Deliver Me from Darkness: A Novel of the Paladin Warriors

by Tes Hilaire

  Calhoun’s grip shifted to her upper arms, his normally harsh features tender as he answered her. “He’s a vampire. And my friend.”

  The blood drained from her face, and she began to tremble, relying on Calhoun to hold her up.

  Uh-oh. Here they went again. She was going to wink out at any second.

  Roland sighed. “You’ve done it now.”

  Calhoun’s eyes flashed to his, the question “done what?” visible in his confused gaze.

  Before Roland could warn his friend about his little kitten’s gift, she crumpled into Calhoun’s arms.

  ***

  Roland crouched, his fingertips touching the heavy black rubber of the roof as he absorbed the shock of the impact. A second focus on the next point, then a press of power, a twist, and he was soaring from this building to the next. Traveling across the city like this wasn’t as cool or as unique as his little minx’s trick, but it had basically the same effect. He could all but fly from one place to the next in the blink of an eye. Only his movement didn’t involve vast amounts of personal energy or traveling in a dangerous realm to do so.

  Damn, she was powerful.

  His own gifts as a Paladin hadn’t been nearly so impressive, at least not to his mind. His sixth sense of knowing certainly hadn’t helped on the night his family had been slaughtered. Too late to save them. But too early to save himself.

  During the ninety-four years since he’d been turned, he’d come to rely more and more on his vamp-enhanced strength and senses. He figured if he had to deal with the raging lust, the dark craving for blood, and the striking terror of light, he might as well enjoy some of the perks.

  He was using a combination of both his old gift and his newer ones now. His Paladin senses exposed for something “off,” someone “dark,” while his vampire eyes and ears strained to catch the sight or sounds of trouble below. So far nothing had tweaked his radar. Then again, he was finding it difficult to concentrate. Calhoun had looked pissed when Roland had blown out of the loft with no explanation, but he’d had to get out of there. The mere sight of her—he still didn’t know her name, damn it—in Calhoun’s arms had about snapped his control. When he’d realized that his friend planned to slide into the bed beside her, keeping vigil until she woke again? Roland’s canines elongated thinking about it.

  He knew he should go by Calhoun’s place and check things out. As much as he wanted to twist his hands around his friend’s neck right now, he didn’t want Calhoun walking back into a trap. Besides, if anyone had the pleasure of killing Calhoun, it would be him. First, though, he needed to hunt, to get the damn bloodlust out of his system. He wouldn’t be safe to head back to the loft until he had. The vamp in him demanded blood, fresh blood. Nothing else would sate the need.

  Roland closed his eyes, drawing a deep breath: rancid waste, the sting of car exhaust, the cloying scent of alcohol and cigarette wrapped around sex. This area of the city with its tightly packed buildings, eclectic pulse of throbbing rhythms, and flashing neon lights was known for its nightlife. All well and good, humankind had a childlike, self-indulgent streak and needed to play their games somewhere. But areas like this often attracted the unsavory sort as well, those who would prey on the naive moths drawn to the flame of party lights.

  Scooting to the edge of the roof, Roland settled down to wait. After a quarter hour, the back door to a nearby club banged open. A man stepped out, half pulling a woman who’d slumped against his side. She was young, college age, obviously toasted, and wore the pink blush of innocence and youth. The man was linebacker broad with graying temples and the beginnings of a beer belly—and his core was dark, edged with violent red. Roland had seen demons with cleaner souls than his.

  “I don’ feel s’ good,” the girl slurred, her head rolling on her neck as she tried to cast her gaze around her. “Where are we?”

  “Outside. Thought some fresh air might help,” the man answered, throwing her a greasy smile.

  “Oh.” The girl hiccupped. “Good…idea.”

  “I’m just full of them. In fact…” The man twisted her up against the side of the building, smashing her body between him and the bricks. “I have another good one.”

  Her eyes clouded with confusion. “Hey. Le’ go. I never said—ow!”

  The man had wrapped a hand in her hair and was dragging her head back at an awkward angle, abrading the back of her skull against the rough surface.

