by JL Madore
She rolled her eyes as he slumped forward, and she caught his weight. He was in no shape to kill her even if that had been his inclination. She sliced through the second tie and wrapped her arms around his shoulders to keep him upright. His head flopped into the curve of her neck and as she held him, she wondered what to do next.
Being untied seemed to rouse him some. After a long while of her standing like a useless prop, with his shallow breath warming her neck and his mighty body crumpled against her gown, he stirred. “Thank . . . you.”
Her breath caught. How could he possibly offer gratitude after any of this?
She shifted back to get a look at him. Sweat beaded on his battered face like the Purgatory’s morning mist. Clearly, he was near to fainting and she wondered what she would do then. Unconsciousness seemed to triple the weight of a man and this one already more than doubled her own. If he were to . . . she shook her head, when he succumbed to oblivion, she’d rather not be the one propping him up.
Devious threw the dungeon door open and couldn’t believe his eyes. “What in Hades name are you doing, female?”
Cassiane glared over her shoulder and the prisoner’s face lolled squarely to rest against what little bosom the girl possessed. Heat flushed her cheeks as she grabbed the back of his matted hair and adjusted his position. “You answer to me, Devious, not the other way around. Now, fetch a cot and a wound bin. How can we expect the world to look upon us and see anything beyond demon monsters if this is how we behave?”
“So, you think playing nursemaid is the way to free and feed our race?”
“It’s better than brutality. I said interrogate him. You’ve peeled the skin from his muscle. Hell, the man may never be able to use his hands again.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “Or hold a dagger. I’m rather proud of that.”
Devious strode further into the room so she could see him without twisting. “Your father would’ve done the same. And did. He’d give any Watcher a blade-tipped boot up his arse and laugh as he ripped him a new hole. If you can’t stomach that reality, leave the dungeon. War is no place for female sentimentalities.”
“We are not at war,” she hissed. “And even if the rebellion advances, hostile force has done nothing for us thus far. Look around the castle. People are hungry and sick. They fear the hounds, dragons, undead, and mercenaries beyond the walls and are scared of starvation and the Hell-fires of night within them. Maybe a different kind of leadership is exactly what we need.”
The Watcher mumbled something unintelligible against her skin and her scowl deepened. “I want this prisoner to stand in the courtyard and be cut down like the assassin he is, not be looked on with pity. Now, do as I command. Fetch the supplies and send them down with Dougal and his wife. You and your men are to remain outside the dungeon until further notice.”
He clenched his fists and fought every urge to lunge. He could snap her fragile little neck before she knew what hit her. He could say it was the Watcher’s doing. The idea had merit—
“Devious. Now.”
He gripped his fists and stowed the impulse. “You cannot aid him.”
Hot fury flashed in her eyes as she tightened her grip on the assassin. “Challenge me once more and I’ll have you strung up in the courtyard as well. You do as I command. Now, guard the door to the courtyard if you wish, but no hunter or soldier sets foot down here as long as this male remains my prisoner.”
Her challenge roused an interest he hadn’t expected. He shifted his stance. The urge to pin her against the stone wall, and teach her to shut up and let him make the decisions had his cock thickening. Yes, he’d show her what real power meant.
When she turned her back, Devious stepped closer, his fingers itching with promise. He hesitated. Too dangerous. Chidiock had a mouth. Who knew how many men he had told about her outburst. No. When he made his move, he didn’t want to be interrupted.
He grabbed the video camera from the shadows and stormed up the steps from the Pit to the dungeon cells and continued until he emerged through the guardhouse door. The bitter tang of bile burned at the back of his throat. How dare that naïve, little gash order him away. He commanded the hunters, held sway with the soldiers, kept the castle fed and secured.
He was the Master’s Hand, for Devil’s sake.
After relaying the female’s orders to the outer guard, three men scurried off like mice to fetch Dougal and the supplies Cassiane wanted. Dougal. Fucking Dougal. It galled Devious to be dismissed, to be reduced to an errand boy when he was hands-down the strongest fighter among them. Dougal was washed up . . . a hunter of the past. A forgotten relic.
