by JL Madore
Beneath his hard, controlling crust, Zander was sweet. He didn’t even mention her summer fire. He’d been a genuinely good guy, worrying over her all morning.
The sound of footsteps had her heart racing. Not Kyrian’s smooth gait. She rose to her feet and shifted to Zander’s side.
“Austin,” Zander said, “this is Detective Colt Creed, the cop friend we spoke to earlier.”
Austin held her free hand out in the direction Zander gestured and waited for the contact. The detective’s hand slid into hers. She gagged, the wave of repulsion immediate. She stumbled back, and the mug smashed on the hardwood.
“Miss Navarro?” The man said, his voice exploding in white fang slashes and swipes all around her. “Are you all right?”
Zander moved to her back and steadied her. “It’s all right, Austin. You’re safe.”
Safe? She was the furthest thing from safe. Yanking free, she stumbled towards the door. A quick count of steps as she raced, hands up towards the entrance. What a fool. Her eyes stung as she connected with the wall and found the exit.
“Austin, calm down,” Zander said. “It’s all right.”
“Blind, Zander, not stupid,” she spat. “No. I am stupid. I believed you wanted to help me. Then you brought that . . . that monster here.”
Male voices cussed behind her as she turned the door handle and bolted into the foyer. She veered to the right and careened off a table. Glass shattered on the marble floor and her hip screamed from the impact. She ignored the hit and followed the wall with her hands outstretched.
He tracked her. She felt him right behind her—slow, cautious—he kept her within arm’s reach. Trapped. Panic and exhaustion weighed on her. She searched the wall for the button to call the elevator and when she found it, she heard the hydraulics whine to life below.
There was no smooth metal elevator door. Her mind whirled as she threw back two metal screens and fumbled with wooden gates. Strong hands grabbed her from behind and pulled her back. A scream pealed from her lungs.
“Austin. Stop.” Zander grabbed her hips and spun her to face him. “You’ll fall into the shaft. No one here will hurt you.”
“Don’t touch me!” The words tore from her throat and strained her vocal cords. She twisted to free herself but got nowhere. She punched him. It was like hitting a concrete wall, but she didn’t care. Everything became his fault, the kidnapping, the humiliation, her disillusionment, the fact that she couldn’t even get to a stupid elevator without crashing into a table and smashing what she hoped was a priceless artifact.
“I will not be your victim.” She hammered him with her fists, emotion exploding from within her. When the elevator banged to a stop behind her, she spun and launched herself forward.
Her feet tangled, and she tripped. Her shoulder caught the wall of the elevator car and she went down. Scrambling to right herself, she fumbled over uneven mounds of slick debris left in the elevator. She lifted wet, sticky hands and gasped at the stench.
Blood—and those mounds she tripped on—that was a body.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Zander stooped over Austin in the elevator and his world upended. It hit him like a semi-truck barreling down the highway. The nauseating wrongness. He couldn’t make sense of it. A mistake. But it wasn’t. He knew the energy of the men in his garrison. It shielded them in battle. It surrounded them when they fought together. He dropped to his knees. The mutilated heap of flesh and exposed bone made no sense.
Oh, sweet Lady, no. Oh please, no.
He shifted Tanek onto his back and fought the urge to vomit.
All his life, he’d never thought of heartbreak as an actual state. Whether because he lived solely for duty’s sake, fought the evils of the Darkworld, or survived childhood horrors—whatever the reason—he never thought his tainted heart could break. With Tanek’s mutilated corpse at his feet—turned out that theory was bullshit—because it felt like the life-giving organ had shattered behind his ribs. Total disintegration.
He called his gift forward and reached outward with his senses. There was no dissipating energy of his commander’s essence. Nothing. His brother was gone. Someone had hacked through his upper body and ripped away his facial features and Watcher’s mark. They’d left him physically unrecognizable. He recognized him by scent and by instinct.
“How could this happen?” Colt asked, beside him. “Tanek is too damn ornery to lose a fight, let alone his life.”
