Lucan shook his head, cursed. What the hell just happened? A few select Knights could orb–travel through space in the snap of fingers – but only a few. As far as he knew, no Darkland Beast had such ability beyond the powerful leaders of their kind. Certainly no wolf, or any other Demon he knew of, could orb. Which was a blessing because orbing was a near indefensible weapon that gave the enemy the ability to appear, without warning, and attack.
Lucan debated his next action. Go to Kresley and warn her, or push forward and deal with the other wolves? Before he had time to make that decision, a masculine shout cut through the air, short but distinct. Swiftly, Lucan tracked toward the sound, rounding the edge of the building and bringing into view the gap between Kresley’s apartment and another, thankful for a bright moon to light his view.
A wolf in human form stood in the open area turning in circles, panic in his jerky movements. He acted as if he’d seen a ghost, as if he expected to be attacked at any moment. But it wasn’t a ghost; his attacker was very much real and suddenly behind him. In a split second, the newcomer grabbed the wolf, yanked him backwards and sliced his throat. The wolf crumpled to the ground, and the attacker turned in Lucan’s direction, light illuminating a face splashed with red and white paint of some sort.
Lucan instinctively reached for his sword, though something kept him from drawing it. A sense that whoever this stranger was, he meant Lucan no harm. The stranger offered a barely perceivable bow and then squatted down, touched the wolf, and they both disappeared.
Lucan didn’t give himself time to decipher what had just happened. He did a quick sweep of the building, checked for the other two wolves but couldn't find them–no doubt dead like the other two. Then with his heart racing, Lucan climbed back up the fire escape. He couldn’t get back to Kresley’s side soon enough. There were things going on here that reached far beyond the deals they’d made with the Guardians. Just what had they gotten themselves involved in?
And was this new stranger, friend or foe?
***
Salvador stood on the ledge of a sixty-story building in the center of Manhattan’s financial district, the wind stroking his long black hair; Ground Zero stretched before him. He could feel the cries of those souls who had been lost there, and their pain. The loss experienced there told of the far-reaching hand of evil, of its connection to humanity. And it told of why someone such as he was necessary, why supernatural proctors and guides must exist in this realm. When he could no longer bear the memories of the dead, he turned away, gave his back to Ground Zero. Facing east, he brought into view a completely different vision, a sight of promise and hope. Reds, oranges, and yellows brushed the charcoal-colored skyline as the sun began to peek over the horizon.
For centuries Salvador had been the earthbound messenger to those who served under the Archangel Raphael’s careful watch. He was responsible for choosing the men who became Knights of White; he was the one who gave each of them back the soul that a Demon’s bite had stolen. The one who saw into the souls of men and knew what true potential for greatness they held. But with every being that walked upon earth, himself included, there was the potential for darkness, a vulnerability to evil – there was weakness. The Knights he chose were men who were strong enough to overcome the temptations that felled regular men. The vulnerability of these men was not to the Beast that had once touched their souls, as they often believed, but to their doubts and fears.
Awareness rushed through him several seconds before Prince Risen, a brave Fae Warrior, appeared on the ledge beside him, his face painted in red and white, his shoulder-length blond hair braided at his back, falling down his leather-clad shoulders.
“It is done,” he stated simply.
Earth was the Fae’s realm of existence. He could do whatever was necessary to destroy the evil that lived in his world. Salvador, on the other hand, was forbidden such actions. By calling on the Fae for aid, he had technically broken his code. That he had done so to protect one of his Knights who was still being tested, added to the severity of his transgression. There was a great war that all would face one day, a war that would not be fought in this place, and his Knights had to prove they were worthy to stand with the Army of light.
“Exposure to the Guardians?” he asked.
“None,” the Prince confirmed. “But then Lucan has no idea who, or what I am, so I would not register in his mind in a way that would create more than curiosity in the Guardians.” His jaw tensed. “Though, I don’t need to tell you we are treading on dangerous water. Any contact with Lucan while he's possessed by the Guardians could easily go straight back to Adrian.”
