by K H Lemoyne
Steam, thick and heavy, enveloped the walls in mist, covering her image in the mirror. For minutes, she stared at the shades of shapeless color. No flashes of insight guided her thoughts. Her life evidently didn’t merit divine clarity. With a mental shrug, she stepped into the shower.
The water and suds washed over her body and removed the sweat. But dark emptiness and anger remained stuck to her like a second skin no matter how much she scrubbed.
The anger was the hardest. She refused to lash out at unsuspecting friends. Instead, she worked to tamp it down, but strong and unfamiliar, the emotion gnawed at her, unrelenting. She twisted off the water and forced an end to her train of thought.
How typical that Alex wasn’t around to absorb the fallout from his actions.
Wrapped in her long terry robe, she padded into the spare bedroom.
Clothes and belongings littered the bed and floor. She assessed the closet and dresser drawers with bitter resignation. Did she need more moving boxes, or should she just give in to the temptation to open the window and chuck everything out? With an exhale of frustration, she sat on the bed and rubbed her face to dispel the irritation. Ten years of marriage gone to hell.
Twenty-one days ago, after Alex’s death in a car accident, she’d embraced regrets. The divorce papers, delivered the day after, stemmed that emotional bleed. The woman who had introduced herself at the funeral, the coworker Alex had been screwing, snapped the lid on Mia’s self-recriminations. The shiny full carat ring Alex had purchased for the new Mrs. Bowman released her anger anew.
She had no more delusions. She and Alex weren’t soul mates, but their marriage had seemed…normal. No, normal wasn’t the right word. Happy didn’t cover it, either. And obviously, committed didn’t fit.
If she’d bothered to pay attention, she would have recognized the signs of Alex’s infidelity sooner.
That wasn’t what bothered her. Okay, the infidelity bothered her a lot, but it was the glaring lack of loss, the lack of emptiness inside of her. Anger, yes, she had plenty, but no loneliness. No ghosts lingered in the house, no echo of sweet words, no treasured smile missed each day. That the lack felt like her failure only served to fuel her anger more.
With a heavy sigh, she turned back to erasing Alex’s presence from her home.
Several hours later, brown boxes trailed from the center of the room to the doorway, a miniature city skyline outlined against the bedroom’s white walls.
Shoulder muscles tight with fatigue and a tiny drum of pain nagging behind her eyes, Mia sank onto the bed and leaned against the headboard to take stock.
Closet empty. Drawers empty. Boxes sealed and ready to go. She glanced at the clock—two in the morning blinked back in pale green. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and listened.
Pre-dawn stillness hung in the room. No sounds from the birds, no ticks as the house settled, no clicks from the thermostat, not even the sound of her breath. Just a hush of silence.
She rode the rhythm and kept a clear image in her mind. Miles and miles of endless blue unraveled and forced her thoughts to calm. Weariness fought her hold on the image. She curled her fingernails into her palm to focus against the distraction.
Behind her eyelids the blue diminished. Darkness wavered in its place, wisps of black interwoven with gray. Smoke and shadows veiled her from any view. She fought to reestablish the blue sky. It eluded her. The effort drained her until she gave up and swirled farther with the currents that pulled her toward the darkness. Smoke dispersed, replaced by a cold, moist chill that shocked her skin as a damp stench assaulted her nose.
She blinked. Fuzziness receded but not the dark.
A dream? No, the cold was too vivid. She searched for the source of the numbness in her legs. Her toes peeked from the bottom of her robe. Her lower body was shaded in gray against a frigid black stone floor. Not home. Not her bed.
“Don’t cower in the dark.” A deep voice growled from the shadows. Mia’s body rippled with an involuntary shudder.
Dim light from slats at the top of a closed door to her left framed a large male body across from her. Coils of chain looped around the floor by his legs and snaked off into the darkness. Dark streaks crusted the visibly mauled, naked flesh of his abdomen above the waistband of his ragged pants. The shadows hid the remainder of him.
Mia released her breath and realized she’d been holding it so tight her chest ached.