  “You didn’t have to say.” The man licked the girl’s exposed neck, from the tip of her collarbone up across her jaw to the base of her ear. Her pulse pressed against the slick wake on her skin.

  Roland’s own pulse throbbed in response, his tongue swelling with the need to take his own taste. He clenched his fists, averting his gaze until he could tamp the urge back down.

  Innocent. She was innocent. Her only mistake the stupidity of youth.

  “You’ve been flaunting that sweet ass at me all night,” the man continued. “And now I’m going to take it.”

  Alcohol, or drugs, or whatever, made it take a moment for his words to sink in. Then the girl’s eyes widened, her mouth forming a shocked “Oh” as her body began to tremble.

  “No, please!” she pleaded, showing her first signs of life. Her hands came up, pressing against the broad chest in front of her as tears leaked from her eyes.

  The man laughed, spinning her around with a face plant into the brick as if she were some sort of rag doll and he the puppeteer. He twisted her right arm up behind her in a locking hold. At the same time his other hand dived under the hem of her short dress.

  “My, my.” He smiled. “Thong. Aren’t we a bad girl?”

  The heady mix of sweat, fear, and lust filled the alley below. Roland could barely think, so strong was the call of those scents. He hissed, his fangs slicing into his lips. His nails dug into the brick façade of the building. A slick pool of anticipation slid down the back of his throat. The muscles of his legs tightened.

  The man would pay, and the girl? Well, a nice scare should put an end to her partying days.

  Roland leapt.

  Chapter 3

  “Seven twenty. Cutting it close, weren’t you?”

  Calhoun stood at the end of the hall silhouetted by the dim glow of recessed lighting in the great room, a steaming mug of coffee in his hand.

  Roland couldn’t disagree with his friend. Close didn’t begin to cut it. He could still feel the burning kiss of the sun on the back of his neck. Everything had taken longer than expected, and his hope that the heavy cloud cover from last night’s storm would buy him extra time had been misplaced.

  Taking care of the woman’s would-be rapist had proven difficult. The man’s mind, though foul, had been strong. It had been tempting to just suck him dry and be done with it. It certainly would have been a much simpler solution to the scum’s addiction to blood and fear. It was only because Roland could understand that addiction that he hadn’t killed the man outright. Blood, fear, lust—the same cravings Roland had suffered from in those initial months after his turning. Still did. Time, and the thought of Calhoun’s disapproval were he to slip, kept Roland in line. The man from the back alley had no such control and, it would appear, no desire or reason to alter his violent ways. Nope, Roland’s black-hearted donor du jour was going to require a couple more visits before the new lessons on ethics fully took.

  I really should have sucked him dry. Pain in the ass is going to be an understatement for the foul-minded bastard. Disgusted, Roland stalked down the hall, burrowing deeper into the lead-lined walls of his refuge.

  Calhoun lifted an eyebrow, a silent comment on Roland’s dark mood, but wisely offered up the mug when Roland neared.

  Roland grabbed it and, taking a long sip, held the bitter warmth on his tongue. That vampires didn’t have to eat was a truth, one he was fully aware of when he indulged and the meal sat solid in his gut before plowing a path through his system. Didn’t stop him from having his morning coffee, though, or the occasional e
vening scotch. Liquid wasn’t so hard on his system as the sporadic meal he suffered through for form’s sake; besides, his taste buds hadn’t died when his body had the first time.

  “So what kept you?” Calhoun asked.

  Roland swallowed, savoring the punch of caffeine. Another perk: caffeine in the morning and alcohol at night. His body absorbed what it could from whatever he ingested almost immediately. The effects were instantaneous and powerful. However, unlike the lasting power he consumed from the blood, both caffeine and alcohol faded as quickly as the original punch, making it possible for him to nod off or fully function minutes later.

  “Your place is crawling with vamps,” he answered between sips. “Or was, I should say. The few I missed would’ve had to go home for the day, as I did.”

  “Damn.” Calhoun ran his hands through his hair. “Why do they want her?”

  Roland gave Calhoun a hard look. Innocent woman plus power equaled a feast for the undead. Calhoun might not have been aware of the first bit, but the latter he probably knew by now.

