by J. K. Coi
Immortal Duty
J.K. Coi
Walking home from a late-night shift at the hospital, Amy Bennett unwittingly stumbles into the violent, mysterious world of sexy Rhys Morgan. She wants him at once, but he’s a man with dangerous secrets, and despite the explosive attraction between them, he seems determined to push her away.
One of the oldest of his kind, the intense Immortal warrior Rhys spends his nights on the streets of Chandler protecting the city from the demons that threaten to overrun it. Though strong, he now has a weakness…Amy.
His gift of premonition has always been a curse, and more so since Amy’s death has begun haunting his dreams. But she’s part of his world now, and Rhys doesn’t know how to save her, or how to protect his heart.
Immortal Duty
J.K. Coi
Chapter One
Amy.
Rhys jerked up in bed, the shout still clinging to his lips. His heart pounded hard and his breathing lurched from his chest. He’d called out her name again.
Amy.
It hung in the room, heavy and thick around him. More than a word—a warning, an omen. It charged the darkness with foreboding.
Amy.
Rhys had been having the dreams off and on for the last several weeks, but now they were coming practically every night. He’d been hitting the sheets later and later in an attempt to keep the images at bay, and only after working himself into complete physical exhaustion first. So far it hadn’t worked. Nothing had worked.
“Christ.” He rubbed both hands briskly over the top of his head and through his shaggy hair to shake off the dream. It didn’t help.
His scowl was wasted on the empty room. The only thing those extra workouts had accomplished was to make him more unnerved when the dreams wrenched him from sleep…at three o’clock in the morning.
The last remnants of the dream began to blur. The sensation of having cotton stuffed down his throat started to ease and his breathing returned to normal, but in his mind he could still see her eyes, her tears…and the blood.
Rhys often had premonitions of things to come—it was one of the gifts he had been cursed with when he’d become an Immortal so many years ago. So he knew this wasn’t about his subconscious dragging out some random innocuous memory of a stranger he may have passed on the street. Whatever this was, it was serious. And given the number of nights he’d been tormented by the visions, it was imminent.
He would be a fool to ignore them.
A few visions he could handle. Compared to the mess that was his daily routine, that added bonus was just icing on the cake that was his life. Yet something about these dreams made him feel edgy and worried, and it didn’t help that they always had him jerking awake soaked to the skin as he sweated out a deep state of fear.
He was afraid for her.
Which was stupid. Rhys had never met the woman who had the current starring role in his dreams. He most definitely would have remembered. So then why did he feel…protective, as if with her it was something personal and not just the job?
Whatever. He didn’t get personal with anyone.
Still, he was certain she was no figment of his imagination.The reason for the dreams—the connection—was still hidden, but considering how often he was having them now, the time to meet in person was fast approaching. And it wasn’t going to be over lattés.
With a grimace, he stood, resolutely shoving the distracting thoughts from his mind.
He looked at the floor and grabbed a shirt from the pile of clothes lying by the bed. He quickly tugged it on. Clean pants were harder to find. The ones he’d had on the night before were stained with blood and gore. That shit was a bitch to get out of denim, but he couldn’t very well take his clothes to the cleaners. Too many questions.
Go figure.
Rifling through a drawer, the familiar itch of desperation crawled his bones. The demon responsible for Duncan’s death had all but vanished into thin air and Rhys was afraid it had already been too long, that the trail was too cold.
“Damn.” Muttering to himself, he continued searching the room for a pair of jeans. He stomped to the overlarge closet, but besides an impressive array of deadly weapons that encompassed everything from submachines to broadswords, there was very little else inside.
A-ha.
Deep inside the closet he finally found an old, faded pair of jeans and dragged them on. He swore under his breath. They were tight—1980s heavy metal band tight. Well, that was too damn bad because he had a demon to track down and no time to waste.
His pursuit had lost some momentum since the demon disappeared. Rhys had no doubt the monster would eventually turn up to kill again, but he couldn’t sit around waiting for it to happen, usually tried not to let things like that happen if he could help it. Unnecessary human deaths were bad for business.
Rhys had spent weeks trolling the streets, searching every back alley and deserted building, searching the warehouses along the wharf and searching clubs, bars and every other den of iniquity Chandler boasted. Every demon he snagged was “interrogated” before being sent on an exclusive, one-way trip back to where it came from, but so far there had been nothing, no sign. All his usual underground connections were tapped out, and at this point there was only one more option available to him. Whatever it took, he would catch the demon.
It would mean gathering the others like him—the Immortals.
Fuck. He would do it. His friend’s honor, and Rhys’ own gnawing guilt, demanded no less.
Rhys’ first responsibility was to find the young one. He’d kept a discreet eye on Baron Silver over the last several weeks, but had admittedly neglected his duty when it came to the newest Immortal.
Now he no longer had the luxury of ignoring Duncan’s replacement.
Rhys approached the entrance to the popular nightclub, stopping before the two overgrown, steroid-pumping bouncers parked at the door. One glared at Rhys as if he were actually going to protest, but Rhys’ stone cold expression and six-foot-eight, rock-solid frame must have prompted him to have second thoughts.