Keep still and silent. Blend with darkness. Distance seemed smart too. She scooted backward until a hard wall pressed against her tailbone. The veil of black had reached its limit. No way to put more distance between herself and the only other occupant of the claustrophobic room.
Too real. Time to wake up. Mia gripped her knees and squeezed for control, but she couldn’t pull her eyes away from the man across from her.
Long legs extended across the floor and morphed into thick thighs that stretched the seams of his pants. Hard, corded muscle wrapped beneath the flesh of his wounds and torso.
He was a lot bigger than she was. She glanced between them, comparing the length of her legs to his—taller too.
A surge of sympathy for his condition intruded on her thoughts, dampened immediately by the threat of being stuck here. Or could she leave? She sidled to the door to give it a tentative push. Solid. Yep, stuck.
“You’ll gain nothing in the shadows, whatever your master’s plan.” The chains rattled in concert with his momentary outburst and then silenced.
Mia cringed. The gravel of his voice spoke volumes of his treatment. It wasn’t a natural vocal inflection. The tone was grated and rough from lack of fluid, or worse. Perhaps he was guilty of unspeakable crimes, though the stone cell, the chains, and antiquated door didn’t resemble any form of humane justice. That she was here with him curbed her sympathy. At least until she arrived home safe in her own bed.
To his credit, he left her alone. She couldn’t gauge whether he physically couldn’t move or just had no interest, but he didn’t say another word.
Need to wake up, Mia. She pulled back again and buried her head against her knees. Her ears alert for any movement from the man, she scrunched into the smallest ball she could make, wrapped her arms around her legs, and counted her breaths.
Focus on the inward breath, hold and release slowly.
Dreams didn’t last forever. Right? Whatever reason her mind created this image, this cell, this man, she’d seen all she needed and more than she wanted. It was all her illusion. Whatever the man represented, her dreams couldn’t harm her. She could maintain control.
She fought to regain the gray mist that had ushered her into this nightmare and continued to count her breaths, waiting.
Moments? Hours? She couldn’t tell, yet in spite of her awkward pretzeled position, her limbs expanded with a sense of lightness. She lost count and the darkness took control.
CHAPTER 2
Ansgar spun a chair around to straddle it in front of the thick oak desk in Leonis’s office. Arms crossed on the back of the chair rail, he waited for the old man to finish his scrutiny of the ancient parchment.
Fine, take your time. The conversation they were about to have was one Ansgar would rather avoid. If he were smart, he’d have taken longer to get back to Eden’s Sanctum. Long enough to cleanse the nightmarish images that continued to play in his brain from this last assignment.
With a brief tilt of his head, Ansgar acknowledged Kamau as the man entered the room. Panther at his heels and hawk submissive on the broad, leather-clad shoulder, Kamau radiated Nubian prince as if born to the role. The trio settled beside Ansgar.
The sleek, black feline shifted moss green eyes toward her master. With a ripple of muscle, she sauntered over to Ansgar, and rubbed her head against his leg for attention.
Ansgar worked his fingers in the short, soft fur of the panther’s head until loud purrs rumbled through the windowless granite room. The skull was twice the size of his palm, yet the dangerous and wild creature sat docile and eager be
neath his ministrations. He envied Kamau his power, a talent paired with companionship. Animals didn’t talk back, an added benefit. Then again, to a master of beasts they probably had their own way of mouthing off.
At least his power didn’t carry the responsibility of additional lives.
“Two more minutes,” Leonis said without a glance.
Ansgar perused the stacks of fragile books and yellowed parchments tumbled across Leonis’s desk, littered on chairs, and piled on the floor. The tomes covered almost every inch of the sterile, cold room hewn from the rock of Eden’s protective bowl of mountains.
The golden glow from the cylinder of memory crystals on the desk provided the only warmth in the room, besides the heat from the panther’s head beneath his hand.
