Lover Uncloaked (Stealth Guardians #1)

by Tina Folsom

  “If you’d cloaked her properly, she wouldn’t be lost now!”

  “What are you saying?” Aiden bit out.

  “You know what I’m saying!” Manus countered and moved in. “If you wanted her properly cloaked you should the fuck have been touching her the entire time.”

  Aiden knew exactly what Manus meant. He and his fellow guardians had two ways of cloaking humans: by the power of their minds, or by touch. The first needed more energy, but just as a cell phone signal could be intercepted or interrupted, it was possible to break the connection and inadvertently uncloak a charge. The second brought with it other problems. A Stealth Guardian’s touch could be perceived as intimate even when it was not intended as such.

  “Like you touch them? Like you pretend to feel something for them so they trust you? That’s not protecting them! It’s against every single rule in the book,” Aiden snarled.

  “I don’t care about the fucking rules. Rules are for people who can’t think for themselves.”

  “And you break them all.” Aiden felt his chest heave. He couldn’t be like Manus, who pretended to love each woman he had to protect, so he’d have a surefire way of making certain the woman was at all times cloaked. He, on the other hand, preferred not to touch humans when it could be avoided. Other than having the occasional one-night-stand with a human woman, he wasn’t interested in them. Not anymore. Not after what a human had done to his family.

  “You fuck them so you don’t have to expend any extra energy!”

  The accusation only earned him a smirk from Manus.

  “I wouldn’t exactly say that. I’m expending plenty of energy doing that.”

  Before Manus could turn away, Aiden landed a punch in his face, wiping the grin right off it.

  Damn, it felt good to hit someone!

  It felt cathartic to beat the crap out of Manus, to unleash his anger and frustration on him. Maybe it would dull his mind.

  An uppercut to his chin whipped Aiden’s head back. He tasted blood an instant later, but ignored it to answer Manus’s blow. Leveraging his right leg against the kitchen counter, a bar stool crashed to the floor as Aiden swung against his fellow Stealth Guardian. The strike knocked Manus against the fridge, which groaned under the impact.

  “Jerk!” Manus spat. “This isn’t about what rules I’ve broken. Don’t pretend you haven’t thought of it yourself . . . how sweet it is to break a rule once in a while.” He gave a devilish grin.

  “Fuck you!” There were plenty of willing women in the bars Aiden frequented. He didn’t need to screw his charges. Sex was sex—and as long as the woman was reasonably hot, what did he care who she was? He had no interest in getting involved with a charge. He kept his distance from them, emotionally and physically, knowing that the day might come where he’d have to kill one of them, just like tonight. He couldn’t allow his emotions to get in the way.

  “And stop blaming me for your failures! I’m not playing scapegoat today,” Manus growled, interrupting Aiden’s thoughts and making him focus on the issue at hand.

  He had only himself to blame for what had happened tonight. Well, and Hamish. But once he tracked down his errant second, there’d be hell to pay.

  Beating Manus to pulp wouldn’t bring his charge back, wouldn’t make it undone.

  “Ah, shit!” Aiden cursed and lowered his fist. “I failed.” He raised his eyes to meet Manus’s gaze, but instead of a mocking glare, he recognized a flash of compassion.

  Manus pushed himself off the fridge and brushed past him. “Get used to it.”

  Aiden grabbed his shoulder and turned him around. “What do you mean?”

  “Haven’t you seen the reports come in from the other compounds?”

  “And when do you think I would have had time to read stupid reports?” He’d been on this assignment for several weeks and barely had time to rush back to the compound for urgent updates.

  Aiden wiped the blood from his mouth and looked at the others in the room.

  Pearce cleared his throat. “The demons are getting stronger. The other compounds are reporting more and more . . . losses.”

  Aiden shook his head in disbelief. “How?”

  “They somehow seem to know where our charges are. Despite them being cloaked, they find them.”

  “That’s not possible,” Aiden protested and looked at Logan and Enya. “They don’t have those capabilities. They can’t sense our charges when they’re cloaked.”

