
BEFORE THE FALL
A Dark Breed Novella
SABLE GRACE
Contents
January 10, 6:07 p.m.
5 hours and 53 minutes before the fall . . .
There wasn't a single bottle of whiskey that Zach Merchant hadn't fallen in love with in the past six months. Tonight, as he headed out to hit his favorite haunt, Tattoos, his bedfellow of choice would be a soft, golden color that would coat his mouth with pure sexiness and would cloud his thoughts enough to give him his evening's dose of peace.
He could have just poured himself a shot or two here, but sitting at home with his whiskey felt pathetic, even to him. Not that the women of Tattoos weren't a draw unto themselves. They were. Or at least they used to be. These days, however, he found himself more turned on by the prospect of a finely-shaped bottle than a finely-shaped body.
So he'd head to Tattoos, let the women rub their bodies against him, and smile as though they'd made his night, when in truth not one of them could hold a candle to the woman he was trying to lose in the bottom of a shot glass---a certain brown-haired, doe-eyed woman who still owned more of Zach's thoughts than he cared to admit.
It's been six months, Merchant. Shanna's not coming back.
As he locked his door and headed down the small walkway in front of his cottage, that thought made his head pound as he mentally kicked his own ass for being such a lovesick pussy.
When he reached the sidewalk, the faint whimper of his neighbor's dog broke the usually peaceful sounds of early evening. The short dead end housed only himself and the old Murphy couple, who treated their yapping ankle-biter like the grandkid they'd never had. The Murphys would never leave the pooch unattended outside, so Zach immediately became alert, listening for any other oddities.
The couple was elderly, and Ernest had been having memory issues recently. Could be, the old goat simply forgot to bring the dog inside.
With a sigh, he cast a longing glance at the dusky sky and the path he'd intended to take, then headed in the opposite direction across the street to perform his neighborly duties.
But before he'd made it halfway down the stone walk, the Murphys' little yellow cottage lit up, and Mrs. Murphy burst through her front door. Curlers in her hair held in place by a pink scarf, she stumbled down the porch steps, tripped, and hugged the rail with one hand to regain her balance. The moment her wild eyes caught sight of Zach, she staggered toward him.
His body instantly tensed, alert again and ready for trouble. As he rushed to her side, his ears were listening for any out-of-place noises, his eyes searching for moving shadows. He caught Mrs. Murphy's arm just as her pink slippers stuttered on the curb and she spilled forward.
Her small eyes searched his face with a silent scream of fear and urgency. "Please . . . they're killing Ernest!"
Her eyes rolled backward and she fainted against his chest.
He lowered the old woman to the ground and gently rolled her over, cursing under his breath when he caught a glimpse of her rotund belly. What he'd thought had been a design on the over-fluffed robe was actually shredded, blood-soaked fabric. He followed the trail upward toward her shoulder, watching with sickening dread as her arm--- held in place by a few tendons, the bone torn straight through---fell away from her body, "Fuck!"
Pulling off his t-shirt, he wrapped it around her arm before carefully lifting her and taking her inside his house, where he laid her on the couch. He rushed to the desk in the corner of the living room. Shoving the clutter out of the way, he grabbed the old, hollowed-out phone book and shook it open. A long, sharpened silver stake and a curved silver dagger fell into his palm. He tucked them into his jeans pockets and ran back outside.
Zach had been around long enough to recognize wounds like Mrs. Murphy's, and they hadn't been inflicted by a human. He didn't know what breed of demon he was about to face, but something inhuman was in there with Ernest, and the old guy wouldn't stand a chance if Zach didn't move quickly. Glad he hadn't yet downed a shot of whiskey, he kicked the door open wider and stepped into the chaos of the Murphys' living room. Immediately, instincts that had lain dormant for ten years zinged to life, warning him of a dark soul only a few feet behind him. He slipped the weapons from his back pocket and pivoted to face the Vampyre kneeling over Ernest's body.
He was too late.
Damn it.
The Vampyre bared its fangs and hissed. Zach didn't heed the warning. Gripping the weapons, he rushed forward.
The beast soared over Zach's head. It lashed out with its razor-sharp claws, slicing across his chest. Feeding off the adrenaline rush of being back in the middle of the fight again after so long numbed the pain and kept him on his feet.
When the Vamp sprung again, it kicked the weapons from Zach's hands. He barely had time to locate them again before the Dark Breed was behind him, digging claws into Zach's shoulder. He reached back and grabbed it by its long hair, flipping it over his shoulder. It landed at his feet, but before he could pin it with his boot heel, it rose and flew at Zach, hitting him dead in the chest.