Leonis’s finger traveled down the ancient pages. Flashes of glowing script illuminated briefly between the written lines of human text. The shimmering bits constituted history hidden by Ansgar’s descendants and secreted into the ancient human documents. With a brief swipe, Leonis gathered the luminescent script, lifted it into the air, and dropped it into the solid glass cylinder housing the crystals. Light sparkled. The script swirled inside the cylinder, searched until it reached some predestined section of crystal, then condensed, and disappeared.
Ansgar shook his head. Human computers handled data storage and retrieval, but Guardians had possessed the intrinsic skill organically for millennia without the use of chips and circuits. Yet it had taken the devastation of plague and death to rip the inherent skill from his people, leaving them with this paltry substitute to search for information.
“You find her?” Kamau’s deep voice was somber. The thick black forearms crossed over his chest contradicted the patience in his words.
“Isabella’s body? Yes and no. I tracked her to a morgue in Tucson. She’d been cremated.” Ansgar had trouble releasing the words and managed a shake of his head at Leonis’s surprise.
“There was nothing to bring back. They have too many bodies. After a few weeks, they need to make room. The police reports were detailed, though disturbing.” Isabella’s cold, mutilated body listed by number, another Jane Doe casualty on the Tucson Police Department’s unsolved roster, was too raw, too painful.
Leonis’s fingers stilled.
Kamau waited for additional explanation, his expression hidden while he pressed folds into his leather falconry gloves. On unspoken command, the panther shifted from Ansgar to settle at Kamau’s feet in a deceptively casual pose. Her head covered one of his feet and her eyes fixed on the open doorway.
The perfect lookout.
Ansgar turned his head to the side, stretched his neck, and avoided Leonis’s gaze. “The police report indicated twenty to thirty shallow stab wounds, five deep and fatal. There wasn’t a medical examiner’s report on record.” He gripped the chair rail. “Her personal effects fit in a ziplock bag.”
The crime scene photos had been bad, but he struggled to overlay them with his memories. Isa as an infant. Isa playing with the other Guardian children in the Sanctum’s gardens. Isa, stubborn and innocent, flirting to get her way. She’d possessed spirit and energy, characteristics too much like his sister, Briet.
“Xavier?” Leonis’s question held weariness.
Bristling at the implied assumption, Ansgar fought down a reaction. He knew the purpose here wasn’t to commiserate, only to provide impartial delivery of the facts. Ansgar and Kamau’s job was search and retrieval. It wasn’t Leonis’s fault he got the fun job of asking the hard questions before briefing Salvatore and the rest of the Guardian council.
Better him than me. “No evidence to link him to her death. Once I got past the human police personnel to search, there was no sign of the creatures Xavier used previously against the Sanctum or his usual attack patterns.” He swallowed back defense of his fallen commander and continued. “Her body was found with a dead undercover cop. Same wounds on him.”
“You conjecture that this is a random act of human violence?” Leonis asked.
Random, hardly. Ansgar ground his teeth on the words. Some details would have to wait. “There’s nothing to prove otherwise.”
“Any remains?” Leonis tapped his fingers on the table.
“They buried the ashes. No risk of exposure for us.”
Leonis and Kamau both grumbled.
The council would be relieved with the lack of exposure. However, the lack of details to probe further into Isa’s death would leave other questions. No help for that.
“Was she …” Kamau’s sour expression and his hand tightened enough around his glove to cause permanent wrinkles in the leather signaled the direction of his comment.
“Report said she bled out, along with the human. No other sign of violation.” No, Isa hadn’t been raped. Just attacked and then left to die slowly in a dark, narrow alley without the comfort of her brethren. Ansgar took a slow breath to battle the anger he seemed unable to lock in place.
His people trained in defense against random human violence, though to repel an assault required diligent training and a mindset to retaliate. Many of the Guardian women were gentle creatures. Isa had been such. His sister still was.
“And Turen?” asked Leonis.
Ansgar caught Kamau’s gaze as his eyes narrowed at the scribe.
“Too much, Leo.” Ansgar didn’t curb the bitterness in his voice. “Turen would never have hurt Isabella. He rejected being her mate, but he would have died for her. Any of us would have. Just because we aren’t all tied by blood, doesn’t discount each of us as brothers and sisters for our race.”
