Death of Darkness
Page 1
DEATH OF DARKNESS
Copyright © 2019 by Dianne Duvall
Published by Dianne Duvall, 2019
www.DianneDuvall.com
Editor: Anne Victory
Cover Art by: Damonza
E-book ISBN: 978–0986417184
Print ISBN: 978–0986417191
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, printed or electronic, without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for showing the author your support by only purchasing authorized editions of this book and by complying with federal copyright laws and not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEATH OF DARKNESS
Delve into the most eagerly anticipated book in New York Times bestselling author
Dianne Duvall’s “utterly addictive” (RT Book Reviews), “fast-paced and humorous” (Publishers Weekly) Immortal Guardians series.
Seth has led the Immortal Guardians for thousands of years. With them fighting by his side, he has protected humans from psychotic vampires, defeated corrupt mercenary armies, defended military bases under attack, and more. But the latest enemy to rise against the Immortal Guardians has proven to be a formidable one, wielding almost as much power as Seth. His goal is simple. He wants to watch the world burn. And he will use every means at his disposal to accomplish it. Seth and his Immortal Guardians have succeeded thus far in staving off Armageddon despite heartbreaking losses. But they have never before faced such danger. Seth has only one wish: to protect his Immortal Guardians family and ensure the continuation of humanity by defeating his foe. But then Leah walks into his life and sparks a new desire.
Leah Somerson has suffered losses of her own. It has taken her a long time to rebuild her life and find some semblance of peace. Then one night a tall, dark, powerful immortal with what appears to be the weight of the world on his shoulders stumbles into her shop, and everything changes. Peace and contentment are no longer enough. Now she wants more. She wants to find happiness. She wants to erase the darkness in Seth’s eyes and replace it with love and laughter. She knows he’s different in ways that make most fear him. Even some of his immortal brethren keep a careful distance. But Leah will not. Nor will she shy away when danger strikes.
“Fans of terrific paranormal romance have hit the jackpot with Duvall and her electrifying series.”
—RT Book Reviews
“This series is earth-shattering awesome and Dianne has quickly become one of my favorite authors. Each of the stories… has been heart-stopping, intense, humorous and powerfully romantic.”
—Reading Between the Wines Book Club
“Full of fascinating characters, a unique and wonderfully imaginative premise, and scorching-hot relationships.”
—The Romance Reviews
“Fans of paranormal romance who haven’t discovered this series yet are really missing out on something extraordinary.”
—Long and Short Reviews
“Paranormal romance fans who enjoy series like J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood will definitely want to invest time in the Immortal Guardians series.”
—All Things Urban Fantasy
Titles by Dianne Duvall
The Gifted Ones
A SORCERESS OF HIS OWN
RENDEZVOUS WITH YESTERDAY
Immortal Guardians
DARKNESS DAWNS
NIGHT REIGNS
PHANTOM SHADOWS
IN STILL DARKNESS
DARKNESS RISES
NIGHT UNBOUND
PHANTOM EMBRACE
SHADOWS STRIKE
AWAKEN THE DARKNESS
Anthologies
PREDATORY
(includes In Still Darkness)
ON THE HUNT
(includes Phantom Embrace)
An Immortal Guardians Novel
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
Dianne Duvall
www.DianneDuvall.com
Dianne Duvall Books Group
© 2019 Dianne Duvall
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Author’s Note
Dear Reader,
Seth’s character has been with me for a very long time. He first appeared in A Sorceress of His Own, which—despite its later release—actually predated my Immortal Guardians series. My curiosity about who he was and why he was different played a large role in driving me to create the Immortal Guardians series. I have wanted to tell his story ever since that first appearance and have received more requests for his book than for any other character’s. That he resonates with so many of you means more to me than you know.
Many Immortal Guardians fans have expressed their concern that Seth’s book might end the series. Rest assured, it will not. As some of you have no doubt seen me say online, I’m having way too much fun with these characters to give them up. And there are quite a few immortals who are still fervently hoping I will tell their tale.
Thank you so much for your interest. I hope you will enjoy Seth’s story.
—Dianne Duvall
Table of Contents
Titles by Dianne Duvall
Author’s Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Books by Dianne Duvall
Chapter One
Seth sensed a presence behind him and turned.
A woman stared up at him. Her light brown hair fell several inches past slender shoulders in a thick mass bereft of curls. Her pretty face—free of makeup—boasted a short, pert nose and full pink lips that drew and held his gaze. Clear lip balm coated them, keeping them temptingly soft and carrying the scent of coconuts to him. Though her lips turned up in a smile, her hazel eyes remained somber, conveying an emotion Seth couldn’t identify.
