by Brenda Huber
She tried to comply, but her hands were shaking so badly she set the glass aside for fear she’d dump it all over herself. Sebastian patiently—insistently—lifted the glass to her lips himself while he smoothed his free hand up and down her arm. Gentle and soothing.
She couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that this gentle man, one who looked so like a Viking god, was one and the same as the dark, winged terror up on that roof.
“Good. Good.” He set the glass aside and took her hand as he said, “Now breathe. Just breathe.”
“Get your hands off her, Vengeance,” Niklas snarled, whipping around and stalking toward them. He sounded like a wounded animal. A rabid, wounded, feral animal.
“Cool off,” Xander barked, stepping between Niklas and the bristling Sebastian.
Just like that, Niklas transformed once again into the huge, fearsome monster that had stormed into the park that first night, ready to battle to the death. Xander braced himself, but he did not transform. Sebastian shot to his feet and hurried to stand, shoulder to shoulder with Xander, forming a protective wall between her and Niklas.
Fear filled her—not fear of Niklas, but fear for him. If he hurt one of his friends, he would never forgive himself.
He lifted his hands, palms blazing with plasma balls. Galvanized, she leaped from her chair and darted around Xander and Sebastian. She rushed forward, eluding their startled lunges for her, and raced to head Niklas off. Without giving it a second thought, she launched herself at him. Wrapping her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, she clung to him for all she was worth.
Pressing her cheek to his, she whispered into his ear, over and over, “I’m sorry, Niklas. I’m so sorry. It was all my fault. Please, come back, Niklas. For me. I need you. Please, come back. I’m sorry.”
At first, he stiffened. His hands found her waist in a punishing grip. But still she clung, resisting his effort to pry her off him with all her might. She could hear Xander and Sebastian behind her, frantically urging her to release him and to back away slowly. She heard them trying to calm Niklas, reminding him that he didn’t want to hurt her.
Xander even taunted him. “It’s me you want, Seer. Put the female aside.”
“Please,” she whispered, ignoring them. “Please, Niklas. Remember the meadow. Remember how you held me.” His grip lightened and he stopped pushing at her. “That’s it, Niklas. Remember how you kissed me.” She pressed gentle kisses to his cheek and the side of his neck. “Remember how you made love with me? Come back to me.”
His hands slid around, cupping her bottom. A deep purring rumbled up from his chest.
Xander and Sebastian went abruptly silent. Then, cautiously, Sebastian advised, “Ah, Carly.” He cleared his throat. “You, ah, you don’t want to be doing that.”
Ignoring Sebastian, she arched her back, rubbing her breasts against Niklas’s chest. He growled, low and deep. But this wasn’t a growl of challenge or threat. Leaning back, she cupped his cheek in one hand, balancing herself by keeping one arm wrapped around his neck. He supported all of her weight in the palms of his hands. Effortlessly. His enormous erection pressed demandingly against her.
Staring deep into glacier eyes, she sternly demanded, “Niklas, you must change back now. Do you hear me? I can’t be with you like this. You would hurt me. You must change back.”
He blinked at her, confused at first. Denial. Resistance. He shook his head. But then his attention drifted to her mouth, to where her body pressed against his.
“Now, Niklas. Change back, now.”
Reluctant understanding.
He transformed back, right there in her arms. Behind her, she heard Sebastian’s surprised exclamation. Heard Xander’s snort of disgust. She didn’t care. She pressed her lips to his and kissed Niklas with everything she had in her.
Chest heaving, he eventually set her on the ground.
“I’m fine,” he told her. Turning his burning gaze to Xander, he warned, “Don’t ever put her at risk again. For any reason.”
Xander appraised him for a long moment. At length he conceded with a curt nod.
Niklas captured her left wrist, lifted it for his inspection. His eyes slowly lifted to hers, and she cringed. To say he was upset was an understatement. For a moment, she feared he might go demonic again. Holding his hand out, palm up, he conjured her jewelry. Without a word, he fastened the necklace around her neck, the bracelet on her wrist. But as he took her hand in his and positioned the ring at the tip of her ring finger, his eyes met hers.
