Shattered Dawn (Fallen Guardians Book 5)

by Georgia Lyn Hunter

  “Upset?” Anger and fear resurged. “You put yourself in a dangerous situation!” Yeah, he was furious. And he never got mad or felt much of anything…until her. “I hurt you. Those fucking ice splinters could have killed you!”

  “Maybe.” Her eyes flared with annoyance. “But I’ll do so again if I have to!” She scurried across the mattress and sprinted to the bathroom, locking herself in.

  Godsdammit. Nik went after her. She wasn’t hiding from him. At the door, he stopped dead as the truth struck him, causing his stomach to heave.

  It hadn’t been a hug back in the cell.

  Her hands were on his chest, not around him. Somehow, she’d done something more than just calm the ruckus and pain when she’d touched him.

  His heart hammering as if it would break through his ribs, Nik willed the door open.

  Shadow spun around from the basin mirror, gripping the ripped sweater together, the scowl back. “Don’t you know how to knock?”

  Nik shut the bathroom door and leaned against it, preventing any further escape.

  He would find out what the hell had happened in the monk’s cell. How she’d silenced the darkness inside him so completely. Because he didn’t feel even a stirring from those vile entities, which should have started up again right about now.

  Shadow pressed her spine against the basin, needing the support, and eyed Nik warily while he watched her like a hawk.

  “What are you?”

  A soul leech.

  Ugh. She bit back the words. He’d probably toss her over the balcony then.

  He folded his powerfully inked arms over his wide, tattooed chest, distracting her, drawing her attention to the silver barbells piercing his nipples.

  Mesmerizing tonal ink of arid hills, ghostly faces, abstract designs, and runes covered his chest, arms, and pecs. More tatts ran down his obliques in some ancient script. And, of course, the too realistic snake inked on his neck, its body coiling down his shoulder and around his left biceps.

  It all fit him. A deadly warrior. And one of the saviors of humanity, too. She should know, she’d seen him in action.

  “Shadow, dammit,” he growled, rubbing his chest.

  Her gaze rushed to his, and meeting his heated stare, for some reason, it gave her courage.

  “I am human,” she huffed out. “You were in pain, and I couldn’t leave you to suffer when I could help.”

  “I’m not upset—no, dammit! I was shit scared at what could have happened to you. Don’t you realize how much you matter to me?” he demanded. “You put yourself in front of me. My powers are precarious, and I could have killed you because I don’t have any control of them during these times—” He pinched the bridge of his nose as if trying to get himself together.

  One part of her was ecstatic at his declaration, the other freaking out. “But you didn’t hurt me,” she whispered.

  His hand dropped. Two steps and he closed the distance between them. He cupped her face in his callused palms. “Whatever you’ve done, thank you. You’ve given me something I’ve never believed possible. Peace.”

  At his soft words, her guardedness dissipated, and she grasped his wrists. “I wish I’d known sooner, I could have helped you, but you were being a butthead—”

  “Butthead?” His lips pressed together as if suppressing a smile, but it crept into his eyes. Then he lowered his hands to her arms, his gaze morphing to unwavering once more. “What did you do? How did you come to have this ability?”

  Sighing, Shadow clenched her ripped sweater together again. “Like I told you, from the otherworldly blood transfusion I got, but it…it also left me with this anomaly.” Gently, she stroked the gauze-covered bumps on her breastbone. They remained silent now after the full feeding she’d finally let happen.

  Nik’s brow creased, his focus dropping to her chest. “The nodes?”

  “Yes. I have to nurture them with regular feedings. If I don’t, then-then they will devour their host instead.”

  “Meaning you could die.” A tic started on his jaw. “Is that why you were at the club with that demon?”

  Man, he was quick. She nodded.

  “Why not humans? Why feed on the most malignant and treacherous species?” he demanded.

  “Because humans don’t satisfy the nodes.”

  “Nodes?” he ground out. “Those aren’t freakin’ nodes, but symbionts. They’re living entities and fucking demonic parasites! What the hell was the damn demon thinking, doing this to you?”

