Hunted by Sin: an Urban Fantasy Novel (The Gatekeeper Chronicles Book 2)

by Jasmine Walt

  Ajitah was watching me with a peculiar expression on his face.

  “What?”

  “You have this vein on your forehead.” He wagged a finger toward his own temple. “I’m afraid it might burst.”

  I snorted. “Funny.” This was between Eamon and me. If Ajitah knew how Eamon felt, it would just make things unnecessarily awkward. “What are you up to today?”

  “I promised the boys I’d paint the tree house.”

  “Nice.” To invite myself or not to invite myself, that was the question.

  “You want to help?”

  “Sure.”

  He reached up and ran an index finger down my cheek. “And then afterward, we can get cleaned up. Together.”

  Together? As in one shower. As in together in one shower. “Well, we best make sure we get really dirty.”

  He blinked down at me.

  “Too much?” I shrugged, pushed up on my tiptoes, and pressed a soft kiss to his delectable lips.

  “Ahem.”

  Eamon stood in the doorway, his expression grim.

  Ajitah stepped away from me as if scalded, and annoyance surged through my veins.

  “Ajitah, I’ll meet you outside.”

  He nodded and slipped out of the kitchen.

  I turned on Eamon. “You drugged me.”

  “Malina . . .”

  “Uh-huh, continue. I’m waiting.”

  “I wanted you to get a good night’s sleep.”

  “Wow, you can do better than that. What is your problem? Seriously? If it’s the whole dad-daughter thing, then please save it, because we’re not there. And after what you did, I don’t know if we ever will be. You don’t get to have an opinion about who I date or what I do on those dates. You don’t get to dictate what time I come home or what I wear. I’m sorry things didn’t go as planned, that you didn’t get to raise me, but I can’t be that daughter. This is who I am. You’re just gonna have to learn to love me.” Eamon opened his mouth to respond, but I held up my hand. “Just think about what I’ve said.”

  I left him to his reflections and joined Ajitah in the garden. My pulse fluttered in my throat, and a sick feeling twisted in my belly. Eamon’s face when I’d said those words. He’d looked so hurt. I fucking hated that I cared so much. This father-daughter thing was too complicated. Ajitah climbed down the tree house ladder.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, just needed to set some things straight with Eamon.”

  “And?”

  “He doesn’t want us seeing each other.”

  Ajitah cupped my shoulders. “Can you blame him?”

  “What?”

  “He just got you back, and here I come, threatening to claim your affections. It’s a typical dad-daughter thing.”

  “It is?”

  “No guy will ever be good enough for his little girl.”

  Was that all it was? Man, I felt like a total bitch now. Why had I said those cutting things to him? Maybe the entity was right. Maybe there was darkness inside me. Maybe I was meant to hurt and maim, if not with my blade, then with my words.

  “I should go speak to him.”

  “Do that. I’ll take the paint up to the tree house and set up. I’ll wait for you.”

  One foot in the house—the other still on the patio—and a bellow of pain froze me. I turned and ran back across the grass. Ajitah was at the bottom of the tree, his leg twisted awkwardly beneath him.

  I crouched down beside him, examining the limb. “Shit!”

  “I think it’s broken.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  Well, so much for that dirty shower. I adjusted the covers over Ajitah’s legs, the blanket bulking over the cast that ran up to his knee. The hospital wait hadn’t been too long, thank goodness. They’d sent him home with plenty of pain relievers and a repeat prescription. Drake was adamant he could make a concoction to help speed up the healing. He’d popped out for some ingredients, which left Aria entertaining the triplets and me doing the naughty nurse thing, with the emphasis on the nurse. Toto tried to climb up my leg, eager for an ear rub.

  “Not now, boy.”

  “I hate this,” Ajitah said.

  “I honestly thought you had super healing powers.”

  “Now that would be a fine thing.”

  “So all those fights?”

  “I know how to dodge. Unfortunately, you can’t dodge the ground as it rises up to meet you.”