Devious knew what the future held. He deserved to be Shedim Master, though he loathed the idea of marrying that stupid female to assume his place. The images he’d had in the Pit refreshed in his mind. He rubbed a palm down the stressed fly of his cargo pants. He would teach her a few important life lessons all right. Teach her to respect the members of the castle who mattered. She might be the figurehead, but he got things done. Stryker had taught him well.
Stryker. Man, he missed that evil bastard. So cunning. So inspiring. Cassiane might be Stryker’s daughter, but she was not her father. She wasn’t ruthless enough. Not dark enough. Not like . . .
The idea struck him like a blow. Why hadn’t he thought of her before? With mutinous purpose, he headed to the castle roof and to the Human Realm beyond. Cassiane wasn’t the Shedim heiress they needed ruling, but he knew who was.
Danel set up shop in his favorite corner booth in O-Zone before the club opened, and hours later, his ass was numb. One a.m., and the place was busting off the hinges—or busting its buttons would be more accurate. The hedonist night club Zander ran was lit up—an erotic porn show in every direction, a never-ending stream of booze, and free Wi-Fi.
What more could a guy want?
He tapped the keys of his laptop one-handed and continued to scan the dark web. There had to be something here about Kyrian. Anything.
“Hey Danel,” a feminine voice said. He looked up into the eyes of Zander’s front house manager, Jules, the annoying, redheaded human married to the local Dragon. She slid a mountain of chili-cheese poutine across the table and tapped the side of her headset. She nodded to something said over the com system before focusing back on him. “Meck’s got a walk-in at the door and Zander’s on the streets. Can you take him?”
Danel stretched his neck from side to side, things popping and cracking in earnest. Then, he pulled carb mountain closer and nodded. “I’m fried anyway. Escort him back.”
Jules relayed the answer but didn’t get gone. He ignored her standing there and got busy inhaling his cardiac arrest on a platter. Humans . . . they just couldn’t take the hint. He chewed the first forkfuls and reached for his beer. Yep, she was still there. She opened her mouth as if she were going to say something but then clapped her trap shut.
“I’m good,” he said, pressing the bottle to his lips. “You’re dismissed.”
Meck, the gigantor who worked the door, made his way along the dance floor, dragging a teenaged Asian kid with his eyes bugging out. “Are they . . . Is she . . . He is . . . he’s going down on her right there.”
Meck rolled his eyes and tossed the gangly hard-on into the booth.
Danel choked on his fries and had to wash things down with the last of his beer. He regarded the empty bottle and the redhead. Perfect. Set her on a task and she’d have to go away. “Hey, Red, can you send over another couple beers and . . .” he pointed to the kid leaning across the table soaking in the surroundings, “kid, do you want a burger or something?”
“I could eat, but I’ve got no cash.” He turned and eyed him up hard. “And I don’t trade favors for no guy.”
Danel raised a brow. “Well, your virginity is safe. A burger was the offer, nothing more.”
“Holy smokes,” the kid said, settling deeper into the booth. “It’s you. I knew it. I knew it. Hey, Danel, sorry about your hand, man,
that sucks.” As he adjusted his backpack against his leg, the kid’s pale whiskey-colored eyes caught the strobe of the dance floor. It was quick but unmistakable.
Danel’s fries solidified into a congealed brick in his gut. Holy Fuck. Impossible.
“Who are you, kid, and why are you here?”
CHAPTER NINE
“Dougal, help me get him out of here and back to the holding cells.” Cassiane groaned under the sagging weight of the Watcher. As Dougal’s eyes widened, her heart raced, scanning the male’s response. She prayed her instincts were correct and a man of his character could never have joined party with this kind of brutality.
Sabine, Dougal’s wife, rushed in behind him, her slender arms laden with supplies. “Hell’s fury, his flesh has been shred to ribbons.”
“And these can’t be helping.” One by one, Dougal grasped the hilt of five daggers and withdrew the red-steeled blades from where they remained, sticking out of the Watcher’s body. Then he removed a dozen tranquilizer darts.
