“Wait!” York flung his sword out and up deflecting Aragon’s deathblow. “What if it isn’t just a legend? It’s been a millennium since a Blood Hunter was bitten. How do we know there is no hope?
“Pathos was the last to be bitten and is now the most powerful werewolf for the damned.” Breathing heavy Aragon forced out words rather than the cry of frustration he wanted to vent. He didn’t know if he had the strength to lift his sword against Jared again. “That is proof enough. There is little that can be done for a spirit once in the mortal world. Jared and I made a pact to never let a brother cross the line again.”
Rather than finding his salvation Pathos had joined the Vladarian Order and preyed upon the Chosen in the mortal realm, those who were of King Solomon’s blood begotten through his seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines and had scattered throughout the world upon his death. The evil craved the blood of the wise king’s seed which Logos had blessed. Blood Hunters, a force within the Shadowmen Warriors, were the Chosen’s protectors.
Sven fisted his hands. “Weren’t there others before Pathos? Blood Hunters who did find salvation?”
Aragon sighed. “Yes, a long time ago before the earth became so vile, the Vladarian Order so strong, and the mortal seed of the Tsara so evil. Heldon’s influence has grown. We all know that. It is better to die than become one of the Fallen and serve Heldon and the Vladarians.”
“I say we give the legend a chance.” York eased his sword to the ground.
“Why?” demanded Aragon. “Why risk it?”
“Because Jared deserves it,” said Sven.
“He was defending a woman, one of the Chosen?” Navarre asked.
“Yes,” said Sven.
“And she saw Jared in his Blood Hunter’s cloak?”
“Yes.”
“Rather than leaving Jared to wake and wander the mortal world alone to find salvation as was done to Pathos, why not leave his mortal body with one who is Chosen? They are special within the mortal realm. Perhaps it will help.”
“I agree,” said York. “Jared is lost to us, but he deserves the chance to have his soul redeemed by finding love within the mortal world.”
“What if we’re wrong?” Aragon said harshly, hands fisted around the hilt of his sword.
“Then I will kill him,” Sven said, stepping forward. “I will descend into Heldon’s freezing fires and hunt him if need be, but I won’t let Jared serve the Vladarians or fight with the Armies of the Fallen.”
Aragon nodded and prayed to Logos’s mercy that he was wrong and the power of human love could save a spirit from being damned. Because if he was right Sven had just committed himself to a death sentence and Aragon, too. As leader he wouldn’t let a Blood Hunter journey there alone, nor would he leave Jared’s fate in the hands of another. No Shadowman had ever survived Heldon’s fires.
Aragon held up his sword. “Then there is only one thing left for us to do.” Lifting his blade high in the air he waited for the other Blood Hunters to join the points of their swords to his.
His sword glowed blue, like the purest heart of a flame, and he brought the broadside of it against the gaping wound on Jared’s chest where the virulent poison of the Tsara had already spread and sealed the evil inside.
From inside his pristine New York City penthouse overlooking the Hudson, Dr. Anthony Cinatas reclined on a white divan and sipped a supple merlot from Chateau Petrus, his preferred vineyard for smooth red wines. He’d been trying to soothe himself after the day’s disturbing events, but had been rudely interrupted by Kassim’s king. Cinatas watched with growing irritation Ashodan ben Shashur’s righteous pacing across the snowy carpet, white robes billowing with each angry step. His sandaled footprints marred the carpets nape destroying the perfection of the white sea. The man, if you could call the beast such, was livid over the Morgan incident. Were it not that Cinatas himself had suffered at Erin Morgan’s hand he would be pleased by Shashur’s distress. He hated the man’s arrogance.
Shashur’s only endearing quality was that he was dependent on Cinatas’s genius, unless, of course, the man wanted to abandon his refined, leisurely life to feed like a ravenous beast—to spend his every night groveling in the filth of the masses desperately searching for Chosen blood.
Cinatas shuddered at the vision, thankful that he was above the squalor of having to feed like an animal. By the time his life on Earth ended he’d have the key to immortality without having to be dependent on a frequent infusion of Chosen blood. But until he held that key he’d play the Vladarian Order’s game, feed their hunger and take their money until he could take them over.