  Perching my butt on the edge of his bed, I took his hand. “Don’t worry. Aria, Drake, Eamon, and I will take care of the boys.”

  He slumped back on the bed. “I really hate this.”

  “You know, you’re going to need someone to give you a bath . . .”

  He lifted his head, looking a little more optimistic. “I’m actually feeling pretty grimy.”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. “Hold that thought.” I checked the phone. “It’s voicemail. One sec.” The message was from Indra. I listened and deleted it.

  Ajitah looked at me questioningly.

  “It’s Indra. He wants to see me.”

  He glanced down at his leg. “Dammit.”

  I pressed a soft kiss to the side of his mouth. “Stay grimy ’til I get back.”

  Drake was still out, so I grabbed Eamon’s keys and started to leave. Garuda stepped out of the library into my path. My breath slammed back into my lungs, and my heart did an acrobatic flip. He must have turned up while I’d been at the hospital with Ajitah.

  “Malina . . .”

  “Hi, what are you doing here?” Dammit with the squeaky voice.

  Eamon appeared in the doorway. “We had some matters to discuss.”

  Garuda stepped toward the door. “You headed out?”

  “Uh-huh. Errands.” My mouth was dry, my intestines all squirmy.

  “I’ll walk out with you.”

  He held open the door, and I stepped out into the sun. Normal, everyday sun on a normal day. Except Garuda was at my back, impinging on my personal space, sending ripples of awareness through me . . . ones that tugged at my core. This was so wrong, so destructively wrong. It was the dark side. Time to fast forward to the car.

  “Malina, wait.”

  I paused, key in the lock.

  “You fancy some company on your errand?”

  On my errand to visit Indra? Like a hole in the head. Although . . . Garuda knew the lay of the land; maybe he could help me get the information I needed. But then I’d have to spend at least forty minutes locked in a moving vehicle with him. My libido jumped up with a whoop, but my gut tightened in apprehension.

  I exhaled. “Sure, hop in.”

  He climbed down the steps. “Why don’t we take my car? The leather is much more comfortable.”

  Visions of leather against naked flesh, images of his naked flesh on my naked flesh, filled my head. No! Think of Ajitah with his broken leg, all grimy and waiting to be bathed. I was with Ajitah.

  “Sure, we can take your car.”

  I was a glutton for punishment—a sucker for the aroma and the fizz, crackle, push, and pull that was Garuda. Sliding into the passenger seat was like slipping into a comfy pair of shoes. How had the vehicle I’d been kidnapped in become associated with safety when the man who steered it was someone who could kill me in a heartbeat if he chose to?

  He slid a glance my way. “So, how have you been?”

  His voice was a caress, and my body responded with a shiver.

  “Good. Eamon tell you about the witch blood case?”

  “Yeah. The Kubera are building an army, preparing to make some kind of move. Speaking of moves, where are we headed?”

  Oh, yeah, destination. “Brahma Corp.”

  His grip on the wheel tightened, knuckles going white. Shit, I was an idiot. Of course he wouldn’t want to see Indra. Not after the god had betrayed him by keeping hold of the scroll that could control him. The fact it was gone now didn’t make a blind bit of difference. The betrayal would still sting
.

  “Look, why don’t you just take me back? I can grab my car and make my own way.”

  “No. It’s fine. I’ve been meaning to have words with Indra.”

  Great. Just what I needed. A pissed-off god. “Um, any chance you could wait until after I’ve asked him about . . . about what I need to ask him?”

  “And what do you need to ask him?”

  He was pretty chummy with Eamon. Not sure I could trust him.

  “You can trust me, Malina.”

  “Yeah, you said that before, and look what happened.”

  His jaw tightened.

  Shit. That was a low blow. He didn’t deserve it. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me anything.”

