by JL Madore
Need blood? Phoenix’s confusion filled Seth’s mind. What the fuck is going on?
Seth shuffled back to the hall with his twin and ass planted into one of the plastic chairs lining the wall. “I have no fucking clue.”
Phoenix leaned against the wooden frame of the double doorway and watched them work, but it didn’t block Seth’s view of what was happening. Having been the infirmary for a racetrack in its former life, the doorways, corridors and rooms in this clinic were all big enough to let two Clydesdales pass.
Phoenix tossed him a wary glance over his shoulder. Message Zander. If Raphael is still at the loft with Austin, maybe he’ll send the bastard here to help.
As a rule, the archangels didn’t get involved in helping them—didn’t give a shit about them, actually—but considering their squad was already down two warriors . . . it couldn’t hurt to ask. Seth pulled out his phone, but before he hit send, the air crackled. Zander materialized, followed by the golden mist of Archangels Raphael and Uriel.
Seth and his brother rose to greet them, but Raphael didn’t stop to chat. The archangel pushed passed Phoenix in a blur of white silk and went straight inside.
What did it say about the situation that the powers from on high would get their porcelain hands dirty? The horrors of their war had never hit so close to home. With the death of Tanek, the maiming of Danel, and now the attack on Austin and Kyrian, the threat to life and limb hit more real than ever before.
Zander stalked up for a face-to-face and the energy he was throwing off tingled down Seth’s spine. “How bad is he?”
“Bad. Your boy’s in real trouble.”
Seth and his twin relayed everything they knew about what happened in the parking garage and hoped Zander didn’t level the city. Lightning storm, hurricane, hail . . . these days, the guy was a meteorological weather warning waiting to happen.
Ebony wings flared as the Sumerian’s shitkickers tromped up and down the stone floor. The current of air whooshing off those feathered appendages ruffled not only the long, thick waves of the Sumerian’s hair, but a hundred forgotten equestrian ribbons desperately clinging to the corridor’s tack boards.
Uriel met Z on one of his passes and did some pinch and twist shit on his shoulder. As Zander winced, the lights flickered, and the archangel looked like he might hurl.
“Enough,” Zander snapped, shrugging out of the hold. He strode to the exam room doorway and leaned to see what was doing. “Where are we in here?”
Seth watched Drina’s hands as she worked. Those bloody digits prodded and palpated, her voice strong and steady. Even when she spoke, her hands didn’t slow. “From what I can tell, two shots entered through his side. There’s one exit wound, so my guess is the other slug pinballed off a rib and ricocheted around inside. No telling where it landed or what kind of carnage it caused on its way. I’ve sewn up a few holes and got a good piece of it out, but I’m hunting for more.”
Cato clicked a few buttons on a keyboard by the med cabinet and the screen on the wall lit up with Kyrian’s insides. Drina cursed and Raph frowned, the two of them sharing a whisper the onlookers weren’t meant to hear. Cato handed Zander a sterile tray, with the bloody slug fragment sliding around on the shiny metal surface.
Seth stepped closer. Fuck. It was the same weird red as the Shedim blades they’d faced when Austin was taken. Zander didn’t seem surprised. “What do you know about this, Z?”
“It’s what Raphael pulled from Austin’s arm.”
“This demon-steel instigates some sort of hemophiliac response,” Raph said, his eyes locked on Kyrian’s insides, “but if the issue was as simple as it producing excessive bleeding, Austin’s arm would have bled more.”
Uriel stepped closer to Zander. “It’s safe to assume the alloy has been perverted with a very specific target in mind.”
“A Watcher weapon.” Seth exhaled and looked at his twin. “And Kyrian has shattered bits of the shit inside him. Fan-fucking-tastic.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“What do you mean, she lives?” Cassiane ignored Devious’ dispassionate stance as she questioned his performance. He stood rigid before her, hands clasped at his back, eyes forward, his gaze locked on the wall behind her desk. Considering the lethal hunter she knew him to be, banded in corded muscle and leather and weapons, how had he been unable to expire one human woman?
