by Tina Folsom
The audience, a few women and a lot more guys, cheered every time a tassel revealed the flesh beneath. Now, a male spectator leaned over the stage, where one performer dropped down lower, allowing the audience member to stick a twenty-dollar bill into his string. But the spectator’s hand quickly drifted off course, copping a feel. The performer slapped him playfully on the hand and simply laughed, eliciting raucous laughter from the audience.
Aiden had seen enough. He pulled on Leila’s hand and dragged her across the stage, evading the dancers as best he could. None too gently, he tugged on her hand, finally getting Leila to focus her attention on him and not on the semi-nude dancers.
As they reached the other side of the stage, Hamish was waiting impatiently.
“What took you so long?”
Aiden aimed an annoyed look at Leila. “Somebody was a little too fascinated with the show.”
Leila huffed and eased her hand from his grip. “That is not true!”
Hamish rolled his eyes. “Sorry to cut the party short.”
“Where to from here?” Aiden asked.
“There’s a portal.”
“What?” This time he was sure he hadn’t misheard. “Here?”
Hamish nodded.
“That’s not possible. There are no portals outside the compounds.” Every Cloak Warrior knew that.
“Well, then be prepared for a surprise.” He waved him to a staircase that led down.
Reluctantly, Aiden followed, Leila by his side. Hamish had to be crazy if he thought that he’d found a portal outside of the compounds. Something was fishy. His hand slid to the dagger he’d tugged into the waistband of his pants after nearly attacking Hamish with it in the Thai massage parlor. If he needed to use it now, he wouldn’t hesitate.
In the dimly lit basement that was filled with old costumes, stage furniture and boxes upon boxes, his fellow Cloak Warrior navigated them to the back of the building before turning to a barely-visible indentation in the dust covered stone wall.
Hamish laid his palm flat against the indentation that looked as if it could be simply an imperfection in the stone. However, on closer inspection, as his friend brushed the dust off it, Aiden recognized it as their secret symbol: an ancient blade.
“Oh, my God! How can there be a portal outside of the compounds?”
Aiden brushed his hands over the symbol, then pressed his palm against it. As the warmth of his skin flooded the symbol, it began to glow beneath his hand. A moment later, the wall disintegrated and a dark tunnel appeared before them.
The portal was open.
TWENTY-TWO
Leila stared at the hole in the wall. This couldn’t be happening. Some sort of portal had opened up right in front of them, just by Aiden putting his hand on the wall. She instantly remembered what he’d told her earlier about portals.
“I thought only demons had portals.”
It confused her. Why hadn’t he told her about his?
“Cloak Warriors do too. However—” Aiden looked at Hamish. “—I thought that they didn’t exist outside the compounds.”
“We all thought that. I’ll explain that later. Now, we’d better go.”
He stepped inside the dark tunnel. Aiden reached for her hand and pulled her with him. She had no choice. Even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t have stayed where she was. Eventually the people who were following them would find her here.
“I’m claustrophobic,” she admitted.
“It won’t take long,” Aiden promised, pulling her close to him.
A moment later, the dim light from the basement disappeared as if the door to the tunnel had been closed.
“Where to?” Aiden asked.
“Take my hand,” Hamish’s voice commanded.
She felt how Aiden pulled her close to him with one arm around her waist, his other hand presumably clutching Hamish’s. Then the air stirred up around them as if a fierce storm was approaching.
Fear gripped her, and she began to shiver. She felt as if her body was lifted in the air, floating weightlessly and without direction. Both her arms went around Aiden, holding on for dear life. She was afraid of being dropped, of falling into a bottomless pit, eternal darkness around her.
“Shh,” Aiden cooed, his mouth at her ear.
Then he shifted, and his lips brushed over her cheek, then slowly and carefully approached her lips. She could have moved away from him, turned her head so he couldn’t kiss her, but she didn’t. Instead, she allowed his lips to press against hers, his tongue to gently glide over them, to part them and sweep inside.
With a sigh, she angled her head, urging him for a deeper kiss. He obliged her. When his tongue stroked against hers and his lips moved firmly over her mouth, the storm around her moved into the distance. All she felt were his firm strokes, his earthy taste, and his hard body that pressed against her, holding her firmly and securely in his arms. Forgotten was the fact that he’d lied to her about having to touch her to cloak her.
Maybe she wouldn’t have reacted so strongly to that revelation, if they hadn’t been caught by Manus in the middle of the act. She’d been too embarrassed to think of anything else but the humiliation that she’d felt. And she’d needed an outlet for the anger that had boiled up as a result.
But now, all that didn’t matter. Aiden’s kiss was as sinful as it had been before, and it made her want things beyond a kiss, beyond a mere touch, even beyond the intimate touches they’d shared at the massage parlor. Way beyond that.
“Hate to interrupt,” Hamish said wryly, “but we can’t stay here forever.”
