Of Love and Darkness

by Lund, Tami

The muumuu-wearing linebacker sniffed and said, “You aren’t my type. I prefer less . . . animalistic men, thank you very much.”

  “Fates,” Gavin spat the word as he stepped into a small living room done in earth tones. An overstuffed couch in an olive-green color sat against the opposite wall. A large flat-screen television hung from one wall, and a muted taupe easy chair was positioned directly in front of it. The coffee table was blond wood and had several artsy books laying on it. Gavin recognized the prints hanging on the walls as scenes from northern Michigan. A variety of framed photos lined the mantel above the fireplace. He suspected they were all of Sydney, in various stages of her life. He had a curious urge to walk over to inspect the pictures.

  “Shoes off,” the linebacker barked, and Gavin was annoyed when his limbs froze for several heartbeats. Once the spell wore off, he toed off his hiking boots and kicked them into the general direction of the front door.

  Damned Fates. It had been a long time since he’d had to deal with one of them. How could he forget they had their own version of magic, and they weren’t afraid to use it? Based on his terse phone conversation, this one knew who Gavin was. What he was.

  “Where the hell is the liquor in this place? I need a frigging drink.” Behind him, he heard the linebacker—William, his Chala called him—mutter something that sounded like, “How could you, Sydney?”

  Gavin had no doubt the Fate referred to him. He decided to give them some space to talk, and walked through the living room into a bright, almost painfully white kitchen. Before he could open the first cupboard, he spotted the liquor cabinet through an arched doorway leading into a formal dining room done in medium blue tones and more pale wood. The liquor cabinet looked like an antique, at least by human standards. Gavin wondered if the Fate had purchased this bit of furniture when it had been new. Considering the lack of Chala to protect these days, he doubted there were very many Fates being created, so William was probably pretty damn old.

  Gavin flipped over a cut crystal lowball glass, splashed a hefty amount of whiskey into it, then took a generous swallow. With a sigh, he leaned back against the cabinet and contemplated his current situation.

  I found my mate.

  He’d given up on the possibility seventy-five years ago, when he had been unable to save the last Chala he even knew existed. She had already been mated when he met her, but had been carrying a babe in her womb when she died. Gavin had teamed up with her mate to protect her, secretly hoping the babe would be a female, and likely, another Chala. If so, he’d planned to claim her instantly. He was a patient shifter, when necessary. He could wait twenty years or so to bed his mate. He had already waited over a hundred years by that point, what was another twenty?

  But he and the Chala’s mate had been unable to fend off the wave of Rakshasa who were determined to kill her. When she died, not surprisingly her mate had been devastated, and as was an unfortunate common practice of Light Ones who lost their mates, had impaled himself with one of the attackers’ knives, leaving Gavin to fend for himself among twenty-eight bloodthirsty Rakshasa. He had barely escaped alive. Because he, too, was a Rakshasa, that should have given him some measure of protection, but he was cursed, forced to protect humanity against his evil brothers and sisters, and they knew it.

  Despite the fact that it had been seventy-five years ago, Gavin could easily bring up a mental image of the Chala he hadn’t been able to save. She had been a dark, sultry beauty with large, heavy breasts and—before she’d begun to grow thick with child—a narrow waist and wide hips. An hourglass figure. Exactly Gavin’s type. He had hoped her child would turn out just like her.

  Sydney and William stepped into the kitchen at that moment, and Gavin watched as William walked over to the refrigerator while Sydney followed in his wake, chattering away, firing questions at him like bullets.

  This was his mate?

  She was a blond. He had never really been attracted to blonds. She had big blue eyes, cornflower blue, which lent her an air of distinct innocence that certainly did not attract Gavin. He preferred women who knew their way around a bedroom, and if her personality was any indication, he had his doubts Sydney had ever even spent the night with a man. He should be excited over the prospect of being her first time, but in truth, he didn’t want to be a trainer. He wanted a woman in his bed who took control, who wasn’t afraid to ask for—hell, demand—what she wanted.

  Sydney was tall and skinny, too, which was another strike against her. The last Chala he met had been short and curvy. When he indulged with human women, they were always dark, short, and curvy. Sydney was a frigging Disney Princess. The Ice Queen bit was not his thing.

  But she was a Chala, quite possibly one of the last in the world. Her blood had smelled so intoxicating, he had been singularly unable to resist having a taste. At that moment, when he had lapped at her wound as if it were the tastiest bit of chocolate he had ever eaten, he would have gladly laid her on the cold, slushy ground and taken her right then and there. At least while the taste of her blood had been on his tongue, she had been the most beautiful, the most attractive, the most tempting female he had ever come across. Ever.

  Her blood still sang through his veins, now mingled with his own, but the whiskey burned the taste from his tongue, enabling him to see his situation through less rose-colored lenses. And what a situation it was.

  A Chala who, until a short time ago, apparently had no earthly idea what she was. Based on the way she chattered at her Fate, she still didn’t believe what Gavin had told her back in downtown Detroit.

