Darkness Arisen

by Stephanie Rowe

  “I know.” Ry’s voice was soft. “Trust me, I know.”

  Ian glanced at Ryland in surprise, wondering who had died in the warrior’s life. But before he could question him, the images of Alice’s deaths flashed through his mind. Too real. Too visceral. Too debilitating. Those thoughts were really not helping his cause.

  Ian ground his jaw, fighting to distance himself from the agony of losing her. He focused on her as she crested the rock, drinking in the glint of the turquoise moonlight on her wet hair. He breathed deeply, inhaling her scent even from a distance. She was alive. In front of him. Not dead. Not right now. See? It was a rosy day on the beach, right? All good.

  As he watched her, he felt himself beginning to separate from her as he rebuilt the walls that had protected him from the curse. The emotional shields that had kept him from noticing any female, let alone bonding with one.

  “Hey.” Ryland glanced sharply at him. “You going to go get her or what?”

  “Nope.” Ian knew he had no choice. “She’s alive. I saved her. My job’s done.”

  Ryland’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Paying my debt to my father.” Ian felt the familiar lack of emotion settle over him, wiping away the flash of regret that he was isolating himself from her. He’d had to rebuild himself after Alice had died in his arms the first time, and he was better at it now. No more spending months in chains just to stay alive. He was a veritable rock. Go, him.

  Now that he knew she was safe, he had to let her go. He had a promise to keep, a debt owed, family honor to restore. He had to find a way to release the souls of his seven dishonored ancestors from their ignominious hell reserved for Order of the Blade members who died ignobly…by their own hand.

  Until Ian broke the curse and freed the souls of his father and grandfather, they would suffer in eternity. And if he died before he broke the curse? Eternal hell for all. He was the last Fitzgerald. There would be no one left to save them. There was no way he was going to risk that just because he had the hots for a certain angel.

  He’d spent too long chasing her down. It was time to move on. Refusing to acknowledge the regret, he forced himself to turn away. He grabbed his shirt off the beach, the one she’d rejected. He yanked it over his head and began to stride back toward the road, toward the SUV that had brought the three men there.

  “Hey!” Ryland jumped in front of him and shoved at his chest. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Leaving.” Ian sidestepped him and kept walking, keeping his back toward the water and the woman who could so easily reach into his soul and crush it. Because who had time to have their soul crushed? No one he knew.

  “The hell you are.” Ryland grabbed his arm and spun him back. “Some bastard we don’t know is trying to destroy the Order, and he’s trying to wipe out our trio of guardian angels. We’ve found Sarah, but there are still two more, one of which we’re pretty damn sure is the woman who’s got you all twisted up.”

  “What are you talking about?” That was the first Ian had heard about someone trying to destroy the Order. He knew they’d had some close calls recently when one of their teammates, Kane Santiago, had tracked his sheva into a hell storm, but Ian had been hunting for Alice at the time, and he’d missed out on it. “Who’s trying to take down the Order?” Battles were one thing, nothing more than a typical day, but someone targeting the Order specifically was a different matter. No one dared take them on.

  Frustration flashed across Ryland’s face. “We don’t know. Kane saw him, but he was insane at the time, so he doesn’t remember much. Gideon and Quinn are trying to track the guy. You and I have been assigned to find Alice and determine whether she is one of the Order’s guardian angels.”

  “Him? What do you know about him?” A dark foreboding began to seethe inside him, an ominous sense of something seriously wrong. “What did I miss?”

  “What did you miss?” Ryland spat at him in disgust. “You missed a hell of a lot over the last year while you were pining over the death of your sheva instead of being where you needed to be.”

  Ian was not interested in revisiting the months he’d spent chained up because he’d been too pathetic to keep himself alive after Elijah had done his Order duty of protecting his teammate by murdering Ian’s sheva before she could turn him insane. Ian was aware that he’d failed to deliver as an Order member, and it was a bitter taste in his mouth. “I’m not talking about what happened back then. I’m talking about what’s going on now.” The past was a done deal, but if there were problems now, he wanted to be a part of the team that would handle it.