The force sent him backward, tripping over Ernest's ravaged body. As the beast came at him again, Zach gripped it by its throat in an attempt to protect his own. They crashed to the ground. He lost his hold, and before he could regain it, long, deadly fingers closed around his neck. Without his weapons, he was fucked. The Vamp would overpower him in a second and there wouldn't be a thing Zach could do about it except bend over and kiss his own ass goodbye.
The need for air had him struggling, mindlessly shoving at the claws holding him captive. They wouldn't give. Desperate to breathe again, Zach brought his legs up and closed them around the demon's neck, locking his ankles behind its head. As he tightened the pressure, he arched onto his shoulders, twisting until the weight of the demon lifted from him. Unwilling to give it a shot at breaking his legs, Zach quickly released his hold and rolled toward the spike lying a few feet away.
He flipped onto his back just as the Vamp lunged at him again. As it came down, Zach drove the silver between its eyes. The inhuman howl that followed sent Zach searching for his dagger. Locating it beside the recliner, he rushed for it, gripped the hilt in both hands, and dropped to his knees, driving the knife deep into the Vampyre's neck. Using all his weight, he shoved the blade into the floor, pinning the fucker to the wooden planks beneath the shag carpet. As the Dark Breed peered up at him, the agony of the silver penetrating its blood etched all over its face, Zach twisted the dagger and forced it backward, severing the beast's head from its body.
His chest heaving from more exertion than he'd experienced in a long time, Zach struggled to his feet and stumbled toward Ernest. Even though he knew it was too late, he knelt beside the old man's body and checked for a pulse. There wasn't one.
Zach closed his eyes, wishing he'd left his house just a few minutes sooner. Maybe he could have saved the old guy. Maybe the cops wouldn't have to tell Mrs. Murphy that she'd just become a widow.
Loathing the needless death and the evil that had caused it, Zach pulled a knitted blanket from beneath the overturned sofa and covered Ernest with it before leaving that house and sprinting back to his own.
Adrenaline making him dizzy, he checked on Mrs. Murphy---pleased to find her still breathing---and moved into the kitchen, where he dug through the mess on the counter to find his cell phone. Before he could punch in the number of his old friend, a bright red glow spilling from the cracks of the old wooden box he kept on top of the refrigerator caught his eye.
For several seconds Zach simply stared at it. He'd retired from the Order of Ancients nearly ten years ago and had tucked away the stupid necklace shortly thereafter, certain it would never again be used.
Apparently, he'd been wrong.
The beacon was his call back to war. Back to a life he'd been sure he'd never be given access to again.
His entire body grew feverishly hot and his brain became so thick with thoughts, he couldn't tell if he was pleased or worried by the bright red glow still holding his attention.
It didn't matter. Whatever he felt, he had to answer that damned call.
Sliding the beacon from the box, he slipped the chain around his neck with one hand while the other punched in 9-1-1. He didn't plan on being there when the cops came poking around, but he had to get an ambulance to Mrs. Murphy if she had any hope of surviving. He gave the dispatcher his address as well so they'd find her, then hung up, immediately scrolling through the numbers on his phone. Lance DuLaque, one of the few friends Zach had kept in contact with from his Order of Ancients days, was the Order's go-to guy in the area. If anyone could tell him the reason behind Ares's summons, it would be Lance.
" 'Lo?"
"Lance. It's Merchant. Got a problem."
"Sorry, mate, now's not a good time. Find some place to lay low until I can call you back."
"This can't wait. I've got a dead Vamp across the street and . . ." The orb glowed brighter, warming against his chest. "And a summons from Ares."
"You've been called up?"
"Looks that way." Putting the phone on speaker, Zach carried it to his bedroom and pulled a battered guitar case from beneath his bed and a worn backpack---stuffed with clothes and supplies he might need---from the closet. Old habits from being called to duty at a moment's notice died hard. "What's going on?"
"Thought it was just rumors, but if they're calling you in, it must be fact."
Exasperated and desperate to get the hell out of Dodge before cops showed up, Zach slung the case and the bag over his shoulders and rummaged through the nightstand for his keys. "What's a fact, Lance? I gotta shitload of trouble over here. I don't have time for riddles."
The silence on the other end of the line lasted until Zach was in his garage, raising the door.
