by Dannika Dark
I flashed out of reach and then scurried across two metal panels slicked over with ice. My foot skidded out from beneath me, and I fell hard in a patch of snow. With water soaking my pants, I crawled to my feet and reached a smokestack, the heavy aroma of grilled meat filling the air.
I stole a glimpse of the building across the alley. Christian was ripping pieces of the roof off and hurling them at another of Cyrus’s goons, who kept flashing out of reach.
Twenty feet separated me from my adversary. Most of the ground between us was wet but not frozen. When he snagged the bow off his shoulder, I charged before he could draw back the string. Our bodies slammed into each other, the bow knocking out of his hands, and I sank my push dagger to the hilt in his chest. As we hit the ground, the force of impact rolled me off, knocking the dagger out.
“Kallisto!” someone yelled. “Follow orders!”
The Mage rolled onto his side to get up, flecks of snow clinging to his long braid. I kicked away his bow and then yanked his hair, hoping to keep him down. Kallisto turned to face me and lunged.
Wasn’t expecting that.
He wrapped his strong hands around my throat and squeezed mercilessly. Dizzy and unable to breathe, I nailed him in the side with my push dagger.
When he didn’t fall over, paralyzed by my stunner, I blinked up at the growing smile on his face.
“Thought it would be that easy, didn’t you?” he said.
This guy was not only immune to stunners but had an obvious talent for blocking out pain. Christian always encouraged me to experience pain during our training sessions so it wouldn’t render me useless during a fight. But everyone had a weak spot, and for men, it was always in the same location. Close to passing out, I shoved the dagger into his balls. His eyes widened in agony.
When I broke his nose with the heel of my hand, he slumped to the side. “Thought it would be that easy, didn’t you?” I parroted back.
He yanked out the blade, releasing a guttural moan. No doubt the pain in his balls was excruciating, but not enough to make him give up. With the speed of a mouse on morphine, he raised his arm to strike.
I rolled over like a man on fire trying to put out the flames. When I hit the edge of the building, I staggered to my feet and caught sight of something rather spectacular—Claude scaling a nearby building like Spider-Man. His Chitah abilities were stunning to witness as he pursued an archer distracted by the fighting below.
Why weren’t they attacking Niko and filling him with holes? Why wasn’t Claude’s target shooting at Christian or me? What exactly were their orders?
I had too much alcohol in my system; no wonder I couldn’t move as fast or pin Kallisto. I probably could have chewed on his neck, but I really wanted to get through the night without drinking anyone’s vile blood.
Incensed, I grabbed the Mage’s bow from near my feet and snapped it in two.
“How dare you!” he bellowed, still lying on the ground, holding his crotch in one hand and my dagger in the other.
Knowing the attachment a warrior had to his weapon, I threw the broken bow over my shoulder and off the roof. Instead of vowing my death on behalf of his ancestors, he flicked his eyes in the direction of the noise below. Cyrus must have given them orders to make sure that no one interfered with the fight. The swords continued clanging, but not with as much ferocity as earlier.
Without a weapon, this guy was no longer a threat to Niko. I collected my dagger and sprinted toward the adjacent building where another archer stood guard. It was risky in my condition, but I leapt from one roof to the next, sailing right over the few feet of empty space between.
As soon as my feet hit the ground, the second archer fired an arrow at me. It pierced my thigh like a bolt of lightning, and despite the pain, I kept running like a savage. When I reached him, I shoved him right off the roof.
I gasped when he grabbed my sweatshirt. As I gripped the ledge to catch my fall, my body pinwheeled, throwing my legs over. The arrow snapped, but I didn’t have time to process the pain as the weight of him pulling my shirt caused the collar to strangulate me. We were three stories up, and the idea of becoming a human pancake put me in survival mode.
Unable to breathe and losing grip, I risked clutching the dark metal pipe in front of me. We dropped a foot or two, causing the shirt to dig into my neck even more. The Mage wasn’t giving up, but a swift kick in the head forced him to finally let go. I gasped for air, and the man hit the ground with a cringe-worthy thud.
