling as if he’d swallowed a mouthful of gravel.
Kellan cocked his head a little to the side as he studied his face, and Aiden fought to keep his expression neutral. “What’s going on, Ade? I mean, I know Molly had some weird bug up her ass about you taking the job, but everyon
e knows you’d rather die than be stuck with a human for longer than it takes to screw her.”
Aiden pulled in a deep breath, counted to five, then slowly exhaled. With his ears roaring, he barely heard himself as he said, “This is different,” and let go of Kellan’s arm.
The Watchman’s eyes went wide with surprise, then narrowed with concern. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Just dandy,” he forced out through his gritted teeth, while Kellan looked between him and Olivia, the Lycan’s expression confused…until a slow, jackass kind of smile began to curl his mouth. “If you value your life,” Aiden growled, knowing Kell was going to say something that would just piss him off, “you’ll keep your mouth shut.”
Kellan raised his hands in a teasing sign of surrender, his blue-green eyes glittering with silent laughter.
Ignoring the younger Watchman, Aiden tossed his keys to Noah. “The kid’s got an ear condition that makes flying impossible right now, so we’ll be driving back. I’m going to get them out of town, but I need you guys to go back to the house and grab my truck for me. We’ll head north, and when I’ve found a motel, I’ll call and let you know where we are. We can meet up again tomorrow morning.”
“Whatever’s going on with you,” Noah drawled, one dark brow lifted in a cynical arch as he pocketed the keys, “just remember to stay sharp. I’ve heard you tiger breeds can go a little light-headed when you get a whiff of something tasty.”
“Go to hell,” Aiden muttered, curling his lip.
“Winston’s right.” Kellan snickered. “Don’t let the female catnip go to your head, Ade.”
After shooting the grinning bastard the finger, Aiden forced himself to turn and walk away before his temper got the better of him…and he got himself into trouble. As he drew nearer to the car, Olivia lifted her face, sending him a shy smile that shot straight to his head, damn near making him dizzy, and he cursed something ugly under his breath, wondering just who in God’s name he was trying to fool.
He was already neck-deep in trouble. And he was sinking fast.
CHAPTER FOUR
Prague, Czech Republic
THE AIR TASTED LIKE DEATH. Cold and thick…and lonely.
Walking headlong into the piercing wind blowing in off the Vltava River, Kierland Scott scowled as the bitter flavor filled his lungs, while his head continued to pound from the mother of all headaches. But then, arguing with the Consortium tended to have that effect on him. Comprised of representatives from each of the remaining ancient clans, the Consortium was a sort of preternatural United Nations whose job it was to govern the clans. The only problem was that the pompous bastards wasted so much time bickering amongst themselves, it wasn’t any wonder that it often took years for them to come to any sort of a decision, much less take aggressive action.
And time was something that Kierland and his friends didn’t have.
After the Merrick awakenings of Ian, Saige and Riley Buchanan, the Watchmen knew more than they had last summer, when the first Casus—Malcolm DeKreznick—had escaped back to this realm. And thanks to Noah Winston, a human who’d stepped in to help during Riley’s awakening, they now knew a lot more, such as the fact that the Casus were working with a race known as the Kraven. According to Noah, the Kraven—offspring of female Deschanel vampires who had been raped by Casus males before their imprisonment—were a closely guarded secret outside the Deschanel clan, their existence hidden not only from the majority of the Consortium, but from the Watchmen, as well.
Until now.
Slowly but surely, the pieces of this macabre puzzle were finally clicking into place, but there were still too many unanswered questions. Why did Ross Westmore, the Kraven who had somehow instigated the Casus’s return, want the Dark Markers? What use did he have for the ancient weapons if he didn’t intend to use them to kill the Casus? And what, if any, credence was there to Westmore’s warnings that a time of anarchy was coming to the clans? Yeah, they had some answers. But it was the truths that still lingered in the shadows that worried them most. That had the Watchmen and the Merrick driving themselves into the ground to uncover as many of the Markers as they could before Westmore and the Casus got their hands on them.
Hunching his shoulders against the wintry midnight chill, Kierland ran over the arguments he’d made to the leaders throughout the long night, explaining why it was so important that the Consortium give its full support to the Merrick in their fight against the Casus, before it was too late. Arguments that had fallen on deaf ears, until his temper had finally gotten the better of him. He’d been told to leave the ancient mansion that was now serving as the Consortium’s temporary headquarters in Prague, the stern directive capped off by a warning to cool down before he returned.