  Calhoun’s gaze shifted down the hall toward the closed bedroom panel. “Shit. When I said she was special—”

  “You didn’t mean that.” Roland cut Calhoun off before he could go into detail. He didn’t want to hear his friend waxing poetically about the woman who should have been his with that wistful tone.

  Calhoun stared at the blank wall, the lines in his brow tipped into a V above his nose. The deep crease didn’t mar his features in the least, adding character rather than detracting from the harsh planes of his face. Like all Paladin, Calhoun’s age was indeterminate. Prime, some might have said, if not for the eyes. The eyes spoke of how old a Paladin really was, and Calhoun’s were harder than most—except now.

  Roland tried really hard not to obsess about what was making his friend soften. “So you’ve seen her little trick then,” he asked.

  Calhoun threw him a dark look—there was the steel. “You could have warned me she was a teleporter before you blew out of here.”

  “And ruin the surprise?” Roland smirked and ambled over to the study. He frowned as he took in the mess and had to further hide his emotions when the lingering scent of her fear punched him in the gut.

  “She was only pretending to have passed out,” Calhoun said from the kitchen. Mugs clattered as he grabbed another from the cabinet. “Tried to slip out behind you. Would have made it if not for the double entry. After that I chased her around a good five minutes before she eventually collapsed.”

  Calhoun sounded perplexed, as if he couldn’t fathom why she would have been scared of him. Gee, maybe because the man she’d run to for help had turned her over to a vampire?

  Stiffly, Roland sat in the ruined leather armchair. He didn’t like the scent of her fear, but he did like her scent in general and it was strongest here…and on the floor where he’d lain upon her. Damn. He jerked his gaze away from the area rug.

  “She’s a Paladin. Full-blooded, to have such power.” Calhoun followed him in, a new mug of steaming coffee in hand, and plopped down on the love seat.

  Roland cleared his throat, setting his coffee aside. “Do I need to remind you of the exact day when the last female Paladin died?”

  Calhoun looked up at him sharply. No wonder. Roland never brought up that day unless he was forced to. His coffee turned to a pool of acid in his stomach as memories flooded him. The blood. God. All the blood. It had been a massacre, and he’d been helpless to stop it.

  “You know as well as I,” Calhoun said, drawing Roland out of his true nightmare, “that a Paladin could be two hundred and look like they’re twenty.”

  Roland shook his head. “She doesn’t feel that old. She feels…”

  “What?”

  “Young, innocent.”

  Calhoun leaned against the back of the love seat, a scowl on his face. Roland could tell Calhoun wanted to argue, but he knew Roland’s gift would give him this kind of insight.

  “Possibly a half then,” Calhoun said after a long moment of consideration.

  Roland skewered his friend with a look. “Then who’s the father? Unless he died before he knew he’d sired a child…” He trailed off, knowing Calhoun would understand the implications. For whatever reason, there had always been more male Paladin. With nine out of ten births being boys, a female Paladin, even a half, would have been protected and cosseted by the entire council. Not left to flounder in a world full of dangerous creatures bent on her destruction.

  Calhoun pounded the arm of the chair. “She’s not a merker.”

  Roland remained silent. That she might be a merker didn’t sit right with him either. Merkers were the Paladin’s dark brothers. Fathered by Ganelon the betrayer and born of demon mothers, they were a mix of all things evil. Yet they could blend in perfectly with the human race. The only good merker was a dead merker. Which meant that if she was a merker, Calhoun would be required to kill her. There was no way Roland could allow that. No one would touch her.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. He needed to focus on the matter at hand. The woman’s heritage was all that mattered now. As soon as they knew who her parents were, they could figure out why she was being hunted and what would happen to her next.

  It didn’t make sense that she was so damn powerful. There were very few full-blooded Paladin anymore. That’s what happened when the pickings were slim. There were fewer offspring in general, and the rest became less powerful as more and more of their blood was diluted by human mothers.

  Calhoun tugged at his lip thoughtfully with his thumb and forefinger. “You think her mother could have been a merker-human cross, her father Paladin?”

  Now Calhoun was really grasping at straws. A Paladin male would never mate with a creature that held demon blood, no matter how diluted the bloodline. Besides, “Would that matter?”

