Watcher Redeemed

by JL Madore

  She swatted Zander’s hand away and laid her head on her arm. “Go find him. Don’t talk to me until he’s safe and back home. Home. Here in the loft.”

  Zander cursed and punched another hole in the washroom wall. The third in a set. Bits of drywall rained down and clattered on the tile floor. Zander had a temper. His beast’s was worse. She sipped some water, swished and spat. After she flushed, she patted her face dry with a hand towel.

  “I thought we had an understanding, a trust built on honesty and mutual respect. I let myself believe . . .” Her legs wobbled unsteady when she stood. She wasn’t much better than a newborn calf in a straw-covered stall.

  She batted his hand away again.

  “Don’t be stubborn,” Zander said, a growl lacing his voice. “Face-planting won’t help anyone.”

  She glared. Though she didn’t see him in the common sense, she saw him through a filter of blue aura, silhouette, and his mark. He wore the face of a tortured Adonis. His own doing. Him and his stupid beast. “Don’t bother arguin’. You get out there and bring our boy home. I don’t care what—”

  “I am home, sweetheart,” Kyrian said, limping into the front entrance.

  Austin pushed past Zander and tripped over Stetson. She sprawled into Kyrian in a tangle of momentum and tears. He didn’t seem to care. He caught her and grabbed her up so tight he might have bruised some ribs. “Are you all right? You are all right, aren’t you?”

  “I will be.” Kyrian nuzzled her hair and let out a quivering sigh. “As soon as Danel takes off this fucking collar I can heal.” He stepped back and looked over at Zander. “And as soon as I’m free, I’ll get out of your hair, my brother. I swear it.”

  “No,” Zander said, wrapping his great arm around Kyrian. “You’ll go nowhere but to your own bed. It’s damn good to have you home, Adolphos.”

  Kyrian blinked fast, the moisture in his eyes bringing tears to her as well.

  “Danel,” Zander said into his phone. “I need your gift at the loft, ASAP . . . to remove an inhibitor collar off the Greek.” Zander held the phone from his ear as Seth whooped in the background. “Yep, see you in ten.”

  Zander stared at his best friend. Standing in a toga, beaten and bruised, and reeking of smoke, the Greek’s energy was all wrong. It was obvious he’d suffered more damage on the inside than out. He’d had a hand in that. How had things gotten so fucked up? He stepped back and left Austin in his brother’s arms. The two of them needed each other. And he needed to wrap his thick skull around the fact that he couldn’t dictate the emotions of others. People loved who they loved.

  Zander tightened up his shit. “How’d you get away from the Shedim bitch—”

  “—A dragon got him!” echoed up the hall.

  The three of them turned as Ringo slid by in a blur. Floppy socks slid on the hardwood. Arms flapped in the air. Jet black hair stuck up off the side of his head like duck fluff gone rogue. The boy got control of his limbs and staggered back to the foyer. “In the courtyard . . . about to be executed . . . a friggin dragon got him.” The kid focused on the three of them and screeched. “Ohmygod, you’re here! But . . . a dragon got you.”

  Kyrian was tackled from behind before he could speak. Lifted off his feet, Seth bear hugged him and swung him around like a ragdoll. Zander pulled Austin to safety as Phoenix joined the mix. After a lot of back-slapping, Danel closed the door and met Kyrian chest to chest. “By the Powers, Greek, it’s good to see you.”

  Kyrian lifted his chin. “Any chance you could get this piece of shit off me?”

  The inhibitor collar was no match for Danel. In a matter of minutes, Kyrian was free and a second wave of warriors arrived. The back-slapping Olympics entered an enthusiastic second heat with Hark, Bo, and Brennus.

  “I appreciate the welcome home, boys,” Kyrian said, choked up, “but I really need to hit the horizontal and heal.”

  “Of course, you do.” Austin shooed everyone and slid her arm around his back. “You’ll fill everyone in on your adventure later.”

  “Yeah,” Seth said, scrubbing his knuckles on Ringo’s head and dodging the swing. “Debrief after being debriefed. Shower and rest, brother. We’ll catch up with you at church.”

  Kyrian headed toward his chamber, with Austin tight to his side and her cheek pressed against the guy’s chest.

