Eternally

by Maureen Child

  As it should be.

  And yet…

  His boots on the stairs sounded overly loud in the quiet, but he didn’t care. The hem of his black leather coat swirled around his knees as he hit the bottom of the staircase and made a sharp turn to head down the long hall.

  The familiarity of the place seeped into him, easing the jagged edges of his soul. The gray stone walls, the arched doorways, the portraits of old friends he’d had painted centuries ago. He stalked through the dining room and barely noticed the banquet-size, gleaming walnut table with its centerpiece of dozens of white roses in a pewter urn. The soft light from wall sconces shaped like ancient torches threw shadows on the walls, but these were comfortable shades—ones he usually welcomed. In this house, he had found peace.

  Until recently.

  He stalked down the hallway, knowing that the one place he could be sure of finding Nathan was in the kitchen. The Navy SEAL was always hungry. Slamming through the swinging door, he stopped and glared at Nathan, sitting at the table with more of the chicken they’d had for dinner.

  “She piss you off already?” he asked, sparing Kieran a quick glance.

  “She’s none of your concern.”

  “Destined Mate, huh?” Nathan picked up a chicken leg, leaned back in his chair and took a big bite.

  Kieran frowned, remembering that the other man had spoken to Santos earlier. “Santos never could keep his mouth shut.”

  “Hey, it’s just more of the whole Guardian thing for me to learn, right?”

  Nathan looked amused, a fact that rankled Kieran more than he could say.

  “Destined Mates are legend,” he ground out, refusing to recall the strength and energy that had poured into his body when he touched Julie so intimately. Just as he refused to consider the increased might he could be gifted with if he and she actually had sex.

  “Not the way it looks to me,” Nathan commented, then waved the fried chicken for emphasis as he added, “you can damn near see what’s between you two when you’re in the same room.” He chuckled to himself. “Hell, I needed a cigarette myself every time you looked at her.”

  Kieran scowled at him, but the man was, as always, unintimidated.

  “So I’m thinking the legend is more real than any of you guessed. But, I’m not looking to find a woman for eternity. Hell,” he added laughing, “the longest I’ve ever been involved with anyone is a couple months. Eternity? No thanks.”

  Kieran’s thoughts exactly.

  But even as his brain agreed, his body hungered for Julie. His hands itched to claim her, his blood pumped for her. And because those desires were strong enough to send him back up the stairs and into her room, he moved for the back door instead. The door that led to the backyard and the ten-car garage beyond.

  “Keep watch on her,” he said, meeting Nathan’s gaze.

  “You goin’ hunting?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sure you don’t want me with you?”

  He stopped. “You know the rules. One Guardian to catch one demon. Your time will come.”

  “No one says you can’t have backup.”

  True. More than once, Guardians had come together over a particularly vicious beast. But in the end, it was the task of a sole man—or woman—to capture the demon.

  “It’s more important that you stay here. Protect Julie.”

  Nathan stood lazily and nodded. “Count on it.”

  Kieran glanced up at the ceiling as if he could see through the house to the bedroom where Julie was staying. Then he shifted his gaze back to Nathan. He didn’t want to leave her—which told him it was imperative for him to get some distance from the woman who was quickly becoming far too important to him.

  “I am counting on it,” he said, then walked out the door and slammed it behind him.

  Glee.

  The bliss of being free to wander a world lush with bodies just waiting to be slaughtered. Who should it pick? How to decide between all the lovelies? The redhead from the movie house still called to him, though a blond woman nearby was equally as tempting.

  Still, it had already enjoyed a blond. Variety. The key to enjoying one’s work was variety. Leaving the theater, the demon, now disguised as a handsome man with smiling eyes and a neatly trimmed beard stepped up to the redhead. Using the spellbinding energy the gods had gifted it with, it introduced itself. “Hello, my name is Bob Robison. Could I interest you in a cup of coffee?”