“Miserable old bastards,” he muttered under his breath, scraping his fingers through his hair. “They’ll be begging for our help when the Casus have worked their way through the Merrick and start gunning for them instead.”
The road curved to the right, the street silent and dark ahead of him, but as Kierland neared the famous Charles Bridge, the unsettling sensation that he was no longer alone began to slither across the back of his neck, bringing a soft curse to his lips. Looking over his shoulder, he stared into the shadowed depths of the moonlit street, wondering if the Consortium leaders had sent someone to track him, but no one was there. The curling, serpentine tendrils of fog appeared to be his only companion…until he caught sight of the Deschanel, or what the human world would have simply called a vampire, moving stealthily through the shadows.
Shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, Kierland turned and stood his ground, an old, familiar hatred coiling through his insides as he waited for Gideon Granger to reach him. Though he had no direct reason to dislike the vampire, his lip still curled with disgust. After all, he despised the man’s older brother, Ashe, enough that the wrathful emotion had eventually spread like a disease, until he’d come to loathe the entire bloody race. The prejudice was as unjust as it was juvenile, but Kierland had learned long ago that matters involving headstrong, impetuous females were seldom reasonable…much less logical.
Especially when the female ripped your heart out by shacking up with another man.
As Gideon stepped into a milky stream of moonlight breaking through the clouds, he sent Kierland a crooked, cautious grin, as if he knew his reception was going to be less than civil. Thinking it must have been years now since he and Gideon had exchanged so much as a passing greeting, Kierland couldn’t help but wonder just what in God’s name the vampire wanted with him.
“Tei,” Gideon murmured in one of his many fluent languages, only a trace of his Scandinavian accent shaping the husky greeting. Seeing as how Kierland didn’t speak a word of Finnish, Norwegian or Swedish, he had no way of knowing if the vamp had just said hello or called him a jackass…and he didn’t particularly care.
“Granger,” he grunted in reply. Pulling in a deep breath, he searched for a trace of any other nearby Deschanel, but could find no others. Not that it meant anything. If they chose, a Deschanel could mask their unusually distinctive scent, making them impossible to track, even for a Lycanthrope.
“How does that saying go?” Gideon murmured from the corner of his mouth as he came closer, his pocketed hands mirroring Kierland’s, though his trousers were black silk, rather than well-worn denim. Despite his size, he moved with the smooth, effortless ease of his race, as if he were merely gliding over the street like a phantom, the moonlight glinting blue off the rich sable strands of his hair. “You know, that one about how if looks could kill?”
Kierland arched his right brow. “Aren’t you already dead?” he offered in a bored drawl.
Gideon’s sharp smile flashed with his low rumble of laughter, his fangs just visible beneath the curve of his upper lip. “Aw, you know very well that I’m not dead, Lycan. But then, Hollywood rarely gets those types of things right, do they? I mean, look what they did with that movie about the Watchmen.”
The Deschanel moved closer, leaning against one of the historic street signs that lined the sweeping road. Though his pose remained casual, the rigid set of his muscled shoulders hinted at an inner fury, as did the tightness around his eyes. While a Kraven’s irises bled to crimson when they released their fangs, a pure-blooded vampire’s were actually a pale, pure gray that would glow silver for several hours after they’d fed.
Instead of answering the question, the vamp simply said, “It wasn’t one of ours who made the kill.”
Granger didn’t elaborate, but Kierland knew exactly what the man was referring to. Two days ago a Watchman had been found murdered in Russia, his mutilated corpse left in the center of a small town seventy miles south of Moscow. The fact that his body had been drained of every last drop of blood had started rumors flying among the clans that the kill had been made by a rogue Deschanel, but Kierland wasn’t entirely convinced. Something about the killing made him…uneasy. The Watchman hadn’t been hunting a rogue vamp, and yet for some reason Kierland had the oddest feeling that the kill had been deliberate, as if the Watchman had been targeted on purpose.
Then again, maybe he was just being paranoid, allowing his imagination to get the better of him, and the guy had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. God only knew he was maxed out to his stress limit these days, which was why he’d kept his suspicions to himself for the time being, instead of sharing them with the others back at home. Between the Casus and the search for the Markers, they had enough to deal with right now, without adding this to the rest of it. Plus, with the Casus on the loose, every Watchmen unit around the world knew to be guarding their backs.
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