She leaned heavy into her palms on the leather blotter before her and stared at the crest of her family ring. The unexpected death of her father had dropped the reins of power squarely in her lap. Now, as Mistress of Shedim, her people needed her to be a leader, not the broken-hearted orphan she was in actuality.
Shifting to sit in her father’s leather desk chair, the upholstery practically swallowed her up. She tented her fingers, hoping the confidence she portrayed would come. “By your account, the Sumerian broke faith with negotiations and slaughtered my father, your leader. Correct?”
Devious dipped his chin in answer, but his gaze remained locked forward.
“And you realize that for us to show weakness to our allies and enemies only invites chaos into our already tumultuous and uncertain lives?”
Another nod, the muscles in the warrior’s square-cut jaw flexing.
“Then we need results, Devious. An eye for an eye. A life for a life. Killing the wife of the Nephilim commander is the first step in my plan to destroy his world as he has destroyed ours. The way we handle this sets the tone for our future.”
“And she will die, Mistress, I swear it. This wasn’t my fault. Three Watchers escorted—”
She raised her hand and he clenched his jaw shut. Devious was many things: cunning, deadly, intelligent, most assuredly determined, but he also avoided accepting responsibility for his shortcomings. It was a most unattractive character flaw. For good or ill, a true male owned his actions. “If I were my father sitting here before you, would you make excuses?”
Something flared in his eyes, but vanished quickly.
“Apologies, Mistress,” he said, clasping his hands at his front, “but if your father were here, he would know what it means to face three Watchers, and I would not need to explain.”
The breath she’d been holding froze in her chest as she forced a smile. “So, because I have never gone on a hunt to the Human Realm, I could not possibly understand what it means to go up against our enemy? Is that what you’re implying?”
“I wasn’t implying a thing, Mistress,” he said. His cold stare shifted to meet her own, the intensity of his glare strangling her somehow.
Cassiane picked the Shedim Master’s Dagger off the desk and ran her fingers along the steel of the blade. There was something oddly hypnotic about the way the warm light of the sconces danced up and down the surface of the blade as she pivoted the tip against the vulnerable flesh of her finger. The weapon had belonged to her father, his father before him, and her grandfather’s father before that. It was hers now, a fact the males of the castle would have to reconcile with.
Devious rocked on the balls of his feet, his mighty bulk shifting beneath the leather attire he wore to the Human Realm.
With a quizzical eye, she traced the military cut of his dark hair, the line of his leather jacket as it stretched over his broad shoulders, the fit of his pants from his trim waist to the strain of dark fabric as it clung to his muscled thighs. What was the allure? The females of the castle went on about him. Frankly, she didn’t see it. Not once had she found her heart aflutter or her flesh warm with the needing of him. Never had she felt a throb of femininity wakening for him . . . or any other male, for that matter.
He shifted again, and his lips pursed tight.
“Devious, if you have something on your mind, by all means, out with it.”
His dark eyes lit with consideration as he picked his words. “You are out of your depths as the Mistress of Shedim, and you don’t even realize it. A lamb in a world of wolves. Stryker insulated your life and your reality, and everyone within the castle wal
ls knows it.” Devious wet his lips, and when she offered no argument, he appeared to gather strength to continue. “As females go, you are relatively sharp and run the castle with compassion and an efficient hand, but you would do well to leave it at that.”
Relatively sharp? She tightened her grip on the hilt of the letter opener and bit back her urge to speak her mind fully. “I see. And what, pray tell, would you have me do to rectify the situation we now find ourselves in?”
“In the interest of our race, you should honor your father’s wishes and wed me. Then you could tend to the needs of the civilians and leave the ruling of the hunters and soldiers to someone capable of leading them. It’s the only way I see us surviving.”
She fought to harness the laughter burning in her chest. Arrogant ass. His opinion didn’t surprise her, but she was saddened by it all the same. “So, I should keep house and let you handle the important issues of our people, is that it? Take my place as the dutiful Mistress while you, the new Master of Shedim, handle all matters of gravity?”