  She turned and smiled up at it, never seeing it for what it really was. Never realizing that this night would be her last and that before the sun dazzled the sky, she would be screaming for it to end her pain. Bliss.

  Kieran prowled the city, haunting every alley, checking every dirty corner and doorway. He spoke to the denizens of the night, asking questions of the desperate, the lonely, and still was no closer to picking up the demon’s trail again.

  At the house, he’d been so sure that he would be able to run it to ground tonight. Now, doubt crept through him with the damp stillness of winter fog sliding in off the ocean.

  He tasted the air, searching for the scent that would lead him to his prey. He squinted into the neon-lit shadows, hoping for a flash of the energy signature the demon would leave wherever it passed. His footsteps echoed weirdly in the night as he moved quickly down alleyways littered with refuse and the stench of trash and broken dreams. And when the city gave up none of its secrets, he drove to the hills again. This demon thrived on cities, but craved solitude for its crimes. In the brush and trees of the Hollywood Hills, it could have both. Here is where he would find it—somewhere in the dark canyons filled with shadows large enough to hide all manner of secrets.

  Julie was still trembling. A long hot bath in the tub built for orgies hadn’t helped. The thick, plush robe she’d found on the back of her bathroom door wasn’t doing her any good, either.

  She’d made a couple of phone calls—first to check on Kate, who, thank God, was recovering more quickly than the doctors had hoped. And then, she’d called home. Maybe it was hearing Kieran talk about her parents, maybe it was more simple than that—wanting to reach for her touchstone of normality and reason. But even talking to her mom, the most grounded woman on the face of the planet, hadn’t soothed the uneasiness rippling within.

  Chills crawled through her blood, despite the fact that some parts of her were so hot she could hardly sit still. And because she couldn’t settle, she paced around the edges of her room and tried not to think of it as a velvet-lined cage.

  But wasn’t that all it really was? Kieran MacIntyre had swooped into her life, all billowy coat and mesmerizing eyes and nothing would ever be the same again. Here she was, little more than a prisoner in a castle, for God’s sake…allowing a man she hardly knew to—

  “Oh God.” She covered her face with her hands, then scooped them through her hair.

  Despite the bone-deep cold racking her, she threw open the French doors and stepped out onto her balcony. It was foolish, she knew, but at least being outside made her feel less locked down. Just an illusion, of course. Because the reality was far less appealing.

  She’d allowed herself to be brought here and there was no way out. She didn’t know how to get those damn security gates open and she sure as hell couldn’t climb them. And even if she did find a way through the gates, she didn’t have a car and it was a long walk back down into the city. Oh, yeah, coming here was just a brilliant maneuver.

  “Guardians. Demons. Destiny.”

  None of it was true.

  Couldn’t be.

  Her gaze narrowed on the sea of lights spreading out on the horizon. She needed more information. That’s what she was good at. Digging into the under layer of what people presented to the world. She’d done a cursory search on Kieran when she’d first met him. Now, though, she needed to go deeper. And while she was at it, she could look into Nathan Hawke. She had her laptop with her. Kieran had already told her the castle was equipped with wireless Internet service. Castle? Inte
rnet? There were two words that so didn’t belong in the same sentence. Yet, what about any of this made sense?

  Even if she found nothing, at least she would be doing something. And just looking would hopefully keep her too busy to think about those moments on the roof with Kieran.

  She scrubbed her hands up and down her arms as her gaze drifted from the sea of lights on the horizon to the darkness huddled close to the castle walls. There was…something out there. Hissing in a breath through gritted teeth, she fought the sensation of eyes watching, measuring, considering.

  She wouldn’t give in to an unreasonable fear. This was no more than her imagination, stirred by a man with a real gift for it. There was no one out there, in the shadows. No one was watching her.

  And yet…

  She shivered and backed away from the stone rail. Then, telling herself to get a grip on reality, she turned and with a determined stride, walked back into her bedroom, closed the doors on the night and settled down for some serious investigating.