  Zander followed them to the end of the corridor and extended his hand to reclaim his wife. “We should let Kyrian rest, cowgirl. He needs time to recover from things.”

  She raised a chestnut brow. “Don’t we all.”

  His wings flared behind him as his energy surged. The lights flickered up and down the hall. “I’m sorry I’m not better at this, but you gotta give me room to make mistakes. I love you.”

  She nodded. “I love you too. I just don’t like you much at the moment. Do yourself a favor, and leave me be for a while. I feel like I’ve been trampled, and I just want to lay down with Kyrian, reassure myself that he’s all right, and get some rest.”

  Danel tossed a ten on the mosaic counter and waited for his change. It had taken a few weeks of stares and glares before he realized that when he kept his right, non-handed stump in the pocket of his trench, it was business as usual at The Grind. The Aunt Bea barista doing the pouring looked like they’d day-passed her out of the home for the shift but really, how hard was it to fill three cups and plop some cream on the side?

  He scanned the interior while he waited. A shapeshifter in the corner checked her phone. Human men and women sprinkled tables throughout. A pack of early twenty-somethings acted like idiots in a booth on the far wall. Nothing to write home about. The ones who looked up and caught him checking them out, tended to stare. His angel side drew attention to the fact that he was ‘other’ and the weak-minded race translated that into attraction.

  The skinny girl with the blunt-cut, blonde bob and heavy tortoiseshell glasses who usually served him was curiously absent. Not that he cared. He didn’t. She just knew how he liked his coffee so he didn’t have to spend a lot of time jawing it up with fidiot humans.

  “—and you have a good evening.”

  Danel reached under the length of his jacket, pocketed his change, and then scooped up the drink carrier. No small talk. No smiles or nods. He paid his money. He got his coffee. Transaction complete.

  “—right, okay, so is Drake an actual drake?” Seth asked his twin outside the door. Phoenix’s hand flew through the air and Seth snorted. “No. Not a fucking duck kinda drake, a dragon kind, meathead.”

  Danel joined them and passed around the java. “Until Kyrian wakes up, all we’ve got is the kid’s version of what he saw in his dream.”

  “Which has been spot on so far,” Phoenix signed.

  Danel held his coffee out as Seth tipped his flask over each one and spiked things up. “Granted but I’m still anxious to hear the tale told from the Greek before the Dark Prince’s Darkworld meeting. I’d go back to the loft to wait if . . ..”

  “If Zander wasn’t about to go Jackson and lightning strike everyone in his path?”

  Danel nodded. The Sumerian had always been a violent force, but things had ramped up to mortal danger levels. He didn’t even like the Texan harbinger of doom, but Austin had become a necessary evil in the workings of their garrison. Like war to bolster an economy or some shit like that.

  “Kyrian will get him and Austin on the solid,” Seth said. “The Greek’s good like that.”

  Danel took a long draw on his coffee and wondered if it would be soon enough. The three of them walked to the parking lot just as the sound of shattered glass hit the airwaves. “Motherfucker,” he said. “Mother-fucking-fucker.”

  Tossing his coffee, his thighs went off like pistons and he gunned it at the three Abercrombie punks going Louisville Slugger on the headlights of his ’69 Mach Mustang.

  Stump or not, Danel lit into them. A chorus of curses preceded the circling of the brat pack and the click of a switchblade. He let the little shit come. It
was weird not having the same reach on his right that he’d had his entire existence, but his left still worked fine, and his legs were just as lethal. He didn’t draw his weapon because, come on, these three were just a waste of human ejaculate.

  The tussle and brawl continued, a satisfying thud of fist to body recharging Danel’s drained battery. Absently, he noticed Seth and Phoenix leaning against the building, sipping their coffees and taking in the show, like massive Egyptian UFC fight scouts.

  Mister switchblade was still down and out on the asphalt next to his bloodied his friend when Batista came at him with the bat. Danel grabbed the chunk of ash mid-swing and rammed the knob back into his groin. The kid dropped like a stone and Danel gave him a stomp to the nutsack to make sure he was feeling it way down deep in his bones.

  “Never mess with a man’s car, you little shits.”

