I had just started to feel the sense of coming apart that precedes rematerialization when I felt something hard strike the side of my face. My concentration broke, and we remained in the alley where we were. I looked around and spotted one of the undead who had run away with its arms raised, a large chunk of rock in its hand. I ducked away just as it sent the rock flying toward me. I set Lethe down, feeling momentarily guilty that I was using her as bait. It was too much temptation for the undead. It threw another rock at me and I leaned lazily to the side as it whizzed past me. It hurled another one, and I took a few steps away, quickly grabbing my Netherblades from under my jacket. The undead kept one eye on me, but was so hunger-crazed that even its unease about my presence there wasn’t enough to dissuade it from scuttling over to where Lethe still lay unconscious. It had gotten over its fear rather quickly, yet more evidence that the undead are less than animals, ruled by hunger. They could learn, but in the end, their desire for flesh would alway overrule sense. And immortal flesh was something none of them would ever be able to resist.
As far too many immortals had learned in the past few months, I thought as fresh rage coursed through me.
The undead, as I predicted, completely forgot that I was there, focused on Lethe’s still form. It had just started leaning over her prone body when I whipped one dagger at it. The dagger hit home, sticking out of the side of its neck, and it flailed and screamed and ripped the dagger from its flesh. It had just removed the dagger when I sent another one that embedded itself into the undead’s stomach. Another screech, and it dropped the first dagger to scrabble furiously at its stomach. It was nothing at all for me to walk up behind it, draw my sword, and remove its head.
When it fell, I pulled my dagger from its stomach, grabbed the other one where it had fallen, and wiped the blades of all three weapons off on the undead’s tattered shirt. At this point, I could not tell whether this one had been male or female just by glancing at it, and I surely did not care enough to try to investigate further. I looked at the undead again as I re-sheathed my blades, then went back to where I’d left Lethe. I heaved her body up once more, took a breath, and focused.
It was time to go home.
Moments later, we were standing in the living room of the small flat Brennan and I had moved into upon relocating to London. It was late, and the loft was silent. I settled Lethe on the brown leather sofa and tossed a soft maroon throw over her. There was still a lamp on in the living room, and my heart gave a little squeeze. I knew he left the light on for me, hoping, undoubtedly, that I would manage to make my way home to him this night, even though I had failed to do so so many nights before.
The wood floors gleamed, and the apartment was neat and organized. One thing Brennan and I had found after moving in together was that we had no arguments at all about the style in which we preferred to keep our home. My style could be considered “simple.” His could only be called spartan. The only extraneous items in the main living area were photos of Brennan’s son, Sean, either alone or with either Brennan or Brennan’s grandmother, Artemis. In the center of the cluster of framed photos adorning one wall, there was a photo of the two of us, Brennan and I, in an unguarded moment when we were both relaxed and smiling.
It had been taken the day we’d moved to London, and there had been far too few moments like it since that day.
I heard the floorboards creak, and a moment later, Brennan stepped out of the hallway that led back to the bedrooms in our flat. He was dressed only in a pair of loose pajama bottoms, and the sight of his muscled arms, wide shoulders, the golden hair sprinkled across his chest, was enough to nearly make me forget myself and everything going on around us. On his left hand, a silver band glinted. It matched the band I wore on my left hand, and it symbolized everything I never thought I’d have. All I wanted to do was touch him.
Instead, I stayed frozen where I was, standing beside the sofa.
Brennan’s gaze met mine for a moment, and I was relieved to see warmth there. Not anger. Not irritation. Certainly not rejection. So often already, I’d expected him to tire of the way our life was. I’d expected him to realize that the life he was sharing with me was not the one he desired. I knew this was not how he’d ever envisioned his life. He deserved more, but I was and continue to be too selfish to let him go.
We had promised one another that we would fight side by side. And we had, until it had become impossible to keep up with all of the souls that the undead were creating. Every supernatural being who could, including Brennan, spent most of their waking hours dealing with the chaos the undead were causing. Shifter packs and vampire families were on edge, and the humans were beyond terrified. My husband was already finding himself in the same position he’d left in Detroit; the de-facto leader of London’s shifter community, based on the fact that, like any wild being, shifters respect power above anything else. As the grandson of the goddess Artemis, Brennan had more than his fair share of power, and that plus his ability to work with and organize people earned him plenty of respect as well. We both hunted. It had just become impossible to hunt together, because I was forced to go wherever I felt a soul appearing, and he was needed in London, where the undead horde had begun and still continued to grow.
It all made me hate the undead and those who had brought them into being a bit more.
“Nice to see you, Tink,” he said in a quiet voice, and just the sound of it sent pleasant shivers down my spine.
“It is nice to see you as well, Cub,” I said. We held one another’s gaze for a few moments, and then I looked down. “I need to have Asclepius come here,” I said, gesturing to Lethe.
Brennan stepped toward me and looked down at the goddess. “What happened to her?”
“I am not entirely sure. I know these most recent injuries are due to the undead. I found four of them attacking her not far from here. But she seems weaker than she should be.”
