“Tell me of the realm. What has been happening in my absence?” Thorne scanned the grey courtyard again, picking out all of the males, regardless of species.
One of his elite saluted. “The Fifth King has marched through much of the realm. Many of the border villages had to be abandoned. We have been meeting him whenever we can, trying to drive him back. He has passed through the eighth, seventh and sixth districts to the east.”
Closing in on them. His castle stood at the centre of his realm, and outwards from it radiated bands of land, each of them numbered.
“We cannot risk more men falling. We must meet them now and end this,” Thorne said in English so the mortal hunters would understand too and prepared to call his blade to him.
Sable placed her hand on his, curling her fingers around to brush his palm.
“He can’t teleport out now that Rosalind flipped the spell, Thorne,” she whispered and looked up into his eyes. “We need to strategize. What is the first thing your heart tells you to do?”
His heart said to claim the beautiful female before him.
He pushed that need aside and focused on the good of his kingdom.
“We must evacuate the villages that lay on the path he takes,” he said to her and then turned to the warriors gathered near him, speaking to them in the demon tongue. “I need men to visit the villages between here and where the Fifth King’s army entered our realm. Plot their course through the outer lands and clear any villages that he might pass through to reach the castle.”
The men nodded and split up, each heading towards their small unit of warriors.
Grave ambled towards him, casually wiping blood off his lips with his thumb. It spotted the dark grey shirt he wore but the vampire showed no sign of caring about the mess he had made while feeding. Red ringed his ice-blue irises, his pupils narrow slices in their centres that gradually grew into circles.
Thorne had heard that vampires with bloodlust moderated their intake to avoid episodes and tightening its hold on them. Grave clearly didn’t subscribe to that way of thinking. The male had taken blood from many of the court females, and from the cups offered at the feasts, and from their enemies during the battle at the village too. If anything, the brunet was courting his bloodlust, encouraging it to grow stronger and seize more control over him.
Thorne frowned at Grave’s second in command who walked behind him. That male had come to Grave when Thorne had been on the balcony with Sable.
Perhaps the male’s disappearance had not been a trick of his imagination.
Thorne launched himself at the vampire, catching him before he could react. The male struggled in his grip and his eyes slowly changed, crystal blue emerging in them.
Rakshasa.
The vampire bared his fangs and sank them deep into Thorne’s wrist, tearing at his flesh. Thorne grimaced but kept hold of him, refusing to let go. He would make the bastard pay in blood for what he had done to him and to Fargus.
“What is happening here? Unhand my man!” Grave’s hand closed around Thorne’s throat, squeezing tightly, his claws digging in.
Sable leaped onto the vampire commander’s back and wrapped her arms across his throat, using her weight to haul him backwards and choke him. “You unhand my man.”
Thorne froze and swung his gaze to her, forgetting everything as those words hit him hard, knocking him and making his head reel.
Her man?
The bastard rakshasa used his distraction to his advantage. He spat blood in Thorne’s face, wriggled free and teleported in a blinding white flash before Thorne could grab him again.
Grave froze now, his blue eyes wide and dark eyebrows pinned high on his forehead. Sable continued to choke him, even though he had released Thorne the moment his man had teleported. She seemed to be enjoying it and Thorne was loath to deny her her fun.
The vampire cursed, unleashing a particularly nasty oath, and then growled at Sable. “Release me, impudent female.”
Sable wisely did as he bid, sliding down the male’s back and landing on her feet. She sprang away from him, landing closer to Thorne. Thorne slid his arm around her waist and tugged her against his side, shielding her from the vampire, in case Grave was foolish enough to consider attacking her.
“What is happening here?” Grave turned on him, red edging his pale irises again and his pupils beginning to stretch in their centres, turning elliptical once more.
Sable shirked Thorne’s grip and signalled Olivia. The mortal doctor pulled something from a bag and came to him.
“We have a rakshasa among us,” Thorne bit out and scanned his surroundings again. His arm throbbed, the warm blood sliding down it turning cold as it reached his fingers. Olivia lifted his hand and bandaged the wound for him. He pulled Sable back into his embrace the moment she was within his reach, pinning her against his bare side. “It assumed the form of my commander, Fargus, and yours too. The gods only know how many others it has inhabited and could appear as. I need you all to account for your people.”
“A rakshasa?” Rosalind said, her voice bright with excitement, and everyone’s gazes swung her way, pinning her with looks ranging from surprise to suspicion.
Grave wore the suspicious look.
One day, Thorne would uncover why he despised females. After the things that the vampire Snow and his brother had said, Thorne was more curious about the captain of the First Legion than ever.
“I can help. I can sense a trace of the power the creature uses with…” Rosalind rifled through her leather bag, frowning down at it, her ash blond hair obscuring her face. She pulled out a spiral stick of silver metal embedded with blue and purple jewels. “This. I can locate it with this.”
“And what of those it has inhabited and discarded?” Thorne hated to ask such a question but he needed to find Fargus’s body so he could return it to his mate for a burial.
She nodded.
