by Anna Argent
If she stayed here, maybe the rat man wouldn’t find her.
How long had it been since she’d slept without one eye open? How long had it been since she’d been able to stay in the same place two nights in a row, rather than moving around to evade the people who wanted her dead?
Lying here, waiting for this man to release her, was the most protection she’d had in years.
And that was just sad.
“Are you going to let me go?” she asked, unsure if she wanted him to hurry or not. If she didn’t keep moving, the rat man would find her, but whatever mojo this guy was putting off was nice. It had been a long time since Echo had felt more than fear, hunger and desperation.
The fear was still there, but at the moment, it was more a humming background noise than an amplified electric guitar solo.
His dark eyes studied her for a moment, lingering at her mouth long enough to make her lips go dry with nerves. And maybe something else. Something girly and inconvenient.
“What do you know about prophecy?” he asked.
“Only that I don’t believe in it.”
“Then why go to all this trouble? You broke in to leave prophecy behind so someone here could find it. That doesn’t sound like the act of a person who doesn’t believe.”
“I do what I have to to keep the voices quiet. A little detour here was no big deal, and it got them to shut up.”
“What else do the voices say?”
We need him.
Trust him.
Echo ignored the unwanted advice and shrugged. “Nothing important. Can I please go now?”
“Not yet. I want to see this prophecy for myself.”
He pushed up from the bed, showing off a display of bulging muscles and flexing tendons. His arms alone were a thing of beauty, radiating masculine power so blatant it was almost obscene.
Echo stared openly, wondering what it would be like to have that much raw power whenever she wanted it.
Trust him, the voices whispered.
Screw you, she whispered back silently.
The man kept one hand locked around her wrist as he pulled her up from the bed.
As she suspected, he towered over her, giving her a whole new list of reasons to run away.
Trust him.
Echo sighed and ignored the inmates of her internal asylum.
Now that she was no longer wearing a manly-man blanket, her body went cold. She gave herself an awkward one-armed hug in an effort to hold in some of his delicious heat.
“What’s your name?” she asked, as if it mattered. Ten minutes from now she’d either be dead or out of here, and he’d be just a warm, tingly memory. His name was irrelevant.
Then again, it might be nice to put some kind of title on her new favorite fantasy, because there was no way she was going to close her eyes any time soon without seeing his magnificent body.
“Stygian,” he said as he drew her along behind him. “Stygian Attis.”
“Cool name,” she said. “Weird, but cool.”
He arched a jet-black eyebrow at her. “Are you an expert on weird names, Echo?”
Was he teasing her? She couldn’t tell without more light to make out his expression.
“Yeah. I studied for six years to get my Ph.D. The thesis was brutal.”
This time she saw the corner of his mouth twitch upward in amusement.
He turned on the bedside lamp. Light flooded the room and gave her more than enough of a glow to see him in living color.
Holy wow. The man was gorgeous. Smokin’ hot, eye-popping, melt-in-your-mouth-and-in-your-hands yummy.
Echo’s jaw fell open and she couldn’t quite remember what to do to close it.
Stygian’s fingers flexed around her wrist, tightening just enough to remind her she wasn’t getting away unless he let her. The tiny hug sent ribbons of warm happy curling up her arm where they knotted up in her throat and blocked her voice.
She wished she had a camera so she could capture this moment and keep it all for herself. But unlike every other member of society in their early twenties, she didn’t have a cell phone to snap a pic. All she had was her memory.
He used one finger to close her mouth and ease her head upward so she could look into his eyes.
Blue. They were a deep indigo blue with mink brown starbursts at the centers. As she watched, his pupils expanded and his nostrils flared.
He breathed in deeply as he bent his head down to her neck. A deep, approving rumble vibrated out of him, shaking her to her core.
Normally, she might have found a man sniffing her unsettling, but with Stygian it seemed perfectly normal. Reasonable, even.
Which only proved that he was doing something to rid her of every ounce of sense she’d ever had.
Her breasts grazed his chest, and both her nipples tightened up and tingled, like little traitors. How dare they betray her and take his side like that when they barely even knew him?
Trust him.
The crazy brigade in her head was starting to piss her off now. She wasn’t trusting anyone until she knew it was safe, and even then, she was only going to trust him for as long as it took to get out of here alive with all her parts intact.
She had to keep moving or the rat man would find her again.
Stygian stared at her breasts and the traitorous nipples that were on prominent display.
The look of raw, male hunger he wore was potent enough that she forgot how to breathe. No man or woman had ever looked at her like that—like she was a tasty treat just waiting to be licked from top to bottom and back again.
Echo was no fool. She knew exactly how she looked. Skinny, but not in that willowy, haute couture, runway model kind of way. She was too knobby and scrawny to pull off high fashion. Her face was pretty enough, but she didn’t bother glamming up with makeup, because anything beyond basic food, fuel and shelter were a luxury. Revlon and Cover Girl were so far down on her list of priorities she couldn’t even see them. Her eyes were an interesting color people didn’t see every day, but nothing about her appearance deserved the kind of blatant lust that filled Stygian’s eyes as he stared at her.