After studying the acres of oozing flesh and muscle, searching for an uninjured spot to grab hold of, Dougal removed his own weapon sash, handed it to Cassiane, grit his mighty jaw, and hiked the Watcher over his shoulder with a grunt.
Cassiane staggered to gain her balance. With her load suddenly removed, she teetered to right herself. Gathering the hem of her skirt, she brushed past Dougal into the dank corridor and rushed up the stairs ahead of him. The click of her boot heels beat a much quicker tempo than the soles of Dougal’s under the strain of his load.
When they reached the floor above, Cassiane swung open the solid iron door to one of the holding cells and entered the prisoner section of the divided space. Sabine set the pile of supplies she’d been carrying on the small table inside the door and slid the cot into the center of the space. After she draped a clean blanket over the rough canvas, she turned to help her husband. “Here, love, rest him on his belly. His back has taken the brunt.”
Dougal muttered to himself as they positioned the Watcher on the narrow cot. Cassiane moved to drape a clean towel over his backside, but Dougal caught her hand. “Best we tend to his injuries before worrying about modesty, Mistress. It’ll give him no comfort to have his arse covered if the fabric sticks to his wounds and has to be torn free.”
The thought sent her head spinning.
The air in the holding cells reeked far less than the rotting stench of the Pit, but still, her lungs refused to draw breath. Criss-crossing weals gaped from the nape of the prisoner’s neck to the backs of his knees. Her stomach soured. The sheer orderliness of the pattern spoke of the deliberation to inflict suffering and strip the flesh of every inch of his Mark.
Dougal bent for a closer look. “Someone’s got a fair hand with a coachwhip, I’d say, but the lashes aren’t so deep. Had the bugger used a cat-o-nine or a tri-whip. . ..”
The clinical evaluation washed her with another wave of guilt. “I shall ask you once, Dougal, and once only. Did you have hand or knowledge in any form in this man’s beatings?”
The warrior stiffened, and his eyes flashed the deepest yellow. “I did not, Mistress. There isn’t an ounce of honor in torturing a man. Like them or not, Watchers are warriors working within a code. No warrior should treat another like this. It disgusts me.”
She exhaled deeply and squeezed the corded muscle of his forearm. “Forgive my asking. I had to be certain. Now, where do we begin in cleaning up this mess?”
“If I were the one lying there, I’d want to start with strong drink—and plenty of it.”
Sabine’s return launched a husband-and-wife triage of wounds. They were a good team and a good complement—he, broad, dark, and strong as an ox and she, petite, blonde, and strong as a green twig.
Leaving them to their task, Cassiane poured a dram of spirits into a tumbler and attempted to rouse their patient. “Watcher?” she whispered. “Watcher, can you take a few sips?”
The incoherent groan that rumbled deep from his chest drew her closer to his misshapen face. Was he trying to speak? She looked to Dougal, who pressed lint strips over the worst of the gashes and spoke in hushed tones to Sabine.
Cassiane knelt close to the prisoner’s head and brushed the matted tangles of damp hair from his battered face. He was unrecognizable as the heavenly handsome man she’d met at that bar. Even altered in drink, he had been well put together and smelled divine.
His pale green eyes, now swollen shut, had danced with a male wanton she’d never imagined before. She’d pressed her hands on either side of his face, his skin as soft as suede, the stubble of a long day nearly over, tickling her palms. Now, purple and grotesque, she touched his face again and felt nothing but the wrongness of it. Those lips, split and bloody . . . and his hands.
“Kyrian?” she called, close to his ear. He stirred minutely at the sound of what he’d told her was his given name. She’d half expected him to be lying, but there was an ancient Greek Watcher named Kyrian of Thebes. “Drink some spirits. It might help.”
She tilted his head and tipped the glass, trying not to press the rim against the cuts in his lips. He choked and sputtered, but seemed mostly grateful. When the glass drained empty, she moved to get more. His gaze stopped her. Never had she seen such hatred in a glance, but in that small slit of a window, that’s what she saw. It’s all she saw.
Settling back onto her knees, she set down the glass and picked up a washcloth from the basin of warm water. After wringing out the excess, she dabbed and dabbed again, brushing away the layers of blood and grime deposited over every inch of his skin.