Zander opened his mouth but no words came. Nephilim led immortal lives. They’d never lost a soldier in battle. Never. Not in his garrison or the others. A dozen soldiers had succumbed to the tethered darkness over the ages but even then, only archangels had the power to end them.
He sat back on his heels and closed his eyes. How could Tanek, their oldest, toughest warrior be dead? “Peace be with you, brother mine. Fight the good fight. You will be missed.”
“Zander?”
The fear in Austin’s voice slammed him back to the present. Crouched in the corner of the elevator, she trembled, covered in Tanek’s blood. She’d been pale before, but with her eyes wide and bouncing around the space, her complexion had drained bone white.
He moved to her, his need to ease her raw and primal. “Let’s get you inside. Kyrian and Colt can take care of this.”
The fact that she didn’t object spoke volumes. He forced his muscles to work. He grabbed Austin’s arms, lifted her to her feet, and escorted her into the foyer and away from the slaughter. There was nothing he could do for Tanek.
“Your friend,” she whispered, her voice catching, “the one missing from the warehouse?”
“Shh, don’t think about it.” Zander tucked Austin’s tiny frame against his side and walked her to the spare room across from his own. He snagged the shopping bags Jules brought up earlier and headed straight into the ensuite. After opening the faucet, he set the water temperature and placed Austin’s hands under the stream.
Scarlet ran pink as Tanek’s life swirled down the drain.
“I don’t understand,” she said, tears thick in her voice.
“How could you? It’s my fucking life and I don’t have a clue what’s happening.”
Tanek’s death rocked the very foundation of their existence. Beyond anger and confusion, now the men had to deal with a new, uncharted reality. One where they could end their night on the streets dead. So much for immortality.
Zander couldn’t begin to wrap his mind around that. He’d been battling at Tanek’s side since the Peloponnesian War and somehow, he had failed him on a routine night in a crappy Toronto warehouse. And if Tanek was dead, so too was the Cherub. He had no doubt. The hum in his head grew louder and he fought to focus on his task.
“Zander, are you all right?”
Not even close. He wrapped Austin’s clean hands in a fluffy, black towel and dried them off. Her scared and covered in blood, it just wasn’t right. He protected the innocent. “I failed him—them—I failed them.”
Why were his lips flapping? He didn’t do heart-to-heart.
“I’m sure you didn’t,” she whispered, capturing his hands in her own.
Like hell. He’d blacked out while some flesh eater carved his brother like a holiday turkey and made away with an innocent female. Guilt and self-loathing choked him.
She closed the space between them. “You really are one of the good guys, aren’t you? Undercover, like special forces or something?”
He swallowed hard. “Something like that.”
“What branch? Marines? SEAL? Can you tell me?”
“Just another soldier.”
She released his hands and cupped the side of his jaw.
He pressed his cheek into her palm and his energy calmed. She dialed his output down. The souls he’d dispatched quieted and the darkness within him relented. The absence of that burden almost knocked him on his ass.
Before he knew what she was up to, Austin rose to her toes, slipped her arms around his back and did something no one
had done since his childhood. She comforted him. Just wrapped herself around his heft and laid her cheek against his chest. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
He wanted to curse and shove her away, but her body’s softness pressed up against the hardness of his. Her embrace drew him tight against her—he couldn’t move.
Deep inside the darkest recess of his soul, part of him wanted more. A gut-churning need to obliterate the images of Tanek from his mind overwhelmed. He slid his hands up her back and her body swayed toward him. The heat she gave off warmed him. The smoothness of her skin beckoned his touch.
The woman spellbound him.
His lips brushed hers, soft as a whisper. A slow grin spread across her face. Unprepared for the gentleness of their kiss, he shivered. For all the passion he chained behind his guarded control, this tenderness spoke of another side of him. A side he didn’t even know he possessed.
A man. Not a soldier. Not a bastard. Not a killer. Just a man seeking comfort.
