Wystan had no special training, no extra schooling outside what he’d gotten as a boy, which in the grand scheme of things was pretty insufficient. Tell hadn’t given a fig for book learning either. Eban was different. He wanted to help the citizens in town, rather than keep them from creating chaos in the outside world.
He expected nonsense like that from Tell, who probably didn’t remember much about what had happened to their parents, but he thought Eban knew better.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
The spark of anger turned into a flame. “Pleurisy is serious. We’re not talking about a head cold. She could drown in her own fluid. She’s underweight, fevered, and coughing up sputum an abbeylubber wouldn’t touch.”
Wystan grimaced at the mention of sputum. “If this were a regular town, it would be different.”
“When did you turn into such an unfeeling bastard? Even after Ma died, you weren’t so cold,” Eban said. “Don’t think about it. Listen to me for once. A woman needs my help and you’d have me turn her away. I can’t. I won’t.”
Bastard, was he? Wystan gritted his teeth and leaned forward. He’d whupped Eban often enough when they were boys, and wrestled with worse on a weekly basis. “What are you gonna do, Eb? If I say she goes, then that’s it. My word is law here, in case you forgot.”
“It’s my clinic. I guess that gives me the right to decide who stays there.”
Over his brother’s shoulder, Miss Duke peered through the round window in the door. He could tell she was standing on her tiptoes, straining to see. They’d been loud. It was hard to say what she’d heard. He felt certain neither of them had mentioned anything too abnormal.
“This isn’t over, Eban. I expect you to heal her up fast and get them out of here. I’ll do what I can to warn everyone before dark, but it’s up to you to bar the door at night.”
“Thank you.” Eban’s words were short, his posture stiff. “I’ll let the Dukes sleep near Miss Brookshier tonight. Keep them all in one room. It’s safer that way.”
“I can’t wait to give Miss Duke the news. I’m sure she’ll fall all over herself with gratitude.” He brushed past Eban and threw the door open.
Miss Duke took a step back, her face pink. She tucked her hands behind her back. Her eyes were hazel, almost green, but with a light-brown ring around the outside and little flecks like broken-up autumn leaves.
“Eban insists that you stay, even though I argued against it. Believe me, you’re better off somewhere else, but I doubt he’d listen if God wrote it in the sky. So you go with him, get whatever you need out of your wagon, get inside the clinic and stay there. Savvy?”
She shrank away from his harsh tone. “Y-yes.”
Eban stepped around him and muttered, “Bastard.” He offered his arm to Miss Duke and they stepped into the street.
Wystan’s mouth tightened as he stared after his brother’s retreating form.
“You’re sure Beryl will be all right? Sylvie can’t get sick?” Miss Duke’s voice drifted back to him, full of worry.
It wasn’t a wolf’s responsibility to look after a sheep. Everyone knew that. So it shouldn’t be up to him to keep strangers out of the jaws of the nightmarish hell that could potentially open on Berner’s streets when the sun went down.
Eban was ten kinds of foolish for thinking he could get the job done. He didn’t want one woman to die on the trail, but he’d sentenced three to perish here. Miss Duke glanced over her shoulder. Her brow furrowed when she caught him looking.
It wasn’t that Wystan didn’t care; he didn’t want to care.
The darker side of his nature just can’t let her go.
The Slayer
© 2015 Brenda Huber
Chronicles of the Fallen, Book 2
Born of heaven, forged in hellfire and damnation, Xander roams the earth as an unlikely protector of the innocent. Grudgingly embroiled in a demon uprising, Xander must help his brothers-in-arms recover four Sacred Relics rumored to be Lucifer’s downfall.
The stakes are simple. If he fails, a new regime will assume control of the underworld and the boundaries between hell and earth will crumble. If he succeeds, long-awaited salvation could be his. But when a beautiful innocent is caught in the crossfire, the price of redemption could be too steep.
Kyanna Hughes is a hereditary Guardian, sworn to protect a sacred Relic at all costs. From the cradle, she was taught to hate all things demon, but her unwanted attraction to Xander turns everything she’s been taught upside down.
The danger she faces involves more than her heart. For Kyanna is not only a Guardian, but a keeper of secrets so dangerous, that to keep them out of demon hands even the angels in heaven would see her dead…
Warning: Contains a demon with a notoriously single-minded determination to save the world, and a sworn enemy for whom he will risk eternal damnation. And so begins the journey of six fallen demons and the women who capture their hearts…
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Slayer:
Kyanna examined the demon lying at her feet in shock. And there was no doubt in her mind that’s what he was. She’d gotten a good look at him, both before and after he’d done that morphing thing. A real live demon. In the flesh. Within poking distance.
He was a mess. Drenched in blood. Horrible burns covered his shoulders, neck, and arms. Huge gashes snaked across his chest. Deep, vicious wounds. And his face—
She bit her lip, wincing.
Oh, his face! How is he still alive?
Wait! Where was all this sympathy coming from? She gritted her teeth and firmed her resolve—or tried to.
Not human, Kyanna!
But he’d saved her? It made no sense. His kind didn’t save humans. His kind hunted them. Tortured them. Killed them and gobbled up their souls like Summer scarfed down French silk pie.
Confusion held her immobile and indecisive.
A soft groan slipped from his lips, gearing her into action. She dragged her cell phone from her back pocket and thumbed it on. Only to turn it right back off and shove it back into her pocket.
