by Misty Dietz
“Stop acting so sanctimonious, Ari. You’re only here because if I get too sick, you’ll start feeling it in your bones, too.”
“I’m still cross, yes. How much abuse do you expect a man to take? But if you think I’m only here for myself, you never really knew me.” It shamed him how much he desired to hear her deny his words. How much he hungered for her to say she did know him. That she was sorry for all the times she pushed him away. For not understanding that his search for Jade was an act of commitment.
Without answering, she walked away from her house, toward the rocky outcropping. His gut hollowed out. Another rejection. He should really go and stay gone this time. But the ache to touch her, to feel her body rise and fall over his, to laugh together the way they often had after making love…that ache never went away, regardless of how many oceans he put between them.
In the good times in her arms, he’d felt as free as he ever had on the high seas.
Until the day everything changed.
When he’d first returned with Jade and encountered Kat’s hostility, he dealt with his tangled emotions by keeping busy. He fought demons and exorcised humans in whichever pocket of the globe their Guardian leader Alexios identified as the most dangerous. Every full moon, he attempted to communicate with her, but she’d not only set wards to keep him away physically, she also blocked their mental pathways.
After Ari suffered a near-mortal wound, Alexios invited him to join Unholy Inc, a partnership of five Guardians whose nightclubs were home base for their demon-hunting activities. But with Kat already one of the partners, he knew it would make her uncomfortable.
Give her space. Give her time. That’s what everyone had counseled. So he kept on the move, stayed busy, so he wouldn’t have to think.
Or feel.
Easier said than done.
Ari looked down, his gaze falling upon a pile of small white shells. She’d always loved them, their smooth texture calming. He built a gentle wind around the shells, swirling them in a clockwise motion until they floated in the air. Then he pushed the current toward Kat where she’d chosen a large boulder—twenty feet back from the surf—as her perch. The shells wound about her like a cocoon. Connected through his air element, it felt as though he was touching her with his own hands.
Kat closed her eyes, then stood, bringing a whip-like stream of water out of the tide pools to douse the shells. Ari let them drop. Kat climbed down from the boulder and tossed, “Just go away,” over her shoulder.
Suddenly, a wave of dark energy detonated through the air, turning flowers, shrubs, and trees black. Birds fell from the sky and from their treetop perches.
A chill darted down Ari’s spine. He slowly turned to look out over the ocean. In the distance, a woman garbed in inky blue hovered over the suddenly still water. The ocean—unmoving—was the most unnatural thing he’d ever seen.
After Jade’s urgent call this morning, he’d reached out telepathically to Alexios, owner of the Unholy Inc club ETHER in Tampa, Florida. He wanted to find out if there was anything he should know before showing up here in Hawaii. Alexios immediately mentioned Leviathan—one of the archdemons freed at Nate Temple’s Minneapolis club TERRA during last month’s rending of the Earth-Hell Seam. The ancient Guardian, beloved of the Archangel Michael, had spoken of Leviathan bringing waters of chaos.
Ari squeezed his fists at his sides, a bygone, yet familiar aggression rising, as he watched Satan’s daughter hover over the water. He opened his palms toward the sea, calling to the air masses that had freakishly deserted the vicinity around the archdemon.
The archdemon’s wild halo of writhing chestnut hair seemed to have a life of its own. She shook her head and yelled something in an otherworldly language that made the hairs rise on the back of his neck and a cold sweat break out across his temples. Had to be Enochian—the Language of Angels. But she wasn’t an angel, so how could she speak it? Had her father, the original fallen angel, taught her? What did it mean? Ari squinted, his acute Guardian eyesight bringing her—heartbroken?—expression into focus.
Definitely not the look he expected. It revved his pulse. “Go in the house and refortify your wards with all possible haste,” he told Katherine, keeping his eyes on Leviathan as she extended a hand, then let it drop.
In the next instant, the demon princess was gone.