“Never take this off again,” he demanded.
“Never again,” she dutifully repeated. He pushed the ring into place, gently. Firmly. Niklas captured her chin in his hand, lifted her face and planted a possessive kiss on her lips.
Releasing her, Niklas faced the others. Stiffening once more, he spoke quietly to Carly. “Go upstairs.”
Glancing over her shoulder at Xander and Sebastian, Carly shook her head. Xander was angry. Very, very angry. Sebastian looked as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or swear.
“I’ll stay,” she insisted, turning to stand at his side. If his friends were going to catch hell for what had happened, so would she. It was just as much her fault as theirs.
“Damn it, Carly. Go upstairs.”
Now she glowered at him. “I’m not going upstairs. I said I was sorry that I took the guard stones off. We will deal with this together.”
“Oh, we will discuss that later. Now, go upstairs. Xander, Sebastian and I have much to discuss.”
Planting fists on hips, she squared off against the three of them. “I’m not some child to be sent to her room as a punishment. I’ll stay. I’ll stand besi—”
“Damn it, woman,” Niklas exclaimed a moment before he snagged her wrist.
Without warning, the room swam before her eyes. She got that horrible falling sensation as he shimmered them to the bedroom upstairs. She was still fighting to regain her equilibrium when he growled, “You will remain here while I deal with Sebastian and Xander.”
“Niklas, wait,” she pleaded. “It was my fault. Don’t—”
“Xander knew perfectly well the consequences of taking you to a nest. He would never have taken his own mate to one—he should not have taken mine.”
Her mouth fell open. She didn’t know how to respond.
And the next thing she knew, she was staring at the closed door. Alone. Her mouth snapped closed. She sucked in an outraged breath through flared nostrils. Marching to the door, she jerked on the handle. And jerked. The door wouldn’t budge.
“Niklas!” Carly bellowed, slapping the flat of her hand on the door. “You let me out of here right now, do you hear me? Niklas! Sebastian!” She pounded until her palm stung. Desperate, she even tried calling, “Xander!” Nothing. She should have known better. Carly kicked the door until her toe throbbed, railing, shouting, “Damn you! Just you wait, Niklas!”
Chapter Eighteen
Niklas could hear her shouting, and cursing him, as could everyone else in the room. The sound of her small fists banging on the door echoed all the way downstairs. For such a little thing, she had one hell of a temper. She was going to hurt herself like that. Frustrated, he strode toward the table, intending to light into Xander for his dangerous stunt. Halfway there, he heard a loud crash and flinched.
What in the name of Mother Mary was she doing up there?
Grimacing, he pulled out a chair and took a seat, waiting for the others to do the same.
“Never again, Slayer.”
Xander gave him a gimlet stare.
“You treat her with the same kid gloves you’d treat Kyanna with from now on, you got me?”
That managed to get a reaction out of the fearsome warrior. Both dark eyebrows arched. Eventually, when Niklas refused to back down, Xander nodded. Beside him, Sebastian let out a muffled curse.
“Where’d Gideon go?” Sebastian asked. Every demon in the room was an alpha, but Sebastian was the only one with any kind of diplomatic skills. Changing the subject before Niklas could take Xander to task any further was probably a good idea. The last thing they needed right now was to be at odds with each other.
Xander shrugged, not as in he didn’t care about Gideon, but as in he had no idea where the Demon of Temptation had gone. And Mikhail was still MIA. Just freakin’ brilliant.
“Redimio Cruor Ritus? A binding ritual?” Sebastian pulled the chair from the table, spun it around and straddled it. “Seriously, dude?”
In for a penny, in for a pound. These two had had his back more times than he could count. As he’d had theirs. He owed them the truth. But he wouldn’t regret his decision, no matter how difficult it might make his life now.
“It’s done.”
“I get that, but why?” This from Sebastian. Xander, who had a mate of his own, apparently didn’t need to ask.