Leonis closed his eyes and nodded.
“Turen is too skilled to kill in such a petty, painful fashion. Xavier as well.” Kamau kept his gaze on his gloves, but the hawk rustled its wings and flexed its talons restlessly against Kamau’s leather vest. “If Turen or Xavier were to attack, it would be with one merciful strike. Not that Turen would ever turn on his brethren.”
Leonis blew out a strong breath, scrubbed at his face with one hand and then gave a quick shake of his head. “The question required asking.”
“An accusation requires proof.” Ansgar snorted. “It’s disgusting that we jump to credit Turen with Xavier’s sins. One horrible fall from grace doesn’t signal downfall for us all.” The room fell silent.
Ansgar allowed the void to grow. Xavier, the oldest and most admired, had turned on his people and fled. He’d plunged so deep into a life divergent in purpose with the Guardian’s covenant, it rattled every member of their small race, driving each of them further into solitude. Turen had been the single, vocal holdout for the possibility of Xavier’s redemption. Turen’s disappearance for the last several months had resurfaced the old doubts in the council. Now his character and loyalty were in question as well.
Only the warriors of Turen’s personal team refused to give up on him without strong, irrefutable proof.
Leonis shifted. “This issue won’t be resolved before the council without Isabella’s remains. Granted, that is minor compared to the loss of her unique powers and the souls her children would have someday delivered for mankind.”
“The forty or so of us remaining are the council. Don’t you mean Salvatore?” Ansgar let loose his anger. He didn’t intend to direct it at Leonis.
When the man raised a brow in censure, Ansgar dropped his gaze first. This argument would get them nowhere. “We lose Isa’s powers and so what?” he continued. “The likelihood that any of us will find our mates and conceive children has become only a dream. Decades we’ve lived hiding here in the Sanctum, safe from the plague but without a future. Except for Xavier’s brief success, and his blessing ended in tragedy.”
“We can’t give up,” Leonis chided.
“No. We don’t have that option either, since we live for frigging ever without our mates. No normal circle of life, no children, no fulfillment of our covenant. Hell, we can’t even just grow old and die.” Ansgar raised a hand to fend off Leonis’s rebuke with a heavy ex
hale. “I apologize.”
A creak of wood signaled Kamau’s movement. “Isa’s loss and Turen’s disappearance, both are adding to the schisms in our collective.”
Leonis nodded. “Have Kaax or Grimm found any answers?”
“They’ve both searched for traces of Turen. However, the issues of random failures along the Sanctum’s security field have derailed those efforts. Kaax is working with Tsu on a resolution. Grimm is searching in the human population alone, tracking city by city. It’s impossible.” Kamau frowned and tapped his finger restlessly on his leg. “Where does this leave us?”
Leonis patted the parchment before him and focused his attention on the illuminated cylinder with a frown. “This new information gains us nothing.”
“Perhaps it is time to reconsider our options?” said Kamau.
“Don’t even try. We can’t put the women at risk.” Leonis shook his head. “If Isabella had gone into cryo with the rest of our women, as requested, she’d be alive now. The situation is far worse than when our sisters accepted cryo. Isabella’s request for a mating with Turen will be only the beginning of the problems to surface if the women awaken.”
“You can’t believe that!” Ansgar snapped. “You can’t judge all the women by one situation. Isabella was lucky Turen had the sense to refuse an attempt at mating. The rest of us know it’s not a try-it-on-for-size connection with our people. He bent over backwards to protect her feelings. The women would have supported him. For the record, it was Salvatore who decided Isa could remain out of cryo and serve him. Where is his responsibility for her death?”
“Isa was warned to remain within the safety of the Sanctum’s perimeter. Instead, she pursued secret activities in the human cities,” Leonis countered with a frown. “She’d have been safe here.”
Kamau continued despite the argument over Isa. “The cryo option was for our women’s protection, to ease them through the lack of mates, to avoid the fate of Xavier’s mate. None of us intended for it to be a permanent cocoon. Our covenant requires we coexist with humankind, not stay safe forever in the Sanctum.”