“Lights out,” I rasped.
Kallisto suddenly glared down at me with relish. He must have jumped over from the other roof. Undeterred, I anchored my good leg around the pole, my grip tightening. He reached down and violently shook the metal, trying to jostle it loose, but it wouldn’t budge.
A primal roar from below made me shudder. It was animalistic, like that of a wild predator.
Claude was on the move.
I loosened my hold enough to slide down little by little, my shirtsleeve scraping against the brick. When the broken arrow in my left leg snagged against the building, I lost my grip. My eyes widened as I went hurtling toward the ground, the cold metal burning my palms where I struggled to stop the inevitable.
Before I hit the ground, someone caught me and took off running.
“Stop!” I yelled, bobbing upside down. I recognized the sneakers immediately. “Claude, you’re going the wrong way!”
I glimpsed a bow on the ground, but it wasn’t Kallisto’s broken one. Claude held me over his broad shoulder. When his pace slowed at the end of the alley, I wriggled free and fell in a pile of snow.
Claude anchored his fists on the ground, eyes black, all four canines out like a feral beast on the hunt. His predatory movements and animalistic expression sent chills up my spine. This wasn’t the Claude I knew. Blood stained his mouth and jaw—Mage blood.
When I sat up, he shoved me back down and moved on top of me, acting as a shield.
“Claude, I think it’s precious you care, but get the fuck off me. Niko’s in trouble.”
Wyatt burst onto the scene, his cheeks ruddy. “There’s a pissed-off freshy inside. You two wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Claude growled at Wyatt, who stepped back.
“What the hell flipped your switch?” he asked, shivering hard as he hugged his arms. “It’s just me, you big lug.”
When Claude recognized Wyatt’s voice or smell, he sat back and let me up.
I staggered to my feet. “Did your invisible friend have a braid?”
Wyatt jerked his chin at me. “You’ve got an arrow in your leg.”
I reached down and yanked it out from the back, blood spraying onto the snow. “Not anymore.”
He winced and struggled to avert his eyes. “Don’t ever ask me why you’re single. So… who’s the ninja dancing with Niko?”
I limped toward them. “Let’s go make our introductions.”
Wyatt snagged the back of my sweatshirt. “Hold your horses, Joan of Arc. That’s a big sword, and you have a little neck. Are you that anxious to say hello to the spook on my left?” Wyatt glared at thin air. “Put a sock in it, Genghis Khan. Don’t you have a light to go to?”
I grabbed Claude’s arms and gave him a hard shake. “Are you in there? I need you to snap out of it. Where are the other goons? Are they still on the roof?”
Claude’s extraordinary eyes changed colors, the gold fighting against the onyx until the ring of darkness vanished. Nostrils flaring, he drew in a deep breath. “I killed one. On the roof.”
Which meant the guy I threw off the roof was either still alive or had gone into the light. Probably the former since a Mage could survive a fall that high. Cyrus only had four men that I knew about.
Now three.
A flutter of spotted patterns rippled across Claude’s skin like a mirage. “Gem,” he rasped. In a burst of supernatural speed, he sprinted toward the main entrance in search of his partner.
Meanwhile, min
e had pulled a disappearing act.
“Wyatt, ask your friend where his buddies are.”
Wyatt barked out a laugh and put his arm around my shoulders. “That’s not gonna happen, buttercup. What am I going to do, threaten to kill him? He’s already dead. Plus he’s kind of a dick, so I’d rather not talk to him.”
I limped toward the opposite building and groaned when I lifted my leg to ascend the fire escape.
“And where do you think you’re going?” I heard Christian ask.
I looked over my shoulder. Blood stained his lips, and he had a few more holes in his shirt to match the rip in his sleeve. “What happened?”
“I tried to drain the little bugger after I snapped his arm, but he was too fast. Looks like they don’t want us to interfere with the show.”
“So I gathered.” I lowered myself down to the ground.
In the middle of the alley, between a shower of light coming from the security lamps, Niko and Cyrus were in a clinch. Cyrus seemed to be doing all the talking, but there was too much distance between us to hear.