"Tartarus, mate," Lance finally said. "It's been opened. And by midnight tonight, the only place Hell will exist anymore is on Earth."
7:30 p.m.
4 hours and 30 minutes before the fall . . .
Lance agreed to meet Zach at Key West International Airport at eight o'clock. It wouldn't take that long for Zach to get there, but before he could borrow Lance's private jet and make haste to the closest connection to Olympus---St. Augustine---and answer his summons to Ares, Zach had something he had to take care of. Someone he couldn't leave behind.
Shanna.
Getting her to come without argument would involve a longer fight than the one he'd just experienced with the Vampyre, but as he pulled into her driveway, the beacon bounced against his chest, still warm from Ares's summons. Knowing what was about to happen to her world made him more determined than ever to make sure she was on that plane with him.
Keeping the guitar case securely over his shoulder, he strode up her steps and paused, before knocking, to check his watch again. She should definitely be home by now. Her police cruiser was in the driveway, but that didn't mean anything, since she only drove it while on duty. Maybe she'd gone out for a quick dinner---or, gods forbid, a date. He rapped once, dispelling that thought before it made him angry enough to leave her ass here.
No one answered. He knocked again, waited a full minute, then peered through the garage window to make sure her personal car was there. It was. Still didn't mean she was home, though.
Shit.
He made his way around the side of the house to the window that peered inside the bedroom he knew all too well. It was cracked open, which meant she was, indeed, home. Shanna was a creature of habit. She came home, cracked all the windows for fresh air, tidied up the house, then showered. Every day. At least, she had when they'd been together. He doubted her rituals would have changed drastically in the past six months.
As he inched the window upward and it gave a tiny squeak of protest, he stopped, winced, and waited to see if she'd heard. The last thing he needed was for her to think he was an intruder and pull her weapon on him. But she wasn't answering her damned door, and was leaving him few options. When no sound of movement came from inside, he inched the window open enough to squeeze his body through, and landed quietly on the carpet beside the bed.
He spun in a slow circle, surveying the room, the uniform on the bed, and the tiny crack of light coming from beneath the bathroom door. The sound of footsteps on tile inside made him pause, and his gaze caught sight of her gun and handcuffs on her nightstand. He grabbed them and slid the gun into his waistband. Then, he stuffed the cuffs into his back pocket and slipped to the corner of the room. He didn't want to scare the shit out of her, but now that he had her gun, at least he didn't have to worry about how to get her out of here without getting shot.
He waited, inches behind the door, trying not to breathe too loudly. The minute the bathroom door opened, he grabbed her, startling a scream from her as she brought her elbow back to pummel him in the gut.
He grunted but held her tight. "It's me, Shanna. Zach. I knocked but you didn't answer."
He gave her just enough leeway to turn in his arms, and as she did so, the towel she was rubbing her wet hair with snaked to the floor, leaving him holding one damp, sexy-as-hell woman in his arms. He caught her wrist before she could slap him, then let her go and took a step back.
"So you broke in?" She punched his arm hard enough to make him wince. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Get dressed. I need you to come with me."
"Have you been drinking?"
Damp brown tendrils clung to her face and ivory throat, and he followed their path down her full, white breasts spilling out of a black lace bra and the smooth, flat tummy, to the place cruelly hidden by the tiny triangle of silk panties. Everything inside him tensed and ached, and it took him a second to remember why he was here. Why he wasn't reaching for her right then and there.
But as he licked his lips to draw moisture back to his mouth, he forced his gaze back to hers, forced his temperature to cool. He'd come here to save her, not to fuck her.
"Stone-cold sober," he said, half wishing it weren't true. "But get dressed anyway, princess."
Suddenly realizing her vulnerable state, she snatched the towel from the floor, wrapping it around herself as she backed away.
"You're scaring me."
He watched her gaze stray to the nightstand. Saw the momentary panic flash on her features when she noticed her weapon was gone.
"Get dressed. Do that for me, and I'll explain everything when we get out of here."
"Screw you," she said, hugging the towel to her breasts. "I'm not going anywhere with you."
Zach clenched his jaw. "Remember all the shit I told you? About what I used to do for a living?"
The stuff she'd called him crazy for and left him because of?
"O-of course."
"Yeah, well, things are getting really bad, princess, and I need to get you to safety before I can do my job."
She snatched a pair of jeans off the chair in the corner and slid them on beneath the towel.
"Your job," she said, her voice mocking. "You mean, slaying demons. That job?"