Maybe it was an act—a way to flatter her into submission.
“It’s not going to work buddy,” she told him. “I’ve been living on the streets too long to fall for such an obvious scam.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, clearly confused.
“You’re looking at me like I’m a tasty snack. Either you’re playing me, or you’re a cannibal. Let’s just say I really hope you’re playing me.”
All signs of hunger evaporated from his face. He gave himself a little shake and straightened to his full, impressive height. “I need to take you to Eden.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He looked at his fist closed around her wrist and then at her face. “Really? And just how do you think you’re going to stop me?”
Anger surged hot and fast. How dare he treat her like a dog on a leash?
She didn’t stop to think through her actions and the list of consequences that might await her. She simply attacked.
Her knee flew up toward his groin. Before her foot had even left the ground, before she’d given any hint that she was going to strike, he twisted his hips and blocked her knee.
She hit the hard plane of his thigh and was thrown completely off balance.
When her head stopped spinning again, she found herself right back on his bed with his hot, heavy body blanketing her.
There was no sign of anger on his face. She did, however, see a faint hint of something she could only describe as betrayal, as if she’d hurt his feelings.
“Don’t try that again,” he ordered. “You won’t like what happens next time.”
“I don’t like what happened this time,” she said, making herself a liar.
Truth was, she more than liked the weight of his body on top of her. It caused all kinds of pleasant, squirmy feelings to throw a party low in her abd
omen.
And if that wasn’t proof that she was off her rocker, she didn’t know what was.
His voice was calm and quiet. “We’re going to get up again, and this time, you’re going to mind your manners. I haven’t hurt you yet, and I’d really like to keep it that way.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Definitely. Please don’t make me prove I’m not lying.”
He wasn’t. She could see that much plainly in his indigo eyes.
Dude was kinda scary when he was all calm and controlled like this. Scary hot, too.
He nodded toward the dresser. “You’re going to retrieve what you left and we’re going to go see Eden.”
“I’m not interested in touring any gardens.”
“Eden is a person, not a garden. She’ll be able to tell if you're working some scam.”
“How?”
“She can look inside a host like you and see the balance of power—see if the weight of the good souls you carry is heavier than the bad ones. It will tell us whose side you’re on.”
Echo fell silent for a moment and stared at him as if waiting for a punchline. “You’re serious?”
“Completely. Eden will figure out if we can trust you, or if you’re really here to do bad things.”
“I’m not. All I wanted to do was drop off the mail and leave so the voices would shut the hell up. If you let me go, I swear I’ll never darken your doorstep again.”
His grip tightened for a second before he relaxed. “You can go when Eden says you can go.”
“And if she doesn’t give me the all-clear?”
“Then I’m afraid you’ll be joining the rest of your Vires friends under this building.”
Chapter Four
Stygian was in trouble.
Whoever Echo was, she’d managed to make him lose his head in less than fifteen minutes. If not for her little knee-to-the-groin stunt, he would have been so sucked in by her that he might have let his guard down completely.
We need her.
He studiously ignored the riffraff in his brain and marched Echo out to the main hall. With any luck at all, he’d find Eden fast and wash his hands of Echo for good.
“Holy wow,” Echo said as they entered the main hall. “This is a hell of a place. I never would have guessed from the outside that all of this was in here.”
“We like it that way.”
Stygian looked around through a stranger’s eyes. The setup was rather impressive.
The main area boasted ceilings at least three stories high, lined with skylights that opened to let in fresh air. While the exposed metal beams and warehouse lighting were definitely industrial, the space was made homier with an array of comfortable furniture and all the perks of a high-end home.
There was an open kitchen off to one side, with a stark white island that backed up to comfortable booth-style seating. Several padded bar stools perched along one edge of the island, offering a place to keep whoever was cooking company.
Stainless steel gleamed under low-hanging LED lighting. Every appliance was big and commercial grade, giving plenty of space for several people to work at once. A hidden pantry lay behind the cabinets and wide refrigerator, stocked full of enough food to feed a small army for a month.
No one was expecting the Vires to lay siege to a building in an aging industrial park in the suburbs of Tulsa, but it paid to be prepared.
The center of the open area was where people gathered to watch TV or play video games when they were feeling social. Three large couches were arranged in a U, giving everyone a decent view of the giant TV. Stygian had spent plenty of time here between missions, hanging out with the only people on the planet who knew what it was like to carry small pieces of ancient souls.
At least when he talked about the voices in his head to his fellow Riven, he didn’t have to worry that they’d think he was crazy.
Circling the open area was a square donut of suites and rooms that were used for private quarters, as well as a variety of other functions. They formed the outer walls of the building and offered the inhabitants a little bit of natural light to stream in through windows in their living quarters.
The large glass wall at the back of the main hall shielded their tech goddess, Marvel Manning, from both germs and any commotion that might distract her from saving the world one keystroke at a time. Her emerald green hair was twisted up into a pair of high buns that bobbed in time with the beat of whatever music was playing through her earbuds.
