“Wait,” Jared had called out to Aragon, sensing Heldon’s underlings near.
“No. He’s here. I know it.”
“It’s too dangerous. Besides, Pathos is now mortal. It is against Logos’s order for any spirit warrior to hunt a mortal, no matter how foul. We must wait for Pathos to join Heldon’s ranks and catch him before he crosses through the spirit barrier.”
“I’m not willing to wait that long. He is an affront to all Blood Hunters and their honor.”
“Then don’t sacrifice your honor for him. Let Logos be his judge, not you. Come with me now.” Jared dove, setting his hand on Aragon’s shoulder to convince him to leave.
Suddenly, a large band of Underlings rose up from the stones and attacked. Back to back, Jared and Aragon had fought until they could hardly lift their swords, but the Underlings kept coming, fighting ferociously.
“This is my fault. I led you astray. You go for help,” Aragon said. “I’ll delay them.”
Jared knew that whoever stayed would be ripped to shreds. “No. We stay together and fight together. There is strength in unity. For us to separate would only help them defeat us.” They’d stayed together and won, forging a bond that had carried them through a millennium of war. Until now. Now Aragon had left him to be shredded to pieces by a vile poison.
Something hot and bright intruded into his mind. He winced at the pain of it.
“Jared, my brother. Can you yet hear me? Is there still enough good within your spirit to answer?”
“Aragon?” Jared looked for his comrade but could not see him. “Why did you not honor our pact?”
“Jared. You must stay with the Chosen. You must fight against the poison. Fight for your salvation within the mortal world. Watch your back, and remember that it was once possible to find redemption. Those from the Vladarian Order are near. Remember the ancients and the battle they waged on Earth. They can help you.”
The light disappeared.
“Aragon? Wait.”
“Danger.”
The searing pain in his mind stopped abruptly. Jared shuddered. The howling of the wolves outside changed to vicious growls.
Heart pounding, Jared turned to Erin, shaking her shoulder. “You must wake, Erin. We must flee.”
“What?” Erin woke from her sensual dream, burning with need in places she’d ignored for far too long. She shook her head, trying to assimilate where she was. She had no doubt who she was with. She felt as if Jared was still inside her. The light in the cave was very dim. “What is it, Jared?”
“Danger. You must wake.”
She gasped, her breath catching in her throat as her heart thudded. The snarling and gnashing growls of ferocious beasts filled the night outside the cave.
“Dear God. Wolves!” She rolled to her feet. Frantically, she spun around, trying to see through the darkness for any type of weapon. Her foot hit a rock, and she grabbed it. “Hurry, help me find more rocks.”
“Wait here,” Jared said.
“What!” Erin cried, whipping around. “Are you crazy? They’ll kill you.” But she spoke to air. Jared had already gone. She grabbed another rock and stumbled to the cave entrance.
The cloud-shrouded night let just enough moonlight through to see a few feet, but the forest remained a canopy of dark, hulking trees, and the area where she heard the wolves snarling was completely black. Erin moved just outside the cave as she looked for Jared, rocks ready to throw.
“Jared!” she said in a low, urgent tone. He didn’t answer, but even she couldn’t hear her own emphatic whisper. Suddenly, a deep chill hit her, and her skin crawled.
She wasn’t alone.
Her new sixth sense shouted at her to turn to her right. Jerking around, she saw him, or it, less than two feet away from the entrance to the cave. So unnaturally white that his skin glowed ghastly in the dark, the man’s grotesquely-large mouth gaped like the jaws of an attacking shark. Black-tinged foam spewed from his icepick teeth and down his chin. He reached for her.
She screamed and threw the rock as hard as she could right at his face. The man-monster didn’t even flinch, but kept coming. Howling from the dark shadows behind the monster, Erin saw a huge black wolf, or something wolf-like, attack the creature.
She screamed again as heavy hands grabbed her from behind and pulled her back. Heat and hard muscle pressed against her. Jared. He turned her away from the fighting wolf and creature.