  “That I was dying, and he would save me any way he could?” Hurt spread that this was all he thought of and not that she’d survived. “Nodes, symbionts, whatever they’re called, I’ve lived with them for five freaking years! I wished many times Nate had let me die instead of living with this curse, but he’s a stubborn ass, just like you!” She tossed him a furious glare.

  “Don’t.” He shook his head and pressed his eyes. “The thought of you dead…”

  “Do you have any idea how hard it was in the early days after Nate disappeared?” she demanded.

  His gaze snapped up. “The bastard left you alone to deal with all this?”

  “Oh, he gave me a crash course on the dos and don’ts,” she said, tone rife with sarcasm. “But I couldn’t blame him. I was worse than a rabid vampire in the grips of hunger. I attacked him, drawing on his energy. Then…then, while he was gone, I killed an innocent demon who came to the garage,” she whispered, regret swamping her.

  Too edgy to remain still, she paced to the bathroom window as she spoke. “I waited too long to nurture the nodes. I was ravenous and in pain at the backlash, so I touched him…I only meant to take a little, but I couldn’t stop feeding. He collapsed and disintegrated right in front of me.” She pivoted, tears burning her eyes. “These things inside me are killers…”

  “It was an accident.” Nik crossed to her. “Just so you know…” He caressed her cheek with his knuckles. “I would have made those fuckers who hurt you pay first before I killed them. But you’re here now. No one will touch you, ever.” A vow.

  His mouth brushed her brow. “Thank you for what you did down there in the cell, for so bravely or foolishly risking your life for me…” His lips twisted into a wry smile. “I didn’t think I’d ever feel normal—whatever that is—but you’ve given me a modicum of peace.”

  Hearing his words, the turmoil within her settled. Or maybe it was the freedom of getting everything she kept bottled for so long finally off her chest. She leaned into him, pressing her cheek on his bare pecs, absorbing his faint warmth, his strength, and his arms tightened around her.

  “How could I stand by and not help you when you were hurting?” she asked. “I felt something was wrong, and that feeling tugged me to you.”

  “I don’t know whether to be relieved or terrified,” he said drily, his big palm stroking down her spine, causing her to smile. “Is that why you chose to live underground, because of the symbionts?”

  “It wasn’t intentional.” She stepped back, clasping the gaping fronts of the sweater. “The night I left the garage, I didn’t know how to fight properly. Aba, Nate’s demon friend, showed me how to defend myself, but demoniis were a whole other ballgame.”

  She stared at the series of stylized stars inked on Nik’s left pec, remembering the horrible night. “It was the first time I came across them. They didn’t react when I touched them, maybe because of not having true souls, and I saw their fangs. Terrified, I ran. They gave chase. I ducked through an alley but tripped and fell into an open manhole. It saved me. Eddi found me moments later, sitting in a pool of sewer water…” Sorrow engulfed her, knowing her friend was gone.

  “We’ll get the ones who killed him, moró,” Nik said softly.

  She inhaled deeply, then continued. “Eddi took me under his wing, and I’ve been with him ever since. I realized it was safer to stay there, and I occasionally visit the garage.”

  Nik parted the torn sweater she clutched and carefully peeled back the gauze. T
he symbionts gleamed like dark ruby-red stones.

  He frowned. And she knew why. The lesion along her sternum had closed, but her flesh remained swollen and red around the middle symbiont.

  “Nik.” She grasped his wrists as he retaped the dressing. “What did you mean I gave you a modicum of peace?”

  His concerned expression morphed into the cold, hard man she first met. “I’m a magnet for dark souls. When I kill demons, if I’m in the way, their souls enter me instead of sinking to the Purgatory, and their battering inside me is a relentless cacophony. There is no rest from them.”

  “So you don’t sleep?” she asked, shocked. “At all?”

  He shook his head. “The only way to cope is—was to let my abilities freeze everything inside me. Even my emotions.”

  Shadow blinked. My poor Nik. “How did this happen to you? Becoming a soul catcher?”

  A stark look of torment darkened his eyes.

  Fear gripped her. “Nik, what is it?”