  But suddenly, I really wanted to talk to him about it, about a whole bunch of things. Like the darkness inside me, the bad place the entity could see. I’d been tempted to talk to Ajitah, but he’d just tell me it wasn’t true, that I was noble and good and all that. And yeah, I loved hearing that stuff, but then I’d have to tell him she was right, that I could feel the bad stuff deep inside. I’d have to see the disappointment in his eyes. Ajitah was everything I wasn’t—good, just, and a natural protector. He was safe and dependable and trustworthy, and I craved that. I needed to be surrounded by the light of his righteousness. The words dried up around him, burrowed deep and hid. But now, in the car, surrounded by the scent of clean leather and fresh summer breezes, they surged up, desperate for release.

  “I think there’s something wrong with me.”

  Garuda shot me another glance. “Like what?”

  “When I was killing those vamps, the ones inside the witch bloods, I enjoyed it. I reveled in it. I haven’t felt that high in . . . Well, not since I stopped assassinating. I used to think the low after a kill came from a sense of guilt, but now I’m starting to believe it may just have been the natural low after a high. I think . . . I think there’s something bad inside me, something that needs to hurt and kill.”

  A short, sharp laugh exploded from his lips.

  Heat crawled up my neck. “You think that’s funny?”

  He shook his head. “Oh, Malina. Not at all. You just explained exactly how I feel. Every. Fucking. Day.” The car slowed to a halt, stuck in traffic, and he turned his gorgeous gaze on me. “Of course there’s darkness inside you. You’re a predator, just like me. We’re conditioned to kill, built for it, but that doesn’t make us bad any more than it makes the lion that brings down the deer bad.”

  “But we’re not lions. Lions kill to eat.”

  “Yes. The fact we fight it and curb our instincts is what separates us from evil. The darkness is just a part of us. Our job is to keep the balance.”

  The traffic began to move, and Garuda shifted gears. His words resonated inside me. I wasn’t evil. That darkness was just a part of me. He made it sound so . . . normal.

  He cleared his throat. “So, is that why you’re going to see Indra?”

  “No. It’s about Eamon. I think he’s sick.”

  “Hellhounds don’t get sick.”

  “I know, but trust me, he is. I found a blue pill. I think he’s been taking them, and I want Indra to find out what it is. I need to know what’s wrong with my dad.”

  His lips curled.

  “What?”

  “You said ‘my dad.’ A moment ago, it was Eamon.”

  “Did I?”

  The car swerved into a parking lot filled with fancy cars, all paying homage to the mega monolith that reached for the sky.

  Hello, Brahma Corp.

  20

  Brahma Corp was all about the visuals. Sculptures of the epic takedown—gods versus shaitan—and busts of the gods lined the entrance hall, set against a marble and ebony decor. I recognized Varuna with his trident and Indra with his lightning bolt, but there were so many others—one with an elephant’s trunk and a female god with huge, wide eyes.

  “That’s Kali,” Garuda said. “And Ganesha, her son. Kali is pretty awesome. She’s a shakti with two personas.”

  “Like a split personality?”

  “More like Jekyll and Hyde. When in a calm state, she is Durga, and when incensed by injustice, she is Kali.”

  “Where are they now . . . the other gods depicted here?”

  “Asleep. They were on the front lines, the warriors on the ground. They’ll awaken once they’ve healed. Brahma Corp will be their new home then, until they have gathered the strength to return to their plane of existence.”

  The sculptures were beautiful. One day, maybe I’d get to meet these other gods who’d contributed to saving our world.

  Boots clipping against the polished tiles, I made it to reception to be greeted by a water nymph—an apsara. The blue tinge of her skin, and the huge tits, kind of gave it away.

  “How may I help you?” she asked, dimpled smile in place.

  “I need to see Indra.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, but he left me a voicemail asking me to come over.”

  She blinked at me and glanced at her computer screen.

  Garuda stepped up behind me, and her attention was immediately on him. “Oh, Mr. Garuda. It’s been a while.”

  Was she blushing? And what was with the hair-twirling?