  Her screams still ringing in its ears, the demon laughed, holding its pleasure tightly. It looked down on the redhead’s body, empty now, the soul gone into whatever dimension she had been slated for. It had been right to choose the redhead after all. She had amused him with her frantic, futile battle to free herself. And her blood smelled of ambrosia. The memory was thick and rich and the demon sighed its pleasure. But, the beast still had work. No time to rest on its laurels. There was much to do to prepare the body for the Guardian. And this time, the demon would leave its prize where MacIntyre would be sure to find it.

  Humming a little tune, the beast gripped its knife and happily went to work.

  The Internet could be a dangerous thing.

  Julie leaned back in her chair and tried to catch her breath. It didn’t help. “Oh God. Now what?”

  An hour ago, she’d typed in Nathan Hawke’s name on her favorite search engine. She’d imagined that by quickly finding out that Nathan was as alive as she, she could end all of this. Tell herself none of it was real. Bad idea.

  She glanced at the notepad beside her still-open computer and read the words she’d underlined in thick, black ink.

  Nathan Hawke, Navy SEAL, died March 25, 2003.

  There had even been a picture of the man in his hometown newspaper obituary. ‘Rhode Island man killed in line of duty,’ the headline had read and the picture of Nathan could have been taken that afternoon. Creeped out, but not deterred—or convinced—by any means, Julie had then looked deeper into Kieran’s background. Putting aside the whole fact of Nathan being dead, since she had seen him inhaling fried chicken only a few hours ago, she focused on the man who had dragged her into all of this in the first place.

  Instead of the cursory search she’d done initially, she called on all of her reporter’s skills to peel back the layers of subterfuge that hid the man from the world.

  And in the end, she’d found no comfort. Only more questions. More confusion. Now, she looked at the picture staring back at her from her computer screen.

  It had been taken in 1955. A group of men gathered around a groundbreaking ceremony for a new children’s hospital. The photo was grainy and the focus was terrible, but it made its point anyway. In the back row of men, Kieran MacIntyre stood just a little apart from everyone else. His pale eyes stared into the camera as if trying to melt it through sheer will. He didn’t look happy about being caught on film. And she could understand why.

  Anyone else coming across this picture would assume that the man in the photo was Kieran’s father and that the resemblance between the two men was simply a startling display of heredity.

  But Julie knew better.

  She knew that face as well as she knew her own.

  And there was only one explanation for its existence. Everything Kieran had told her was true.

  She leaned back in her chair and laid one hand on her suddenly churning stomach. She went back over everything he’d said to her on the roof—

  about the connection between them. About his duty. Destiny. About how when they came together, they strengthened each other. Is that why he’d taken her up to the romantic spot on the roof? Why he’d touched her so intimately? Why he’d given her a climax that had left her shaken right to the bone?

  To gain strength for his “hunt”?

  Julie groaned tightly and realized the real truth at last. Kieran MacIntyre hadn’t brought her here to his house to protect her—

  but to use her.

  10

  D ressed in jeans, her gray sweater and a pair of sneakers, Julie made her way downstairs. This had seemed like a perfectly reasonable plan fifteen minutes ago. Now that she was actually doing it, however, she wasn’t so sure.

  Her stomach kept spinning and her heartbeat pounded like a wildly shaken maraca. If she accepted the fact that Kieran was what he claimed to be, then she also had to accept the fact that there was a demon out there running around in the city.

  And that truthfully scared the holy be-whosis out of her. But she didn’t feel any better in this fortress, either. How could she? Kieran hadn’t brought her here for her own safety. He’d brought her here because he believed that being around her would make him stronger. Well, tough.

  She wasn’t going to be his Energizer bunny.

  She wouldn’t stay at a place where she felt like a prisoner. She needed to think.