“Because I had to.” Raking a hand through his hair, he fought to find the right words. “I don’t expect you to understand. Hell, I don’t understand. Or I didn’t at the time. It was just something that I—I needed do. I had to know she would be safe. No matter what happened. I couldn’t trust stones and crystals to do the job.” He glared pointedly at Xander, but didn’t push the issue. “Keeping her safe has become more important to me than anything else.”
“Anything?” Leave it to Xander to cut straight to the heart of the situation.
“Anything,” Niklas repeated, not batting an eye. The look he sent across the table challenged Xander to pursue that particular point. He’d made his choice. Nothing Sebastian said—or anyone else, for that matter—was going to change how he felt.
“She’s human.” Conjuring a Pepsi, Xander succinctly summed up his argument on the subject in those two fatalistic words.
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Angry now, Niklas slammed the table.
Xander lifted a brow and took another long, serene sip of his soda. Heaving a sigh, Niklas leashed his temper. Point taken. In a calmer tone, he tried his best to explain his guilty conscience—and these jumbling, volatile emotions—to comrades who wouldn’t judge him. He knew any objections they presented would be voiced purely for the sake of trying to help him. Because that was what they did for him. And that was what he did for them.
Brothers-in-arms.
Friends, whether they cared to admit it or not.
“Sorry,” Niklas muttered. “I know she’s human. I know she’ll die. But there’s a connection. One I couldn’t shake even before I performed Redimio Cruor Ritus.”
“She’s grown attached to you too, dude. A blind Garnoch could see that.” Sebastian flexed his hands and tapped the tabletop. “Don’t get me wrong, I like her. I do. She’s feisty. But she’s human. Not a demon, or a Halfling, even one however-removed, like Kyanna. Our world isn’t safe for her, Seer,” he added gently.
Niklas was silent for a moment. It didn’t sit well, knowing that she could be in danger just by association. “I know that. Lucifer’s balls, don’t you think I already know that?”
“You lost your way,” Xander rasped.
Niklas leaned back. Hadn’t he been wondering that, deep down, since the moment he’d scooped her up in that park and carried her back to his apartment? Was he just using her as an excuse? Had she just been the catalyst for a choice that had been a long time coming? “I don’t know,” he answered truthfully.
“Then how can you make this decision?” Leave it to Sebastian to be reasonable.
Too bad his body and emotions where Carly were concerned were anything but reasonable.
And that was before he’d factored in his beliefs, his faith. Once he added in all he’d done over the course of the last two hundred years to redeem himself, once he’d taken into consideration the sacrifices he’d offered—sacrifices he’d given in vain, or so it would seem more and more of late—his faith had begun to falter. He could admit that, at least to himself.
But he still couldn’t bring himself to view keeping Carly as turning his back on God. It wasn’t the same. He could still have both.
Licking his lips, he bit the proverbial bullet. “You might as well know the rest. The bond is permanent.”
“Holy hell, are you sure?” Sebastian conjured a stress ball. Rolling the squishy bit of rubber in his hands, he peered at Niklas. “I mean, I thought—given time—the Redimio Cruor Ritus wears off.” He glanced to Xander. “Right?”
“Usually,” Xander confirmed.
“I altered some of the elements of the rite. Actually, I altered most of them.” Seeing he was going to have to take them through this one step at a time, he heaved a sigh and went over every step of the process, noting every crystal and every stone he’d used. He held his hands up, displaying the scars across both his palms, and told them he’d used a Bloodrite Athamé—one of thirteen sacred daggers designated specifically for blood-bound or sacrificial rituals. Rituals that could never be undone.
And he told them of the scrolls he’d stolen from Lucifer’s grimoire.
That last brought a stunned, speechless stare from Sebastian. You could have knocked Xander from his chair with a feather.
“Dude,” Sebastian said once he found his voice.
“There’s more.”
Xander rolled his eyes and shook his head, and Niklas vehemently craved a beer. Something told him before the night was through he was going to be wishing for a case of something whole lot stronger, but he resisted that particular temptation. He never went past his self-imposed limit of one can. Never. A demon with lowered inhibitions was a menace to himself and everyone around him.