  “Shit, no.” Calhoun sighed, running his hands over his face and through his hair. Light played off the paler strands, reminiscent of the otherworldly glow he summoned with his power. Good. Clean. There were other words that could be used to describe Roland’s friend, not all of them flattering, but that was Calhoun’s essence. Calhoun deserved someone like that too. He deserved a mate who would make him happy. One who could erode the corrosive mantle of responsibility he’d donned in response to the ever-increasing demands upon him as son of the Paladin leader.

  The dark part in Roland considered letting his friend struggle with the issue—maybe if Calhoun thought the woman part merker he’d lose interest in her—but the issue of her origin couldn’t be ignored. Maybe she could never be Roland’s woman, but that didn’t change his instinctive urge to protect her. And he didn’t relish the idea of killing a friend.

  “Her essence is bright,” Roland said. “Clean. Pure. And when she teleports, she’s traveling through His planes.”

  Calhoun sat up straighter, his eyes widening. “How do you know?”

  “She, uh, kind of dragged me along for the ride.”

  Calhoun’s gaze sharpened. “How was that possible?”

  Roland shook his head, still bemused. “I don’t know. I had a hold of her at the time, and…”

  Calhoun’s eyes turned steely, his grip tightening around his mug.

  Roland lifted an appeasing hand. “Hey, she was trying to set me on fire. I was just trying to stop her.”

  “Huh.” Calhoun’s fingers drummed on the ceramic mug. “And you were able to tolerate it?”

  Roland shrugged. “We weren’t there long.”

  “Still…”

  Calhoun didn’t finish the statement, but Roland knew what he was thinking. It was amazing Roland hadn’t been fried on the spot. Only those with pure souls could linger in His planes without discomfort. And since Roland no longer had one…Perhaps that was it. He no longer had a soul.

  “So.” Roland cleared his throat. “What are you going to do with her?”

  Calhoun took his time in answering. “I don’t know. She’s obviously in trouble. I should
bring her to Haven.”

  It was clear the thought of doing so was distasteful to Calhoun. Roland saw it in the rolling muscle of Calhoun’s jaw, the tension in his hand as he raised his mug and took a slow, methodic sip.

  “Do you think that’s such a good idea?” Roland had thought it a good idea before, back when Calhoun was tucking a dirty urchin in his clean sheets, but now?

  He brushed aside any thoughts of “mine” before they could rear their ugly head. The presence of her gift was enough cause for concern without factoring in his possessive instincts. The creatures of the underworld wouldn’t be the only ones hunting her for her power, though for far different reasons.

  “Do you have a better one?” Calhoun asked.

  Roland was quiet for a moment before finally saying what they both were thinking. “They’ll want her for themselves.”

  A prize to be possessed. A power to be controlled. Just because the Paladin had once been angels before being commissioned by God didn’t mean their tenure on earth hadn’t affected them.

  “Damn it, I know.” Calhoun slapped his cup down so hard that it sloshed, the dark liquid running across the table to seep into the remnants of the Tolstoy.

  “You could mark her.” Roland’s aversion to the thought formed a taste far more bitter than the coffee in his mouth.

  The marking was one of the most sacred traditions among the Paladin. It was said that for every Paladin that He created He also created a soul that would perfectly match. It was something every Paladin dreamed of: finding his soul mate. The marking was a signal to all that the mate had been found, accepted, and the irreversible bonding of their souls complete. As time had passed and fewer Paladin females were born, the finding of a true bond mate became rare. Desperation modified the marking, enhancing it with ceremonies and spells to form a bond that was not naturally there. That ceremony was now both a test to see if a pairing was compatible and then, if it was, a seal of intentions. If so, a pair-bond was formed, creating a link between the couple that would grow with time. The strongest of these would eventually mimic that of a true mate-bond in that what one felt, the other felt, what one desired, so did the other. Their minds would be linked, their hearts for one another. But one thing it could never do was link their souls. A pair-bond was a powerful thing, and though it would never be as strong as a true mate-bond, if allowed to form completely, it was irreversible…except in death.