  And there was only one place in L.A. she always went when she needed to be alone. To gather her thoughts, face a problem, make a decision. Tonight, she needed to do all three.

  After all, it’s not as though she were acting like some brain-dead heroine in a horror flick and running out to meet the stupid monster. Even if she weren’t here at the castle, she’d be connected to Kieran. The way he could get into her mind, she wouldn’t really be alone anyway. He’d know where she was, no doubt. So she’d probably be just as safe anywhere in the city as she was here. Right? Right.

  The trick would be, getting out of this damn castle. She took another step on the staircase and twisted her head from side to side, half expecting Nathan, the dead Navy SEAL to appear out of thin air. Hey, if they weren’t really dead, maybe they could turn into mist—or bats. Dear God, she thought, not bats.

  But there was no one and she kept going. She’d figured this all out in her room as she hurriedly dressed. A man with the kind of money Kieran had would no doubt have more than one car. And to drive his cars, he had to be able to open those damn gates on the mile-long driveway. Well, people kept garage door openers in their cars. She was willing to bet—actually was betting—that the gate remotes would be in the cars, too. All she had to do was steal one.

  A wild burst of semi-hysterical laughter scratched at the base of her throat, trying to escape and her fingers tightened on the cool, smooth banister. So now she was going to become a car thief. Excellent. Good move. And hey, if you’re going to steal, be sure to do it from a guy who carries a sword.

  Just a few short days ago, her life had been boringly normal. Work. Friends. Home.

  Tonight, she was trying to escape a castle before a dead guy could catch her.

  Oh, no, her life wasn’t weird.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Julie stopped, held her breath and listened. Except for the unusually loud ticking of a grandfather clock that looked as old as time itself, there was nothing. Pale light washed over the gray stone walls and threw soft shadows on the portraits lining the hallway. Knowing what she did now, she gave them each a longer look as she passed. Knights. Ladies. Were these Kieran’s friends? Family? No, he didn’t have family, he’d said.

  And sure, you should believe him, because he’s been so honest with you so far! Gritting her teeth, Julie gave herself a mental head slap and kept going, toward the kitchen and the back door. No point trying to slip out the front door. No doubt her guard dog, Nathan, was prepared for that. But maybe, if she could convince the man that she—

  “Where you goin’?”

  She pulled up short,
slapped one hand to her chest and whirled around, all in one motion. Glaring at the tall man staring at her, she snapped, “Just hitting me over the head would have been kinder than going for a ‘scare me to death’ approach.”

  Nathan winced a little then shrugged. “Sorry about that. I’m used to moving pretty quiet.”

  “Congrats,” she said, trying to catch her breath and think at the same time. “You get an A plus in stealthy.”

  He gave her a smile that would have been disarming if she hadn’t known that Kieran had no doubt told him to keep an eye on her. Oh, no. Couldn’t risk losing his human battery charger.

  “So…” Nathan said, letting his voice drift off into nothingness.

  “I was, uh—” she took a breath and went for the plan she’d hatched a few minutes before “—looking for you.”

  “Why?”

  His eyes were cool and interested, his body poised as if to move into action. Were all warrior types that way? she wondered. She’d noticed that Kieran certainly was. Maybe it was a Guardian thing. And why did she care?

  “I thought I saw something out the front windows.”

  He did move then. Like liquid mercury, sliding effortlessly, he closed the distance between them and stared down at her through suddenly hard eyes. “When? Where?”

  “Just now,” she lied and blessed the training she’d had as a reporter. “I glanced out the window at the head of the stairs and I swear there was a shadow of…something, moving out there.”

  Not a complete lie after all. She had sensed someone out there watching her when she’d been on her terrace. Of course, it could have been anyone. A neighbor out hiking the hillside, teenagers looking for a place to party, a demon. No. She ended that train of thought instantly. No way was it the demon. But even if it had been, it was probably gone now anyway. And if it wasn’t, well, she’d like to see it try to catch her in a fast car.