“Come with me.” Swinging her into his arms again, he ran.
“Oh, God. Aren’t we better off in the cave?”
He didn’t answer, but just ran faster. She shut her eyes, sure that any second they were going to smash into a tree head-on. She didn’t know how long he ran, but it wasn’t as long as it has been earlier that day. And this time, she never got the feeling that he’d left the bad guys in his dust. When he stopped, the air still snarled with menace. In the distance, encroaching gray light signaled that dawn was near.
Through the shadows and mountain mists, she could barely see that they stood in the center of a circle of huge, white stone pillars. The ground outside the ring of stones fell sharply away to a thick wall of treetops, giving her the impression that they were on the crest of a mountain.
Jared shuddered hard. He groaned sharply and set her on her feet.
She turned to him. “What’s wrong?” she asked, grabbing his arm.
“Pain, poison,” he gasped, then wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against him. He howled, a bloodcurdling cry that made her bones shake and her soul tremble. Any lingering visionss from her sensual dream of him evaporated like smoke.
The man was stark raving mad.
Chapter Nine
It wasn’t until the last reverberations of Jared’s howl faded that Erin found the wherewithal to breathe. His body still shook terribly. Instead of pushing from his embrace, she clasped him tighter to her.
“Jared,” she whispered. “Are you all right? What just happened?”
“Nothing, just . . . nothing. I am damned,” he gasped. Wrenching from her, he stumbled out of the circle of pillars. “You’re safe here until the sun reaches us. That is all that matters.”
She drew three quick breaths, but still didn’t have enough oxygen. “What was that thing by the cave?”
“A future minion of Heldon’s,” he rasped, sounding strange.
After studying him, assuring herself that he was all right, she shut her eyes and sucked in more air, bolstering herself for the real possibility that Jared was telling the truth.
“Which one?” she whispered. “Which creature was he? You told me of those that fed on Chosen blood. Which one was he?” She wanted to know—had to know because she never wanted to meet anything like that again.
If all of this was as real as it seemed to her at this moment, then she had better figure things out fast before she ended up worse than dead. She had no doubt that meeting her end at the hands of that creature would be worse than death itself.
Jared sighed, a harsh sound of pain and despair. “I can’t answer that question, Erin. There were a number of the damned surrounding us. Not all things are known to me, for I’ve not Logos’s omniscience. What forms shape-shifters have within the icy fires of Heldon’s realm of the Fallen are unknown to me. Those who cross through the spirit barrier can appear as mortal as you if they choose, but then they are as subject to the physical laws as you are. Only when they shape-shift do they appear as demons, vampires, or werebeasts. What you saw tonight was one of the Undead, the damned who’ve yet to descend and are waiting until Heldon decides to welcome them into his realm.”
Erin knew that somewhere between the thudding of her heart and the confusion in her mind she should say something, but she needed time to assimilate everything first. And not just the last hours before the growing dawn, but everything since her life had nose-dived into the bottomless pit of the unexplainable.
Her nagging little reason factor was scrambling to explain away what had happened,
but kept coming up short. Forcing her eyes open, she saw the sun had broken over the edge of the horizon. Light streamed through the ghostly mists, turning the white stone pillars to a pale gray with glittering specks. A sense of relief, reverence, and beauty seeped slowly into her, breathing a whisper of safety over her raw nerves.
Feeling steadier, she moved to Jared who stood just outside the circle of stones. She set her hand on his shoulder and he sighed loudly with relief, apparently finding great comfort in her touch. She had no doubt they were in a holy place and it was also well cared for with lush flower beds ringing each of the pillars. Even the ground wasn’t covered with scattered leaves and withered pine needles as one would expect in the forest. Instead, cut grass signaled that civilization was near.
“Where are we, Jared?”
“With the ancients,” he said, facing her in the light mists. “These are their sacred worship stones. Many ages of prayers and praise still echo here and give protection from the damned.”