He closed his eye and let out a heavy sigh.
Zander stared up into Gabriel’s golden-brown gaze and wondered where the hell the room had gone. Right, his knees had buckled and he was currently doing a pansy-assed turtle impression on his living room floor. His hamster did a full-bodied shake in his cognitive wheel as the conversation in the room swirled around him.
“You are well, warrior,” Gabriel said, “as is your beloved.”
Was Austin well? Really? He sat up and scanned the living room. “Where is she?”
Seth clasped his wrist and hoisted him to his feet. “She, uh, took Stetson and went to lie down in your room.”
Right. After he’d told Gabriel to end the pregnancy and blacked the fuck out. “Raphael and Gabriel, I thank you for coming. My brothers, you head out to your grids. I’ll join you shortly. If you’ll all excuse me.”
There was a shuffle of bodies and a muttering of male voices as he assumed his men and the archangels dispersed and made their exits. He didn’t wait for them to get gone. He started toward his chamber with heavy feet and the things just got weightier the closer he got.
Shit, if Austin felt as lost as he did, he could only imagine what she thought of him right now. The door to their bedroom was shut and locked, but it was the ease of a thought to unlatch the thing from the inside. The room was dark, but then, Austin didn’t need light to guide her anyway.
Austin was the light. The very sun that warmed his universe.
He raised a hand and the candles around the room flared to life. She sat on the floor against the frame of their bed, stroking Stetson’s boxy head on her lap. The scent of her tears enraged his beast, his self-loathing festering warm in his belly.
God, she looked so delicate and small at times.
“Cowgirl?” he said, shutting them in together. His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “Are you all right, darlin’? How are you feeling?”
“Can you honestly ask me that?” The hurt in her voice sucked the air from his chest. “I mean . . . I’m shocked too. It’s too soon. And we hadn’t even discussed kids . . . but my first thought wasn’t to—”
Her tears drew him across the room. Fire blazed in her watery, hazel eyes, as she clenched her fists in her lap. Shit. He wanted to throw up. “Austin, don’t misunderstand . . .”
“Misunderstand?” She blinked at him and frowned. “Don’t put this on me. Gabri
el tells us I’m carrying your baby girl, and your first thought is to order him to get it out of me. Why? Is the thought of our child that abhorrent to you?”
Zander sank to his ass on the floor beside her and scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “To be the mother of an archangel’s child is a death sentence. That’s not hyperbole, it’s fact. As far as I know, only the Egyptian woman who bore the twins gave birth to a Nephilim and survived. And that was only because she was a witch. The thought of losing you . . . I can’t survive it. So, if I must choose, I’ll choose you every damn time. I’m sorry.”
Her gaze narrowed. “But that was first generation. We have no idea what might happen to the mother of a Nephilim’s child. Right? This is uncharted territory.”
“Does that make it better? Do you think you Guinea-pigging this makes the risk more appealing to me? Even the mention of losing you gives me the quakes.” It was lucky he was already sitting because he wouldn’t be able to stand if he tried.
Austin pressed a gentle hand against her belly. “Maybe Lady Divinity’s hand in our union means things will work out.”
Zander nodded. He liked that train of thought but couldn’t afford to get caught up in emotion and hope. The heavens had never been generous with them and he doubted they would start now. “Lady Divinity did seem intent on protecting you. Perhaps, if not the child, she would ensure your survival if I spoke with her.”
The slap across his face stung not only his flesh but his soul as well. He replayed his words in his jumbled brain. Fuck, that sounded horrible. That was horrible. “I’m sorry, cowgirl. I didn’t mean it like—”
“Oh, you meant it.” She gripped the comforter behind her and stood. Stetson followed suit, his collar jingling as he shook and readied for action. God, she was impossibly beautiful. Flushed and confused. Tears welled and spilled down the smooth curves of her cheeks. He watched the tiny prisms of emotion brim her eyes. Her tears caught the light and dripped off her delicate chin. “I want you to leave. Go protect the innocent for a while, I don’t want you near me right now.”