There was satisfaction in having the Vladarians dependent on him even if they didn’t realize he was their god. After one transfusion of Chosen blood, Shashur had returned to vigor from death’s door and, by the end of the treatment regimen on Sunday, the man’s forceful energy would be virtually unstoppable for the next three months.
Cinatas would never forget his own brush with death on a dark night six years ago. The bridge his car had plunged over, the icy waters, his bursting lungs. The sudden peace and floating toward a brilliant light as he watched the incompetent idiots who’d pulled him from the water resuscitate him. They’d somehow managed.
And that night, in an isolated Appalachian hospital, a creature had made Cinatas’s rebirth complete. In one excruciatingly painful bite from a Tsara, Cinatas was set on the path to discovering his greatness. Led by Pathos, the Vladarian Order tapped into his genius and paid Cinatas well for their transfusions of Chosen blood.
It wasn’t until the Vladarian Order’s cloaked “research grants” had made Cinatas rich that the world stopped treating him as a bloodthirsty Frankenstein and saw his value. As a hematologist/oncologist, his experiments in using blood proteins to treat diseases were at the cutting edge of the bioscience frontier. There was power in blood and someday his Sno-Med Corporation would be all-powerful. Cure a handful of people from cancer and you became a god. Erin Morgan couldn’t touch him, but she was a messy detail that needed cleaning up.
Cinatas tightened his grasp on the gold goblet. He shifted his gaze to the screen on the far wall showing a video of a gutted building, the smoke and ash remnants of the damage Erin Morgan had forced him to do.
Why did people always choose to make things difficult and messy?
Today was but a minor setback. A special Chosen or not, Erin Morgan had bought herself a one-way ticket to his private—pleasurable for him, painful for her—hell, just as soon as his men, and not Shashur’s, caught her.
Cinatas’ neck still throbbed from the damage she’d caused with her syringe and his body was just recovering from the aftereffects of the drug she’d plunged into his carotid. But the damage to his pride and reputation was worse.
“The wrong word from her to the wrong people and I’ll have to beat back the cursed Irmans again to reestablish my power. It’ll cost me another year or two. I can’t believe you let this happen,” Shashur said, his dark eyes full of fire as he stabbed his finger in the air.
“My fault?” Cinatas merely smiled. Wine and the dregs of morphine made a heady and almost fearless cocktail in his bloodstream. “You’re blaming me for a woman you and the rest of your kind personally requested to have service your transfusions? I warned you at the time that it wasn’t smart to let someone besides me administer your treatments.”
“Had you not left four bodies to be found, she wouldn’t have become a problem.”
“Your insistence upon fresh, unfrozen blood, warm from the vein, necessitates the donors be brought here. They refused to come and had to be forced to do their duty. If a man cannot keep order among those who serve him, then he deserves to die.”
“It doesn’t matter why. Pathos will be displeased when he arrives for the Vladarians’ Gathering. Your purpose in serving us is to minimize, if not eliminate, the body count not add to it.”
Cinatas paused mid-sip. Serve them? Wine spilled down his shirt, sending a
stab of rage though him so sharp that he barely restrained himself from tossing the wine into Shashur’s face or shoving the glass down his throat. The transfusions were to keep beasts like Shashur from having to live like an animal, constantly searching through the masses for Chosen blood and feeding in violence. Transfusions were so much more aesthetic, like a trip to the spa. Pathos had been the one to realize that to gain more power the Vladarians had to spend less time scavenging for food and direct their energies toward building influential empires. They needed to stay longer in the mortal realm. They needed to establish themselves among mortals to expand Heldon’s reach.
Chosen blood was very hard to find among the millions populating the world. The hundreds of people Sno-Med Corporation screened every day for blood donations made that task easy. It had taken Cinatas an entire year to isolate and identify the special protein that made Chosen blood different from that of other people. The rest was . . . glorious history. Cinatas established Sno-Med and the Vladarian Order went to work. Identities were bought, corporations established, and regimes overthrown.