He straightened. “That was your father’s will. As my female, I would allow you to—”
“Allow me?” She leapt over the desk in a flurry of swirling skirts and lodged the dagger’s point squarely at his crotch. Her fangs extended, and the tips tingled with the urge to rip flesh. “My father wanted a great many things, Devious, but until I agree, I am not your wife, and you need not allow me anything. Since I asked you to speak freely, your opinion shan’t be held against you, but let me illuminate my position. The notion of the Mistress being wed to the Master’s Hand is an antiquated tradition. The decision is, and will always be, mine.”
In a blur of movement, Devious grabbed her wrist and bent her backward against the edge of her desk. He overpowered her without effort, her escape impossible. “You are foolish if you believe you have the strength to command my men and lead the Shedim into the next phase of the uprising.”
He pressed closer, looming over her like the great mammoth he was. “Don’t misunderstand your father’s motives, Cassiane. The suggestion you and I marry wasn’t Stryker’s way of providing for you. It was his way of ensuring the Shedim don’t become extinct.”
She strained against his iron grip, her arms tingling with the loss of circulation. “And a relatively sharp female like myself couldn’t possibly inspire confidence in and lead our people? Is that the truth of things, as you see it?”
“It is the truth, period,” he said, his voice rough, his hips pressing his arousal hard against her belly. Male heat filled the air between them as his cold stare fixated on her. Was he sizing her up for a shroud or for sex? His lips curled in a cruel smile. “You have no frame of reference to what our men face each and every time they go on a hunt. You know naught of the evils beyond these stone walls. The scope of treachery we deal with is beyond your—”
“My what?” she snapped, flashing her canines, fury dripping into her voice. “Beyond my intelligence? Beyond my ability? Tell me, Devious, beyond my what? Certainly, not beyond my power. That isn’t what you were going to say, is it? Because one call for my guards, and you spend the rest of your arrogant life in the dungeon as my prisoner. Or perhaps I’ll save you the humiliation and have your throat slit tonight.”
A long, bruised silence rose between them, but in the end, Devious chuckled and pulled back. “Apologies, Mistress. When the next opportunity to move on the Sumerian’s female presents itself, I assure you, it shall be done.”
Cassiane forced her trembling legs to move her behind the desk. Back straight, chin high, she reclaimed her father’s dagger and steeled her nerve. “Yes, well, I have a better idea.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Kyrian tipped his glass and sucked back the dark amber liquid on a oner. Rehabilitation and recovery were hard work. Normally, he’d be one-hundred percent hours after being shot; a day, tops. It had been almost a week since the Eaton Centre shooting and still, he felt off. While he waited for the burn to ease its way down far enough to calm the snakes writhing in his gut, he pushed the empty vessel toward the bartender and tapped the rim.
Refill, lift, tip, gulp. And again. And one more time.
With the next round of escape swirling in front of him, he closed his eyes and drank it all in. The RedRum was the kind of place where the pounding emo-screamo and the throaty cries of females enjoying a wall-banger drained away the day.
Loud. Anonymous. The perfect place to dissolve and devolve after a night working the fucked-up shadows of the Toronto streets. The owner, J.D., and his Otherworld staff ran the place with an iron fist of discretion, but they also had their fingers on the pulse of the city. It was a one stop shop.
Anything and everything. No rules.
“Tough night, Watcher?” the guy wielding the bottle of Scotch asked. “You’ve been going at the booze pretty hard. I’m surprised you haven’t slid off that stool.”
Kyrian slipped his fingers into the pocket of his lambskin jacket. After fishing out one of his hand-rolled cigarettes, he placed the sweet-smelling stick between his lips. The bartender gave him the no-go stare and he peeled two fifties off the outside of his billfold. After he tossed the bills on the bar, he pressed his hand against his bandaged side and rose.
“Back in ten.”
The bartender scooped the cash off the pitted wood counter and clinked the bottle neck against his glass. “I’ll save your spot.”