  A Chala who was, unfortunately, not really all that attractive, to him, at least. And a Chala who, instead of having a mate to protect her, had her own personal Fate who was a cross-dressing male the size of a Mack Truck. A Fate who had made it clear on the phone earlier that he was none too pleased to learn Gavin had claimed her.

  Well, too damn bad. Gavin drained the rest of the whiskey in the glass. Sydney was his. He was nearly four hundred years old. He’d spent more than half his life living with a curse that had him convinced his own damn kind was the enemy. He battled his own personal internal demons, because the curse hadn’t taken away any of his Rakshasa urges, it simply overrode them with the need to protect humanity. He, more than anyone, understood how damn lucky a normal Light One had it.

  They lived to protect humanity. It was all black and white to them. They weren’t conflicted in the least. They could kill a wave of Rakshasa, go home, take a shower, and then go to bed with a clear conscience.

  He, on the other hand, felt guilty for killing his own kind, and then guilty some more for not killing enough of them, and then frustrated and angry that he should feel any guilt at all.

  Damned curse.

  “Oh, good.” He strolled into the kitchen. “I’m starved.”

  William was in the process of assembling a platter of what looked like cheese and crackers. He stiffened as he pulled a bowl of grapes out of the fridge. “This isn’t for you, Rakshasa.”

  Gavin ignored the comment and reached around him to snag a handful of grapes. William slapped his hand and the skin where the Fate had touched him began to sizzle.

  “Damn it!” Gavin jerked his hand away.

  “Oh my God,” Sydney said, her voice breathy with unsuppressed awe. “How did you do that?” Her eyes were wide and round again, an almost perpetual state since she spotted the dead Rakshasa on the ground near the convention center.

  With her flaxen blond hair and simple sweater and slacks underneath that Pillsbury Doughboy coat, she looked like a twelve-year-old girl. How the hell was he supposed to muster up the desire to bang a Chala who looked too damn young to even be able to produce children?

  William cut his gaze to Gavin, and the look he gave spoke volumes: I hate you.

  Gavin smirked. “Too damn bad,” he said to William. “She’s mine. I�
��ve already claimed her.”

  William threw a startled look at his charge. “You slept with him?” Shock and disapproval were etched into his words.

  “What? No! Are you kidding me? Gross!”

  Gavin gave her a disgruntled look. “Gross? Is that your favorite word? Do you have any idea how many females I’ve bedded in my three hundred and eighty-seven years? And not a damn one has ever used the term ‘gross’ in reference to what we did together.”

  “Luckily, I’m not one of those females and—gross.” She wrinkled her nose. It took another two years off her appearance.

  He was mated to a child. Lovely. He wondered if he would even be able to get it up enough to do what was necessary to plant a seed in her womb.

  “Wait. Did you just say you are three hundred and eighty-seven years old?” Sydney’s tone held stark disbelief.

  “Yep.”

  She turned to William. “I told you he was crazy.”

  Gavin rolled his eyes and snagged another grape.

  William pursed his lips and said, “Sydney, sweetie, why don’t you go down to the basement and get us a nice bottle of pinot grigio?”

  “You’re trying to get rid of me.”

  “Yes. Now go get the wine.”

  A look passed between them, a look Gavin did not understand, and then with a huff, Sydney stomped down the stairs to the basement.

  William rounded on Gavin. “How did you figure out she was a Chala?”

  Gavin narrowed his eyes and studied the Fate for a moment before answering. “She was attacked. By a Rakshasa. He cut her arm.”

  A Chala’s scent was not recognizable until another shifter drew her blood. Most Chala lived among the shifters, the Light Ones, so their blood was drawn inevitably as a child, during any number of silly childhood games. But not Sydney.

  “How is it that was the first time a shifter drew her blood? She looks young, but not that young.” Gavin glanced at the stairs leading to the basement. “How old is she, anyway?”

  William closed his eyes and leaned back against the counter. “You’ve ruined everything.”

  “How so?”

  “I have kept her hidden—in plain sight—for the past seventeen years. Other—”

  “So she’s thirty?” Sydney had mentioned William came into her life when she was thirteen. Gavin continued to stare at the staircase leading to the basement, picturing the woman who had disappeared down there a moment ago. Chala aged well. She barely looked old enough to have graduated high school.

  William opened his eyes to glare at him for a few heartbeats before continuing. “Other than the attack that killed her father, we’ve managed to live a peaceful, quiet, shifter-less life. Until now. Until you came along.”

  That certainly explained why Gavin hadn’t recognized her as a Chala. “Hey, I’m not the one who cut her. Nor am I the one who let a Chala wander around the streets of Detroit alone. Do you have any idea how many Rakshasa live in Detroit?” Gavin’s voice was thick with accusation.

  “You’re one of them.”

  “Was,” Gavin admitted. “I’ve been cursed for two hundred years. I’ve killed more of my own kind than I ever killed Light Ones.”

  “You’re the one. I suspected as much when we spoke over the phone.” William sounded resigned.

  “The cursed Rakshasa? Yeah, I doubt there are very many of my kind out there.” If he sounded bitter, well, he was.

  “That curse is legendary, you know. No one has ever been able to duplicate it since. Prim is one of the most brilliant Fates I have ever encountered.”