He didn't like the amusement in her voice one bit. "I only slay demons when they're in my way."
He unbuttoned his shirt and let her see the claw marks from tonight's exploits that still burned like hell. "Like tonight."
Her eyes widened, fixated on the long slashes that he hadn't yet had time to tend. "Good God, Zach. Who the hell did that to you?"
"I said I'd tell you everything when we get out of here. Put on a shirt."
"No."
He sighed, seeing the resolve in her eyes, in her tight shoulders. He was going to have to do this the hard way. He strode to the dresser and yanked out a t-shirt.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
He held out the shirt. "Put this on."
Her darting gaze landed on something over his shoulder, and she made a mad dash across the room. Zach shot after her, catching her around the waist.
"Let! Me! Go!" She kicked out, trying to break his hold.
Twisting, he grabbed the cell phone she was reaching for and tossed it out the window. He set her on her feet, holding out the shirt again. "Get dressed."
"Go to hell."
"That's gonna be a short trip, sweetheart." He pulled the shirt over her head. When she slipped her hand through the opening, he clasped one cuff to her left wrist and the other to his right.
"What the---" Shanna rattled the chains holding him to her. "Do you know how many laws you're breaking right now? Uncuff me!"
"I will. The minute we're on the plane."
She sat on the bed, yanking his arm painfully toward her. "You're crazy, Zach, and I am not going anywhere with you."
He was sick as hell of her calling him crazy.
"We don't have time for this shit." Shifting the case toward his right shoulder, he jerked his arm back, hauling Shanna to her feet. Before she could regain her balance, he bent and lifted her over his shoulder.
He paused long enough to grab her keys from the hook by the door, her screams for help echoing in his ears as he carried her outside.
Shanna's small pickup wasn't a comfortable fit for a six-foot-five man, but Zach squeezed behind the wheel and leaned as close to Shanna as he could to ease the pain from their linked wrists.
The minute his door closed, she stopped screaming for help and began wailing on his biceps with her small, clenched fists. "You bastard! I swear to God---"
He pressed a brutal kiss to her mouth. "Shut the hell up," he said as he pulled away. "Damn it, you know I'm not going to hurt you."
"No, just kidnap me! What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Turn that up," Zach barked, something the DJ on the radio said catching his attention.
When Shanna didn't obey, he jerked their bound wrists forward and twisted the volume so he could hear.
"The carnage that has taken place here in Marathon, Florida, is unexplainable, according to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office. Bodies are piling up in the city morgues with mysterious wounds that look to have been caused by wild animals. Similar reports have been submitted in other cities, including as far north as Washington, DC. Eyewitness accounts of rabid, large wolves and other wild animals continue to pour in---"
"Wolves?" Shanna said, obviously forgetting she was supposed to be pissed.
Zach cast a glance at her, hating the worried expression on her paling face.
"Zach?" she asked as they rolled out of the driveway. "What's going on?"
"I tried to tell you, remember?"
"You mean demons." The laughter in her voice was muffled by a whiny pitch of fear. "You think what the radio is referring to are really demons? They're wolves."
He pulled the truck onto the main road, watching the sides of the street for any shadows that didn't belong there. The streets seemed quiet enough, but so had his own. He wasn't letting his guard down for a minute. "You're not going to believe anything I tell you until you see it with your own eyes. And I'm going to try to make very sure that doesn't happen, because if you can see it, you're too close. Got it?"
"No! I don't got it."
He should have just knocked her ass out and stuck her in the bed of the truck.
"Damn it, Zach, if you don't start talking---"
"I told you, I used to work for the Order of Ancients---"
She groaned. "No, not that again. Greek gods looking out for humans with the aid of Witches and crap. That conversation didn't end well last time."
No, it hadn't. After a year of dating, he'd finally felt close enough to her to let her in on his most precious secrets, and she'd laughed at him just before calling him crazy and walking out of his life, taking his heart with her.
"Do you want me to talk or not?" he demanded.
She fiddled with the cuff, twisting and turning it until the skin beneath it puckered and turned red. "I just want you to let me go."
The tears in her voice almost broke him. "As soon as I get you to St. Augustine, you can go wherever the hell you want."
"Why? What's in St Augustine."
"Divine intervention." He turned the radio down and the A/C up. Despite the cool January wind, he was sweating like mad. He had enough body heat radiating off him to keep Shanna warm, too, but aimed the vents at his face to keep her as comfortable as possible. "Listen, you know me. You know I'd never do anything to hurt you, right?"
