Shattered Dawn (Fallen Guardians Book 5)

by Georgia Lyn Hunter

  She moaned, her brow creasing. Carefully, he touched the wounded node, and her agony punched him like a fist to the gut. He drew her discomfort into him, and her pain lines eased. The wound on her had left breast had already closed from his saliva healing, forming a red line.

  Sounds of approaching footsteps reached him. Nik swiftly drew up the light green throw from the foot of the bed and covered her. He didn’t care for Hedori—or anyone—to see her naked.

  The door opened, and a petite brunette with tan skin hurried inside. The new Oracle appeared more like a teenager than a powerful seer in her jeans and a t-shirt. Her glowing aura indicated her humanity, too. But human glamour covered a multitude of otherworldliness as Lila, their previous Oracle, had proven. Hell, she turned out to be one of the most powerful beings—an Ancient—and no one, not even Michael, had known shit.

  He only hoped this Oracle proved to be as good as Lila.

  “Guardian,” she greeted. Feline green eyes met his briefly before shifting to Shadow. The woman carefully moved the blanket lower, revealing Shadow’s breasts and injuries.

  He fisted his fingers. Powers swirled beneath his skin at the sight of the brutal wounds on her sternum. He would make the fucking scourge beg for death for this sacrilege.

  “Perhaps it would be better if you came back later?” the Oracle said.

  “No.”

  “Then you need to calm down, warrior.” She cut him a brief look before spreading out pearlescent stones with hints of lavender around Shadow.

  “What are those?”

  “To help remove the demon taint,” she explained, then asked, “Which Guardian are you? I met the others, except for Race and Nik.”

  “The latter.”

  She cast him another look, and a smile tugged at her mouth. “Ah, the antisocial one, I heard. I am Jaden.”

  Nik frowned. Antisocial?

  Because he didn’t eat dinner with the castle’s residents?

  Hell, he took part in all the dares and bets in the rec room sports, even played a game or two of basketball. Nodded when the females greeted him…

  No, he couldn’t blame anyone for thinking him aloof, not when it was the only way to keep them all safe from the vicious side of his darker self and the souls trapped within him.

  Jaden flicked a hand, and an opaque bottle appeared on the dresser, along with three small vials and a receptacle he recognized containing the healing balms they used.

  She crossed to the potions, then glasses clinked. Nik crouched next to Shadow and smoothed back her hair, guilt fisting his gut. This was his fault. He should have just dematerialized with her instead of arguing with her underground. Those demons he’d fought hadn’t been the local Otiums who lived on Earth for a quieter life, but the vicious assholes direct from the Dark Realm.

  Anger raged faster. Nik jerked to his feet and stalked out. Because if he remained, he would have punched the walls. And he didn’t dare let his perilous powers slip.

  Nik headed downstairs, then dematerialized to the eastern side of the estate, away from everyone, reforming on the beach. Moonlight reflected over the calm waters in a silvery shimmer.

  Nik paced the length of the shore, pebbles, and shells crunching beneath his boots, the darkness compressing him tighter and tighter. The ghostly shadows were back and flickered in his peripheral view.

  “Fuck off,” he growled. Damn formless shits, always on his ass—looking for a body to inhabit—as if he didn’t have enough crap in his life. He kicked a small boulder out of his path, and it flew into the suddenly churning seas. Waves rose and crashed onto the shores in a roar. The battering inside him grew, shafts of pain pierced his skull, and his tenuous control slipped. Power flew out in a deadly wave, icing everything around him—

  Fuck, fuck, fuck! Nik grunted, clamping down on his mind-shields and shutting off his escaping powers. The waves had frozen in motion. Even the ghostly figures had taken on solid shape.

  Hell, better his abilities escaping than the souls. It would be a death sentence for humanity, one that would cause inconceivable havoc on this world.

  He’d witnessed an inkling of what could happen. A few days after he’d been spit out of Tartarus and into this realm, the demon blood moon, one only he could sense with his ties to Tartarus, had appeared. It had held him helpless in its grips as the malevolent souls tore free, leaving him writhing in agony, then the screams started…

  Nik crawled to his feet, searching for the terrified cries. A tall, dark-haired angel appeared in a shower of silvery sparks. “Go get those souls back!”