“Something happened during the rite. I don’t know exactly how it happened. But I can’t see her aura anymore.”
Sebastian went absolutely still. His mouth hanging open, his eyes wide. Xander’s response was much more predictable. He frowned.
“I can still see other humans’ auras. Just not hers.”
Sebastian stood up and began prowling the confines of the kitchen. “There has to be a way to reverse this. A way to—”
“No.” Niklas cut him off. “There is no way. I don’t want to reverse anything.”
“Are you saying you want to stay bonded to this mortal woman? To always have her there in the back of your mind? To always be drawn to her?”
“Giving up,” Xander said quietly, appraising him with shrewd eyes over the rim of his Pepsi can.
Sebastian skidded to a halt, whipped around to stare at Niklas in obvious shock.
“I’m not giving up,” he denied. “Do I still want absolution? Yes. Do I still hope to find my way back to God’s grace? Definitely! But Carly has come to mean something very special to me.” He paused, licking his lips. No, those words weren’t adequate for the emotions she stirred in him. “Something I can’t explain. You should understand this, Xander. It’s important to me that you understand, both of you. All of you. She’s not a consolation prize because I’ve given up on redemption.
“And I’m not settling. I know she’ll—” Sweet Mary, it was hard just speaking the words aloud. “I know someday she’ll die. I know that I’ll have to stand by and let it happen, there’s nothing I can do to stop it. But being with her is something I have to do.”
“Are you stepping away from the legion?” Sebastian braced his hands on the back of the chair, leaned forward. “Is that what you’re trying to tell us? That you want out?”
“No.” Swearing, Niklas pushed back from the table and crossed to the counter. He settled back and crossed his arms and his ankles. “I don’t want out. I intend to stay. I intend to continue on the path that I’ve—that we’ve all—chosen. But I’m going to do it with her by my side. I need you to accept that. Accept her.”
“And if we don’t?” Xander
tilted his head, staring Niklas down.
Niklas restrained himself—barely—from leaping across the table and shoving his commitment to Carly down Xander’s ravaged throat. Niklas had accepted Kyanna. All the others had too. Why couldn’t Xander accept Carly? But forcing the issue with violence wouldn’t help. He didn’t want to have to choose between his comrades-in-arms and the woman he’d claimed for his own.
The woman he’d fallen in love with.
Dear Lord! That admission sent a jolt of adrenaline coursing through his system.
He loved her.
“I won’t give her up,” he stated. It would be one of the most difficult things he’d ever do, but if his hand were forced, he’d choose her.
“I hate to sound like a broken record, Seer,” Sebastian spoke up, “but again, our world isn’t safe for her. Even Kyanna has some defense against our kind. Carly has nothing.”
“She has me,” he barked. “Besides, our world is her world. The battles we fight are for people just like her. The innocents we save are her kind. I can protect her better if she is with me, with us.”
Xander was silent for quite some time. Niklas was patient, though, knowing how Xander liked to brood. Eventually a nefarious grin curled the edges of Xander’s lips.
Sebastian took the bait first. “What?”
“Mikhail.”
Niklas didn’t know whether to grin or groan. On one hand, Xander had just given his stamp of approval, Xander-style. On the other, he’d reminded Niklas that, while Carly had met and accepted Gideon, Xander and Sebastian, she had yet to meet the most fearsome—the most antisocial—of them all.
Great. Just frickin’ great.
“Tick tock,” Xander said, vanishing his empty can of Pepsi. Meaning they had too much on their plate to sit around chatting like old women for much longer.
“Yeah, yeah, slave driver,” Sebastian complained, softening his accusation with a half grin. “I’m headed to Michigan. After you took off, Asher gave me the location of a descendant of the Guardian of the Sword of Kathnesh. Asher feels the descendant should be able to sense the sword, should be able to track it. The descendant is like us, but just doesn’t know it, according to Asher, whatever the hell that means. So the sword might not be off the table after all.”