What the hell? Ari’s gaze searched the horizon. His senses wove through the atmosphere to determine if the archdemon had cloaked her location, but he came up empty. When the tide resumed, some of the birds staggered to their feet. Ari glanced behind him, but Katherine was nowhere in sight. Once more, he sent his senses among the competing air pressures in all directions around the property—this time searching for Katherine’s essence. She was in the house, but he couldn’t detect any lingering traces of her wards. He frowned. She was usually the one the Guardians called upon when they needed extra powerful protection spells against evil. Usually those special talents extended to her own fortressed home. That she’d now left her dwelling so vulnerable spoke volumes about her physical decline.
How long had she been this unwell? And why had no one told him how sick she was until she was so ill he began to feel it in his own body? For the last three days, aches and pains and nausea had washed over him at unexpected times. It wasn’t until Jade called that he realized the symptoms were coming from his connection to Kat.
He reached into the ether to contact Alexios about Leviathan’s appearance and to give him a good ass chewing, but a moment after he opened the telepathic pathway, Alexios appeared on the sand before him. With haunted blue-gray eyes, long shaggy hair, and face overgrown with mustache and beard, the Guardian leader’s entire stance appeared at once restless and motionless.
A tormented soul, capable of extreme violence.
And the type of love that goes down in history books.
Like all Guardians, Ari knew their leader’s suffering stemmed from his connection to a human woman called Sophia. The ancient Spartan had never spoken of it, but the couple’s tale had been pieced together over the millennia from Guardians who’d fought beside him. Alexios had apparently struck a deal with the Almighty to keep Sophia with him through eternity. To do this, she would be reincarnated over and over. Alexios found her in each lifetime, keeping her safe from demons who hunted her.
The process gave immortal Alexios no peace, save for the fleeting moments he held her in his arms.
Ari’s accusations fell away. He couldn’t be angry with anyone for not telling him about Katherine’s condition. As her soul mate, it was his responsibility to see to her care. His and Kat’s obstacles were nothing compared to Alexios and Sophia’s.
“You didn’t have to come all this way. I know you haven’t been able to find Sophi—” Ari was face down in the sand before he could even blink.
“We are not discussing my business.” Alexios’s low voice rumbled in the air around them. “Katherine has suffered for too long, Grimm. Does your arrival mean you will no longer neglect your duties to your compar?”
Ari rolled to his feet, spitting out sand. “I’m not going anywhere.” He brushed his hands on his pants. “I will care for her.” It would leave more scars, but after she was well, he’d try to forget her on the open seas…or maybe he’d return to the Himalayas. Mount Everest was not nearly as cold as Kat’s heart.
Alexios assessed him, intently. “You and Katherine need to lay aside your wounded vanities. Disharmony between compars creates weakness within our ranks. With four archdemons loose upon the Earth, there could be no worse time for vulnerability.”
Ari made no comment.
If only it were that easy to heal two battered hearts.
Alexios regarded him for a moment longer. “Let me know should you need help with the water demon. I have not faced her before, but there’ve been reports that she’s a loner in Hell.”
Ari nodded. Loners could be the most dangerous opponents because they were good at keeping everyone in the dark. Good
at keeping secrets.
No one knew for sure how Alexios obtained all his information, but besides being Archangel Michael’s favorite, he was one of the few Guardians who could manipulate the ether—the metaphysical energy of the atmosphere and inherent in all living things. Every Guardian had one physical element they could control, but Alexios could harness the power of all of them. He could stir the sea, propel the wind, detonate volcanoes, and grow mammoth sequoias from aught but a seed.
He could also destroy a man’s mind with a whisper.
Ari looked out to sea. “She was right there, watching Kat’s house, and she was very much alone.”
“Did she attempt contact?”
“No. She drew further into herself when she felt my energy. She looked distraught—almost lost. It was odd. Maybe she was feeling the ill-effects of being in daylight for too long? I don’t know. If she’s here to take possession of Kat’s relic, why hasn’t she made a move for the two weeks she’s been in the area?” Another thing he hadn’t known before Jade’s call, otherwise he would’ve been here sooner.