  He wheeled around to the basin. Head lowered, the muscles on his broad back bunched, hands clenching the countertop.

  “I told you about me,” she whispered. “Things I’ve never told another soul, and you won’t let me in, not even a little.”

  You can’t demand his truth when you’re not staying.

  The fight bled out of her. For a moment, she’d forgotten her own dark reality.

  “It doesn’t matter.” She pressed cold fingers to her heated face. “Is Lore still here?”

  He turned his head to the side, his stare piercing her. “Why?”

  She had to force out words, wishing desperately her life was different, but it wasn’t. “So I can leave. You’re okay now—”

  He straightened from the basin. “No.”

  “Nik, I have to. I’ll give you my cell number, or you can leave a message at The Shelter for when you n-need help with the souls—”

  “You think that’s why I want you?” he demanded, his fury scalding her, and she winced. “I’ve lived millennia with those things inside me, and I would have done so for eternity. Now I know you actually need those things to survive, it’s a huge fucking relief.”

  “Nik, please stop,” she begged.

  His jaw hardened, his eyes becoming colder than the ice he summoned. “You want to leave because of this Nate?”

  “What? No! Don’t you understand, even though you’ve given me succor with those souls in you, I will have to do it again. And again, and again…forever!”

  “Then I’ll make sure the demons I kill, their souls come to me.”

  God, she wearily shoved back her hair. He was making this so hard. “Would you really kill innocent demons just so I can survive? Because we both know demoniis don’t possess true souls.”

  He stared at her.

  “I can’t have more deaths on me, Nik,” she whispered. “I just can’t. I live with one, and it eats at me every time I need to nourish my nodes. I won’t put that burden on you.”

  Her insides ripped apart at the flash of pain in his eyes. His head lowered, and he stared at the floor for several seconds before he glanced up. “Do you want me, Shadow?”

  Oh, god. “Please, don’t.”

  “Answer the damn question.”

  The chill in his tone speared her heart. “I do…but it’s impossible—”

  “How would you know if you won’t even try?”

  “What happens when I need to feed in a few days? You nearly killed that demon at the club in New York. And we weren’t even involved back then—”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” he shot back, eyes intense with emotions she was too afraid to name. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you at the castle. I searched for you for five fucking months after you disappeared.”

  Her mouth fell open, hope leaping into her, and just as fast it faded at the hopelessness of her situation.

  At her silence, his jaw clenched. He removed his cell from his jeans pocket, glanced at it, then opened the bathroom door and walked. Warily, Shadow followed into the bedroom. He headed to his closet, disappearing inside, then reappeared a moment later, pulling on a black t-shirt. “It’s close to dawn. I have to do a recon of the village and its surroundings.”

  He strode for the balcony door, and her stomach hurt. Bile crept to her throat. “Nik…” she choked out in a pained rasp, unable to let him go without saying something. He stopped but didn’t turn. “I’m so sorry.”

  For a moment, he didn’t move, only his shoulders lifted and fell with a deep breath. He opened the door. “It’s not your fault you cannot feel the way I do. Life is what it is. Sometimes the things we want are just dreams.”

  He left, the door shutting quietly behind him.

  Her legs too shaky, Shadow sank onto the bed. The hurt in his eyes scraped her raw.

  God knew her life was one of constant turmoil, with her endless need to find demon energy donors, and with memories of her past sucked into a dark abyss. Then there were those jerks in the underground, all wanting a piece of her…all of it leaving her always watching over her shoulder. Despite everything, she’d managed to survive the last five years because she’d turned her focus to saving those who couldn’t protect themselves from the dangers and brutality of life. This gave her purpose.

  Now, she finally found the one person who called to her on every level, who made her feel whole, and she couldn’t be with him because life hadn’t finished fucking with her as yet.

  Maybe a hot shower would help her mind refocus, because right now, she felt like shit at her decision to leave Nik when her heart screamed for her to stay.