Damn. Almost four thousand years of smoking when and where he wanted, and now he was relegated to the alley, like a dog. Making his way down the dimly-lit back hall, he studiously ignored the bump and grind soundtrack coming from the private washrooms and beelined it for the exit sign glowing green overhead. It was hard to pay attention to the world around him when he’d seen everything come and go, over and again.
Today, humans obsessed over saving the world from cancer. In another century, they’d forget about the tobacco industry and be outlawing public coffee consumption, citing caffeine addiction as the next pandemic. Danel would have something colorful to say when that day came. Would be worth the price of admission, actually.
The only thing that dulled the boredom of the past centuries had been the arrival of Austin into their lives. Now that woman was a shift in the matrix he could get behind—and had for a few amazing moments.
Punching through the side door, he breathed deep. The humidity of the summer had vacated a couple weeks back and thrust the city of Toronto into a beautifully colorful Indian summer. Stepping beyond the half-dozen smokers in his pack of exiles, he settled with his back against the outside wall of the club and crossed his New Rock boots.
“Thought I’d find you back here eventually.” The snap of bubblegum came from the shadows. Kyrian exhaled a cloud of smoke. The pot-bellied, middle-aged cowboy that swaggered forward was no one Kyrian had ever laid eyes on, yet he knew the man as well as his own brothers.
“Don’t tell me I’m predictable. Is the magic gone?”
The guy struck a wide stance and rested both his thumbs on his long-horned steer belt buckle. Kyrian snorted at the size of the mother. Only Drake would come to an alternative club looking like a cheesy Garth Brooks wannabe. “Nah, but I hear tell you’ve been riding solo since the Sumerian got hitched. Also heard you got swiss-cheesed a few nights ago.”
Kyrian took another draw off his cigarette and watched the heater flare orange. The last thing he wanted was to talk about Zander, Austin, or his recent brush with mortality. The sweet tang of his custom blended tobacco soothed him, but nothing touched that wound.
After a long silence, he pushed off the wall and joined Drake in a stroll down the side alley between the club and the Korean grocers next door. Ode de dumpster swirled in the dark, night air, but at least it was private.
“Are you here to shoot the shit or do you have something specific to say?”
Garth adjusted his black cowboy hat and nodded. “Alrighty, let’s get down to brass tacks. I hear y’all are lookin’ to round up the party responsible
for the excitement at the Eaton’s Centre.”
“Annnnd?”
“And the natives are restless, Hoss. The outlaws in question are circling the wagons. Seems your summer slayer’s kin are gunnin’ to make the Sumerian pay for the wrongs done ‘em.”
Kyrian snuffed his cigarette out on the sole of his boot and flicked it into the top of the nearest dumpster. The mention of the Shedim Master had his already foul mood hitting the red-zone, but if Austin was targeted because the Shedim felt wronged, he would lose his goddamned mind. That was soooo ass-backwards. “The Shedim are coming for blood because we didn’t let their psychotic leader treat the streets as an all-you-can-eat buffet? Nice. What else have the natives been saying?”
Drake stared long and hard at him, those rich, golden eyes knowing far more than he let on. “That’s it on that front, but there’s talk that you and the mighty commander have had a parting of ways. I didn’t believe it, of course . . . until I set eyes on you. You look like you’ve been rode hard and put away wet, my friend.”
Kyrian laughed. “And you’re Miss America?”
He shrugged. “I also hear you’ve been going through the females like a rancher coming off the trail after a long, hard cattle drive.”
Kyrian sighed and propped his hands on his hips. “Anything else, Wyatt Earp? Maybe something not pertaining to my private biz? Anything of importance?”
Drake tapped his fingers against his thigh, as though he was thinking. “Nope. That’s all.”
Kyrian thumbed around in the depths of his pocket and freed a wad of bills from his money clip. With the cash nested in his palm, he met his friend’s handshake. “Good to see you, cowboy. Thanks for the visit.”
The guy held on and gave him a squeeze. “Anytime, partner. Happy trails.” Drake tipped his hat and backed away, the streetlight catching the metal of his spurs as he chinked beyond the mouth of the alley and off into the horizon.