Alexios shrugged. “I gave up demon psychology a thousand years ago, but what we started seeing last month at TERRA is that these archdemons are able to tolerate sunlight a lot better than when we’ve faced them in the past.”
Ari frowned. One more Guardian advantage they could no longer count on.
“Be ready for anything,” Alexios continued. “And don’t trust a damn thing any of them say.”
“I won’t.” Ari briefly glanced at Kat’s house, anxious to set his own wards on her place. “I have a good tracker in the Himalayas if you haven’t looked there for Sophia y—”
Alexios vanished in a violent explosion of sand and water, from which it took Ari the better part of a minute to extract himself.
Touchy. Lately, all the Guardians were uptight. Ari shook the remaining sand out of his hair, refilled the ten-foot hole in the beach using massive pulses of wind, then opened his palm, moving his arm through the air, sending highly charged molecules into all stratifications of the atmosphere to serve as tripwires, alerting him to any encroaching malevolent energy.
Because Leviathan would be back.
But he—and Kat—would be ready.
Chapter 3
Katherine slipped out of her cotton shift and into a sleeveless designer dress and python knee-high boots. Her gaze kept wandering out her second-story bedroom window that overlooked the beach. Ari stood there like a Norse warrior venerated in stone. How such a vibrant, restless man could stand so still like that had always fascinated her. He was either a cyclone or a statue. A man of contradictions. But of course, not many of them were visible until you really got to know him. Trust him.
That was probably true of everyone, but she’d never bared her soul to another—human or Guardian—like she had to Ari.
Katherine went to her dresser mirror to repin her bun, fingers shaking ever so slightly. No doubt about it, his mere presence had rejuvenated her more than all the sleep, meditation, and nutritious food she’d had in the last several months. It would be irrational to deny herself such healing. Not only that, but he might conclude she was more vulnerable to him than she was letting on if she continued to make such a fuss about keeping him away.
His presence should be no big deal.
The conundrum was how to convince her heart to turn off its boom-badda-boom-boom every time he curved those sexy lips at her. Because they simply didn’t work together. Ari was a traveler. A gypsy Viking at heart. If he stayed in one place for too long, his spirit would wither and die like his disabled grandfather’s had. Ari wasn’t afraid of much, but putting down roots—the permanence of that—was another story. She couldn’t ask him to change any more than she could make herself—a homebody—be someone she wasn’t, either. Ultimately, it would kill their relationship.
And if that wasn’t enough, he’d shattered her trust when he walked away when she needed him the most.
After the miscarriage, she’d stripped away every shred of her dignity to beg him to stay with her, but her pleas had fallen on deaf ears. She’d never forget the resolution in his eyes. There’d been nothing she could’ve said that would have made him love her enough to stay and comfort her. To just be with her while she grieved. So they could mourn together.
Instead, he made her feel like a failure as a woman and a mother.
Katherine glanced at Ari on the beach once more before hurrying down to the garage. By the time she slid into the leather interior of her convertible, Ari was opening the passenger door. A flush of pleasure warmed her before she mercilessly squelched it. He’d always been able to gauge her location. He’d explained that it was almost like he had heat-sensing GPS where she was concerned.
She frowned at him, put the top up on the convertible, and started the ignition. “I’m going to work. There’s bound to be lots of chaos when the club gets into full swing.”
“Perfect. You know I thrive in mayhem. I look forward to a complete tour of AQUA. I only got through the upper terrace before you threw me out the last time.”
She held back a snort at the thought of anyone besides Alexios or an archangel being able to physically remove Ari from anywhere. If he’d really wanted to stay, there would have been nothing she could’ve done to make him leave.
But he was good at leaving.
She pulled out of the garage and sped toward Highway 61 toward Waikiki Beach. “You only stay when it’s easy for you,” she said finally, wondering why she was even bothering to discuss any of this. Wishing she hadn’t opened her damn mouth when she heard him sigh.