“What’s he saying?” I asked Christian.
“Feck if I know.”
I glared up at him. “I thought you could hear a gnat committing suicide in a windstorm?”
He folded his arms. “Aye, but a linguist I’m not.”
An engine revved as a car sped toward them from the other end of the alley, the high beams blinding me. It screeched to a halt just inches before hitting Niko and Cyrus, and the door swung open. One of the men dragged their unconscious friend into the car. Seconds later, Cyrus somersaulted over the hood and got in. The black sedan accelerated. Before I could punch the glass, Christian shoved me out of the way and jumped onto the hood. The car made a sudden sharp turn, propelling him off.
Christian rose to his feet, a side mirror in hand. It crumpled within his iron grip, and the broken pieces littered the ground.
Wyatt helped me up with a swift jerk of his arm. “I better go find Shep. Last I saw, he was picking a fight with a cheeseburger, so he won’t be our designated driver tonight. Viktor wants us home pronto. And you might want to tie that off or something,” he said, gesturing toward the hole in my leg. “It’s my week to mop, and bloodstains on the stone floors are a pain in the boogie to clean up.”
Wyatt always had a colorful way of phrasing things. I was certain he meant booty, but I let it go.
Christian shoved Wyatt toward the club. “Don’t worry, Cinderella. I’ll lick up the blood. Bring everyone outside, including Gem. Her date’s officially over, and if that gobshite has any complaints, send him out here. I could use a cocktail.”
“Will you shut up?” Wyatt snapped as he strode off.
But he wasn’t talking to Christian.
“I’m never going to get used him talking to thin air,” I murmured.
Christian put his arm around my waist and hoisted me off my feet. “You all right?”
I held on to his shoulders, grateful the pressure was off my leg from standing. My gaze never dragged away from Niko, who had cleaned off his blades and placed them back in their scabbards. His body sank from exhaustion, his shoulders slumped and gait slow. As he drew nearer, I sensed something was wrong.
Long strands of ebony hair were askew, his cheeks flushed. When he finally made it to us, he wiped the sweat from his brow and closed his eyes. There were rips in his clothes and spatters of blood on his hands.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
“I’ll live.”
“Shep’s drunk,” I whispered to Christian. “He can’t sew up Niko’s wounds.”
“Shall I carry him instead?”
“Put me down.”
I grimaced when my feet touched the ground, the nerve endings in my leg excruciatingly painful. The arrow hadn’t severed a major artery, or I would have bled out already, but it was bleeding all the same.
“Niko, let me see.” I reached out and lifted the bottom of his shirt. “Oh shit. How deep is that?”
Blood trickled from a two-inch-long cut in his abdomen. When I peered around him, there was a similar mark on the other side. His pallor and blood-soaked shirt made me shudder. Niko was a Healer, but his ability to self-heal was like any other Mage. This guy needed sunlight, but I couldn’t stand to watch him suffer for hours.
When I grabbed his hands, he jerked them away.
“Now’s not the time,” I said. “You’ll bleed out before morning.”
“I won’t die,” he rasped.
“No, but Viktor called us home for a meeting or something. Do you want me to explain why you’re unconscious in the van with a hole in your gut?”
I took his hands, which were usually warm, and turned them over so our palms were touching. After a deep breath, I tapped into my core light and channeled the healing energy from it. When it reached my hands, the static tickled my palms as spidery webs of blue light threaded between us.
Christian glowered. It wasn’t my healing Niko that bothered him so much as the intimate nature of sharing light—something he’d never experience with me.
Before I finished, Niko broke the connection and touched the healed mark on his stomach. “You have my gratitude, but your light tells me you’re also injured. I can’t accept any more. You shouldn’t have given me what you need to heal yourself.”
“It’s just a scratch,” I said with a snort. In truth, my leg throbbed as if someone had shoved a hot iron through it. But I’d developed a high tolerance for pain, just not high enough to walk across the parking lot. “Christian, why don’t you bring the van around?”