  What? “No-no. Don’t want them—”

  “You have no choice,” the angel countered, his eerie splintered blue irises glowing in the dark. “Those souls will seek other humans when their current host dies and cause a supernatural carnage we cannot allow on the mortal realm. Only you can house them—”

  The next second, he found himself stumbling into a small hamlet near the Tatra Mountains, in the middle of a bloody massacre. Snarls echoed. Cries of sheer agony swamped him.

  Humans, possessed by the malevolent souls, slaughtered each other with machetes and knives—

  Theós. Nik scrubbed his face as if it would wipe away the memories. Yeah, he’d killed the poor, doomed humans tainted by evil and absorbed the souls again. Since then, he’d never let his psychic shields collapse without being contained.

  He couldn’t do anything about the past, and he sure as hell didn’t seek absolution for the innocent lives lost—he didn’t deserve it. But he would find the bastard abducting the women and children. No more innocents would perish on his watch.

  The air near him shimmered, and the Arc took form. He glanced around the ice-encrusted shore and frozen waters. “Do you need to leave?”

  Of course. Time for the abhorrent to be locked up. Again.

  Nik rubbed his nape, so fucking tired of this damn curse. Even now, the malevolent souls pummeled him like nails, piercing his mind, his skull, his damn eyeballs in retaliation, looking for ways to escape.

  Michael lowered to his haunches, arms braced on his heavily muscled, leather-clad thighs, staring out at the frozen sea. His expression harsh, as if he carried a great weight. “I regret that you were all trapped in Tartarus—”

  “No need to bear our guilt. My responsibility, my fault. As protectors, we possessed the ultimate powers to safeguard the Goddess of Life. We failed. You weren’t a part of that.”

  Michael lifted his head, those shattered blues burning holes in him. “You’re too close to the edge.”

  Nik shrugged. Being with Shadow wasn’t making it easy, but he didn’t dare leave her alone. Years ago, he’d done so with another, and she now lay six feet under. “I can hold on for a while longer.”

  “No.”

  “The damn blood moon hasn’t appeared,” Nik snapped, his tenuous hold on his mind shields shuddering. “Why do you even want me around when you know how dangerous I am? I couldn’t die permanently in Tartarus, but you could have ended it that night, millennia ago, when you found out the truth. You didn’t. It won’t be a few people who will die this time, Arc. I’ll infect this city—the entire realm with the evil I house! After we destroy this fucking trafficking ring, I want out.”

  “No—”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  “Dammit.” Michael dug his fingers into his temples as if wanting to gouge out his brain. “You’ve endured for millennia, just hold on for a while longer. You will find your peace—”

  “I’m not interested in absolution.”

  “The others found their mates in the last year and a half.” The Arc seemed determined to drive his damn point home. “You will, too.”

  He wasn’t fit to be a mate to anyone.

  Nik picked up a flat stone disc and hurled the thing. It bounced over the frozen sea. “You would sentence an innocent to her death, so I’ll be happy? No.”

  “Hell,” Michael growled, glaring skyward. “Just when I thought the most intra
ctable of you all were mated, I find another hardhead, and you don’t even want a mate.” He rose to his feet. “Only you can make this work, Nik. No one can walk destiny’s path for you.”

  “How can I contemplate a mate with the shit that’s in me?” he demanded, even as thoughts of Shadow crept into his mind. “I never left Tartarus behind. It still lives inside me. It’s always going to be inside me, ripping at me. There is no fucking peace inside here—” He stabbed a finger to his skull. “None!”

  Breathing hard, Nik glared back at the ice-covered sea, struggling for calm. No need for Michael to know the paralyzing truth of his imprisonment. The unseen torturers who’d brutalized him, just because they could.

  His fury dissipating, he let a sliver of power escape him. The ice melted, and the sea reverted to it smooth, undulating motion once more.

  “You brought Shadow back to the castle?” Michael asked after a minute of silence.

