Against the Dawn

by amanda bonilla

  “Thanks.” For nothing.

  I headed for the door, ready to get the hell out of there so I could get down to the business of making Lorik pay for sending me in the first place. My steps faltered and my pace slowed as I noticed a form clad head-to-toe in white waiting for me near the door. I really, really wanted to know what Kaii was hiding under that balaclava. Maybe if I asked nicely I’d get a peek.

  “Sorry about that.” I jerked my head back toward the salon as I approached the Reaper, praying there’d be no hard feelings. Now that I had a level head, that same feeling of dread crept slowly over my skin like a hoard of tarantulas. “I uh, got a little caught up in the moment.”

  The Reaper made a sound that sounded a lot like a sarcastic snort.

  I stepped a little closer and a chill permeated my skin. Kaii’s energy left me feeling uneasy, despairing. This one must’ve been a blast at parties. “You’re not big on conversation, are you?”

  Those canary yellow eyes pierced me.

  Silence stretched between us and the feeling of unease intensified to the point that I reached for the daggers at my side, almost desperate for the boost of confidence they’d give me. My hands hovered near the grips and the blades vibrated in their sheaths, eager for the contact. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to encourage them again. The last contact I had with the daggers had pushed me past logical thought, boosting not only my confidence, but my abilities as a fighter. And let’s face it, the last thing I needed was to lose control and accidentally kill Kaii after I’d basically been given my walking papers. Kieran’s little corner of Seattle wasn’t anyplace I wanted to frequent now or in the future. Killing one of his—whether accidental or not—wouldn’t bode well for me.

  I twisted the ring on my left thumb instead, and surprisingly enough, that little piece of Tyler calmed me. Kaii’s intense yellow eyes studied me, making me feel dissected. The Reaper reached out and I fought the urge to cringe away as long delicate fingers brushed a lock of hair from my face. The lingering scent of decay and musty earth invaded my nostrils and my knees went weak from Kaii’s proximity. Without Xander’s magic daggers, the Reaper would have kicked my ass.

  Go back to Tyler and tell him what happened here today. The words echoed in my mind, again, with no voice, barely even a thought. Don’t come back here and don’t give Kieran any reason to seek you out.

  My brow furrowed. Kaii knew Tyler?

  Kaii’s gaze wandered to the daggers sheathed at my side. And take care with relics such as those. Danger comes in the guise of protection sometimes.

  I took a step backward, unable to take a deep breath. My proximity to the Reaper stole the air from my lungs and dark spots swam in my vision. “Noted,” I said through the thickness in my throat. My steps faltered as I headed for the doorway, past Kieran’s gatekeeper who gave me a superior smirk as I brushed past him. I didn’t dare look back as I stepped out onto the street, sucking in deep breaths like I’d just breached the surface of deep water. Kaii’s gaze followed me, a heavy weight that I couldn’t shrug off. I welcomed the gray twilight into my skin, every inch of me tingling as I left my corporeal form behind. My exit couldn’t be followed if I couldn’t be seen and as I raced for the safety of my apartment, I wondered how much more there was to Kaii’s warning that wasn’t said.

  I took Kaii’s advice and wished Ty right into my living room the second I got home. I still had Lorik to deal with but in keeping with my new take-no-risks policy, I thought it would be best to fill him in on the events of the day before I ran off to deal with a whole new set of problems I’d more than likely have to fill him in on later. Yeah, there was a lot of filling-in going on, but I’d vowed never again to willingly jump into water too deep to tread. My evening with Kaii? Way over my head.

  “Kaii told you that?” From the look of shocked incredulity that Ty gave me, I was under the impression that I wasn’t the only one the Reaper refused to talk to.

  “Well, not exactly,” I confessed. Though it would have been awesome to have gotten something from the Reaper that Tyler apparently couldn’t. “Kaii didn’t speak out loud. It was more like telepathy. Not even that. Just words projected into my head.” And as an aside I asked, “How do you know Kaii?”

  “Kaii is a subcontractor.” Ty’s expression became wary as he paced the confines of my living room. His nervous energy was starting to get to me. “You’re not the only supernatural on the payroll.”