After he whirled around and strode off, Niko removed his cloak and offered it to me. “You should have dressed for the weather. Shepherd remarked about your attire on the way here.”
“Shepherd has a lot of opinions he can keep to himself.” I slid my arms through the sleeves of the long coat. “We killed one of those men.”
A look I couldn’t discern flickered in his expression. “Do you know which one?”
“It wasn’t Kallisto.”
Niko’s voice became flat and cold. “Then I hope it was Plato.”
The Greek names gave me pause. “Are they your brothers?”
He looked off to the left. “We share the same light.”
Which meant they were from the same Creator. “That Cyrus guy, were you holding back? You took on two of his men last time. I’ve seen you fight.”
“Cyrus is very skilled with his weapon. He was once part of a nomadic tribe in Asia under the rule of Genghis Khan. If he ever approaches you when I’m not around—run. His blade is a force to be reckoned with, and it has been whetted with the souls of innocents.”
A bitter wind blew against my face, and I hugged my middle. “What does he want from you?”
“Something he will never have.” Niko reached out, and when he touched my shoulder, he put his arm around me and quieted his voice. “Speak of this to no one. Long ago, we were kept as slaves. It took many years, but Cyrus planned our escape after our Creator met his… untimely demise. You realize the implications.”
Niko didn’t need to spell it out. If Cyrus had planned and executed their Creator’s murder, and Niko was part of their group, then he was an accomplice in the eyes of our law.
“I won’t tell anyone.”
He stepped aside. “I spent many years in slavery because of that man. I refuse to become a prisoner for something I didn’t do.”
“You don’t think after all the work you’ve done for Keystone that they’d turn a blind eye? You didn’t actually commit the act.”
“The higher authority might not care, but the Mageri does whatever it likes. Do you think they would take Cyrus’s word or mine? They could use a Vampire to question me and find out I played no part in the murder, but I knew it happened and made no attempt to turn Cyrus in for the crime. In fact, I stayed with them. The Mageri likes to make an example out of those who break the law. Murdering a Creator—especially one’s own—is a high crime. They v
alue Creators more than anyone else.”
“Why did your Creator make slaves?”
“It was how men retained power in ancient times. They acquired slaves as guards, servants, spies, and whores. Some were chosen and others made by force. Almost all began as slaves, kept in chains and ignorance until they were ready. Only then would he teach us how to use our powers. A new Learner is too weak and inexperienced to overpower their Creator, and whether we like it or not, our Creator’s light lives within us and it beckons us to be loyal. It makes the betrayal that much harder, no matter how much you hate them. Cyrus possessed no such loyalty, because he is a man without conscience. Cyrus has always despised those who aren’t like us. According to him, our Creator was white.”
“Only white men, or anyone who isn’t his nationality? Because I hate to break the news, but you two don’t look remotely similar.”
“All Cyrus sees in me are common physical attributes. He did not come from my country or clan, and we do not share the same blood.”
“Does Viktor know all this?”
“Viktor knows the important highlights about my past but not the details. He doesn’t know about Cyrus. If Cyrus decides not to give up this foolish quest, I’ll have no choice but to tell Viktor. You haven’t been with us long enough, but sometimes we have skirmishes and look out for each other. Viktor doesn’t always know every detail of what happens when we go out. It’s safe to say that we’ve all made enough enemies to last a lifetime. This situation is clearly beyond his ability to control.”
“Is it beyond yours?”
“The fates will decide.”
Warmth radiated off Niko, penetrating through the coat he’d lent me.
“Why did Cyrus run?” I asked. “If he wounded you, why didn’t he finish what he started?”
“Because, Raven. He doesn’t want me dead.”
“Then what does he want?”
“To be my master.”
Chapter 4
A log blazed in the grandiose fireplace behind Viktor, deep orange and yellow light melting onto the hearth. At night, the stained glass windows in the gathering room took on a whole new life with darkness behind them and firelight illuminating the various patterns. They didn’t cast rainbow fractals of light on the floor, nor was their color as vibrant at night. But the images of wolves and humans came to life, telling stories of ancient times.