Shashur had taken over the oil-rich Kassim in a quick and brutal military coup replacing a despot who wasn’t near the beast Shashur was. Shashur just knew how to conceal it better. The Vladarians were very adept at concealment.
But still stupid. Didn’t the beast realize that Cinatas held its existence in his hand? One little additive to a transfusion and . . . well, who knows what could happen.
“Why bother Pathos with today’s trivial events?” Cinatas said. “I’ve already taken care of any problems.”
“Pathos considers it an offense to be uninformed of any matter. He will also be the one to determine Erin Morgan’s fate once we’ve captured her.”
“Why?” Cinatas asked, feigning indifference. “What makes her so different from any other Chosen? Why was it necessary for her to administer the transfusions?”
Shashur frowned, clearly disgusted. “There’s no satisfaction in a meal if all you can smell is trash. Your Chosen blood is polluted, my friend. And Erin’s blood is the sweetest on earth.”
Cinatas refrained from commenting on Shashur’s insult but he put another mental mark against the man. One day Cinatas would be in a position to decide who from the Vladarian Order would be allowed to stay on earth and who had to stay in hell.
Ordinary human blood bought Vladarians very little time in the mortal realm. Once a Vladarian passed through the spirit barrier to walk among mortal men his vitality waned and his body eventually decayed, feeding off itself like a cancer unless it got more mortal blood. The longer a Vladarian was upon the earth the more frequently he had to feed. Eventually, the Vladarians had to constantly kill to sustain life, a problem that rendered them useless to aid in Heldon’s battle for the Earth. However, the purity and power in the proteins of Chosen blood changed all of that.
One transfusion of Chosen blood sustained a Vladarian for three months.
Cinatas smiled at Shashur. One day the ass would be serving Cinatas, and Cinatas would force the Vladarian to reveal why Erin Morgan was special. Meanwhile, he’d personally examine her blood this time instead of relying on a lab tech. There had to be a reason why Shashur considered Erin’s blood sweeter than any other.
Perhaps Erin’s blood had a higher concentration of proteins. Cinatas kept samples from everyone, blood and pieces of their tissue as well as other body fluids. There was power in knowledge and it would seem he was about to get a payoff from his. “If she is so succulent why hasn’t one of your kind just devoured her before?”
“Erin Morgan is under the protection of the Vladarian Order.”
A mortal under the protection of the damned? Very interesting. He wondered why, but didn’t ask or call attention to the oddity. Her blood would tell him what he wanted to know or she would. GPS tracking would soon put her into the palm of his hand.
His cell phone vibrated. Looking at the digital display he inwardly smiled as he excused himself from the room.
There was one thing he’d learned about evil over the past few years. Evil was, to coin a famous quote, “essentially stupid.” His Chosen blood might smell like trash to Shashur but it gave him an edge over the Fallen.
Chapter Three
Erin awoke feeling as if she’d been drugged, beaten, or both. Every muscle of her body ached and her head hurt as if a sledgehammer pounded between her eyes. Awareness of something besides pain came slowly. A sense of heat. Stuffy air. Bright sunlight. She tried to move but couldn’t. Straining against her binding she realized she was buckled in and sitting upright—in her car.
Danger tingled through her as her memory rushed back.
She snapped her gaze around, searching for the creatures. Daylight streamed through her cracked windshield revealing a fractured blue sky, a grassy field, and a naked man on the hood of her car. She blinked twice but the vision didn’t disappear. Last night’s nightmare had morphed into pure fantasy. The silver werewolf and demonic black thing were no more and a dark-haired, naked Adonis had appeared. She shut her eyes sure she had to be hallucinating.
“Mmmnn.” The groan, deeply male and filled with pain, did not come from her.
She opened her eyes. The man was still there, still naked, and now moving restlessly. She had hit something last night. Her windshield was cracked. Surely she hadn’t hit him. Right?
Hell!
Even if she was delusional she couldn’t just sit there. Unbuckling her seat belt she opened the door, sucking in the mountain air, a freshness she hadn’t realized she’d missed living in the city. As best she could tell, she’d landed in a narrow green pasture near a sprawling lush oak. Between her and a rushing creek were grazing cows that looked too normal to be part of a nightmare.