“Do that and I will be forever in your debt.” He needed to kill this rakshasa and bathe his hands in the bastard’s blood.
“Follow me.” Rosalind closed her eyes, held the spiralling silver wand out in front of her, and started walking.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Olivia whispered and Thorne looked back at her.
Sable nodded in response to her friend and then her expression shifted, and her emotions changed with it. Thorne released her, glad that she had finally made her decision and was going to listen to him.
“We need to talk,” Sable said and Olivia’s expression turned concerned and then she nodded and took Sable’s hand.
Thorne watched them go, his heart heavy and filled with a need to go with his mate, to be there with her and support her as she spoke to her friend about everything that had happened.
She glanced back at him, smiled and waved him towards Rosalind.
He nodded. He would do as she asked and give her some time with Olivia while he searched for the rakshasa and any the creature had killed, but as soon as he was done with his business, they were going to have a discussion of their own.
Two of his men flanked him as he followed Rosalind into the castle, Kyal, Kincaid and Grave at his back, discussing matters between themselves.
She led them downwards, through the winding narrow corridors beneath the main building and then the courtyard. Towards the dungeons.
Thorne’s arm ached as he walked, his thoughts split between Sable and the rakshasa, his emotions flipping between warmth and affection, and cold fury and a pressing need for vengeance.
Rosalind muttered things beneath her breath in a strange tongue as she walked ahead of him. The torches on the walls flickered as she passed, casting golden light in her pale hair. She radiated a sense of danger that had him on edge and he blamed the cramped corridor. It concentrated everyone’s power on his senses, especially hers. She had always felt mildly dangerous to him, but now she felt a thousand times more so.
She paused.
Stood still for so long that everyone behind him began to
get twitchy.
“Rosalind?” Thorne said, his deep voice loud in the corridor.
She looked back at him, her eyes glowing like blue fire, stars twinkling amongst the flames.
Her fair eyebrows rose. “Something wrong?”
He wanted to ask the same thing.
She frowned and looked at her surroundings and then down at her hand and the spiral of silver she grasped. “Something interfered with the signal.”
And with her too, making her forget what she had been doing, judging by the confusion in her eyes.
“This way.” She pointed right.
The entrance to the dungeons.
Thorne couldn’t remember the last time he had been down there. He never had any reason to visit them. No one had been sent there in years. They used most of the expansive cold room for storage these days.
Rosalind took the steps down. Thorne took one of the torches from the wall and followed close behind her, his claws at the ready should the rakshasa attack. The little witch wasn’t defenceless, but he had vowed to protect her and intended to do just that.
She pushed the heavy wooden door at the end of the steps open. “Ew.”
Thorne covered his nose and mouth with his hand and grunted in agreement.
Someone muttered a ripe curse behind him.
Whatever they were about to find in his dungeon, it had been there for a long time, judging by the smell.
Thorne waited for Rosalind to advance. She shook her head, her eyes watering, and gagged.
“Stay with her,” he said to his two warriors in the demon tongue.
They nodded.
Thorne took slow steps into the room, his crimson gaze scanning the cells on either side of the dark space. Shadows danced wherever he swung his torch, rushing away from the light. The first three cells were empty.
The fourth.
Thorne swallowed hard and stared at the three bodies dumped in the corner of the cell behind a stack of wooden crates.
The vampire second in command was one of them.
Fargus was another. He lay with his chin on his chest, his skin and flesh wasting away, thick dark slime oozing from beneath him. He had been there months. The rakshasa had been posing as his friend for all that time, learning about him and discovering his weaknesses.
Sable.
Kincaid growled and moved past him, stricken as he stared at the third male, a young blond.
One of the werewolves.
Thorne laid his hand on Kincaid’s shoulder and the werewolf commander turned to him.
“I want this creature’s neck between my fangs.”
Thorne nodded. “We all do, my good friend.”
He turned to his two warriors who had remained at the entrance with Rosalind. “One of you, go to Fargus’s mate. Check that she is safe and well.”
The larger male nodded and teleported.
Rosalind took a shaky step forwards. He turned his gaze on her.
“Where is the bastard who did this?” Grave spat and approached her. She backed off, a flicker of fear in her eyes.
“Grave,” Thorne barked and the vampire cast a glare his way. “We will catch him and he will pay for what he has done. Rosalind, can you locate the rakshasa?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “The trail ends here. I tried to locate him while you searched the room, but cannot feel him within the castle.”
He had fled. Coward.
Thorne growled.
The warrior he had sent to check on Fargus’s female returned, a grave look on his face. “I found her tied up with her offspring.”
Thorne took a step towards him. “Are they well?”
The male nodded. “Afraid and starved, but otherwise unharmed.”
“Bring them to the castle and settle them in one of the guest rooms and I will visit her.”
“Already done. I brought her back with me and my mate is taking care of her.”
Thorne couldn’t express his gratitude to the male. He clapped him on the shoulder and squeezed it, glad to have such a thoughtful, caring male among his warriors.
“Take care of things here.” Thorne released him and the male nodded, and then gestured to his comrade.