"I used to," she whispered. "Not so sure now."
"Well, be sure. I'm taking you to the airport. We're meeting a friend of mine. You can ask him all your questions since you won't believe my answers."
"Why would I believe his? He could tell me anything you wanted him to say."
Zach hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand, the sting numbing some of his frustration. "Damn it. Just give me one hour. If I don't have you convinced before the plane leaves the ground, you can go. All right?"
He had no intention of letting her go anywhere, but if it made her less skittish to think he might, he was willing to offer her anything.
When she didn't respond, he sighed. "It's important to me. Just say okay."
There was a long moment of silence while she stared at him. Finally she exhaled.
"Okay." Her voice was quiet as she pushed her wet hair away from her face. "But Zach, if I don't start getting some answers soon, I'll arrest you myself. Or maybe shoot you. Depends on how much more you piss me off."
He glanced at her and couldn't hide his smirk. "I have your gun."
She glared. "Don't try me."
Knowing this was an argument neither of them would win, he suggested, "How about we agree to shut the hell up until we get to the airport?"
She tried to cross her arms, but ended up with his hand on her breast. She shoved him away. "Fine."
"Fine," he mimicked, glaring out the windshield and taking the turn a little more sharply than required.
Trying to save Shanna was likely going to end up with him throttling her. If she didn't bust a cap in his ass first.
"What the hell?" Shanna pressed her hands to the window to see into the darkness, dragging Zach partially across the console in the process. "Zach, look!"
Sirens screamed to their right and the faint flicker of orange lit up the evening sky. "Fire," he muttered, turning his attention back to the road.
"No, look! There, in the parking lot. Jesus, just pull over a sec."
Zach didn't trust her enough to stop the car, but he did slow, and steered onto the shoulder so he could get a better look. Dozens of people poured out of an apartment complex, one that sat a good three blocks from the fire. With no immediate danger to them or the structure, their screams were out of place. Yet half-naked men and women screamed and wailed as they carried children across the lot and toward the grassy banks that led to the main road.
"What do you think it is?"
Zach checked his watch. He'd already wasted almost forty precious minutes getting Shanna. He was due to meet Lance in twenty. Chances were, the residents of the complex were simply being evacuated in case the fire spread. But even that logic couldn't explain the look of true terror etched on some of the closest people's faces.
A huge shadow cut through the darkness, sailing over the hood of the pickup and nearly causing Zach to careen into the guard rail. He righted the vehicle, wincing as Shanna's panic caused her to reach for the dash and their shackles to rip the hair from his arm.
"Where did it go?"
Shanna twisted to her knees, peering out the windows. "There!" She yelled, pounding the rear glass. "Behind us."
"Son of a bitch!"
Zach could have handled seeing just about anything in the rearview mirror except what he saw. Vampyre, no problem. Shyfter, he'd have kicked its ass.
But it was neither of those. Instead, it was the one Dark Breed that still had the ability to still his heart, the one breed responsible for his retirement from the Order.
A Lychen.
7:42 p.m.
4 hours and 18 minutes before the fall . . .
Zach floored the pedal and risked another glance in the rearview. The damned Lychen was following them and showed no signs of tiring.
"Give me my gun."
"It won't do any good." He tugged against the cuffs. "Put your belt back on."
She braced her hand on his shoulder. "You heard the news. That wolf has to be one of the rabid ones they were talking about. I have to shoot it."
"Fine." She wasn't going to believe him, anyway. She'd rather believe perfect strangers on the damned radio.
Zach shifted forward as much as he could, allowing her to grab the gun. She slid open the rear window, aimed, and fired. The Lychen stumbled, but it didn't fall. He pulled hard on his arm, bringing her around in the seat. "See? Regular bullets won't even slow it down. Now put on your seatbelt."
The minute he heard the belt click into place he sped up, hoping that maybe she'd inflicted enough pain to cause the werewolf to lose its form.
He should've known they wouldn't get that lucky. When a Lychen caught scent of something it wanted, it could hang onto it for days. He had to do something to throw the beast off their trail.
He squinted against bright, oncoming headlights and a plan began to take route. "Hold onto something," he shouted, before cutting the wheel sharply to the left, directly into the path of the vehicle coming right at them.
"You're going to get us killed!"
"Come on, you bastard."
"Zach?"