As the kiss continued, so too did his restraint. It wasn’t that he didn’t want more. His hunger snapped in the air around them and no way could she miss his arousal pressed against her stomach. Still, she welcomed him.
He clamped his hands on her hips and let her set the boundaries. The gentle flick of his tongue against her lips was not a demand, but a prompt for an invitation. When her mouth parted and she allowed him entrance, he growled, low and deep.
He wanted things that made no sense. Things that had nothing to do with duty or loyalty or politics. He shifted his hold and tightened his hand at the nape of her neck. Holding her close, he finished the kiss. Her quiet moan of protest threatened his resolve but he stepped back.
“I’ll leave you to get cleaned up.” He stepped away from her embrace and caught his reflection in the mirror. His mark glowed again. He eyed the gentle heave of her bosom, the passionate gleam in her eyes, the light spangling off the ends of her dark lashes. The lights flickered, and the restriction of his jeans became painful. He brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “I need to go see if I can help. Are you okay in here?”
She pulled back and nodded. “Of course. I’ll be fine.”
Stryker scanned the forested area of the Don River Valley and swept a cluster of lush, pine branches to the side. He slipped behind the false stone wall and entered the antechamber of the subterranean den. It smelled of earth and bracken and the temperature continued to drop the further he ventured inside. Well hidden from human notice, he and his men found that this lair allowed them to remain within the Metropolis, yet hunt and feed undisturbed.
Unlike the warehouse in the occupied part of the city, where they gathered their prey in the streets, this remote location offered his men the seclusion needed when they wanted to play with their food a little more.
Once through the low cave mouth, he straightened and tapped his fingers along the jars of organs stacked and shelved inside the entrance. He regretted the loss of the kills at the warehouse, but it had been necessary. Evidence of their illegal harvests would enrage the Watchers—test their confidence. When the Watcher house of cards fell, nothing would ever be the same.
He inhaled and his instincts fired. He drew his weapon. The reptilian stench of Serpentine singed his nostrils.
“Relax, Shedim, we’re not here to caussse you stressss.”
Stryker’s gut wrenched. The graveled hiss of Gregor the Ancient hung in the air, as unnerving as lore foretold. “Hello Gregor. What brings the King of Serpentines into the human realm after centuries of seclusion?”
The Rastafarian looking male stepped forward, his gait unsteady. Nob-boned fingers lowered the wide cowl of his burgundy robe and Stryker swallowed. The male’s chalky brown face housed lid-less, silver sockets that gaped empty, devoid of the red, lizard eyes that had once occupied them.
Stryker tightened the grip on his blade. He reached out with his powers to sense Devious and the six seasoned Hunters in the inner chamber. He couldn’t reach them. How could Gregor block him? Serpentines didn’t possess that ability.
A throng of forked-tongued, skin-heads ebbed forward from the shadows—the Serpentine Royal Guard. Three more stepped in behind him and blocked his exit. There were too many to kill. He had the Watcher’s dagger but to wield the assassin’s instrument of death, he had to fight in close melee. With this many and their ability to project venom—
Gregor laughed. The low vibration woke his Rastafarian braids that, until that moment, had lain flat and calm against his skull. As the Serpentine King continued closer, the demon’s ophidian hair undulated of its own volition. The ancient male glanced at Stryker’s raised weapon, the twin tines of his puce tongue tasting the air between them.
“Don’t trussst me, Shedim?” Appreciation tainted his tone.
“Trust is for fools.”
“And dead men.” A female voice crooned from the den’s inner corridor.
Stryker met the beguiling stare of the Dimme Queen, Xamia. A chill rippled down his spine at the same moment his cock hardened. At five-foot-nothing, a lion-gold mane of hair flowed around a tiny, yet voluptuous body he once knew intimately. He’d always thought the demon goddess looked more like a porcelain child than the bitch queen who ate infant humans. Babies or toddlers, she didn’t discriminate so long as they still nursed on their mother’s milk, their bones fresh and full of lush marrow. Why was she in his inner sanctum?