Bouncer Number One moved aside. Rhys turned to Bouncer Number Two with a raised brow. The guy shrugged his shoulders and waved Rhys through.
Inside, thunderous techno music blared loudly from half a dozen colossal speakers, set around the perimeter of the dance floor. A sweaty, drunken, synchronistic swarm of scantily dressed and utterly wasted twenty-somethings heaved and gyrated wildly to the thumping beat.
Rhys’ dark glasses were out of place in the dimly lit club. Even though he could see perfectly, he took them off and stuffed them inside his jacket pocket. Without the shades he took the chance someone might notice his strangely colored eyes, but the likelihood was small. Most people tried not to meet his gaze head on. He made them nervous.
The black lights and appropriately placed neon created a trendy, underground atmosphere while hiding the fact that the club itself had seen better days. Rhys could see the paint peeling from the walls and the water stains that dotted the ceiling, things no one else would see at night when the club was busy.
The crowd parted for him as he made his way across the floor, sticky with spilled beer and God only knew what else. They were the smart ones, the ones who intuitively knew that messing with him would be detrimental to their pursuit of perpetual good times.
Rhys held back a sigh of disgust. There wasn’t a warrior amongst them. Soft, the lot of them. Even the big-ass bouncers at the door wouldn’t stand a chance in hell if they were forced to defend themselves against the things Rhys dealt with every night.
It was a good thing, then, that humans and Rhys didn’t mix, since the company he tended to keep would love nothing more than to feast on anyone who made the mistake of getting in the line of fire. Rhys
deliberately cultivated his “fuck off” persona to make damn sure no civilian ever discovered the truth of what he really was—a hunter, just short of human. Only the demons he sent back to the Abyss would ever get close enough to see the death in his eyes.
Rhys immediately felt Baron’s presence in the dark club. An Immortal could sense when another of his kind was near—those superhuman extrasensory instincts weren’t only for show. He slowly but purposefully made his way to the other side of the bar. Rhys couldn’t see Baron yet, but had no doubt that the other Immortal was there.
When Rhys spotted a pretty boy all suited up in dark Armani, lounging in a corner, he knew he’d found his man. Baron was tall, lean, with chestnut-colored hair that curled around his head like a tarnished copper halo. Even in the get-up, he looked years younger than he was, as if he should be studying anatomy from a college textbook instead of getting an up close and personal biology lesson courtesy of the skanky blonde draped all over him. At twenty-eight, Baron was the kind of guy who always got away with being a prick just because he was so ridiculously innocent-looking.
That innocent look was a crock of shit.
Rhys knew what no one else outside certain elite circles of Baron’s government did—that even at his young age there wasn’t much Baron hadn’t seen or done, at least in the humans’ world. Any innocence he’d once had was long gone.
The blonde squirmed on Baron’s lap and he had his face buried in her neck. She’d spread his suit jacket open, eagerly stuffing one hand down into the waistband of his pants as Baron stroked his thumbs up the insides of the bare thighs stretched wide across his lap.
Rhys could all but see the cloud of sexual arousal that surrounded the pair, and had to shake his head. Baron should have learned to keep it in his pants long enough to get a room. Not only to save Rhys from a visual he would rather have done without, but because every warrior, human or otherwise, knew sex meant vulnerability. In a place like this, getting distracted by sex was like setting up a flashing, bright red neon sign over your head inviting the enemy to please come rip your throat out.
Demons had a knack for being able to sense Immortals as easily as Immortals could find each other. It was just one more reason why Rhys had come looking for Baron. He had a lot to learn about being an Immortal, and whether or not either of them wanted to attend class it had fallen to Rhys to be teacher.
Rhys stood a few feet in front of the pair. Baron looked up and met his gaze.
Both of them were silent as they sized each other up. Rhys caught a flash of awareness in Baron’s face, a confused sort of recognition, before it was shut down behind a calculated mask of indifference.
The new Immortal was astute. Rhys approved.
“Hey, you got a problem?” Baron finally asked in a bland, uninterested tone that fell far short of being friendly.
“No problem,” Rhys replied with an equally mild expression on his face. He hadn’t expected a warm welcome. “I need to talk to you, though. And not here.”
“Says you.” Baron gestured to the woman working her hands up and under his shirt, apparently unmoved by the prospect of having an audience. “This party is by invitation only, buddy.”
“Let me extend my own exclusive invitation to you, then.” Rhys leaned in close, right up to Baron’s ear. “Or do you really want me to have to convince you?” He kept his voice low, controlled, but the power behind it was palpable.
Rhys straightened. Baron’s gaze was guarded, but he wasn’t backing down. “Yeah, right. Forget it. You might not have noticed, but I’ve got plans tonight that don’t include back alley gropes with biker dudes.”
Rhys sighed. The little shit was too arrogant to recognize when he should keep his mouth shut. He would have no problem dragging Baron out of here on his ass, but the last thing he wanted in a place like this was to cause a scene that might draw the police.
“You’ll want to hear me out,” Rhys continued patiently. “Maybe you’ll even learn something interesting in the process.”