Who was she going to call? It wasn’t as if the local boys in blue had a special cell designed to detain—contain—creatures like him. She’d have better luck with something like that inside her own store.
Growling in frustration, she dropped to her knees beside the injured…demon? Man? He sure looked like a whole lotta man right now.
Non-demon?
Regardless of what he was, he’d saved her from that monster-thing. Helping him in return was the least she could do. Right?
Danger, Will Robinson! Not human, Kyanna! Do not soften toward him.
A slim, silver chain glinted from around his throat. Her brow furrowing, she tentatively traced a finger over the smooth chain, did her best to ignore the warm flesh beneath it. Her fingertip paused as she reached the pendant. Power pulsed from the small crystals embedded in the silver and shimmered up her arm like a rush of warm liquid. Soothing. Blood smeared the stones, but she could still identify them. Brecciate jasper? Chrysoberyl?
What would a demon be doing with something like this?
According to the book, the recordings passed down from her mother and her mother’s mother before her, this man/demon shouldn’t even be able to come near these stones, let alone have them in constant contact with his flesh.
She scanned his face, his body. Soot smeared the golden patches of skin that weren’t covered by blood and burns. One of his pant legs had been scorched from his ankle to his knee. And strapped to the other calf was the most vicious-looking, medieval dagger she’d ever seen. The blade alone was nearly as long as her forearm. Who was this guy?
A low groan gurgled in the back of his throat, dragging her from her musings. How could she help him? Did she dare? Or would she only be signing her own death warrant? She’d been raised to fear d
emons. Raised to avoid them at all cost. She’d also been raised to protect the innocent.
And to do no harm to those who did no harm to her.
Nowhere in the book had anyone ever written about a demon like this one. One who’d willingly put himself in harm’s way to protect a human.
Dear Lord, she didn’t even know where to touch him. His body had been so ravaged. Glancing up and down the alley, she chewed on the inside of her lower lip. Should she bring him inside? Could she trust him enough to breach the ward stones? Or the outer enchantments? She had a First Aid kit in the store. Not that the meager training she’d received back in Girl Scouts was gonna cover something like this. But she had the book. Surely there must be something therein that would pertain to whatever he was.
Peering uncertainly at the wreckage of the Civic, she cringed. If she left him here, vulnerable like this, she’d be no better than the evil Sheila Hughes had taught her to fight. But her mother wasn’t here anymore to guide her. What was she to do? He was wounded, obviously in desperate need of help. Maybe that was what was confusing her. He confused her. He’d looked like a demon. For a little while there, at least. But he certainly hadn’t acted like one.
And now here he was, completely at her mercy. Defenseless. And he looked so human now.
Kindness, Mom had always preached. Kindness had felled many a great foe. Though, somehow, she didn’t think Mom might have had exactly this situation in mind.
Moaning softly, the man/demon turned his head. His brow puckered. Ever so carefully, she eased her hand along his cheek. The scrape of dark stubble against the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist sent delicious shivers up her arm. Gently touching the unmarred side of his forehead, she worried her lower lip with her teeth. He was burning up. Had he been poisoned somehow? Was infection setting in? Could his kind get an infection? Gnawing on her lip again, she glanced around the alley.
A streetlight at the end of the alley popped, going out in a shower of sparks, startling her. Enough waffling. She had to decide. Now. What if more of those vile creatures came back?
What if he turns out to be just as evil as the rest?
No! She couldn’t think like that. He’d stood before her, used his own body to shield her. She’d take him inside. Clean him up as payback for saving her. Once she’d seen to his injuries, healing him as best as she could, then she could decide what to do with him.
She could always surround him with ward stones for her own safety. And when he woke up, if his eyes were still glowing red and he went all Village of the Damned on her, then she’d douse him with holy water and use enough of the incantations in the book to bring down the wrath of Heaven on his head and make him wish he’d never stepped one of those Godzilla-sized combat boots outside the gates of Hell.
Kicking the box containing the now-shattered Tiffany lamp aside—the lamp she’d spent far too long searching for—she scrabbled to reach beneath him. Kyanna hooked her hands under his arm pits and prayed his back wasn’t in as rough shape as his chest was. Dear lord, he was a mess. And hot! And not in a sexy-hot way…well, okay, in all fairness, he was hot that way too. But he was hot in a burning fever-hot way. That couldn’t be good.
“Buddy,” she grunted, “you weigh a ton. Be a good fella and wake up. Help me get you inside, would ya?”
A groan. A muscle twitch.
“Hey,” she panted, pushing him into a sitting position. His head lolled forward, his arms flopped onto the pavement at his hips. He was nearly twice her size and it took every ounce of her strength to get him up this far, let alone balance him against toppling over. She’d never get him on his feet and inside without help. “Hey, sexy demon-guy. Hey. Wake up.”
His head lolled to the side and his eyes, rimmed by thick curly black lashes, slid open. Groggy. Unfocused. Turbulent gray. Compelling. Stealing her breath.
Woosa! Definitely not red.
Those were the most impressive bedroom eyes she’d ever seen.
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Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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Eban
Copyright © 2015 by Allison Merritt
ISBN: 978-1-61922-634-0
Edited by Holly Atkinson
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: April 2015
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Eban Page 24