Leila opened her eyes, heat rushing to her cheeks once more. Did she always have to get caught doing something ... something so forbidden? Because what she was doing with Aiden had to be wrong: he was there to protect her, and beyond that she knew she couldn’t trust him. He’d confirmed this only a short while earlier when he’d confessed to Hamish that he’d killed his former charge.
Sobering, she avoided looking at Aiden and withdrew from his embrace. Instead, she perused her surroundings. They were in some sort of cave. Rows of oak barrels lined the vast space, each with a number and a few letters on it, marking their content.
“Where are we?” Aiden asked.
“About an hour north of San Francisco, in the wine country,” Hamish answered.
“You have to explain to me how come there’s a portal here when there are supposed to be none outside the compounds,” Aiden demanded, his voice tight.
Hamish nodded. “I will, on the way to our safe house.”
He headed for the door, unlatched it, and opened it. Then he peered outside. “All clear.”
Curious, Leila followed him, feeling Aiden at her back. Outside, it was sunny and clear. She looked back at the cave and realized that it had been built into the side of the hill, thus taking advantage of the natural cool earth to keep the barrels at a constant temperature. In the distance, she saw several buildings, one that looked like a barn with big stainless steel silos, another one that probably contained the tasting room and offices.
Nobody seemed to be around.
The dirt path Hamish led them on ended at a wooden shack. Inside was an old beat up Toyota that looked like the loser of a demolition derby. She piled in the back seat, letting Hamish and Aiden take the front. By the looks of it, they had much to talk about anyway.
As they rumbled down the hill and through the vineyard, Hamish finally addressed Aiden’s earlier question.
“You’re right, there shouldn’t be any portals outside the compounds, so you can imagine my surprise when I found one.”
“How did you find it?” Aiden instantly wanted to know.
“Well, that brings me to the bigger issue here. I have reason to believe that one of the council members is working for the demons. I can’t—”
From the backseat, Leila could firmly see how Aiden jolted at the news.
“That can’t be!” His head whipped sideways to glare at his friend. “If you think
you can accuse somebody to lessen your own failings—”
“Those were not my failings!” Hamish shot back. “If I could have helped you I would have. But I was being pursued. Had I not disappeared when I did, I would be dead now.”
***
Aiden pulled in a breath. What his former second was insinuating was outrageous. But often the truth was unbelievable. And he hoped Hamish was telling the truth.
“I want the whole story,” he demanded. “And start with how you found Leila and me.”
“Oh, you’re gonna get it, but you won’t like it,” Hamish promised, gracing him with an ominous look.
Somehow that look was enough for Aiden to realize that whatever it was he was about to hear would uproot his entire belief in their race. “Go on.”
“Well, finding you was easy. I’ve been shadowing you for days. I had this gut feeling that you’re in danger. Figured if they tried to move me out of the way, what’s stopping them from doing the same with you? I kept an eye on you from afar so I could interfere if need be.”
Hamish gave him a sideways glance. “Anyway, to get to the real story, a few weeks ago, I noticed strange coincidences, demons showing up close to safe houses and other places we were hiding charges. I looked at the location logs and plotted those occurrences, cross-referencing them with who accessed the location files as these assignments were taking place. I came across an encoded access signature in each of those incidences. It leads to the council.”
“That doesn’t have to mean anything. The council has a right to access those files whenever they want to. That’s how they can find out where we are.”
“What does that mean?” Leila asked from the back seat. “Do they know where we are now?”
Aiden turned his head to her. “No. I would have to sign into the system to announce my location.”
“Which you’re not going to do,” Hamish added quickly. “Nobody can know where we are right now. Not as long as we don’t know who on the council is a traitor.”
Aiden hated the thought of that. “You must be wrong. The council is above reproach.”
“Don’t be so naïve. They’re just like us. They have desires. But that aside, as I started digging and trying to get past the encryption, I had the strange feeling of being followed. Several times. I can’t be sure, but I knew something was wrong. During our last assignment, I ran into a problem.”
Aiden felt his gut constrict at the thought of how that last assignment had ended.
“I received a message, which looked like it was coming from command central. It sent me to a place, which I thought was your location. It wasn’t. Instead, I ended up in a trap. But whoever set it up underestimated me. They’d only sent two demons. I killed them, but I knew they wouldn’t be the last ones coming for me.”
Hamish gave him a sideways glance. “They didn’t want me to help you keep Sarah safe. They wanted her too badly, so whoever on the council was feeding the demons information, didn’t mind sacrificing one of their own for it.”
In disbelief, Aiden shook his head. “Someone on the council would get a Cloak Warrior killed to help the demons? But why?”
Hamish shrugged. “I don’t know. Not yet, anyway. That’s why I had to disappear. The only way to be sure that I had no tracking devices on me was to leave my clothes and my cell behind me. I couldn’t tell you. It would have put you in danger. You’re my best friend. I couldn’t do that.”
Aiden nodded. He understood, and he would have done the same had he been in that situation. “Brothers?”
“Always,” his best friend replied. They locked eyes for a moment, their trust restored.
“Now what?”
Hamish pulled the car to a stop in front of a small farmhouse. “Let’s get inside, then we can talk more.”