Baron gave him a sharp, searching look. After a moment, he shoved the blonde from his lap with a short word of dismissal.
Arms crossing over his chest with contrived boredom, Baron watched the woman saunter away, an angry twitch to her generous hips. “So what is it that you think you can teach me?” he asked snidely, returning his attention to Rhys.
Rhys returned Baron’s insolent look with a level stare of his own. “I think you’re probably smarter than you look. You’ve been able to figure out the basics of what you are, but you need to take advantage of the opportunity I’m giving you.”
Damn, he was bungling this. Badly.
“What I am?” Baron made a low sound deep in his throat. “Hell, I don’t need this. And I don’t need any of your fucking ‘opportunities’. Who the hell do you think you are anyway? Dracula meets Hell’s Angels? Or did you just forget to take your meds today?”
Yep. Very badly.
He hadn’t come here to get on the young Immortal’s bad side. On the contrary, Rhys wanted to fulfill his obligation to complete Baron’s training and hopefully gain an ally in the process, but he’d always had difficulty playing well with others.
This back and forth was pointless. He reached inside his coat, watching Baron’s eyes flare and his arms flex. Rhys paused, but he only pulled out a card. He dropped it into Baron’s lap. “Come to this address in an hour. I don’t talk business in public.”
Baron’s hand shot out and caught Rhys’ wrist. He turned back slowly, raising one eyebrow. “I do know you somehow, don’t I?”
“Yeah. Somehow,” Rhys answered. “Don’t be late.”
Rhys returned to his place. No one would have called it a home—it was far from that. But the structure was sound, housing everything he needed, including a massive storeroom of weaponry. The building was an old warehouse, abandoned long before Rhys had purchased the property.
One of the first things he had done was install a shitload of surveillance cameras. There were cameras and infrared around the entire perimeter of the property. All of it remote-connected to a state-of-the-art computer system. Everything was rigged—windows, doors and even the roof.
The gadgetry was useful when he couldn’t be on the premises, but when real trouble was afoot, Rhys relied predominantly on his own heightened senses—hearing, sight, smell—and they were usually more than enough to warn him of impending danger.
Rhys entered the inner office where a softly glowing trio of monitors sat on top of a massive desk. Shrugging off the heavy leather coat, he dropped it across the high back of the only chair, before sitting down and propping his boots up on the desk. A dark black stain rimmed the edge of his pants leg.
Jesus Christ, he was a mess.
He shouldn’t be the one taking on Baron’s training. Any other Immortal would have been better for the job. Unfortunately, there was no one else.
On Duncan’s death, Baron had inherited all that power and immortality—because power like theirs could not be snuffed, only shifted. But with it also came the curse, and a responsibility that Baron couldn’t possibly understand on his own.
Since Duncan had been Rhys’ partner, Rhys should have taken over Baron’s training right away. But the last thing he’d wanted to do was take on a responsibility of that magnitude.
He would still rather have his eyes gouged out with a hot poker, but the situation demanded that he do something, and it seemed that meant putting up with Baron’s massive ego.
Rhys straightened, alert, but almost immediately he relaxed again. He settled back into the chair, a small grin playing across his lips.
Someone was in the building.
Nothing suspicious had shown up on the cameras, but he didn’t need them to know Baron had arrived. Leaning forward, he tapped a series of keys on the computer console and watched the screen switch to a panoramic view of the back loading docks of the old warehouse. The system still hadn’t registered the intruder.
The kid’s not bad,
Rhys thought approvingly, not bad at all.
He really shouldn’t have been surprised. He knew what Baron’s military classification had been before his medical discharge. He also knew that Baron was undergoing an appeal process to be allowed to return to service, but that his doctors were hesitant to let him go back out in the field. They still didn’t know what had caused his illness in the first place, or why he’d recovered when all the tests said he should be pushing daisies right about now.
Rhys waited.
A few minutes later, he swiveled in the chair and faced the entrance.
“You know I’m here, don’t you?” Baron called out. He stood motionless in the heavy shadows beyond the doorway.
Rhys grunted. “I heard you coming from two blocks over.”
“Screw off,” Baron said without any real heat, nonchalantly making his way over to the small bar fridge and reaching in to grab a beer. He turned back around and perched his ass on the edge of the desk. “So who are you? Why did you come looking for me and why in hell should I give a shit?”
Rhys remained silent for a long moment. Baron had never met another Immortal. He must be confused and nervous, but he was also arrogant as hell, and would never admit to it.
“The name’s Morgan. Rhys Morgan.” He didn’t bother to offer his hand for Baron to shake.
Baron didn’t know whether to feel provoked or curious. The security system in this place was solid, but really no match for someone who knew what they were looking at.
Thing was, Mr. Hardcore here didn’t look like the kind of guy to go half-assed on something like that. Baron figured the system was low-level on purpose, to fool anybody who came nosing around into believing that whatever Rhys had going on here was simply a run-of-the-mill warehouse. Which it definitely was not.
“Well you already know me, apparently, so cut to the chase, Rhys.” Curious or not, if Baron didn’t get some answers soon he was going to turn and walk straight back out of here.