  Enya nodded solemnly. “That’s right, but what if they don’t need those senses? What if they have another way of knowing where our charges are?”

  Not wanting to follow Enya’s thought process, Aiden took a steadying breath. “You can’t mean that.”

  Logan huffed. “And why not? Our own emotions aren’t that different from those of the humans we’re protecting. So what makes you think all of us can resist temptation?”

  “But that’s what we’re trained for . . . ” Aiden’s voice died. He swallowed past the dryness of this throat. His next thought came out of nowhere. “But Hamish. You can’t mean that he . . . and the demons . . . ”

  “He wasn’t there to back you up. And how did the demons find your charge anyway when you say you cloaked her?” Logan asked.

  “Who better to know where you are at all times than your second,” Manus added.

  “A traitor? You think Hamish sold me out to the demons?”

  When the words left his lips, his heart clenched painfully. Aiden sought support from the kitchen counter, his knees buckling under the strain. It couldn’t be possible. Hamish was like a brother to him. A brother he occasionally butted heads with, but a brother nevertheless.

  “We have to find him.” Aiden glanced at Pearce. “Find his cell. Maybe he’s hurt somewhere.”

  He put all his hopes into his last words. It was better that the reason why Hamish hadn’t come to his aid was because he was hurt. The other possibility—that he had gone over to the demons—was too awful to contemplate.

  FOUR

  Barclay dropped the gavel and called for order in the council chambers. The mumbling of his fellow council members tapered slowly. When it finally died, he gazed into the faces of the men and women who sat around the table, which was built in a half-circle. All of them were experienced Stealth Guardians, seven men and two women with great knowledge and skill, who’d served their people well for many centuries. They had been hand selected to serve on the Council of Nine, the ruling body of their ancient race. Judge, jury, and executioner in one, the council bore a heavy burden. Yet each member wore their duty with pride.

  Surrounded by ancient runes engraved in the stone walls of the chambers, and protected by the collective powers of the Stealth Guardians, this was the inner sanctum, a place where few other guardians were allowed to set foot. Important decisions were made within these walls, decisions that could mean life or death for humans and Stealth Guardians alike.

  Whenever he sat at the center of the table, Barclay, as primus inter pares, the first among equals, felt the weight of responsibility on his chest. He sensed the winds of change, and he knew their world was at the edge of something new—something that would change all their lives for the worse if he and his fellow Stealth Guardians couldn’t stop it. If only he knew what it was.

  Barclay cleared his voice and rested his eyes on the tall man, whose hazel eyes looked anxious and whose dark brown hair looked more disheveled than usual.

  “Geoffrey, you called this meeting. The council is eager to hear your report.”

  Geoffrey stood. “Brothers, Sisters, Primus—” He nodded toward Barclay. “—I have received disturbing reports from our emisarii. Information has surfaced that the demons have discovered a serum that may make humans more susceptible to their influences.”

  A collective gasp rippled through the assembly. Barclay sucked in his breath, the thought of such a thing being possible, shocking him to the core. Was this the change he’d been sensing lately?

  “De
mons aren’t capable of witchcraft,” Finlay protested loudly.

  “Never heard of such a thing!” Riona, one of the two female council members, interjected throwing her hands up in a dramatic gesture. “Besides, the witches are our allies, not theirs.”

  Barclay pounded the gavel on the table. “Order! Order!”

  His fellow council members fell silent as he lashed an angry glare at them. Then he cast his eyes toward Geoffrey. “Continue with your account.”

  Giving a pointed look to Finlay, Geoffrey parted his lips. “Witchcraft no. That we agree on, my friend.”

  Barclay was fully aware that Geoffrey and Finlay rarely saw eye to eye on anything. He’d had to mediate many a fight between the two guardians, who were as stubborn as they came. For once, he hoped that no such fight broke out at this meeting. Circumstances were too dire to have to waste time on a useless display of excess testosterone as if the two were green teenagers and not the hardened men who had fought by his side for centuries.