TWENTY-THREE
Aiden sank back into the comfortable couch as Leila excused herself to freshen up in the bathroom. Personally, he didn’t want to wash her smell off him. He could still taste her kiss, one she’d had every opportunity to deny him, yet had openly participated in. However, as much as he wanted to daydream about it, there were more important things to think about.
“How did you ever find that portal?”
Hamish, who sat opposite him, popped the lid off a beer bottle and gulped down half of it before answering. “By accident. On one of those occasions when I thought I was being followed, I ended up in that strip club. I thought I’d seen somebody disappear into the basement, so I followed. But nobody was there. Instead, I found the portal. The dust was disturbed where the symbol was; that’s why I even noticed it.”
“So you think it was a Cloak Warrior who followed you and then disappeared through the portal?”
“Most definitely. I would have known if it was a demon. There are way too many neon signs in that club not to notice the presence of a demon.”
Aiden had to agree. It would have been impossible for a demon to sneak past Hamish without destroying all the lights. But the thought that somebody on the council was aiding their enemies was still too disturbing a thought.
“Are you suspecting anybody in particular?” For a moment, he held his breath. When he met his friend’s gaze, he already knew the answer.
“Nobody is above suspicion.” Hamish paused. “Not even your father.”
Aiden jumped up and walked to the kitchen, pulling a beer from the fridge.
“I’m sorry to be so blunt, but it could be anybody. And just because he’s your father doesn’t make him immune to the influences of the demons.”
Aiden twisted the cap off the bottle and tossed it in the trash before turning back toward the open plan living area. “My father is a strong willed man. He would never allow the demons to influence him. Besides, he’s got everything he wants. What could they possibly tempt him with?”
The only thing anyone in his family could be tempted with was to have Julia back, but even the demons couldn’t resurrect the dead.
Slowly, he walked back to the couch and slouched down.
“If I knew what went on in the head of each council member, trust me, I wouldn’t be sitting here wondering about it. I would be taking the asshole down. Whoever it is, he is betraying all of us. And putting us in danger,” Hamish said
“What do you propose to do about it, considering you’re a wanted man right now?”
Hamish grinned. “Now that’s where you come in.”
“Why do I get the feeling that I’m being used?”
“What are friends for? Besides, didn’t I just save your and your charge’s ass? And what a lovely ass it is.”
Aiden glared at him. “Leave her out of this.” He wasn’t in the mood to discuss Leila’s assets with him.
“So I wasn’t mistaken then. You do have the hots for a human. You never cease to surprise me.”
“It’s not like that. And it’s not up for discussion either.”
Particularly because he didn’t want to face the facts: with every minute he spent with her, the thought of having to hurt her one day sickened him more and more. He couldn’t remain objective about her and treat her like he’d treated every charge before her. The indifference and emotional detachment that had served him so well in the past had deserted him on this assignment. If he wasn’t careful, he’d form an attachment to her that he would have a hard time severing later.
“Can we change the subject? I believe we were talking about how to ferret out the traitor.”
“Very well. Let’s start with who knew you were at the safe house.”
“But as we both know, the attack on the safe house wasn’t staged by the demons,” Aiden explained. “Ergo, this won’t lead us to the traitor.”
“We can’t know for sure. Maybe they didn’t want to kill your charge but capture her instead. I know who she is.”
Aiden sucked in a quick breath. “How much do you know?”
“Most of it: that she’s a talented researcher, and that her boss just got killed and she’s somehow involved,” Hamish
admitted.
“That’s only the half of it.” He leaned forward. As he filled Hamish in on the details of why the demons wanted Leila, he listened to the sound of the shower down the hallway. He blocked out the thought of it, and concentrated on giving Hamish all the information he had.
When he leaned back a few minutes later, Hamish took another sip of his beer and set the empty bottle on the coffee table. “No shit!”
“Yep, that’s it in a nutshell.”
“So we’re up against two enemies: the demons who want her drug, and since no copy of it exists anymore, they have to get her; and somebody else who wants to eliminate her before the demons get to her.”
Aiden twisted the bottle in his hands. “And since the only people who know what threat she represents are sitting on the council, whoever wants to eliminate her, is also on the council.”
“Two birds to catch then. One traitor, and one, let’s say, misguided council member who doesn’t like the fact that he was outvoted and is now taking matters into his own hands to ensure the desired outcome.”
“Exactly.”
Hamish rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s one other person who knows what kind of danger Leila represents.”
Aiden blinked. “Manus.” He slammed his hand into the sofa cushion. “He was the only other person who knew where we were. He came to switch out the cars. He even brought Leila some chocolate for her birthday, which proves he’s read her file from cover to cover.”
“It’s a possibility. But don’t forget that besides Manus, the council could have checked into your location log and found where you were.”
He shook his head. “No. They couldn’t have known. When I claimed the safe house, the request was anonymous, and I hadn’t checked my position in with central command yet.”
“After being at the house for what, at least eight hours?” Hamish sent an incredulous look his way.