  “Yeah.” Nik picked up another stone and flung it, and it skipped across the undulating waters. “We got trapped by a horde of demons underground sent directly from the Dark Realm. I dealt with them, but one marked her.”

  His teeth ground down, remembering the wound on her chest and the node the bastard had tried to dig out.

  Michael nodded. “She’ll be safe here. I’ll have Aethan and Blaéz check out the underground. Give them the coordinates of the place. Anything on the trafficking?”

  “No, nothing yet.”

  “It makes it damn hard with these demon abductors always one step ahead of us,” Michael muttered. Then those laser-sharp eyes pinned him. “Get yourself back to Romania. I’ll have one of the other unmated Guardians keep an eye on Shadow while we deal with this problem.”

  “Race,” he said coldly.

  “No. Another. You haven’t met him yet. He’ll get here fast enough so you can leave.”

  Damn fucking angel. “Don’t,” Nik snapped, a surge of power shooting out, sending the waves crashing again. “I know what you’re doing.”

  Michael arched a brow at the turbulent waters then back at him. “Shadow isn’t your responsibility—”

  “I’m what she needs.”

  “Then let me lay this out upfront.” The archangel’s hard stare allowed no argument. “Considering your territorial stance over her, make sure this is what you want. You cannot keep her without claiming her, mate, or not. And if she is your mate, and you go through with this, be prepared for the Absolute Laws. She is mortal.”

  Fuck, he couldn’t think beyond the rampaging darkness inside him, save holding onto his sanity. And the Arc would shovel out more shit for him to wade through. Right then, every fucking thing irritated him.

  “None of that will happen. I won’t put her life at risk. But she is my responsibility. I don’t trust her to escape back to the underground tunnels. Not until we find and end the bastards running the trafficking ring.”

  There, he’d laid it all out. Hoped the Arc would just let it go.

  “Hell, I’ve dealt with mules more accommodating.”

  Apparently not.

  He cut Michael a flat stare.

  His leader pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled a massive breath. Then those fragmented blue eyes impaled his. “Very well, as you deem fit then.”

  His jaw still clenched after his talk with the Arc, Nik opened the door to the elegant, pale green room decorated with white, period styled furniture from two centuries ago now fragrant with burning incense.

  The Oracle sat in an armchair, facing the bed, but staring out into the moonlit gardens.

  “There was the oddest storm earlier,” she murmured. “Snow falling in this still night.”

  He ignored her veiled question and stopped beside the bed, making sure his psychic shields were shut tight. Shadow lay covered again, only her bare shoulders showing.

  “How is she?”

  “In a healing sleep.” Jaden rose and joined him, standing at the other side of Shadow. “She’s…” Then she shook her head.

  “What?”

  “Those nodes aren’t normal for a human,” she said, frowning, and Nik stilled. “I can venture a theory, but I need to understand a little more about how they came to be.”

  He’d rather have the truth from Shadow herself than hazard a guess. Because right now, the only thing that came to mind was she had demon blood in her because of the dark energy he picked up in the nodes. And the thought chaffed at him.

  “She’ll be fine,” Jaden said softly, pushing up from the armchair. “There isn’t much more to be done until the potion I’ve given her pushes out the demon’s tracking spell. Then she’ll start to heal. It’ll take a few days.” She glided toward the door. “In the meantime, keep her close and off the streets. Or whoever marked her will easily find her.”

  Yeah, he knew this.

  The door shut softly behind the Oracle. Nik lowered to the vacated seat and scrubbed his jaw wearily. Warmth enfolded him. Someone had lit the fire in the hearth despite it being summer. Probably a good thing since Shadow was always cold. His mouth thinned, recalling the chilly basement room she’d lived in.

  He laced his fingers over his stomach, his mind back on those nodes. There was someone who could give him answers. Eddi. It had to be why he watched over her like a guard dog. In the morning, he’d go speak to the man.

  A soft moan reached him.

  Nik flashed to Shadow’s side. “What is it?” he asked softly, sweeping her sweat-drenched hair away from her fever-flushed face.

  “Water,” she rasped.