“What’s she doing here in London?” he asked quietly, picking the phone up from the end table.
I shook my head. “I have no idea. It would have been safer for her where she was.”
He nodded, and a moment later he was speaking, to Asclepius, I realized. I bent down and gently brushed Lethe’s silvery hair back from her face. Not only was she pale, but her cheeks had that hollow look that comes when people have been sick for too long. That, and the deep, dark shadows beneath her eyes suggested that she had been through some things.
“He’s coming,” Brennan said a moment later.
“Thank you for calling him.”
Brennan didn’t answer. I stood up straight and looked at him. As near as he was, I could smell his warm, comforting scent, a hint of the soap he used when he showered. I looked up into his blue eyes, eyes that never failed to remind me of sky and sea, and raised my hand, gently running my fingertips through his flaxen beard. He leaned his face into my touch and closed his eyes, reminding me for just a moment of the giant cat he was when he shifted.
“I am sorry my love. I’ve been gone too long. And I should have called, if nothing else,” I said softly.
He took my wrist in his hand and brought it to his mouth, gently kissed the sensitive place where my pulse throbbed in my wrist. Then he held my hand against his chest. I could feel his heart beating strongly, and I stepped closer.
“You don’t need to apologize to me, Eunomia,” he said softly, his gaze capturing mine again. “I never want you to feel guilty for being who you are.”
“This was not what you signed up for when we pledged ourselves to one another, I think,” I whispered. He gave me a lopsided grin, one that still had the power to make me swoon, and more than a little.
“I signed up for eternity with you. This is what that looks like at the moment. I’m not complaining.”
“You have not seen me in, what? Days? Weeks?” I asked him. “It was inconsiderate of me not to at least call to tell you I was all right.”
“Nain would have let me know if you’d gone more than a few h
ours without turning in a soul. Based on how often they see you, I know you’re working your ass off. Stop beating yourself up for doing what you need to do.”
“I feel guilty. I am never here,” I said.
He gave a low laugh. “Imagine how guilty you’d feel if you were just sitting around with me all the time and letting the undead run rampant.”
I shook my head, and he pulled me into his arms.
“You’re exhausted, though, and that isn’t something I’m okay with. I’ll sit up with Lethe and see what Asclepius says. Take a shower and get some sleep.”
“Bossy,” I told him, standing up on my tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips. He kissed me back, and I sighed contentedly against his lips, just as he sighed against mine. His big, warm hands immediately made their way under my leather jacket and t-shirt, and I shivered at the sensation of his strong hands touching the bare flesh at the base of my spine. Just that single touch was enough to make me feel more at ease than I had felt in days. “You are perfect,” I murmured before pulling away.
“Not even close. But I’m glad you think so,” he said with a grin. I kissed him again, and he pressed my body closer to his, his hands still resting on my lower back, and he gently trailed his fingers up my spine. He pressed a warm kiss to the side of my neck and slowly released me, tilting his head toward the bedrooms. I shook my head and started tiredly down the hall. I glanced back at him.
“You will wake me if I am needed?”
He nodded.
“And you will come to bed with me as soon as Lethe is settled?”
He smiled. “Obviously.”
I smiled, and it was the first time I had done so in quite a while.
Chapter Two
I showered, days of grime and blood that was not mine pooling and swirling down the drain. I watched it numbly as I washed, the water becoming clearer the longer I scrubbed. Eventually, I felt clean enough to step out of the shower and pull on one of Brennan’s t-shirts. It was large enough that it went down to my knees. I padded into our bedroom to find Brennan stretched out on the bed, hands behind his head. He watched me as I settled myself in beside him. The bed was already warm. Being near Brennan was like having my own personal heater, I thought as I turned toward him.
“Is Lethe awake?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Asclepius healed all of her wounds, but he said she needs to rest.”
I nodded. He gathered me into his arms and I wrapped myself around him, our bodies touching at every possible juncture: chest, stomach, hips, thighs. I hooked a leg around one of his, nuzzled my face against him as he rested his chin on top of my head.
“I have missed you,” I murmured.
“I missed you, too,” he said. “Stay with me tonight?”
“Yes.” I kissed my way up his chest, his neck, his jaw, and very soon forgot how tired and frustrated I was, lost for just a little while in the bliss that only came in his arms, with his kisses, with the way his body fit perfectly with my own, with the way he growled my name in the darkness of our room.
It was only when we were both utterly worn out, breathless, limp with exhaustion, that we finally rested. I rested my head on his chest, listening to his heart hammering beneath my cheek. I flung my arm across his body, tangled my leg with his, and closed my eyes.
“I really do need to come home more often,” I said sleepily, and he laughed, his chest shaking beneath my cheek.
“I am not arguing with you on that,” he said. He ran his hand down my back, his fingertips tracing the scars that ran down my shoulder blade. “I can always come to you, too,” he murmured.
I looked up at him, resting my chin on his chest. “You would ravish me in the dark alleys and stinky docks I often end up hunting in?”
“Sweetheart, I promise you neither one of us would give a damn about the surroundings once we got started,” he said in a low voice, and I kissed his chest, blushing at his words. Why he still had the ability to make me do that, after all of the things we’d done to one another, was a mystery to me.