  Ryland shook his head, and Ian didn’t miss the unflinching evasiveness in Ryland’s gaze. “You and me pulled angel duty. That’s all that matters. If Alice is part of the trio that protects us, then we bring her back to Dante’s mansion where we can keep her safe. That’s why we’re here.”

  Dante Sinclair, their former leader, had been murdered several months ago. He was a legend, a man of such intense power that he’d been able to lead a team of ruffians. Since his death, the Order had been vulnerable and fragmenting, as no one had ascended into the role of leader. According to Calydon lore, a leader would naturally emerge when the time was right, but no one had landed in the middle of the ballroom with a nametag declaring him as the next Order leader, so they were still flying solo and it wasn’t going well. They were running missions out of Dante’s mansion, which now served as their headquarters.

  Why would they want to take Alice back to Dante’s place? “I came after Alice because I thought she would help me fight off the curse. That’s why I’m here. What the hell else is going on?” He hadn’t been in close contact with the rest of the Order in almost two months. He and Vaughn had been searching relentlessly for Alice and the man who had murdered her, a man named Flynn Shapiro who appeared to be the same race of beings as Vaughn, whatever that was.

  Ry shook his head once. Sharply. “You’ve been cut out of the loop. You’re in no shape to handle the truth, Fitz.”

  Ian stiffened. “What does that mean?”

  “No more fighting for you, Fitz. Not right now. Your job is to get the girl and bring her home.”

  Ian saw the unyielding set to Ryland’s jaw and realized he spoke the truth. He’d been banned from the front lines, and cut from the inner circle. Son of a bitch. “I can’t be benched. The Order is what I live for—”

  “Right now, you’re a vacuum for despair and hell, and you can’t see past your own issues. We needed you in the woods with Kane, and you weren’t there. The team made a decision. Until you pull your shit together, you’re out of combat and out of the information loop.” Ry’s eyes flashed. “Be a fucking man, Ian. Do your job. There aren’t enough of us to save this ship without you. We need you.” Then he turned on his heel and strode back toward the water, toward Alice.

  Ian ran his hand through his hair as he watched Ryland stride toward the water to pursue Alice, the woman who had destroyed everything for him. Before he’d met her, he’d been in control of the curse. He’d also been tracking well toward finding the bastard who’d issued it, and he’d been honoring the legacy of his father and grandfather by becoming one of the most deadly members of the Order of the Blade. He’d been surviving, shoving forward to discharge his oath, until he’d met her a year ago. All had been good until Alice had landed in his arms and his teammate had killed her in the name of the greater good, sending him into a year of hell.

  She was his Achilles heel, his vulnerability. She was the reason he’d been derelict in his duties lately. Escorting her back to the Order? Exposing himself to her again? He knew now it wasn’t worth the risk of jeopardizing everything that mattered to him: the Order, his oath, restoring his family honor.

  It was time to go. Ryland had it under control.

  But as Ian turned away, his instincts roared at him not to leave Alice. He clenched his fists and kept walking, knowing his only chance to stay alive was to get away from her in
fluence. He would be doing no one any favors if he died, and now that Ryland was convinced she was one of the Order’s three guardian angels, she would be well-protected.

  So she was safe. It wasn’t his job to protect her anymore.

  But as he got further away from her, a sheen of sweat broke out over his skin, and his head began to pound. His muscles were so taut that they pulsed with pain, like an invisible cord was binding him to Alice, and it was stretching to the breaking point.

  Ian fisted his hands and lowered his head, as though he were fighting a hurricane force wind trying to stop him from leaving. He focused on things that mattered: the cold metal of his father’s ring, his connection to a family that was long dead, a father who had died because of what he’d done, and what he had to fix.

  There was a loud splash that made Ian jump, and instinctively, he spun around, searching the water for Alice. She wasn’t at the rock where he’d last seen her. Panic hit him before he found her at the base of one of the massive black rocks further out to sea, stretching at least a hundred feet out of the water. She’d clearly decided the first one hadn’t been far enough offshore, and had struck out for one further away.