The driver of the other car blared its horn. Waiting until the last possible second, Zach swerved into the ditch. The truck bounced over the embankment as a high-pitched yelp broke through the squeal of the other vehicle's brakes. Zach struggled to regain control of the pickup, and with a bone-jarring bounce, he directed the truck out of the ditch and back onto the road.
Shanna twisted in her seat. "Oh God, there's dog all over the road."
"Good." Zach wiped the beads of moisture from his forehead. "Never killed a Lychen with a moving vehicle before. Hopefully it'll stay dead."
Shanna adjusted the cuff on her arm with shaking fingers. "It was a wolf! If you would have just stopped the truck and let me have a clear shot at it, I could have ended it right there. But no! Your insane ideas almost got us killed. Almost got someone else killed!"
He held her gaze for several seconds. "Princess, my insane ideas are what's going to keep you alive."
She glared at him, tucking her gun into the front of her pants. "You really want me to believe that was a . . . I don't even know that word."
"Lychen. Lycanthrope. Werewolf." He aimed the vent right at his face, his temper making the truck feel like a sauna. "We have a lot of names for them. Sadly, they only have one for you."
"Oh, really. And what might that be? 'Bitch'? Or your favorite insulting nickname, maybe . . . 'princess'?"
Zach smirked. "Nope. The only thing they call you, sweetheart, is food."
Fifteen minutes later, Shanna finally broke her oath of silence and thrust her finger at her window and the man striding toward them in the private airport loading area.
"Let me guess. That's your friend?"
Zach gave a slight wave to Lance through the window. "Yep."
"Shocker." Sarcasm dripped from her voice, but Zach ignored it. He was sick of trying to convince her that it hadn't been an average red wolf they'd splattered all over the road. If she refused to believe him, she'd believe Lance. Lance had ways of proving these things that Zach couldn't hope to replicate.
He parked the pickup, then pulled Shanna through his side after him.
She didn't protest as she stumbled to her feet beside him, her gaze locked on Lance's approach. Zach couldn't blame her for staring. Lance stuck out in Key West the way a Rolls Royce stuck out in a junk yard. Wearing a suit worth several thousand dollars, long blond hair, and perfectly polished shoes, Lance strolled toward them, a well-dressed flunky on either side of him.
"How do you know someone like that?"
"The Order."
"Ah. Of course. He a dealer?"
"If he was, don't you think you'd know, being one of KWPD's finest and all?"
She growled something he couldn't decipher. "Where'd he get the money, then?"
"He's been around for centuries."
"Right."
"Ever hear of Sir Lancelot?"
Shanna gave him a light shove to let him know she wasn't taking him seriously, and Zach shrugged, pulling her toward Lance and his entourage. The fact that she was looking at the man behind the King Arthur myths would be only one of many things she was going to have trouble believing.
"Lance," he said, holding out his hand for a shake, yanking Shanna's with him.
"Would you stop that?" she seethed.
Lance looked down at the handcuffs and grinned. "Do I want to know?"
"No."
"Right then." He gestured behind them where a group of people were bustling about his private jet. "She's next in line for fueling. It's the soonest I could arrange. I'd wager you have fifteen minutes, tops, to get her in the air and see how far you can get before they make you land. Soon as they get the word to upgrade national security, you'll be grounded, mate, and they'll begin evacuations."
"Evacuations for what, exactly?" Shanna asked.
"Yeah," Zach said. "Tell her. She won't believe me. She thinks the Dark Breed that just chased us, going sixty for twenty minutes, was your run-of-the-mill red wolf."
Lance turned a slow gaze in Shanna's direction. "Love, Hell's opening whether you choose to believe it or not. If you like your life, I suggest you do whatever this bloke tells you to."
Shanna let out a snort. "Do I have 'gullible' stamped on my forehead? You're asking me to believe in werewolves, for God's sake."
Lance's brow lifted inquisitively toward Zach. "Stubborn?"
"The definition."
"Perhaps we should give the lady some proof?"
Not knowing what Lance had in mind, and not caring if it got Shanna onboard the plane without further fight, he nodded.
"Malcolm!" At Lance's bellow, a tall, lanky man dressed almost as well as Lance walked toward them. "That an Armani?"
The man looked down at his suit then back at Lance. "Yes, sir."
"Take it off. Don't want you destroying it."
"Sir?"
"The lady needs convincing. I'll leave that to you."
Malcolm grinned and wasted no more time stripping bare-ass naked right there on the airstrip. Shanna gasped. "What the hell is he doing? Zach, that's indecent exposure---oh, my God!"