She reached her arms out to someone he didn’t see, then drew Adira to her chest.
The beautiful toddler went trustingly, bouncing in the woman’s arms and giving her a big grin. But the toddler’s joy soon faded as she met the woman’s gaze. Her bright green eyes solemn, Adira rested a hand on the woman’s cheek and acquired a look of concentration that Seth had come to associate with her reading someone. The tiny child bore many gifts. He still wasn’t sure whether she examined the other person’s thoughts during these moments or read their emotions like Stanislav and Bastien. Perhaps she perused their past the way Bastien’s sister Catherine could by touching objects. Or did she try to glimpse their future like Dana?
Wh
atever Adira saw in the woman kept the grin from returning to her plump face.
Seth shifted his gaze back to the woman, who no longer smiled. Who was she?
She turned her gaze up to meet his… and Seth found he couldn’t look away. There was something about her, something—
Skillet’s “Monster” abruptly blared. Adira and the woman both looked around as though seeking the source of the music.
Seth jerked awake and stared up at the ceiling.
But the image of the woman in his dream was slow to fade. She seemed… familiar in some way, as if he had met her before. But he could find no memory of her.
Who was she? And why had she been holding Adira?
When the music continued, he slid the cell phone on the bedside table an irritated look. Resignation slithered through him as he grabbed it. “Yes?”
“Seth!” a relieved American male voice blurted with relief. “I, uh… Shit!” Metal clanged in the background. A clatter followed, most likely from the phone on the other end falling to the ground.
Seth glanced at the clock as he rose fully clothed from the bed. Twenty minutes of sleep. He supposed it was better than nothing. But damn, he was tired.
“I might have bitten off more than I can chew,” Sean admitted, his voice distanced, confirming Seth’s guess that he had dropped the phone. More clanging ensued. Someone howled in pain. “I could really use your—”
Grabbing his katanas, Seth teleported to NCCU’s campus where Sean, one of the youngest Immortal Guardians currently stationed in North Carolina, was fighting five vampires.
“—help,” Sean finished. A beep sounded. Relief filled his blood-streaked face as he swung at two vampires in front of him, then spun to block the attack of three more behind him. “Watch the phone, asshole! Watch the phone!” he shouted.
The vampire in front of him looked down at the cell phone that lay in the grass at his feet. Sneering, he raised his foot to stomp on it.
The move cost him his head.
Amusement sifting through him, Seth swiftly dispatched three of the remaining vampires while Sean took out the last.
As soon as his opponent fell, Sean bent and retrieved his phone, then grinned in triumph. “Ha! Not a scratch on it.”
Seth shook his head. “Why are you hunting alone?”
Sean’s look turned sheepish as he wiped blood off the device and tucked it into an inner pocket of his long coat. “Do you want my answer or the one my Second would give you?”
“Your Second. Nicole is an excellent judge of character.” Seth walked around the corpses at their feet, studying each slack face intently before the peculiar symbiotic virus that inhabited the vampires could distort their features by devouring their hosts from the inside out in a desperate bid to continue living.
Sean’s shoulders slumped. “Because I’m hardheaded.”
Seth would’ve laughed if he weren’t so concerned. These were dangerous times. He had already lost two Immortal Guardians in recent years. He didn’t want to lose another. “Was I unclear in my instructions?”
Sean shifted his feet. “No.” Bending, he began to retrieve his swords and daggers.
Seth had heard more than one Immortal Guardian grumble that he sometimes made them feel like children being upbraided by a parent. That was how Sean appeared now. Seth was the self-proclaimed leader of the Immortal Guardians, the oldest and most powerful amongst them. And David, Seth’s second-in-command, had reminded him not long ago that they all viewed him as a father figure. So he couldn’t help the authoritative tone he sometimes took.
“Until we locate and defeat Gershom,” he said, “none of you should hunt alone.”
Sean wiped the blood from each blade before he returned them to sheaths inside his coat. “I know.”
“And yet here you are, hunting alone.” Seth cleaned his own weapons before sheathing them. “Why?”
The younger man shook his head. “It’s going to sound lame.”
“I’m sure it will.”
Sean laughed, his countenance lightening as some of the tension in his posture eased. “Krysta hunted and killed psychotic vampires for seven years before she met Étienne.”
“Not without your help,” Seth reminded him.