She worked behind a glass airlock in what had once been a clean room used for pharmaceutical research. After Garrick had bought this building and converted it into their home, Marvel had claimed the spot as her own. No one dare argued for fear that she’d unleash some binary kraken upon their tech.
An indoor garden fueled by an array of grow lights sat to the left of Marvel’s office, nearly bursting with a variety of vegetables and herbs—another one of Garrick’s provisions in case his people got stuck in here with no means of escape.
Behind another glass wall adjacent to Marvel’s office was their very own indoor swimming pool and hot tub where Stygian had hoped to spend a relaxing hour before hitting the road again on whatever mission Garrick assigned him next.
Now that Echo was here, he wondered if a swim was swiftly becoming wishful thinking.
To the extreme right of the main hall was a boxing ring where Eden sparred with her albino guardian, Argo.
He was a giant of a man, heavily tattooed from the top of his neck, down over his bulky bare chest and onto his thick, white legs. The black ink was striking against his milky skin, giving him the surreal appearance of black-and-white photograph.
Eden must have been training hard with him for a while because her dark skin and black curls were beaded with sweat from her workout. Every punch she landed was real, but Argo barely grunted as she dove into him with a flurry of blows.
Stygian had been a part of this bizarre band of people for a few years now, but he still barely knew Eden.
No one did, except maybe Argo, who had apparently found her abandoned when she was still in diapers. To this day, the man never spoke of that night, and Eden was in her late teens now.
Stygian kept a tight hold on Echo’s arm as he approached the ring. “Hey, Eden. Got a minute?”
Argo saw the newcomer and instinctively stepped between her and Eden.
“Who is she?” Argo asked.
“She snuck into my room,” Stygian said.
“How did you get in?” Argo demanded.
“Through the window,” Echo said.
“We can question her about that later,” Stygian said. “Right now, we have a more pressing matter. She says she was dropping off prophecy.” He held up the zip top bag containing the single sheet of paper yellowed with age. There was faded handwriting on it, but he couldn’t make out a single scrawling word.
Reading prophecy was not a skill he possessed, which added veracity to the girl’s claim that the ancient paper contained prophecy. Then again, anyone could scrawl some gibberish across a page and dunk it in a tea bath to make it look old.
“My name is Echo,” she said. “All I want to do is get out of your hair. I swear I don’t want to cause any trouble.”
Argo glowered at her. “Shouldn’t have snuck in then, little girl.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Stygian saw Echo straighten. She rolled her shoulders and puffed out her chest as if trying to make herself look bigger.
He almost laughed at the thought. She wasn’t short, but he could have folded her up and fit her in a laundry basket. Big was never going to be her strong suit. She was better off sticking with sneaky and fast.
“Let me see her,” Eden said, pushing Argo aside. “She needs to be judged.”
She limboed under the ropes with Argo right on her heels. The man rarely let her get out of reach, and never let her out of his sight when there were strangers around.
“Let go of her,” Eden said. “Holding onto her
while I do this is like putting your thumb on the scale. As heavy a load of bad guy shards as you carry, that’s not going to do her any favors.”
Stygian’s instant knee-jerk reaction was utter and complete denial. He wasn’t that bad off. His balance of good and bad souls was a little too close for comfort, but he managed.
Mostly.
In his head, the riffraff snickered.
He didn’t want to let Echo go. He’d gotten used to feeling her pulse under his fingers and her smooth skin inside his grip. “If I let go of her, she’ll run.”
“No, she won’t,” Eden said. “She’s too curious to run. Aren’t you?”
“Depends,” Echo said. “Is this going to hurt?”
Eden shrugged. “Doesn’t have to. Just try not to fight me. I’ll be as gentle as I can.”
To her credit, Echo held her ground as Eden approached.
Stygian let go. He’d left behind the faint pink imprint of his grip around her wrist, and for some reason, seeing the mark he’d put on her was deeply satisfying. It was like a part of him was hers now, like he’d also claimed a small part of her for his own.
We need her. She is ours.
The voices in his head weren’t giving up on making their wishes known. Judging from the intensity and frequency of their chanting, Stygian didn’t think he was going to get any peace and quiet any time soon.
Eden glanced at him and frowned. “When this is done, we need to talk. Alone.”
“Why?”
“Because when both Vires and Riven shards agree on something so completely, as yours are now, there’s got to be something big going on.”
Stygian covered his shock, but just barely. “You heard the voices in my head?”
Eden nodded. “I’m surprised everyone else can’t as well. Your shards are practically screaming.”
Someone eavesdropping on what was going on in his head had never happened to him before, and because of that, a vague sense of unease spread through him. In his world—one filled with ancient souls and powerful magic—new things were often dangerous.
New things like Echo.
“I need to know if she’s clean,” he told Eden.
“Give me a second to judge her before you go freaking out. Between you and Argo she’ll never reach the door if she tries to run. We have plenty of room underground if that’s where she belongs.”