  “Especially when that man can kick your ass ten ways till Tuesday,” Colt said, stepping out from the front seat of a cop car. The Ice Demon straightened, his jeans and leather jacket a second skin on the Toronto Detective. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the uniformed cop rounding the back fender.

  “You’ve got two choices here, boys. One, you empty your wallets and compensate my friend for his lovely lady’s pain and suffering, after which, this officer will drop you off at the ER of the closest hospital. Or two, you go down to the 51st precinct, get your pictures taken, and see how popular trust-fund bad boys are in holding on a busy Saturday night. I guarantee you Daddy won’t get there soon enough. What’ll it be?”

  “Door number two,” Seth hollered from the peanut gallery. “Always go for the second showcase in the showdown.”

  Colt handed Danel a wad of bills and shook his head. “Look at it this way, Persian. You worked out some pent-up frustration annnd made six hundred bucks while doing it. Come on. I’ll buy you another coffee and then we’ll go wake up the Greek.”

  Kyrian stared into those hazel eyes and felt at ease for the first time in months. It wasn’t that he was finally home—it was that she was his home. And pregnant. Amazing. After he’d had a quick shower last night, they’d talked a bit about what he’d missed. The Asian kid with the visions. Her baby surprise. Zander’s thoughts on that subject.

  The hits had been pommeling them from all sides the past months. Exhausted, both physically and emotionally, he’d pulled the duvet up and the two of them sacked out on his behemoth of a bed. Nine hours later, he felt healed, physically. Emotionally though, he wasn’t out of the woods. “Damn, I’ve missed this. Missed you and Z. I’m sorry I mucked things up by crossing the line, sweetheart.”

  She squeezed his hand. “You crossed nothing.”

  If she knew the things that had run through his mind, she’d know different. She’d also slap him and probably never talk to him again. “I did, and I apologize.”

  She pulled his hand up between them and hugged his arm. “Okay, let’s hear it. Get it of your chest.”

  Where to begin? He sighed and decided to start with facts. “While you were unconscious for those three days, Zander was crazed. The shit his Jackson side did to that Shedim was sadistic. Just plain wrong. So, I ended it. I took the kill from Zander and the darkness raging inside him. I said it was to preserve what was left of his soul . . .”

  “But?”

  He blinked at the moisture brimming his eyes and felt a damp warmth slide down his cheek. “It was also to avenge you. My instincts raged too. It wasn’t my place to strike vengeance for you but part of me wanted you for myself. I love you too.”

  Austin stroked her fingers through his hair and rested her palm on his cheek. The warmth of her touch was solid, and he cherished the connection. “You love me, but you aren’t in love with me, Kyrian. You just haven’t had enough experience with the emotion to know the difference.”

  “I wish that were true.”

  She shifted to her side and propped her head up on her hand. Her hair fell to the bed in a stunning, chestnut curtain. “Emotions can overwhelm. Especially someone who’s never been allowed to experience them. Being blind, I read people well. I suppose you could call it my gift from the heavens. I know your heart. And though it’s twisted up and in pain, it’s not because you’re in love with me.”

  No, it wasn’t. Damn. Damn. Damn.

  He drew a shaky breath, not ready for any confessions. Things would change. If he said it out loud, it would be real. It would be ruined. Kyrian had cried three times in his life—after his Earth father learned he wasn’t his biological sire and sacrificed himself during the battle of Tanagra, after Tanek stood behind Lady Divinity as a soldier in her service, and now.

  Before things got too sloppy, he swiped under his eyes and drew a shaky breath. “There’s something I have to tell you, sweetheart, about the woman who shot at you. And believe me, if I could go back and change things, I would. I’m sorry, Austin. I’m so fucking sorry but I need your help.”

  Austin waited until Kyrian fell back to sleep before she slid off the bed and headed out to find Zander. Her mind whirled. Had Kyrian been in stronger form, he would never have laid his emotions bare before her like that. These men guarded their hearts with the same ferocity they fought with. Without a doubt, his candor had come partly from their connection, but a larger part had been the mix of exhaustion, PTSD, and the mind-altering chaos of his beast claiming Stryker’s daughter.