  Heh. I would have been more impressed if he’d made mention of the number of humans on his payroll, which I suspected weren’t many. “What does a Reaper do exactly?” All I knew was that death clung to Kaii like thick cobwebs. “Because I was totally creeped out.”

  “They’re called soul swallowers by those who fear and disdain them, if that gives you any indication as to Kaii’s talents.”

  I shuddered. No wonder I felt so close to death in Kaii’s presence. The thought of having my soul sucked right out of me wasn’t exactly pleasant. “Damn.”

  “Yeah,” Ty scoffed. “Which is why I don’t use Kaii unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “Since you work with Kaii, can you please tell me—”

  “I have no idea.” Ty cut me off. “I’ve never seen Kaii’s face. Never even heard the voice that goes with the eyes. And Kaii sure as hell hasn’t shared any telepathic conversation with me.”

  “Never?” I asked. “So every time you’ve ever seen Kaii…?”

  “Covered from head to toe,” he said, finishing my thought.

  “Wow.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Well, for what it’s worth that’s a mystery I think I’m okay with not figuring out. I was unsettled to say the least.” But Kaii was low on my list of worries at this point. I had more pressing issues on my mind. “Enigmatic Reapers aside, I have a feeling that Lorik must’ve gotten himself into a shitload of trouble. Do you think this marker might have something to do with Mithras?”

  Tyler stopped mid-pace and leveled his hazel stare on me. A tremor rippled from the tips of my hair right down into my toenails as I tried to shake the intensity of his gaze. Our night together was still in the forefront of my mind and though I didn’t want to read more into it than it really was, I hoped that we were on the road to a real and solid reconciliation. “It could. But without more information I can’t be sure. I’ll pay Kieran a visit, persuade him into sharing. The information he gave you was shit and he knows it. Just enough to whet your appetite while telling Lorik what he needed to know.”

  Whet my appetite? “Would he consciously dangle information like that?”

  “Yeah,” Ty raked a hand through the tangles of his hair as he resumed pacing, “he would.”

  “Wanna explain why?”

  “If Lorik wasn’t our only route to Mithras, I’d kill him myself,” Ty said from between clenched teeth. “Sending you to Kieran was a misstep that I’m going to make sure he pays for.”

  Okay, it was nice of Ty to offer to kill Lorik for me—god knows I wanted to do the deed myself—but it still didn’t explain why I shouldn’t have gone to Kieran’s. “The impression I got from Kaii was that Kieran is bad news. He seemed pretty intent on hiring me. Said his doors were always open.”

  Tyler snorted. “Kieran is a low-life piece of shit. And the fact that you fought like a rabid beast thanks to those gods-damned daggers didn’t help.”

  I figured we’d get to the daggers eventually. When I told Tyler what they did, I half expected his head to pop right off his shoulders from the pressure. The rage in his expression threw off so much cold that I tucked my hands into the long sleeves of my shirt and hugged my arms around my midsection to keep myself warm. Frost formed when his cool anger met the heat of my apartment, causing a crystalline snowfall right in the middle of my living room. Not good.

  “I hate to point this out, but you’re being sort of cryptic.” If this honestly and full-disclosure thing was going to work, we both had to make the effort to be more transparent. “We’ll get t
o the daggers in a sec.”

  “Kieran is a collector,” Tyler said after a moment. “He surrounds himself with the exotic, and sometimes dangerous, oddities of the supernatural world. He doesn’t take no for an answer, either. A polite ‘no thanks’ isn’t going to deter him now that you’ve caught his attention. He’ll continue to press you, and if that doesn’t wear you down, he’ll push.”

  Kieran could push all he wanted. It wasn’t going to do him a damned bit of good. “We’ll worry about that when—and if—we need to. What about this marker he was talking about? What is it and why does Lorik need to get rid of it so badly?”

  “Again, I won’t know until I talk to Kieran. But if Lorik is trying to find a way out of his debt, and he went to that bastard for help, I’m assuming he owes a life debt.”