  “However, I’m not talking about witchcraft. I’m talking about science.”

  “Science?” Finlay echoed, clearly stunned.

  A grim nod marked Geoffrey’s reply. “Pharmaceutical science. Dr. Leila Cruickshank—” He passed a picture around. “—is a talented researcher for Inter Pharma. Over the last few years, she’s dedicated her life to finding a cure for Alzheimer’s.”

  “Very admirable. But what has that got to do with us?” Wade interrupted, threading his fingers through his dark blond hair. “Besides, many others have tried before her, and nobody has succeeded.”

  “Has this Dr. Cruickshank?” Finley asked, waving his hand at the picture that reached Barclay at this moment.

  Barclay’s gaze fell on the young woman’s face. The picture had been taken through a window from a fair distance. Despite that fact, the lens had been able to capture her essence: her pleasant, yet determined features and her straight nose and piercing eyes underscored what Geoffrey had said. Wearing a white lab coat, she sat at a computer, gazing into the screen in fascination. Her long dark hair was pulled together in a haphazard looking ponytail, strands of it having escaped, framing her classic features, softening them.

  “Our emissarius reports that she is at the edge of a breakthrough. According to lab reports he was able to get access to, early clinical trials suggest that the serum seems to be . . . unlocking the mind.”

  “Unlocking?” Barclay echoed. “Explain.”

  “With Alzheimer’s, neurons and synapses in the brain are destroyed, shutting off the mind, locking away memories and experiences, making people not even remember their loved ones. If this serum does what we think it does, then it seems to reverse some of these effects.”

  “Well, that’s a good thing then,” Deirdre agreed and pushed her long blond hair behind her back. “So I’m assuming you want her protected?”

  Geoffrey shook his head and gazed into the round, his expression solemn. “On the contrary. I want her eliminated.”

  Finlay shot from his seat. “What?”

  “We’ve sworn to protect humans and help further the good in the world,” Deidre added, placing a hand on Finlay’s arm and urging him to sit back down. “And you want to do the opposite?”

  “You’d better have a bloody good explanation for that,” Wade bit out.

  As Norton, Ian, and Cinead, the three council members who’d so far remained quiet, cleared their throats, Barclay stood and motioned everybody to be silent. Then he turned to Geoffrey.

  “I too would like to hear your reasoning behind this. Alzheimer’s has plagued mankind for many years, and to deny humans a cure for this ailment . . . ” He shook his head. “Speak.”

  Geoffrey’s cheeks appeared heated as he continued. Clearly, this subject was dear to his heart. “Just as the serum may halt Alzheimer’s and reverse some of its effects by repairing some of the damaged neurons and allowing memories to flow freely again, it will unlock the mind to allow demons easy access. The natural resistance humans possess to withstand the influence of the Demons of Fear will be melted away. There will be no block, no gate. A human mind will be as open as a school gate on graduation day. And if Inter Pharma decides to not only use this drug to treat current Alzheimer’s patients, but to use it as a vaccine . . . ”

  Geoffrey didn’t have to finish his sentence. Everybody in the room knew what this meant. From an early age, all humans would be walking invitations for the demons to take over their minds and control them to do their bidding.

  “Nobody would be able to resist,” Cinead said in a gravely voice, rising as he did so. He nodded toward Barclay. “May I speak?”

  Barclay showed his agreement with a wave of his hand. Cinead, the Scotsman who’d been on the council longer than any of them, yet had never accepted a nomination as Primus, was the wisest among them, always looking at all sides of an issue before making a decision.

  “Geoffrey, you say your emissarius has seen lab reports. Are those available for our review?”

  “I can procure them, if you don’t believe my words.” He appeared miffed at Cinead’s request.

  “I would like to see them and study the data myself. We cannot callously eliminate a human solely based on the report of one emissarius who might not have the relevant knowledge it takes to assess this issue. We’ve never acted on rumors or assumptions. There’s no need to start now.”

  Geoffrey huffed. “I’ll get you the bloody report, but I’m telling you, there’s no time to lose. If the drug is allowed to be brought to market, it has the potential to annihilate the human race and us in the process.”