Moving like a rusty hinge she slid her legs out of the car, startled to see dried blood staining the front of her nurse’s whites. Her stomach clenched. It had to be her blood. She tentatively touched her face, feeling dried blood and a gash on her left temple.
Behind her, ten feet up an embankment past barbed-wire fencing and thick brush, sat State Road 44. The road she’d been on last night. She had a vague recollection of the thick fog, of missing a curve and plowing through bushes. Then the feeling of plunging downward, hitting hard, and bouncing over rough terrain until she came to an abrupt stop when the engine stalled. She’d sat shaken and alone in the middle of swirling mists, afraid to open her door or move at all. She remembered squeezing her eyes against the pounding pain in her head, thinking to rest for just a few moments before trying to find her way back to the road.
That was the last she could remember. The night had apparently passed, and, judging by the height of the sun, most of the morning, too. She must have passed out for her moment’s rest had stretched for hours.
The man groaned again and she stood, grabbing the car door for balance as dizziness swamped her. The world about her slowly came back into focus, an oddly bucolic contrast to the roller-coaster ride she’d been on and the naked man before her. She knew she had to have a mild concussion which made everything more surreal.
She moved slowly to the hood of her Tahoe, her gaze scanning the man’s body for trauma. She saw no apparent signs of injury. No blood. No bruising. No limbs twisted at an unnatural angle. He appeared almost too perfect.
Was he real or not? Either way, it wasn’t good. If he wasn’t real, then her mind had gone off the deep end. If he was real, then she’d hit him with her car last night—which meant he’d been walking naked in the dark, something only a person in trouble or mentally ill would do.
He lay on his stomach, one arm cradling his head, the other at his side. Longish, coal-black hair with a shocking streak of silver at the crown moved in the breeze.
She’d give her imagination a lot of credit, but was it really this good? She needed a Starbucks IV stat.
The man was broad shouldered and perfectly sculpted, his muscular back tapering to a trim waist and hips. Strong thighs led to long legs that hung off the
edge of her car. The only oddity was the paleness of his skin didn’t match his athletic build. He didn’t look as if he’d ever been out in the sun, which meant he had to be feeling the UV rays bombarding his backside.
She touched his shoulder, encountering burning hot skin backed by hard muscle. She wasn’t imagining this and the man was ill. Fevered. Concern gripped her. “Mister. Can you hear me?”
He groaned, but didn’t answer. Moving closer she slid her fingers into his hair, feeling the silkiness and the wild luxurious length of it as she searched his scalp for injury. Finding none, she pressed her palm to his burning brow. Never had she felt anyone so hot. “Hey,” she said gently. “Can you hear me? You’re ill.”
Still no response. She had to turn him over. Hiking up her dress, she climbed onto the hood and grasped his shoulder and hip to roll him her way, praying he wasn’t badly wounded anywhere she’d yet to see. They were a long way from a hospital. When she pulled he reared up, groaning sharply with pain and knocking her backward.
She tumbled to the ground, smacking her knee on the bumper hard enough to bring a sting of tears to her eyes. The man had moved faster than she had imagined possible. That sent a fissure of fear through her. She was out in the middle of nowhere. Alone.
Rolling to her feet, she crouched, prepared to spring up and run, but found herself nearly eye-level with an impressive male anatomy starkly enhanced by black hair, hard muscled thighs, and washboard abs. He’d crossed his thick arms over a chest that rivaled Atlas for broadness and strength. She lifted her gaze higher.
He sat with his heels propped on her bumper, knees bent and legs spread—not extra wide, but he sure wasn’t trying to hide anything. Seeming thoroughly comfortable with his nakedness, he stared at her with bloodshot eyes of startling iridescent blue topaz.
She pressed her fingers to her head, searching through the throbbing mass of her mind as she studied his gaze. There was something familiar about his eyes, but she couldn’t say what or from where, maybe one of those magazine ads where you just get a partial shot of a man’s face that grabs you. She did know she’d never met him before. That would have been unforgettable.
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