  The splash had been Ryland hitting the water, and his hard body was striking fast against the waves as he swam after her.

  Alice glanced over her shoulder at Ryland, and Ian saw her stiffen when she realized she was being pursued. She tore her gaze off Ry and looked up, searching the shore. She saw Ian, and for a split second, his heart stopped beating, sucked into the depths of her being. The air seemed to go utterly still, and the sound of the crashing waves went silent, until all that remained was Alice. She froze, her fingers digging into the black rock, her body undulating softly as the waves pushed her around. Her blue tank top was plastered to her skin, and her long hair was cascading down her back. She looked small and vulnerable out there, a tiny thing in a massive ocean, clinging to the base of a black rock that loomed so high and threatening.

  She was a woman with a death sentence on her head…just like him. Destined to die.

  Shit. They were the same. At least in that way. Involuntarily, Ian took a step toward her, then stopped. Jesus. What was he doing? She was too dangerous to him.

  Alice shivered and then tore her gaze from his. She turned her back on him, and started to climb the rock. She was struggling to ascend, and for a split second, she wavered, and he thought she was going to fall—

  His mind suddenly flashed back to the first time he’d seen her. It had been when he and his teammate Elijah had been closing in on the trail of the warrior who had cursed his great grandfather. After hunting him for so long, Ian had scented victory and been so close to his prey…until Alice had come tumbling down the side of a massive cliff that was too damned reminiscent of the rock she was currently trying to climb. She’d jerked him instantly and completely from his single-minded focus on the wizard. He’d had no time to react or think. He’d simply leapt beneath her and caught her, breaking her fall before she crushed herself on the rocks…

  Holy shit. His adrenaline kicked on as he finally connected the facts…realizations that had eluded him because he’d been so busy trying to stay alive. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “She was there.” Alice had been there, in that abandoned, stark section of high desert, when he’d almost nailed Warwick Cardiff, the black magic wizard who had cursed his family. Did she know him? Could she find the wizard for him? What was her connection to the wizard? Or had it been a fluke?

  Fragments of information began to circle in his mind, pieces that didn’t quite fit. Suddenly, Ry’s evasiveness made sense. “Hey!” He broke into a run, sprinting after his teammate. “Ryland!”

  The Order of the Blade member didn’t even look back.

  “Ry!” Ian called out his mace with a loud crack and a flash of black light. “Hey!” He hurled his mace, and it crashed into the water a fraction of an inch from Ryland’s face.

  Ry immediately stopped swimming and spun around. “What the hell was that?”

  Ian charged through the water, the foamy white spray lashing out into the air as his boots broke the surface. “Who’s trying to kill the angels? Who’s after the Order?” It couldn’t be who he thought it was. A coincidence… it couldn’t be. But it made sense. It explained why the Order thought cutting him out was a good idea. “Who is it?”

  Ry stood up in the deep water, the streams of water glittering on his shoulders in the darkness. “You’re out of the loop—”

  “It’s Warwick, isn’t it? Warwick Cardiff? That’s who it is?”

  Ry frowned. “Who is Warwick Cardiff?”

  Ian swore, realizing that Ryland really didn’t know. But Gideon and Kane and a few of the others knew the name. Ry was too obsessed with his own hell to bother with anyone else’s problems. They might have realized the connection, but not told Ryland the details. Ian decided to fill him in, not caring why the others might have wanted Ry in the dark. “He’s the wizard who cursed my family—”

  Ryland snorted in disgust. “Shit, Ian. Let it go. We don’t have time for that—”

  “We might.” Ian looked past Ryland to where Alice was almost to the top of the rock. “When Elijah and I were tracking Cardiff, Alice was there. We were in the middle of the high desert,” he said. “No one was around for a hundred miles…except Alice. The only footprints we saw there were the hoofprints of Cardiff’s horse. Why else would she be there?”

  If Alice could help him find Warwick, there was no way he was letting her go, no matter how dangerous she was.