  “I agree,” Riona said. “At the very least, access to it has to be restricted until we know more. If the demons get a hold of it, they may well be able to reproduce it and distribute it among the human population.”

  “It would still have to be administered by injection, I assume?” Norton asked, his eyebrows pulling together into a deep frown.

  Geoffrey shrugged. “Not every vaccine is delivered with a needle. Should the demons get hold of it, who says they can’t infiltrate the human food or water supply with it? They have to be stopped before they get that far. We have to destroy all traces of Dr. Cruickshank’s research and all samples of the drug.”

  “If the drug truly does what you say,” Norton conceded. “However, until then, I am with Cinead: we will not interfere until the facts have been confirmed.”

  “The facts seem pretty clear to me,” Ian voiced. “Her research is dangerous. It needs to be taken care of now. Every minute we sit here discussing this, the demons get closer to her, if they haven’t already found her.”

  “So this is how much you value a human life,” Riona remarked. “What if it were your life?”

  “I’m immortal,” Ian ground out.

  “Even you can be killed,” Riona pressed out under her breath, “with the right weapons.”

  Barclay ground his teeth, not keen on listening to more bickering between the two. “Either keep your remarks to the subject at hand, or take your disagreements outside. What is it to be?”

  At his stern look, both of them pressed their lips together.

  Wade lanced a look at the two, then straightened in his seat. “If what Geoffrey says is true, I believe the human race is in grave danger. And there’s really only one way of dealing with a threat like this. We’re not simply guardians, we’re also warriors; collateral damage is expected.”

  Barclay clenched his jaw. Wade had always erred on the side of striking first and asking questions second, and this instance didn’t appear any different. He gave his fellow council member a tight look. A shrug was Wade’s answer.

  Geoffrey shot Barclay a pleading look. “Primus, I appeal to you. We cannot let this continue. The danger is too immense, the consequences could be disastrous.”

  Barclay steepled his fingers, blowing a breath against them. For a moment, he closed his eyes. This was not his decision to make, no matter how much he feared that Geoffrey was right
. A drug that turned a human mind into an all-you-can-eat buffet for the Demons of Fear would herald a wave of evil sweeping over this world. With more and more humans acting on the evil influences of the demons, wars would ravage the earth, misery and pain would spread. Fear would escalate, and the demons would feed on all of it, particularly the fear. And they would grow stronger with every human they brought into their fold.

  Soon, the world would be overrun with evil: even more people would die of disease and hunger. Every country would be rife with war and conflict; there would be no peace keepers, no law enforcement, no organizations delivering humanitarian aid. Everybody would be out for themselves. Armageddon.

  Barclay lifted his lids. “A vote then. Those of you who believe the woman should be assigned a Stealth Guardian for protection for now, say ‘aye’; those who want to eliminate the threat by eliminating the scientist and her research, say ‘nay’.”

  One by one ‘ayes’ and ‘nays’ bounced against the wall of the chambers.

  Barclay held his breath until everyone had voted.

  ***

  Aiden paced in the long hallway that led to the council chambers, casting a look at the closed door every few seconds. It seemed as if the council members had been in there forever, or maybe it was simply because he felt anxious to get this over with. Already the council wouldn’t be pleased with the outcome of his last mission, but having to accuse a fellow Stealth Guardian of treason in the same breath, would not endear him to anybody.

  His friends at the compound had warned him about making the accusation and suggested he let the council draw their own conclusions, simply presenting the facts that he and his brothers had discovered when looking for Hamish. But Aiden knew himself too well. He was as much a hothead as Logan, even if he didn’t flaunt breaking the council’s rules the way Manus did. Most of the time, he followed them. Not doing so would earn severe punishment from the council.

  The only reason Manus’s transgressions hadn’t reached the council’s ears yet was because their compound was particularly close-knit. Nobody wanted to be known as a snitch. Their unspoken rule was that they sorted things out between themselves without involving the council.