Salvador inhaled the scent of death lingering within the depths of the air around him, a scent that reminded him of the cost of allowing evil to prevail.
“Thank you, my friend,” Salvador said, aware that he had asked a lot of Prince Risen this day. Aware that when he saw his Knight in peril, he should have allowed fate to work its own path. But he’d intervened and asked a lot of the Prince in doing so. He’s asked him to believe Lucan was worth saving, that he could aid their efforts to defeat Adrian despite their lack of ability to communication with him. Despite knowing that Adrian was using Lucan to destroy Cullen Moore – someone prophesied to play a critical role in the future safety of humanity. But Salvador saw what even the Fae could not. Lucan was the vehicle to Cullen’s future. But there were two possible paths, two possible futures. One where Lucan chose right and one where he chose wrong.
“Do not thank me, Salvador. I had selfish reasons for saving Lucan this night. He’s killed many a rebel wolf so I didn’t have to. According to you, he will be key in uniting those who must defeat Adrian. I’m trusting you on that, because Adrian will do everything in his power to make sure Lucan kills Cullen Moore. And we both know that must not happen. He must prevail and stand with humanity as the Knights have.” A frustrated sound slid from his lips. “I’d kill the rebel leader myself if it didn’t think better of that choice. For now, I need him to control his pack of rebels.”
Salvador turned away from the Prince, and the two of them fell into silence, standing side by side, looking out across the sky. He respected the Prince immensely; the Fae warrior had led his people through much. The Fae were the children of the Fallen Ones, not accepted in heaven or hell. It had been Prince Risen’s desire to overcome this. His extreme devotion to proving his faith had eventually led him, and his kind, to hope for salvation – salvation they earned as Agents of Purgatory, aiding those who walked a line between good and evil, guiding them toward the light rather than the darkness. Most importantly, they acted as emissaries of peace on earth, with zero tolerance for those, like the rebel wolves, who did not support that effort. Salvador could feel the heaviness of the Prince’s thoughts a moment before Prince Risen spoke.
“He is barely hanging onto his humanity,” the Prince said, breaking the silence. He cast Salvador a sideways look. The Fae could look into the eyes of another and see their potential for good and evil. “I have every intention of bringing together your Knights of White and the Werewolves in allegiance to the Council. Lucan can help or hurt that process. Adrian will know this. He will try to turn the Knights against the wolves through Lucan. How he responds to the challenge before him could profoundly impact the future of humanity. How confident are you this mate of his can bring him back to us?”
“Enough to ask for you for help, regardless of consequences.”
The Prince studied him a moment. “Ah, yes. The consequences. Another century on earth, I suspect. Maybe two? How many thousands will that make?”
“You’ve served this planet at least as long as I have,” Salvador reminded him.
“Because I agreed to ten thousand years,” he rebutted. “We both know you have added century after century onto your sentence since taking on the Knights and done so to protect them from their own failures. When will you allow them to stand on their own?”
“Too many Knights were lost because they had no
way to remove the stain of their beasts.”
“Sometimes Salvador,” the Prince said, “I believe you don’t want to leave this realm. That you prefer the penalties that have been exacted from you, over the ultimate peace of leaving this world behind. That you are punishing yourself for something no one but you and perhaps God himself understands.”
The truth of those words ripped through Salvador’s chest, twisting his heart. But he’d born much pain in his existence and easily buried it beneath a steel shell. His lips quirked in an amused half smile. “Yet you helped me tonight, anyway,” Salvador said wryly.
The Prince inclined his head. “Who am I to deny a man the punishment he so wishes for.”
Salvador’s smile widened. “Your graciousness is always astounding.”
“It really is, isn’t it?” the Prince commented dryly, giving the horizon his profile as he turned to Salvador, his mood shifting. “I will protect your Knight as long as is feasible. But I cannot allow him to destroy Cullen Moore.”