  Garuda cleared his throat. “Looking as gorgeous as always, Laila. Indra is expecting Miss Hayes.”

  Her gaze darted between us. “And you . . . you’re together?”

  “In a professional capacity.” He flashed his teeth.

  She ducked her head. “Well, you know the way. I’ll ring and let him know you’re coming.”

  Garuda licked his lips. “You do that.”

  She blushed.

  Oh . . . had they? Yep, they’d definitely been together in more than a professional capacity. My cheeks grew warm, and my pulse kicked up slightly. I stepped away from the reception desk. “Why don’t you stay here and keep your friend company? I can see Indra on my own.” My voice sounded strange to my ears, kinda reedy and tight. “What floor is he on?”

  Garuda turned to me. His nostrils flared, and a small smile played on his lips. “I’ll catch up with you later, Laila,” he said, his eyes never leaving my face. “This way.” He swept out an arm and strode off past reception to a set of gleaming silver lifts.

  We stepped in, and the doors closed, enclosing us in beige carpeted walls and slender, gleaming mirrors. It was spacious for a lift, large capacity and all that, but with Garuda in residence, it felt like a tiny oven. I shucked off my jacket, too hot and bothered. My stomach was all restless with the queasy, sick feeling that came before an exam, the gut-churning dread that accompanied every moment I spent in his company. He shifted closer, and gooseflesh broke out on my skin. Dammit, why did he have to smell so good?

  “Laila was a long time ago,” he said.

  I swallowed. “Why are you telling me? It’s none of my business.”

  He caught his bottom lip between his teeth. “I can smell more than just fear, you know.”

  “What the heck does that mean?”

  “It means you were jealous.”

  I fixed my gaze on the doors. “No. I wasn’t.”

  He shrugged. “Okay.”

  Okay? Okay? That was it? It wasn’t okay. I didn’t want him going around all egomaniac, thinking I was jealous of his conquests. “Look, I honestly don’t give a damn who you fuck. I was just annoyed that you were chitchatting when I had stuff I needed to do.”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  Gah! I hated him so much. “I have a boyfriend, you know.” Yeah, that was real mature, but was it my imagination or did he tense for just a fraction of a second?

  “Eamon told me.”

  “Really? And what did he say?”

  The lift ground to a halt and the doors slid open right into a massive office. We were greeted by floor-to-ceiling windows and long, cushy sofas in dark fabric. There was a bar to our left and directly opposite us loomed a six
-foot-long desk with a god sitting behind it. A huge lightning bolt was etched into the wall behind Indra—his personal emblem and weapon of choice in the war. Was it good security to have a lift open directly into his office like this? What if someone wanted to order a hit?

  “Malina, welcome.”

  I peeked over my shoulder at the lift, but it was gone. Ah, so this easy access was for our benefit.

  “Hello, Indra,” Garuda said.

  “Garuda, I believe we’re overdue for a chat, but I think Malina had some urgent business she wished to discuss with me first.” He turned his attention to me, dismissing Garuda.

  I set the blue pill on his desk. “I need to know what this is.”

  He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. “I believe it’s a pill.”

  The urge to roll my eyes was almost painful, but getting cocky with a god, especially one whose help I needed, was counterproductive. “I need to know what it’s for. Eamon’s been taking them. I think he’s sick.”

  Indra sat forward with a frown. “No. Hellhounds—”

  “Don’t get sick. I know. That’s what everyone keeps telling me. But there’s something wrong with him. You can ask Drake.”

  Indra pursed his lips, studying the pill for a long beat. “I’ll get it analyzed at our labs. I’ll have an answer for you by tomorrow. But it’s highly improbable that Eamon is in any danger. The seal is pure power. Power that courses through his veins in a closed circuit. He is invulnerable to disease. He can be wounded, but he heals too fast for the injuries to kill him.”

  “I know. He explained all this to me after he had a spot of—what he called—indigestion. He explained how our souls burn out over time.”