  Nik helped her sit up and then handed her the glass of water from the bedside table. She drank in deep gulps. The sheet slid down, revealing her delectable, handspan breasts and nipples—theós. His fingers clenched and he dragged his gaze away from her chest, lowering them to the dressing on her sternum. And his lips thinned.

  He took the tumbler from her, set it aside, then settled her on her pillow before pulling the covers over her. She grasped his hand, and Nik lowered to his haunches.

  Her feverish gaze roamed his face. “If y-you didn’t scowl so, you’d be really pretty.”

  Nik forced his expression to relax as her husky voice coasted over him in a warm caress, and he cocked an eyebrow. Even ailing, she baited him. “You would taunt me?”

  “Yes…s-so much fun, my cold Guardian.” She reached out a shaky hand and touched his lips with all her fingers. “l like your mouth.”

  Nik blinked, startled, and the ice inside him melted a little. Her Guardian?

  A soft sigh escaped her, and her eyelids fluttered shut once more. Chances were she wouldn’t remember any of this—her claiming of him—when she was up and lucid. But he would…hell, he sure would.

  Inhaling a deep breath of air into his compressing lungs, Nik rose, picked up the empty glass, and made his way downstairs.

  As he headed down the long corridor to the kitchen, feminine laughter reached him.

  “So whatcha think of him?” someone asked.

  “He seems quite intense. A little on the scary side.”

  Nik frowned. The soft voice replying sounded like the Oracle’s.

  “Yeah, yeah, we know all that, Jade. I mean him?” the interrogating female demanded.

  Jaden laughed. “Those eyes…sexy.”

  “I thought so, too,” someone else piped up.

  “Yup, those glacial greens are waaay hot.” Interrogator again.

  “Wait ‘til your mate hears about this.”

  “He won’t—”

  Chortles erupted.

  “And all those tatts. They add to the air of danger, don’t ya think?”

  Nik had no idea who was grilling the Oracle. He didn’t spend much time around the females. But he knew exactly who they were dissecting.

  Him.

  He opened the door, and four pairs of eyes belonging to the mates of his Guardian brothers, and those of the Oracle, widened in shock.

  Kira’s smile slipped, then rushed straight back up. “He
y, Nik.” No matter her earlier merriment or current guilty look, worry darkened her hazel eyes. “How’s Shadow? Jaden told us what happened.”

  “She’s asleep.” He nodded to them and strode to the fridge, got out the juice, and poured a fresh glass to take back to Shadow. Then he glanced up, meeting their mortified gawking.

  “As you were.” There. Now they could forget their embarrassment over being caught gossiping.

  “As if we could,” Kira mumbled, expression wry. “Sorry about that.”

  He shrugged. He didn’t really care either way. Only one person’s thoughts mattered, and despite her earlier revelation, she thought him a caveman, anyway. But if the Norse heard Kira, Nik would probably lose a few teeth.

  The females hastily got to their feet, and as they glided past, Darci smiled at him. “You do have pretty eyes.”

  Nik watched them go.

  Kira glanced back. “Your tatts are awesome, by the way. But not the serpent. I hate snakes.”

  The door shut behind them, and their laughter reached him again. He never understood females or had much to do with them. His mind slipped back to Shadow. Hell, he shouldn’t think about her. A mate wasn’t in the cards for him, unlike his fellow warriors.

  He rubbed the snake tatt on his neck. Nothing to say? he drawled.

  As if stretching from a long repose, his usually silent companion hissed, She knowsss nothing. I isss bessssst.

  Nik snorted.

  The side door next to the pantry opened. “Shall I take a tray up to Shadow?” Hedori asked.

  “No!” Nik’s focus shot to the male. Dammit. Calm the fuck down, idiot. “I’ll take the juice for now. Wait ‘til she’s up.”

  There. That didn’t sound so aggressive.

  He didn’t care for anyone else to see her naked.

  And that got him moving. He would get her one of his t-shirts to wear.

  Chapter 9

  “It was a war zone down there. Damn gang fights!”

  Nik caught the end of Aethan’s annoyed words as he reformed on the terrace to Michael’s study later in the morning. All the Guardians were there for the meeting.

  “Underground?” Nik panted, chest heaving after his earlier run through the vast estate.