  A life debt? The concept was as foreign to me as a Reaper was, but that didn’t make it any less real. I always knew that Ty had his fingers in supernatural business that wasn’t exactly on the up and up. Pretty hard not to when you killed for a living. Likewise, it was probably business he didn’t necessarily want me mixed up in. “Would you care to elaborate? And while you’re at it, could you please stop pacing? I’m experiencing sympathetic motion sickness here.”

  Ty’s brow furrowed as though he had no idea what I was talking about. But he steered himself toward the couch anyway and sat down. I hopped down off my stool and crossed to the living room to join him. I hesitated as I approached the couch, unsure if I should sit next to him. As always, Ty sensed my thoughts and patted the spot next to him, an invitation I couldn’t refuse.

  I slid down beside him and Ty wrapped me in a slow embrace that sent a thrill straight through my center. His gaze lost that down to business look, replaced with a heat that made my insides liquid. A smile that made the sun seem dull in comparison lit his face. “Not to get off topic again, but I really, really want to kiss you right now.”

  His seductive tone made my toes curl and I considered climbing right into his lap. Snap out of it, Darian. This isn’t the time to play around. Work first, fun later. Focus on the job and don’t blur the lines. Oh, hell, who was I kidding? “One kiss couldn’t hurt.”

  His lips brushed against mine in a soft caress. He handled me with such care that it made me feel even more fragile than I already was. And yet, it was that same gentleness that gave me permission to lean on him, to allow him to be the partner he should have been all along. It was the sort of revelation that made a lump rise in my throat. I’d come a long way in the relationship department, but there was still so much more ground for me to cover.

  A soft groan rolled in Ty’s chest as he pulled away. I felt myself leaning in to him, craving the soft touch of his lips on mine. Screw work. Screw Lorik, and Kieran, and Mithras too. Screw the whole fucking world. I had everything I cared about right here…

  “Darian?”

  “Hmmm…” I was still reliving that kiss, my eyes pressed shut. His laughter prompted me to peek at him through one eye, and then the other. Like a divining rod, my body angled at forty-five degrees, drawn by his magnetic pull.

  Ty quirked a brow, one corner of his delicious mouth hinting at a smile. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.” My own voice was breathy and weak; I was drunk from one kiss. The thought spurred my stupid, traitorous brain to take me to a dark place where panic ruled and I begged Kade for just one more of his intoxicating kisses. I leaned back in an instant, my breath seizing in my chest. Damn him. Damn Kade to the hell that spawned him. I hoped he was burning, the flesh peeling in scorched strips.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Ty’s concern cut through me, a reminder that I still had a long way to go before I was even close to whole.

  “I’m okay.” Sort of. “Just went down the rabbit hole for a second. Back to the marker?”

  “Right.” His expression told me that he understood I needed space, but I couldn’t help but wonder when that stalwart patience of his would run out. “I think Lorik’s life debt is tied to his marker. He probably went to Kieran in the hopes he could help him weasel his way out of the debt.”

  “How would that even happen? I mean, who in the hell willingly bets their life away?”

  Ty gave me a strange look, one that made me think he knew more about this marker than he was letting on. “You’d be surprised,” he said. “But sometimes gamblers are coerced into the bets, other times…” His brow furrowed. “I need to talk to Kieran. Making wild guesses and assumptions aren’t going to get us anywhere.”

  I would have paid a fortune to know what Ty was thinking.

  “Okay, so we’ve covered part one of this afternoon’s clusterfuck. Sort of. What about my daggers?”

  Ty let out a derisive snort. “I should tear Xander’s arms from their sockets for giving you enchanted daggers. Fae weaponry can be as dangerously deceptive as it is helpful. He basically manipulated you into taking possession of them before you knew what you were getting yourself into. Full disclosure isn’t a part of his repertoire.”

  True, but I couldn’t help but feel a little defensive on Xander’s behalf. “He was trying to protect me.”

  “Your safety is not his concern.” The air temperature in my apartment dropped about twenty degrees and I suppressed a chill. “You are mine to protect.”