Thorne crossed the room to Rosalind and led her out, heading back up the stairs with her. The others followed, deep in discussion. Kincaid suggested waiting for the Fifth King to reach the castle before engaging him.
It would buy them valuable time to prepare, but Thorne refused to put the inhabitants of the castle at risk. He frowned and looked down at Rosalind.
“Can you create barrier spells such as the one used around my kingdom?” he said and she shrugged.
“They’re difficult and require a lot of energy to create, but I can make them up to a high spec.”
“Impenetrable?”
She nodded. Thorne grinned.
“Can you create one around the castle?”
She smiled now. “Of course. I can set one up for you. You’ll be able to teleport out but not in though.”
Thorne mulled that one over. He didn’t want to have injured warriors caught outside the castle with no means of getting aid.
“You cannot leave a hole in it?” he said and she wriggled her nose, her expression turning pensive. “It would be a small space, as large as one of the concealed entrances, barely as big as me.”
She looked him over and finally nodded. “I think I can do that… no, I can definitely do that. I’m as stuck in this realm as the rest of you and I would prefer to be somewhere safe. One barrier, coming right up.”
Thorne was beginning to like the little witch.
“Good.” He turned to the other males. “We shall remain in the castle and pick off as many as we can from the walls and then engage them once they are weakened.”
And if he saw the bastard rakshasa on the battlefield, he was going to take his head.
His gaze drifted upwards, towards the courtyard, his senses reaching beyond it, searching for Sable. Was she still with Olivia? He would discuss battle plans with the others for as long as he could manage, but he needed to see her again.
He needed to feel her in his arms and feel her lips beneath his, because he feared that when he next saw her, she would have changed on him again, slipping through his grasp.
CHAPTER 25
Sable lay on the soft furs on top of Olivia’s four-poster double bed, staring at the canopy draped over the frame, trying to get her thoughts into order. Her friend lingered near the foot of the bed, leaning against the ornate post there, and had been silent since they had entered the room almost ten minutes ago.
Olivia always had been a patient woman. Perhaps that was what made her a good doctor, and a good friend.
Sable sighed and toyed with the cuff around her wrist. Talking to Olivia wasn’t going to get any easier the longer she took to get the ball rolling and get everything out in the open.
“So I think I might know who my father was,” she said and Olivia gasped and moved closer.
Sable lowered her gaze to her friend.
Her dark eyes were enormous. “Seriously? But how? I thought there was no record of him… no clue.”
“Well, about that.” Sable sat up and tapped the silver cuff, took a deep breath and removed it. She turned her wrist towards Olivia. “Turns out this was a pretty big clue.”
“Your tattoo?” Olivia frowned at it and then at her. “How is a tattoo a clue?”
Sable snapped the cuff shut and set it down on the furs. “It isn’t a tattoo… I should have told you all of this earlier and I’m just going to get it out in the open now.”
Olivia nodded.
“Remember the battle at the border village?” she said and Olivia nodded again. “I was outnumbered and Thorne saved me, but not before I thought I was going to die. I was so scared, Liv. My wrist burned worse than it had ever done.”
“The burning sensation you’ve been having is related to this mark?”
She nodded and rubbed her fin
gertips over it, feeling a low thrumming in the black ink. “It got hotter and hotter, and then when I touched one of the demons, he turned to ash.”
“Holy shit.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Sable looked down at the cross on her wrist.
“Is that why you were acting so weird?” Olivia sat beside her and took hold of her hand. She inspected her wrist, tracing the cross with her fingertips.
Sable shrugged. “I should have told you then, but I wasn’t sure how. Thorne was good though. He really helped me deal. Then we met Rosalind to ask about a way back into the Third Realm and she recognised the mark… and, well… it sort of turns out that my father might have been an angel.”
“Holy shit!” Olivia covered her mouth and mumbled into her palm, “Seriously?”
Sable wished she had the choice of not believing it like her friend did. She flopped back onto the bed again and ran her fingers through her hair.
“Seriously.” She groaned and raised her arm above her head.
Her wrist wasn’t hurting right now and there was only a faint strange sensation around the cross, which was a small relief. Rosalind’s cuff seemed to be working. She picked it up off the bed and put it back on, snapping it shut around her right wrist.
She stared at the canopy again, a thousand conflicting feelings colliding inside her, making it hard to speak.
“Sable. You could have talked to me about this.” Olivia settled her hand on her arm and she sighed.
“I know. I should have.” She sat up again and took hold of Olivia’s hands. “I just didn’t know how to tell you… I was scared. I am scared. A month ago I thought I was human and given a gift that would help me be the best demon hunter out there so I could protect my people… now I’m half-angel and my boyfriend is a demon.”
Olivia gave her a sly smile. “Boyfriend? Clearly more was happening back home than just you, Thorne and Bleu trying to make your way back here.”
Sable scowled at her.
“He’s a good demon though.”
She had to concede that. Thorne was a good demon. A noble man. He had shown her that side of himself countless times, even when she had refused to believe it. He was a good man.
She sighed. “Why does life have to get all complicated?”
Claimed by a Demon King Page 29