Malcolm's dark complexion turned black and hairy as his bones shifted and he dropped to all fours. Hands became paws. Nose became snout. His brown eyes shifted and flickered to pale yellow as they stared straight up at Shanna. Zach looked away. There were a decent number of Lychen in the Order. Ones who weren't a threat to him. Didn't matter. He still didn't like them.
Shanna tried to bolt back to her car, but her binds to Zach jerked her to her knees. She reached for her weapon, but he grabbed it first. "Give me my gun!"
"That'll do, Mal." Lance said, touching what had become a large wolf on the back of the head.
Shanna was shaking so badly Zach had to lift her to her feet and pin her to his side to keep her from falling again.
"I'm sorry, Shanna, but you had to see for yourself that everything I told you is true."
"H-how is that even possible?"
Zach didn't think she even realized she was clutching his hand, and he didn't try to break free of her hold. As they watched the wolf shift back into Malcolm, watched him dress, watched him walk away howling with laughter, Zach kept his arm firmly around Shanna, waiting for her to faint.
She didn't.
"Lychen," Lance explained. "But not to worry. He's the good sort. Works for the Order."
"But there are others out there who aren't on our side. Ones who chase cars and don't stop long enough to pant. And he was only one of thousands." Zach pointed toward the plane. "You ready to let me take you to St. Augustine or not?"
"I-I need to sit down. Oh God, I need to sit down!"
"You can sit on the plane." Zach looked to Lance. "It's less than an hour's flight to St. Augustine. There enough fuel for that?"
"Can't swear to it, mate. Hasn't been used in months."
"I'll check. I just need enough to get me there. We don't have time to fuel up."
"Needing my pilot?"
Zach shook his head. He didn't want any other passengers he'd have to worry about once they landed. "I've got it."
It had been years since he'd flown a plane this size, but he'd manage.
"Thought so."
When he looked down at Shanna, her eyes were wet and her nose was turning red. "You all right?"
She shook her head. "You're really being serious, aren't you?"
He nodded and squeezed her lightly. "I wish I wasn't."
When he bent and scooped her into his arms without the smallest mutter of protest from her, he was afraid she was going into shock. He carried her to the plane and into the cockpit, settling her into the copilot's chair as Lance followed.
"Coming with us?" he asked.
"Can't. Supposed to be looking for Aphrodite's Chosen." Lance pointed at the cuffs. "Think you can unlock her. Looks too bloody frightened to make a run for it now."
"Got something I can use? The key's at her house."
"I always have something, mate."
Pulling a long, thin wand from the inside pocket of his jacket, Lance pointed it at the handcuffs, spoke a foreign word, and bam, the handcuffs snapped in two.
"Thanks." Zach said.
And this time, Shanna did faint.
8:05 p.m.
3 hours and 55 minutes before the fall . . .
Shanna woke with a taste in her mouth like she'd been sucking on a dirty sock and a headache she couldn't explain. She didn't bother to open her eyes, the feel of the rumble under her bottom immediately reminding her that she was on a plane with Zach and that it must have taken off. She'd fainted. For the first time in her life, she'd freaking fainted.
And now she was on her way to St. Augustine with the man she'd once thought she would marry---kidnapped and scared out of her mind.
She'd seen a werewolf! And . . . and . . .
"What the hell was he?" she blurted out, remembering the icy cold spark that Lance had directed at her handcuffs a second before she'd passed out.
Finally she opened her eyes and found Zach watching her, looking all too casual and comfortable in the pilot's seat to suit her. She hadn't known he could fly a plane. Hell, there was lot about Zach she didn't know, though admittedly, he had tried to tell her once.
She hadn't believed him then, but after what she'd seen this morning, she wasn't so sure he was crazy anymore.
Maybe she was the crazy one.
"I told you. Lychen." Lance adjusted the blanket he must have put on her while she was out, tucking it firmly beneath her chin. "How are you feeling?"
"No, not him," she said, ignoring his question and shoving the blanket away, feeling as though she was going to suffocate beneath a panic attack. "Lance. What is he?"
This was all too surreal.
"Mage," Zach said.
A small television monitor hung above her head and she stared at it as images of people fleeing crumbling buildings flashed and flickered. The ticker at the bottom of the footage read: "Nashville, TN: Earthquake devastates city. Thousands missing and/or presumed dead. City officials blame possible destruction of city zoo for number of wild animal sightings . . ."
"Pardon?"
"Lance. He's a Mage."