“Some help I was,” he muttered, his amusement dying. He and his sister Krysta, like all Immortal Guardians, had been born gifted ones. The advanced DNA they hadn’t known they possessed had lent them both special abilities. Sean could heal with his hands. Krysta could see auras. And while Krysta had always believed her gift useless when compared to her brother’s, it had ultimately enabled her to become the only mortal in history to successfully hunt and slay vampires without immortal aid and live to tell the tale. Vampires’ auras shifted before they did, enabling her to anticipate their movements and giving her a way to battle the vampires—who moved so swiftly they appeared but a blur to mortals—on a more equal footing.
Sean had lacked that edge and had not fared well in battle the few times he and Krysta had hunted together before their transformations. So his role in eradicating the vampire menace had been reduced to letting Krysta do the fighting while he waited to heal whatever wounds she incurred.
Seth shook his head. “She couldn’t have slain as many vampires as she did had you not enabled her to live to fight another day. I know your past.” He had thoroughly examined the man’s thoughts and memories before allowing Étienne to transform him. “You saved her life countless times.”
“So she could go out the next night and risk it again while I sat on my ass in the car and studied instead of fighting by her side.” He had been a med student at Duke University when the Immortal Guardians disrupted their lives.
“I know how much it ate you up inside,” Seth told the younger man softly, “having to sit on the sidelines.”
“And now you’re telling me I can’t hunt without a babysitter.”
The vampires’ bodies shriveled up like mummies as the virus infecting them—the same that infected immortals—continued to do its work. Their bloody clothing began to flatten out as their bodies sank in on themselves.
“You don’t need a babysitter,” Seth countered. “Bastien needed a babysitter.”
Seemingly against his will, Sean smiled. “Don’t let him hear you say that. He thinks Richart was there to guard him because the other immortals all wanted him dead.”
“There was that, too,” Seth admitted. “But my primary purpose in assigning Richart to hunt with him was to keep him in check.” The immortal black sheep was forever getting into trouble. “The only reason I wish you to hunt in pairs now is to ensure your safety as well as that of your hunting partner. You know the dangers we currently face.”
“Yes, but—”
“Gershom has the sedative.” The only one that could knock an immortal out instantly and leave him or her completely vulnerable.
“I know.”
“And we believe he is raising his own army of immortals.”
“I know.”
“And yet you hunt alone with not even your Second as backup to call me if you’re tranqed. Why?”
He sighed. “The married couples are already paired up. Krysta hunts with Étienne. Aidan hunts with Dana, Zach with Lisette, Roland with Sarah, and Ethan with Heather. Bastien has been guarding network headquarters and hanging out with Melanie and the vampires.” The network currently housed seven vampires who had surrendered to the immortals, hoping doctors like Melanie could prevent them from losing their sanity. “Marcus is afraid to leave Ami’s side and only hunts in brief spurts now.”
“That’s understandable, considering she nearly died right in front of him.”
“Absolutely. And he’s there to keep Adira and Michael safe.”
Seth saw where this was going. “You could hunt with Jared.” Almost as old as Seth, Jared had only recently joined their ranks.
Sean grimaced. “I did. For a while. But…”
Seth arched a brow in question.
Sean th
rew up his hands. “The man won’t stop talking!”
Seth fought a laugh.
“I mean, he is obsessed with movies.”
“Because he spent thousands of years refraining from interacting with humans. Movies and books were the only glimpse he had into their lives and world.” Except when he had been monitoring Seth and his Immortal Guardians.
“And he asks so many questions.”
Seth shrugged. “He’s curious about this life he was not allowed to explore before.”
“But some of those questions are way too personal for my liking.”
“Well… wouldn’t you be interested in learning more if you were his age and had refrained from sexual activity all your life?”
“Yes. But why doesn’t he just put himself out there and start dating?”
Sobering, Seth pointed an imperious finger at him. “Don’t you dare put that idea in his head. I have enough chaos in my life. I don’t need Jared’s dating to muck it up any more.”
Sean winced. “I… might have already mentioned it to him. More than once.”
Seth loosed a beleaguered sigh. “Of course you did.”
“Sorry.”
“You’ll just have to hunt with Chaak or Imhotep then. Both are elders and so powerful I’ve been allowing them to hunt alone. I’m sure neither would mind partnering with you.”
He grimaced. “Those guys are the antithesis of Jared. They’re too quiet. Sometimes eerily so.”
Seth regarded him with exasperation. “Then hunt with your sister and Étienne.”
Sean sighed in defeat. “Do I have to?”
“It’s not a punishment, Sean. It’s for your safety.”
“Fine. But only if you tell Étienne to stop talking dirty to her telepathically when I’m around.”
Seth shook his head, feeling like the father figure they all considered him. Étienne, he called telepathically.