“I don’t know… some of those places are pretty dreadful,” I said, and he rolled me over onto my back and reminded me, once more, of just how good he was at taking my mind off of everything but him.
It was not until after he had fallen into a deep sleep that my thoughts reverted, as they always did, to the undead and Lethe and everything I was failing at so spectacularly. I watched Brennan sleep as it all twisted and churned through my mind. His hand tightened on my hip, and he furrowed his brow. Even in sleep, he seemed to be telling me to stop thinking for a while.
I am supposed to say that my life is duty, that I do what I do, tirelessly, because I am sworn, made, to do it. For most of my existence, that was reason enough.
But the fact is, every time I see a family torn apart by the undead, I picture my own fledgling family. Every wife who keens at the loss of a husband, every woman who finds herself saying goodbye to her heart and soul thanks to the undead, every god, minor or not, who has been lost to us during this war against the undead… they remind me how much I stand to lose.
It is too much. I see, daily, the cost of my failure. The chance that one day, it will be me screaming into the empty vastness of night, holding a loved one’s cooling body, is enough to make me freeze in absolute panic. The fact that he is someone who constantly puts himself in the path of danger makes even my worst fears feel plausible, because they are.
I watched Brennan sleep some more. His forehead had smoothed, and now, he looked as young as he truly was.
As much as I loved being home, this… this horrifying reminder of all I stand to lose makes me hate being home as well. Every moment that I spend with him is a moment in which I am not fighting, a moment in which our enemy could be closing in on those things that matter most to me.
I do not know how to do this, I thought sleepily, and I watched him until I could no longer fight the sleep that finally overtook me.
I woke up to find the sun shining brightly through the curtains in our bedroom. Outside, in the main part of our flat, I could hear Sean running back and forth, talking, Brennan’s low voice responding. I took a deep breath. So much life. It felt strange and wonderful to be surrounded by life, by gods who so perfectly illustrated the beauty of life, after spending so much time focused on and hunting death. Brennan and I often joked about how I’d corrupted him, in his words, “turned him to the dark side,” whatever that meant, but in truth, he’d done all of the corrupting. He brought me, little by little, solidly into the realm of the living. I’d walked among the living for my entire existence but rarely had I felt such a love or appreciation for them, destined as I was to serve Death.
It was an interesting position for a Guardian to be in, to be sure.
A few moments later, I made myself get out of the warm, soft bed. I dressed, cleaned up, and dragged myself out into the living room. Lethe was sitting at the small dining room table, an untouched cup of tea sitting in front of her. Brennan stood in the kitchen, getting his son, Sean, zipped into his jacket.
“E!” Sean shouted, startling Lethe enough that she jumped a little and turned her silvery eyes my way.
“Hello,” I said to Sean. He ran to me and I knelt down to hug him. I knew I was awkward when it came to this type of thing, and in general I am not overly fond of children, but Sean is an exception to the rule. For him, at least, I try to be less ill-at-ease.
“You were gone forever,” he said, giving a roll of blue eyes that were exactly like his father’s. “I thought you were never coming back.”
“Sean,” Brennan said from the kitchen, and I shook my head.
“I will always come back. Eventually,” I added, and Sean smiled.
“You’re fighting those ugly things, right?” he asked and I fought back a grin. As far as it went, “ugly things” was not a bad way to describe the undead.
“I am,” I told him.
“And you’re fighting the bad guys who try to hurt us,” he said, cle
arly remembering the night I’d saved him from Alecto. I nodded again.
“Papa is fighting the bad guys, too,” Sean said, a conspiratorial tone to his voice. “But I think you’re better at it.”
At that, I had to laugh, and Brennan just shook his head.
“What makes you say that?” I asked Sean.
“Cuz Aunt Molly was saying that you do the work of like twenty Guardians and she doesn’t know what she’d do without you,” Sean said, and I smiled.
“I wish I could do the work of twenty more,” I said quietly.
“When I’m bigger, I’m gonna help,” Sean said. “Soon as I can shift like Papa and my Grandma.”
I stood up and nodded. “Hopefully, this will be over before you have to do any hunting,” I said. “But I know you will be a big help either way.”
His little chest seemed to puff a bit at that, and then there was a knock at the door, and Sean ran to it to let Artemis in.
“Guardian!” she said, rushing over to hug me. The strained relationship Artemis and I had had at one time seemed to have reversed itself the night I’d saved Sean from the Fury who’d kidnapped him. I was not entirely sure that she approved of me as a mate for her grandson, but at least she did not actively try to argue with me anymore.
“Artemis,” I said.
“Are you just arriving or—” her words halted when her gaze landed on Lethe, who was still sitting silently at the dining room table.
“Lethe? What happened to you?” she asked, rushing over to the goddess of the forgetfulness.
“I found her not far from here last night, being attacked by undead,” I said. “I have not had a chance to speak to her yet. Asclepius came to heal her, and then she slept.”
Zealot (Hidden: Soulhunter Book 3) Page 2