  The possessive edge that Ty lent to the words gave me chills for an entirely different reason. I used to scoff at the prospect of belonging to anyone. To Henry, I was nothing more than a possession. Something he’d bought for the sole purpose of showing off—or more to the point, to keep up appearances. For decades I’d coached myself to practice detachment. I’d belonged to no one but myself. But over the past couple of years, I’d let my guard down and the high wall I’d built crumbled by small degrees. When Tyler said mine, I knew that he didn’t consider me property. It was my love he wanted to belong to him and no one else. I wondered, is that what Xander wanted from me as well?

  “Either way, I’m stuck with the daggers.” There was no use trying to work loose the tangles of my love-life. The knots were many and too damned tight, and I didn’t have time for that right now. “Unless… Can I wish them away?”

  “I’m forbidden from interfering with the bonds of others, remember?” Ty’s lip curled as though the words left a sour taste in his mouth. “The daggers have formed a bond of sorts with you.”

  “Kaii called them relics,” I said by way of a reply. “So did Xander.” I was coming to the conclusion that there were a few too many bonds in my life. And none of them made with my permission. “They were one of his birthrights.”

  Tyler was silent for a while, his gaze distant. “I want to tell you to put them in their box and never take them out again. But to be honest, I think it’s a good idea to carry them for now. A little extra protection couldn’t hurt.”

  The admission must have stung, considering how Ty felt about Xander and his gifts. But it spoke to his concern over this situation with Lorik, and I took that concern to heart. “I have to meet Lorik in twenty minutes.” Not that I was looking forward to it. In fact, if I wasn’t careful, I might’ve been tempted to let those daggers go to town on my so-called friend. “And we’re just as clueless as to what’s going on as we were a half hour ago. This blows.”

  Ty chuckled. “That’s an understatement. But it’s not as bad as you make it sound, Darian. You have to accept that you’re not always going to get that instant gratification you want.”

  I might have to accept it, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. “See what you can find out on your end. I’ll press Lorik.” With the sharp end of my sword if I had to. “We’ll meet back here later and regroup. Sound good?”

  “All right. But, Darian, be careful tonight, okay?”

  I smiled. “Careful is my middle name.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lorik was practically vibrating by the time I made it to his chosen meeting place, a club in the Queen Anne district called The War Room. As requested, I dressed for the occasion, choosi
ng a pair of black leggings and an emerald green sleeveless tunic with matching green heels. A black leather belt was slung low at my waist and I left my hair down, though I was starting to rethink that particular decision as I made my way through the sweaty press of bodies that made me want to tuck tail and take my ass back home. The seventh circle of hell couldn’t possibly have been as hot as it was in that damned club.

  Considering my outfit, coming armed to the teeth was a no-go. Instead, I brought only a single dagger—one half of the enchanted pair—and strapped it to my thigh, beneath the tunic. And believe me, one was enough. I fought the urge to touch the hilt, to revel in the power that flowed through the blade. The sense of invincibility the weapon lent me made me feel protected. Safe. Until I found my inner strength again, the dagger would have to do.

  I spotted Lorik in the VIP section of the club, tucked into an intimate booth with two women, presumably human. My step faltered as I approached the corded off area. I did not sign up for this. I’d been witness to Lorik’s exploits plenty of times in my past. Hell, Azriel and I had bought him a woman or three in order to keep him occupied and out of trouble. But that was then and I didn’t have it in me to watch the live-action ménage going on in the cushy seats. Lorik sat sandwiched between the two women, their tangle of fondling limbs giving them the appearance of some sort of x-rated sea creature.

  I stood at the entrance to the area reserved for elite partiers, a haughty, overly-muscled bouncer giving me the eye and more than ready to kick my ass out of there. Lorik kissed one of his partners, then turned to kiss the other. My mouth turned downward as I watched him behave as though he had not a care in the world. I’d put myself on the radar of a dangerous supernatural for him. Drawn undue attention to myself. As a rule, assassins don’t generally like to be in the spotlight. Live it up now, buddy. Because I’m about to ruin your night.

  “Lorik!”

  I barked his name over the din of the music garnering a scowl from the bouncer. I gave him look for look, daring him to say something. My mood was souring by the second. Lorik’s head popped up like a prairie dog checking for predators. When he spotted me his expression was almost surprised, as though he hadn’t expected me to make it out of Kieran’s den alive.