  Kyrian was right about one thing. She was his only hope in holding Zander at bay until he figured things out. She eased down the handle to the bedroom and closed the door behind her without a sound. Now, to find her husb—

  She tripped, only to be caught within the cage of Zander’s familiar embrace. “Sweet Texas,” she hissed, her voice low. “You scared the bejeebers out of me, angelman. What are you doing lying in wait in the hall?”

  “I apologize,” Zander said, his words heavy and sad.

  He set her on solid footing and stepped back. The awkward formality of his distance took her back to the two of them on a sidewalk outside an ice cream shop months ago. Their first fight had been interrupted by a coordinated daemon attack which slammed things into perspective PDQ. And what do you know, this time, clarity had come from her best friend mating a sworn enemy who had them both shot.

  Huh. Life had a bizarre sense of humor.

  Pointing the way, she led him down the hall, past the laundry room, dining room, living room, and office. The jingle of Stetson’s collar preceded the heavy push on the side of her leg as her fat, chocolate lab joined the procession. “Hey boy,” she said, patting Stetson’s boxy head. “Both of you come on in and sit down.”

  “Why do I need to sit?” Zander said, his voice clipped. His Mark glowed, the detailed design of souls taken gaining in brilliance as he stared her down. “Are you leaving me? Just tell me. Tell me the truth.”

  Austin’s jaw dropped. “What? Why would you think that?”

  He paced to the ensuite door and back, his bare feet silent on the plush carpet. “You’re not happy—with me, with our life, with the way I handled things. Why wouldn’t you leave? I can’t blame you. Turns out, I’m a terrible husband. You deserve soooo much better.”

  Austin pulled the elastic from her ponytail and scrubbed out her hair. These men broke her heart, they really did.

  Taking his hand, she walked him over to the big lounge chair by the bookshelves. He opened his wings to sit, the ebony span rising over the arms and taking her breath away as they did each and every time.

  Once he was situated, she crawled into his lap and gripped his chin, so he was looking straight at her. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told Kyrian last night. Emotions overwhelm. Especially someone who’s never been allowed to experience them.”

  She saw it then, really saw how wore out her angelman was. He’d been sitting on the floor outside Kyrian’s room. Had likely been out there all night. She pressed her lips to his in a chaste offering and smiled. “Are you perfect? No. Do I expect you to be? I don’t. When you got a hol
e in the fence, you round up the cattle that got loose and you mend the dang fence. You don’t sell the farm.”

  Zander dropped his head into the crook of her neck and sighed. “Tell me what I can do. I’ll make this right between us, I swear it.”

  She nodded and stroked his long, wavy hair. “I’m gonna put that oath of yours to the test right now, and I warn you, you’re not gonna like it.”

  “Anything. You speak the words and consider it done.”

  “All right,” she said. She licked her lips and exhaled. “I need you to stop targeting the Shedim woman. Kyrian believes we can turn things around with a peaceful resolution and I want you to help him try.”

  Zander was up out of the chair and set her on the arm in a graceful surge of strength. “He can’t possibly want that. She had you shot. He was shot, captured, beaten. Why would he sympathize with her? It’s some kind of Stockholm Syndrome.”

  Austin shook her head. “He has his reasons and when he’s ready to discuss them, he’ll tell you. Until then, you can start mending that fence by—”

  “You know the whole story, I can see it in your eyes. Tell me why.”

  Austin raised a brow. “You don’t much like being the one on the outside of the secret, do you, angelman?”

  Zander’s nostrils flared, and she met his anger head on. “I said I was sorry.”

  “Well I’m sorry too, but this is Kyrian’s story to tell. You can either respect my request knowin’ that I support his logic, or you can continue to make decisions for everyone, and we’ll go right back to being mad at each other.”

  Zander clenched his fists, his rage so great the hair on her arms stood on end. “But she hurt you. She tried to take you from me. She deserves to suffer.”

  “She is suffering, that’s my point. Stryker was her father. She mourns a man she believed to be noble and dedicated to their people.”

  “Psychotic and sadistic.” Zander’s pacing increased, his wings twitching as the muscles of his back flexed and released. Why did she feel like he was searching for a loophole in this agreement? After a long silence, he growled low in his chest and cursed. “Fine. If we can put this mess behind us, I’ll take my lead from you and Kyrian for now. But if it doesn’t pan out, that bitch’s head is mine.”