“Someone else must come here as well,” she said. “Look at the ground—the grass, the flowers, someone goes to a lot of trouble to make a garden here.
Jared walked, looking about, his movements slow and unsteady.
His exhaustion and pain hurt and worried her. She had to get him to a doctor. “It also means people are nearby, and some sort of medical care.” She, too, could get a bath, food, and rest. That was as far as she was letting herself think for the moment. Soon, she’d have to face the big questions hovering over her—Jared, supernatural beings, and Dr. Cinatas.
Cinatas had tracked her to Tennessee from Manhattan. His Hummer squad would be combing the towns surrounding the forest she and Jared had disappeared into. But they couldn’t stay in here just to avoid Cinatas. Jared’s seizure like trembling when he set her down from their escape had her very concerned. She moved closer to him.
He was still shaking from his ordeal. “Let’s go.” She tugged on his arm, pulling him in the direction of a path leading away from the stones, praying that whoever kept this garden tended was at the other end of that trail.
Though stumbling, he followed without saying a word, and his lack of response sent an even more urgent warning clawing through her. Every time he expended his strength to save her from harm, he ended up in bad shape, making her almost wonder if he would drop dead like the fabled Greek messenger who’d run from Marathon to Athens. Ten feet through the trees, they reached a gravel road. She’d hoped for a house, but forged ahead, wrapping her arm around Jared’s back, helping to steady him as she guided him downhill.
Jared shuddered violently as his battle with the Tsara’s poison raged. Stepping into the sacred circle of the ancients had set his whole body on fire. The horrendous pain still burned in him; only the distance he gained from the sacred circle eased the agony and helped him to gather his awareness, but in its place came an overwhelming exhaustion that sucked strength from his every muscle. It was another sickening reminder of how fast he was becoming a warrior who could no longer fight with honor. Only Aragon’s warning last night had helped Jared save Erin.
He shouldn’t have had to be told that danger was so close, and he shouldn’t have had to be reminded of the sanctuary the ancients’ circle gave. He wasn’t a warrior worthy of protecting anyone now, much less a special Chosen.
Heldon’s attack last night had pushed Erin to the edge—he’d seen the dawning belief in her gaze. Her reaching the point of believing and trusting in him would make his battle to protect her easier. With his judgment as flawed as last night proved it to be, she would need to know how to defend herself. He wasn’t sure how long he could hold on to the good within him. Before he reached the point of hunting her himself, he’d chain himself within the ancients’ sacred circle and burn to death.
Cinatas smiled as the pure, clear light of dawn cut through the gray dawn as it crested over the tops of dark pines and towering oaks. He never missed a dawn; it was the only time the sun was worthy enough to behold, when its light was white and bright and unpolluted by the haze of man’s waste. There was no place better to watch it than from his apartments above the Sno-Med R&D facility in Arcadia, Tennessee. But Erin Morgan had robbed him of his usual orgasmic satisfaction. Another crime he’d get retribution for.
His men had yet to find her and her mysterious companion, but then neither had Shashur’s supposedly competent damned. He smiled, giddy that Shashur had failed. Cinatas so looked forward to the day he held absolute power over the king’s pompous ass. Playing God with another’s life was the ultimate rush. Cinatas could already hear Shashur begging, just as Erin would beg before he slit her throat and gorged on her blood. The difference between him and a Vladarian was they needed to have the blood, Cinatas drank because he enjoyed it.
A knock at the door interrupted his musings and instantly put him in a sour mood. He walked the outer edges of the room to the door, careful to keep the shiny nap of his arctic white carpet free of footprints, and snapped open the door.
“There’re freaking demons in those godforsaken hick hills.” Manolo burst into the room, muddied and oozing tiny droplets of blood from scratches on his face. He’d strode halfway across the room, dripping on the white carpet, before Cinatas could stop him.
Cinatas stared at the mud, then looked with feigned dispassion at the next man who’d die in his service. “There’re demons everywhere, Manolo. More so in the city than in Bambi s backyard.”