  Ry stared at him. “Hoofprints,” he echoed. “Your wizard rides a horse?”

  “Yeah, a black stallion that can fly. Deathbringer.” Ian’s adrenaline suddenly went on alert at Ry’s stunned expression. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” Ryland turned quickly away, but not before Ian saw the evasive flick of his eyes.

  Ian knew then. Without Ryland even saying a word, he knew. The man trying to destroy the Order had been riding a black horse. Warwick? The bastard wasn’t satisfied with taking out the Fitzgerald clan? “You need me,” Ian said softly as he looked toward the rock. “If it’s Warwick, you can’t do it without me.” Ian had spent thousands of hours researching demon magic to try to find a way to break the curse. He hadn’t succeeded, but he understood a lot more about magic than the rest of the team did.

  “Alice is the one we need,” Ryland said, quickly, softly, but there was no mistaking the determination in his tone. Alice was not getting away from the Order. Not today. “She’s one of our angels. Without her, we are nothing.”

  Ian looked toward the rock, and anticipation pulsed through him as he watched her pull herself up onto the top. Her body was lithe and strong, her hips curved and appealing. The turquoise moon cast a vibrant tint across her skin, making hot desire surge far too powerfully.

  Dangerous didn’t even begin to describe her, but at the same time…was she his chance? The opening he’d been searching for?

  She looked back over her shoulder at him, as if she’d felt his stare. She tensed when she saw he was closer to her now. This time, there wasn’t heat emanating from her gaze. Her eyes narrowed, her muscles tightened, and she shook her head once. Rejecting him without caring what he wanted. Telling him to back off.

  If she could lead him to Warwick, there was no chance of that happening. No matter how badly they both wanted to go their separate ways.

  “Stay here,” he ordered Ryland, without taking his gaze off Alice. “I’ll handle this.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Ian shoved past him, but Ryland grabbed his arm. “Fitz.”

  Ian looked at him. “What?”

  “The future of the Order is at stake. If Alice is involved, if your wizard is involved, you need to step aside. You aren’t capable of handling either of them.”

  Ian’s eyes blazed at the insult. “You’ve fought beside me for six hundred years. You’re questioning my ability to be a warrior?”

  Ryland didn
’t look away. “Yeah, I am. Now that Dante is dead, we still have no one who has stepped into the role of our leader. I will not let the Order die. It’s more important to me than your ego.”

  Fury began to simmer through him. “I am descended from—”

  “A line of males too weak to keep themselves alive,” Ryland said.

  Ian stiffened. “That’s all you see when you look at the legendary men who were the best Order of the Blade members ever to exist? That’s all you fucking see?”

  Something flickered in Ry’s eyes. “No, it’s not all I see,” he admitted. He met Ian’s gaze and gave a slight nod. “Okay, Fitz, you have one chance. Get the girl, bring her back here, and we’ll return to the mansion. If you snap, if you fail, you’re done, and I will lead the team sent to strip you of your title. Got it?”

  Ian’s lip curled in disgust, but he said nothing. He was worthy of being in the Order. It was all he lived for. He would not let them cut him out. If Warwick Cardiff was indeed the one trying to take down the Order, they needed him…and they might need Alice, depending on what her true story was.

  He gave no response to Ryland. He simply pushed past him, heading right toward the woman who was more than he could handle, toward the woman who could die any second, toward the woman who was supposed to be his sheva, and yet inexplicably didn’t want a damn thing to do with him.

  Too bad for her.

  They were about to get involved, whether she wanted to or not.

  Risky as it was, he couldn’t help but feel damned pleased at the idea of making things happen with the angel who could bring him to his knees with a single kiss.

  Self-preservation? Fuck it. He was going in, and he did nothing halfway.

  Chapter Five

  Alice’s heart began to race as she saw Ian dive through the waves in pursuit of her, his powerful body breaking through the whitecaps with minimal effort. Just like before, the mere anticipation of his nearness sent waves of awareness and desire rushing through her…along with a sense of danger.