  “Brilliant. Not exactly the word I would choose to describe her.” Raving bitch. Evil woman. Manipulative, conniving . . .

  “You cannot say you didn’t deserve it. As I understand it, you singlehandedly very nearly decimated our Chala population before she finally cursed you.”

  The guilt flooded his senses, like it always did. The urge to rush out the door, head back to Detroit, and destroy a few Rakshasa rode him hard. Even as he mourned the loss of those he had already killed over the past two hundred years.

  “Yeah, well, water under the bridge and all that shit.” Gavin strode back into the dining room and poured another shot of whiskey. He drained the glass and thought about his curse.

  He wouldn’t wish this curse on his worst enemy. Well, maybe his worst enemy. It was a heavy burden to carry, these urges that were so normal for his kind, yet overridden by an insistent need to actually destroy them. His brothers and sisters. His sire. Laden with guilt didn’t begin to explain it.

  William looked so damn smug about Prim’s handiwork that Gavin felt obligated to burst his happy bubble. “I’ve had her blood.”

  William’s lips thinned and Gavin noticed they were painted pink, to match the robe and slippers. A coordinated, cross-dressing Fate.

  After a moment of silence, William spoke. “She doesn’t know. Anything. I’ve kept it all from her.”

  “Why?”

  “Her father’s last request. I was honor-bound to obey.”

  “So her father was a Light One?”

  “No. He was human. Basically.”

  Gavin glanced at the basement stairs again. “But she’s a Chala. I tasted her blood. I know what a Chala tastes like.”

  “Rakshasa don’t mate with Chala. I was under the impression you rather preferred to kill them.”

  “Cursed Rakshasa. I might as well be a Light One.” Except for the Rakshasa urges that were still there, yet he could do nothing about.

  “You’ll forgive me if I inform you that you cannot have Sydney.”

  “Too late.”

  “You haven’t claimed her. Not fully.”

  “I ingested her blood. Close enough. The rest will come naturally.”

  “Not if I have anything to do with it.”

  Unfortunately, he had a fair point, which irritated Gavin. Fates had a lot of powers even they didn’t realize half the time. Prim had been a perfect example. Even she hadn’t expected her spell to work, at least not to the extent that it had.

  “So explain how Sydney came to be a Chala, if her father wasn’t a shifter. Did her mother mate with a human? I’ve never heard of that before. Does that mean there are more Chala hidden in plain sight? Actually, that would be pretty cool. Why don’t you introduce me? Maybe I’ll meet one I like better, and you and Sydney can go about your merry way.”

  The look on William’s face was pained. “Her mother was human.”

  Irritation washed over Gavin as he forced himself to ask the Fate for more information. Fates and Rakshasa had had a contentious relationship since the dawn of time.

  Fates were created as guardians to the Chala, who were rare even in the very beginning. Shifters had been created from wolves, but as time passed, they evolved and learned how to shift into the form of humans. It was, generally speaking, easier to get along in the humans’ world when one looked and acted like them. In the beginning, shifters and humans co-existed without issue. Shifters were carnivores, but they preferred to eat four-legged mammals instead of humans.

  But as often happened in life, a bad seed was born. A shifter discovered he preferred the taste of human flesh and blood to the deer, antelope, and buffalo his fellow shifters ate. He was expelled from the pack, but he took his mate with him, and over the course of the next several centuries, they begat many offspring, all of whom were taught to crave human flesh instead of other, more natural prey.

  Eventually, the Light Ones took on the responsibility of protecting humans from the Rakshasa, as those dark shifters came to be known. And then the Rakshasa learned that only a precious few shifter females were fertile and could therefore bear children. By killing off the Chala, the Rakshasa could thereby wipe out the entire population of Light Ones and eliminate
the barrier to their preferred type of entrée.

  Rakshasa, apparently, were by far the better warriors, if Sydney was one of the last remaining Chala on earth. Gavin had a big job ahead of him, if he was expected to repopulate the world with Light Ones and Chala. He hoped Sydney was up to it.

  Gavin studied the tall, bulky Fate. Fates, like the Light Ones, had done a lousy job at protecting the Chala.

  William sighed dramatically and said, “Her great-great-great-grandmother was a Chala. She never took a mate, although at some point, she bore children with a human, but none were female. She was the last female of her line, until Sydney. Even the First Fate was surprised when Sydney was born a Chala, and the First is rarely taken by surprise.”

  William paused, ostensibly to let that bit of information sink in. “I was assigned to her when she turned thirteen, and became a woman, and therefore, mate-able.”

  He’d appeared in her life the day she started her period for the first time. It also meant she had become in danger of discovery from the Rakshasa, which was why a Fate was always assigned to a Chala on the day she starts her first period.

  Gavin nodded thoughtfully. “All Chala are assigned a Fate until such time as they find a mate.” He lifted his hand and waved at William. “Bye-bye. You can go now. Your mission is complete.”

  “Who’s going somewhere? What mission?” Sydney emerged from the basement carrying a cool bottle of pinot grigio. She offered it to William, who busied himself with taking out the cork.

  “The only one who is leaving is the Rakshasa here,” William said darkly.