Grim, but fair, words. “Understood.”
The Prince bowed. “Peace be with you, my friend."
“Peace be with you,” Salvador repeated, knowing those words reached beyond the surface meaning. The Prince faded away, departing.
Salvador turned back to Ground Zero, facing the darkness again – because facing the darkness was what he did. It was all he knew. It was the pain of his existence. He relished it for one purpose – destroying it as it had once destroyed him.
Lucan relished destroying that darkness as well, but it was going to take the healer in him, the man who had become a doctor, so many years before, to overcome this challenge. Lucan had to come home to himself. He had to find his humanity – and he had to find it quickly. Because if he did not, Salvador feared many others would lose theirs.
Chapter Ten
Time ticked by in excruciatingly slow motion, the thirty minutes since Lucan’s exit out of her bedroom window passing like hours. Kresley sat with her back against the headboard, eyes fixed on the window, the sword next to her, her hand gripping the hilt. She could feel the danger around them, her senses more keenly alert the past few days than she had thought possible.
And she was terrified for Lucan. She wanted him to survive this, wanted that more than ever. Because she could feel the suffering in him, sensed it as she did the danger now, sensed it as if his pain were her own. This connection she had with him reached beyond the natural; profound and deep, it was perhaps a part of her expanding ability to sense things.
Her chest tightened as she considered another option, as she considered Adrian’s claim that Lucan and she were mates–could it be true? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. The idea of a bond that was forced brought bitterness, memories of parents who had treated her as a feared obligation. Parents she hadn’t spoken to in years. She’d come here with decisions made. With the intention of removing herself from a world she didn’t belong to, trading herself for Lucan so he could do some good she could not.
But seeing Lucan again delivered an odd sense of completeness, and she remembered the feeling of acceptance he’d given her when she’d first met him. In his arms, though, it was not comfort she had felt. It was passion – red-hot, burning passion– unlike anything she’d ever known, as if he were peeling away the years of inhibitions, of fears of hurting the men in her life. That kiss had revealed needs within her she didn’t even know existed. Needs that even now had her pressing her thighs together, the ache of arousal flooding her limbs with warmth.
A tiny sound jolted her out of her reverie, sent her rocketing upward. Lucan appeared in the window frame a moment before he pushed it open. Her shoulders slumped slightly, relief at seeing him alive and well rushing through her.
“Well?” she asked, trying to sound cool and collected despite the thrum of urgency juicing her veins. Her hand reached for the leather grip of her sword, preparing herself for bad news.
A subdued tone etched his words, as if they hid a deeper emotion. “All clear for the moment,” he offered, as he climbed back into the room and resealed the window, quickly locking it, with an urgency that defied the overly casual reply.
He turned to face her fully and. . . God, he was big, Kresley thought, her gaze swiping a path up his long, lithe frame. He was broad and tall. Gorgeously male. Her core clenched and she swallowed hard, shaken by the depth of her body’s reaction to Lucan at such a completely inappropriate moment.
Agitated at both herself and him–at herself for thinking such nonsense a dangerous time, at him for creating the distraction. She jerked her gaze to the window, looked beyond, searched for shadows. An electric charge of worry danced along her nerve endings. Her fingers curled into the blanket, not quite ready to abandon the easy access to her sword.
“'For the moment’ is not comforting," she commented dryly.
Lucan leaned on the wall, and she didn’t miss the way he positioned his back away from the window. The irony of people like her and Lucan using locks at all hit her. They both knew no lock would hold back a supernatural being.
“We’re safe enough to get some rest,” he assured her. “But we need to move tomorrow. A heavily secured, high-profile hotel will discourage attacks and make me feel a hundred percent better.”
Hotel. Alone. With Lucan. She blinked away the sexy images that came to mind. Including the cost when she had no money. But they both knew the supernatural world preferred to operate off the human radar. His plan made sense. “Why are you so sure we’re safe now but not later?"