“You’re wrong, Katherine. I’ve tried to be respectful of your space these last few years, even though you misunderstood my intentions when I left to find Jade. But you clearly need me to stay this time.”
“God, you are sooo full of yourself! The only inevitability is our incompatibility. You think you were being heroic for finding my long lost family member and giving the little woman time to get over losing her baby, but what about you, Ari?” She glanced over at his steely jaw. “Have you ever thought that maybe you left because you couldn’t deal with your own feelings?”
His gaze swung from the view out the windshield to her. “Are you kidding me? We’ve never been a touchy-feely couple. Talking about my emotions and how gutted I felt when our baby died wasn’t going to help anything.” The miles sped by as the silence deepened in the car. Ari looked out the passenger window. “You were drowning in your grief. I wasn’t going to add mine to your pain.”
Katherine’s head leaned back against the head rest. “But that’s what people do—they share. It reminds us we’re not…” Alone. Why were some words so hard to say out loud? And why wasn’t he asking her to finish her statement? What if all along he’d been pursuing her out of a misguided duty as her compar?
“Michael told me this morning that we have more than one possible soul mate.” Her words hung in the stifling car air. His gaze on her face felt like scorching sand under her bare feet, but she kept her eyes on the road.
“I’ve always known that, Kat. I choose you anyway.”
She wriggled her nose when her eyes started to prickle. She flicked the radio on, and Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude in D Flat filled the car with its haunting piano. Ari promptly switched the station to heavy metal. She didn’t dare glance at him before looking down to switch it back to classical.
“Woman.” Ari grabbed the steering wheel and swerved the car back to their side of the road. The passing vehicle’s shrill horn made Katherine’s hairs stand on end. The slight tilt to Ari’s beautiful lips meant trouble.
“I know my rakish good looks and masculine charm are distracting, but really, Kat, you need to pay more attention to the road.”
“Oh, shut up,” she muttered, grateful for the levity. No more heavy shit—no matter how much he baits you. He hadn’t come up with any kind of response to her sharing comment, which only confirmed her belief that he just didn’t have it in him to
be that kind of partner. He’d always be a Viking wanderer at heart, happier exploring and fighting than living a quiet life with a family. It shouldn’t surprise her.
Or hurt so bad all over again.
She scowled so other emotions would stay buried. “And, just so we’re clear, when Leviathan showed up, I did not go inside because you told me to. I was already on my way to get my crucifix and holy water. So don’t go thinking you have any influence on me.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders as he flipped to a Jazz station. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Okay then. His easy acceptance was way more annoying than it should be. She promptly turned the radio off to irritate him.
Then realized they were back to silence.
Ari had always been a chatty one. He’d even told her how he used to prattle on with his enemies before running them through with his sword. Must’ve been all those hours on a ship with only the faces of his blood-thirsty comrades. Barbarians all of them.
Just her shitty cosmic luck to be a reserved, homebody suffragette tied to a loquacious, nomadic savage. Nice.
He swiveled in the seat to angle toward her. No easy task when his knees were already pressed against the glove compartment.
Her fingers squeezed the steering wheel until her knuckles paled. “Stop. Staring.” You loquacious, nomadic savage. Gods, yes, she was going to use that description to remind herself not to go to bed with him. He’d make her feel amazing up until the moment he departed. Then she’d feel even worse than before because her ensuing malaise would be both physical and emotional.
God.
His gaze now felt like a warm waterfall with her standing naked beneath it.
“How do you plan to handle Leviathan if you’re not going to let me touch you?” he asked softly.
She shivered violently even though it had to be pushing ninety degrees outside. He seemed so unrattled by Leviathan’s strange arrival. Then again, Alexios had probably already told him that the archdemon had set up camp around Honolulu. Alexios, Ari, and Raj—another free-agent Guardian like Ari—had fought more archdemon uprisings than any other Guardians. “You can go back to globe trotting if all you’re going to do is suggest intercourse.”