  With a weary sigh, she detoured to his closet, hoping he wouldn’t mind if she borrowed a shirt. As she entered the fairly roomy space, his scent of stormy nights, cedar, and a hint of leather, so much stronger here, enfolded her. Her throat clogged with unshed tears as she surveyed the black clothing overwhelming the railings and the several shelves stacked with even more black.

  A single lower shelf contained colors, t-shirts in gray and navy.

  There was just something so lonely at seeing all the black—the stark reality of his life as a Guardian. She didn’t have all the details, but deep down, she sensed more. A world of darkness, no color, no happiness…

  How would you know if you won’t even try?

  His words rang in her head, cracking through her own defenses. Leaving him meant never seeing him again, never feeling his arms around her, or his kisses or those rare smiles… Tears stung her eyes. Nausea tracked up her throat, and she gripped a nearby shelf. Whatever this was between them, it wasn’t mere attraction any longer. Because the thought of leaving him felt as if someone stuck a blade in her heart.

  “God, I can’t do it.”

  Maybe she was selfish, but she wanted a little happiness, too. She only hoped they both survived the reckoning that awaited them at her decision once her symbionts required relief again.

  She took a gray t-shirt, and as she turned to leave, a half-opened door at the back of the closet drew her gaze. More shelves here, too, but with deadly hardware. Blades, throwing stars, short swords, and several daggers, including an obsidian one.

  Drawn to the dark weapon, she picked it up, her fingers wrapping around the black hilt. The blade started to glow, warmth spilling through her palm—

  Shit! She hastily tossed it back on the shelf and hoped she hadn’t set off any kind of magic.

  As the amber glow faded, she peered at the etching on the guards, the striking design resembling wings. Pretty, but no, she wasn’t touching it again.

  Chapter 16

  Nik tramped down the quiet cobblestone road in the village at the foot of the mountains, everything in him coiled like a spring about to snap. He would have laughed if it wasn’t so damn painful. Here he was finally free of the darkness, but at what cost?

  Shadow refused to stay with him.

  His mother’s curse had come back full circle to kick him in the balls.

  No female sho
uld be broken because of who you are.

  He might have been five, but he remembered her irate words. No female would ever want him, no mate.

  Oh, he had his encounters while he lived at the pantheon. He’d never felt the need for more, and none of the females wanted him for anything more than a fuck with a brutal gladiator. And after Tartarus, he no longer cared. Until five months ago. But Shadow didn’t fucking want him, either.

  Scowling, he kicked a stone out of his way. The serpent on his neck stirred, then settled again.

  Memories of the night in the club crawled through his mind like an infection, the demon licking her face, her hand on the scourge’s bare chest while he doubtlessly sported a raging hard-on—

  Fuck! He’d felt the lustful effects of her feeding, too, and couldn’t stomach the thought of it happening with some other male. Shadow was his!

  A sliver of prickles grazed his psyche, cracking through his roiling thoughts. Nik slowed his steps, his Gaian sword stirring in warning. The sulfur stench hit him a second later. Emotions on lockdown, he dematerialized, tracking the acrid odor. Bastards were brave, moving about this close to dawn.

  A terrified cry splintered the air then cut off as he rematerialized near the edge of the village bordering the forest. Partially hidden by the looming trees, two blights had a human trapped between them. The blood demon fed at the throat, but the other, a demonii, had his maw above the man’s mouth, drawing at his life force.

  Remembering Shadow’s pained revelation of how she’d become an energy vampire—because of shits like these—anger thundered to his head, exploding into a deadly rage. Nik flung himself forward, breaking the two hellscum away from the hapless human, who fell in a lifeless heap. Growls erupted, then a hiss sounded. Nik ducked a fiery hellfire bolt coming at him like an arrow, the thing shattering a tree behind him.

  Sensing more humans nearby, the early risers moving about, he summoned his Gaian sword. He had to get rid of them fast. “You should have never left the Dark Realm.”

  “You don’t own this world.” The snarling demonii rushed him. Nik swung his sword decapitating the soul-stealing scourge. The blood demon took off in a flash. Nik propelled himself into the air, blade arching, and landed on the other side. The demon fell, his head sliding off his neck and rolling between the trees.