“I’m not talking about normal shit here. The things we met up with were not human, and the wolves . . . were.” He shuddered. “Do you understand what I’m saying here? I don’t think Morgan and the man she was with will make it out alive.”
Cinatas smiled. “That’s not something I would bet my life on. Would you, Manolo?”
Manolo blinked, his swarthy complexion paling beneath the black stubble of his jaw and shaved head. He edged his way back to the door. “No.”
“You’ve done as I asked? Every hole within a hundred-mile radius of the barn has got someone reporting to us?”
“Yes, sir,” Manolo nodded, seeming to recall his place at last.
“Good. Why don’t you pay a visit to the clinic downstairs and let them put my best salve on your cuts. You should rest a minute before you tackle the Morgan problem again.”
“Thank you, sir.” Manolo turned to leave, bits of crusty mud flaked off with his every step, defiling the virgin purity of the sea of white. Cinatas shuddered at the crime and went to the phone. He requested his apartments be immediately re-carpeted. Then he called the clinic downstairs and ordered for Manolo to be assigned a subject number. Research was a beautiful thing.
As she walked along the gravel road, Erin told herself that once she got Jared to help, she’d think about everything that had happened. Then she’d come to an unrushed decision as to what she believed about him and about last night. Until then, she’d firmly push yesterday’s events and emotions to the back of her mind, along with the remnants of her sensual dream about Jared. She had other things to think about, like not getting caught by Cinatas when they reached town.
Speak of the devil. She looked ahead and glimpsed the roof of a black vehicle speeding toward them before it dipped out of sight. Her pulse race and fear crawled up her spine. She hadn’t had time to determine the make or model, but her growing Hummer phobia had her running for cover. “Come on,” she tugged on Jared’s hand, leading him up the embankment toward the trees.
Before they reached the woods, Jared stumbled and fell to one knee, nearly pitching her back to the road. She regained her balance, and he quickly climbed to his feet, but it was too late to hide. Her warning cry about the approaching car died in her throat as a tar-black old-model pickup crested the hill ahead and beeped its horn as if the Super Bowl had just been won. The action, so far from the realm of stealth, took Erin by surprise and swayed her decision to flee. She stood and waited with Jared.
The pickup rolled to a stop, revealing a lone woman in the cab.
&nbs
p; It wasn’t the Hummer-driving goons, and she didn’t have to throw herself in the middle of the road to stop the pickup—a major improvement in her recent run of bad luck. At least, that was what she thought until the woman, shifted into park, rolled down her window, and spoke.
“Thank the Druids you’ve arrived.” The silver-blond pixie with misty green eyes looked Jared over from head to toe, before bothering to glance Erin’s way. “I’ve been waiting a long time for you to come. I fancy the sacred stones, but mornings aren’t my thing. Not sure I would have made it here every day if it weren’t for me mother’s angel’s wings.” She spoke with a lilting Irish accent and used her hands to express everything. The gold bracelets on her wrist tinkled like tiny wind chimes.
Did the woman know Jared? Erin stood stunned as the blond exited the truck. She wore a flowing, ankle-length emerald skirt and a form-fitting black lace corset over a silk blouse and seemed a little too old-fashioned for the modern world.
“Well, come along. I’m in a rush. Today of all days would have to be the day you come,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve an important chat over the Net, and I forgot my bloody cell phone at the office.” She frowned. “From the looks of you both, we need to get you to a doctor first.” Flowing like a sprite, the woman crossed to the other side of the truck and opened the passenger-side door then motioned them in.
Neither Erin nor Jared moved.
The woman glanced at her watch and sighed. “Had a time of it, have you? Don’t blame you a bit for being a wee cautious. I’d let you drive, but then Sam would have a go at me, and that would be none too pleasant. I’ve been borrowing his truck to meet you with because I knew the Mini just wouldn’t do.”
“Who are you?” Erin frowned, not sure which question to ask first. “Do you know Jared?”
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