Xamia stepped forward and he saw the answer—Emmalixa.
So mother and daughter hadn’t severed ties after all. His estranged daughter had come to him months ago, touting the need to know her father and her Shedim heritage. She’d claimed her mother had forbidden it. He’d been wary but pleased to make the connection.
Standing side-by-side, he saw they were evermore the deceptive duo.
Stepping fully into the antechamber, Xamia sidestepped a pile of discarded street urchins and carcasses. She frowned. “What do you feed your men, lover? Strength comes from the kill’s essence. Forest creatures and vagrants will never sustain Hunters. Did you learn nothing from our precious time together?”
Xamia swept closer, her gait fluid, her hips swaying. “Stop looking so hostile, Stryker. I have no interest in undermining your grand scheme. I wanted to see for myself if the rumors are true. I assume you’ve dropped in for the same reason, Gregor?”
The Rastafarian nodded, seemingly amused by the family reunion. One of three skull-tattooed guards held up a cell phone.
The video Devious recorded of the Nephilim commander’s demise cycled across the screen. Blasted internet. He’d sent that file to those he trusted. How had the heads of two opposing races learned he initiated the killing?
“Don’t look ssso nervousss, Shedim. We have no interessst in interfering with your uprising against the Nephilim bassstardsss.”
Xamia spat acid on the ground, her charcoal-grey eyes swirling. “May dragon spawn swallow every Watcher whole and shit their smoldering ashes.”
“Colorful, Mom,” Emmalixa mumbled.
What were Xamia and Gregor saying? Would they join him? Toronto was the first step. Once he convinced the Darkworld it could be done, he’d initiate a complete turn of the tides. Would the other races stand against the Sumerian and his fellow assassins? Or was this a ruse to prevent him from gaining ground in the Dark world?
Xamia flashed him a seductive grin he knew with all too much familiarity. His skin tingled, tight over his bones. The power these two could provide would fortify the battles to come. Make his army invincible.
Well, well, well, crazy how the world tumbled on its axis until everything you thought you understood flipped upside down. Crazy indeed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Austin shed the clothes she’d had on for less than an hour and found another outfit. In a strange way, it comforted her that Zander seemed as lost as she felt. He hadn’t told her everything, but did she want to be more involved in—whatever this was?
Five hours with him and she felt like she’d been
run through the thresher.
One of his friends, dismembered and left on his doorstep. Another, some kind of a monster. A woman, abducted from his sex club. He’d found her naked and beaten in a warehouse and gotten himself stabbed.
How did a man live in such a spiral of violent chaos?
How had she been sucked into it?
She balled up the bloodied clothes and placed them on the floor. There was more to him, though. She felt it. He held himself to a moral code. Strong. Proud. Stubborn as all get out.
She ran her fingers over her lips. That kiss. The gentle touch of his mouth on hers ignited a longing that made no sense. She closed her eyes and relived his touch, possessive hands roaming up her back, crushing her against his muscled frame. Her nipples tightened, her nerve endings firing, ready for more.
But no. It wasn’t real.
Psych 101: intense feelings could form in the wake of highly stressful situations. This qualified. She swallowed and ran her fingers through her hair, smoothing anything out of place. There would be no more kisses. She had no interest in speaking to Detective Creed, so there was no reason for her to stay.
Zander could call that cab and she would go reclaim her life. If the Toronto PD had questions, they could send someone else to interview her. Set in her conviction, she opened the door and made her way out to the hall.
With her fingers skimming the fabric wallcovering, she retraced her steps until she found the antique hall table outside Zander’s home office. She followed the satin edge to the other side and continued until she reached the living room.
Raised voices carried from the outer foyer. Their friend, Tanek, had been important to them. The pain of losing a loved one ached in her heart. She’d lived a long time in that empty well of sadness and learned a valuable lesson. Avoid that trap altogether. If you didn’t depend on people, you didn’t get hurt when you ended up alone.
The voices continued to escalate in temper and volume, and she decided to head back to the spare room until things simmered down.