“Because the four wolves who were here watching us are now dead. And before you ask, no, I didn’t get the dubious honor, though after the whipping they gave me back at that bar, it would have been a pleasure.”
Kresley swallowed hard, relieved that the wolves were dead, but feeling guilty for being happy about the death of any living creature. What was she becoming? "If you didn’t do it, who did?"
"That would be the question of the hour,” he replied, a perplexed expression on his tension-laden face. “The wolves never knew what hit them. Their attacker orbed in behind them, and one by one, slit their throats. Then, he turned to me, gave me a little bow – almost a salute of sorts– and disappeared."
Kresley scooted to the end of the bed, her hand going to her throat. “Oh God,” she whispered. “I just had a horrible picture of that in my head.” She blinked. “Wait.” Realization beat at her with troubling insistence. “Orbed?! Who was this attacker?”
Lucan’s expression turned vacant, as if he were picturing the stranger. “His face was painted. A mask of colors shadowed by the night. But his eyes, his eyes . .. ” He glanced at Kresley, snapping back to the present. “Dark eyes with an otherworldly presence. Not red.” He shook his head. "He wasn’t a Demon.”
“Then what?” Kresley asked, frowning.
Lucan walked to the side of the bed where the weapons case remained open, and she slid one leg onto the bed to turn in his direction. “The only things for certain are that he dislikes the wolves and he’s a deadly enemy,” he stated grimly.
“But not our enemy?”
“Not tonight,” Lucan agreed, bending down on one knee beside the case, unsheathing one of the short-handled sabers he wore and placing it back in the case, his mood shifting with the action.
“A comforting thought I could do without,” she murmured, her words fading as she watching Lucan, his head downturned. The forlorn darkness within the room seemed to expand, to take on a sense of loss. “They’re yours, you know,” she offered gently. “From your personal collection.”
He removed the other saber from his hip and replaced it in the case, changing the subject, as if he did not want to discuss the swords – or perhaps his past. “The book the wolf leader possesses. Tell me more about it.”
If only she’d had a few more minutes in that library. “I can’t tell you much. Cullen’s head of security walked in on me snooping around. I quickly made an excuse and got out of there. But it limit
ed what I learned. All I know at this point is Cullen possesses a collection of religious books, and this particular one had the Knights' emblem, and writing I didn’t understand.”
“Hebrew?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ve seen Hebrew writing from the Solomon relics at the ranch. This wasn’t Hebrew. Some strange language. Or maybe some kind of magical markings.” She reached deeper in her mind. “I just don’t know. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that when Adrian is involved, and the Knights show up on the radar, we have a red flag. Adrian is always looking for ways to destroy the Knights.”
“But this isn’t Adrian,” she argued. “It’s Cullen.”
“He’s a Demon which makes anyone fighting for good his enemy. And Adrian is involved, even if the book is not his. Everything is not as it seems, and we cannot go after that ring until we know the true picture. We can’t risk hurting the wrong people.”
“If we contact the Knights – "
He cut her off. “Neither Adrian nor the Guardians would allow that to happen. I tried. For you. I wanted Jag to come take you back home."
Kresley was stunned. “You tried to contact Jag for me?”
“Tried and failed.” His jaw clenched. “I’ve learned how to block out the Guardians from certain parts of my mind. I managed to make it to a phone and Adrian intercepted. ”
She’d have been angry at him trying to send her away if not for the risk he’d put himself under, and the ultimate pain she knew he’d endured. She had no doubt Adrian had made him suffer. Kresley squeezed her eyes shut, thinking of finding him in pain on his apartment floor, wondering if that had been his punishment.
She pinned him in a steady stare, new determination to free him in her eyes for him to see. “I knew the risk I took when I came here.”
He pushed to his feet, anger etched in the lines of his face as he stared down at her. “You came here because you felt guilty about me leaving the Knights. But guilt is a form of evil, Kresley. Guilt has kept you from embracing gifts meant to help innocents.”
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