She was sorry she'd asked.
"Sort of a Witch but a lot more powerful---"
"Never mind. I don't want to know." She pointed to the television. "Earthquakes?"
He nodded. "All with unexplainable animal sightings. Not sure how anyone can confuse a demon with an animal. The Lychen, maybe, but the others? Nothing animalistic about the way they look. Just the way they eat."
She was suddenly so thirsty she could cry, but she wanted answers more than she wanted water. "W-why are they happening?"
"I've told you why."
"Because Hell is opening?"
"The earthquakes are occurring over the weak spots of the Underworld. Nashville, Orlando. I'm guessing Egypt had a massive one as well. And likely Miami, in our area. That would explain the asshole I found this morning and the Lychen back there."
Shanna rubbed her temples, trying to wrap her head around everything. "When is all of this supposed to happen?"
Zach held out his watch. Leaning forward, she studied the countdown timer. Watching each second tick off filled her belly with dread. "Midnight?"
"Midnight," he confirmed. "We have to get to the fort, get you safely Below before that time arrives."
"And what about everyone else in the world? How are these gods you believe in going to save all them?"
Zach held her gaze but didn't answer.
"My God." Shanna closed her eyes, sickened by the images of all the wounded and dead she was conjuring. "How many people are going to die?"
"No idea," Zach said matter-of-factly.
She couldn't think about that right now. She needed to clear her head, to think about something other than the images of nasty creatures clawing their way out of the earth to kill innocent people . . .
"Was he really Lancelot?" she whispered, feeling foolish for asking something so silly at that particular moment.
"Yep."
Shanna remembered enough from English class to know the name Lancelot du Lac, and he fit the description of the seven-foot-tall blonde she'd just met at the airfield. Maybe Zach wasn't joking.
"The Lancelot?"
"He was a knight once, yes. But the Lancelot you're referring to is a storybook character. Just happens to be based on Lance DuLaque. If it weren't for his weakness for women, you'd have never heard of him."
"Okay."
Okay. That's it. She would accept it because right now, it made about as much sense as anything else.
Zach reached across the small space separating their seats and squeezed her knee. "It's all right, Shanna. The Order is setting up a couple of headquarters on each of the continents. The closest to here is being constructed in St. Augustine. An old fort there that they think will hold up well against attack. I'm getting you there and you'll be safe. All right?"
"What about you?" she asked.
"What about me?"
"You said you're getting me there. You meant us, right?"
"I'll be reporting for duty when you're settled."
Her palms were suddenly clammy. And her chest hurt. Why did her chest hurt? "You're going to fight them?"
He gave her a half-smile. "If I'm not too rusty."
"This is all real, isn't it?"
"Yeah. It is."
"Okay."
There it was again. That word of acceptance that she didn't truly feel. "Can I . . . do anything?"
She was coming out of her skin, needing to do something, anything to occupy her mind. And Zach was still so familiar to her, still so strong and beautiful and hers, though she held no real claim on him anymore. It wasn't his job to make her feel better. He was trying to save her life. That was far more than she could ask for.
"Shh . . ." he covered the earpiece with his hand and listened intently for several seconds. "We're being ordered to land in Daytona." He pointed over his shoulder. "Inside the table is a key that will unlock the shelves at the back of the plane. See if there's anything you're comfortable using. When we land, I want you armed."
"I have my gun."
"I told you, it won't do you any good. You need silver to weaken most of them long enough to kill them."
"Oh. Okay."
"And Shanna?"
"Hmm?" She was struggling with her seatbelt, struggling to remember how to stand the hell up.
"Drink some water. Eat a sandwich. We'll have to land in about ten minutes."
It took Shanna what felt like an eternity to pull herself together and unlock the weapons case at the back of the plane. The water had helped, but the sandwich was sitting heavy in her stomach and she wished she hadn't forced it down. But now, the cop in her was coming alive at the sight of all the weapons in front of her. She instinctively reached for a set of knuckle rings on the lowest shelf and pocketed them, their sharp spikes stabbing her legs through the denim.
"What else am I supposed to grab?" she called out, gravity shifting as the plane dropped altitude. They must be getting close to Daytona. Shanna wished they weren't. She felt safer up here than she did on the ground, where the world wasn't her world anymore.
"Anything you know how to use!"
"What about you?"
"I have my own."
She grabbed a shotgun and a box of shells, then fisted a couple of daggers and something that looked like a foot-long nail. She found the bag he'd been carrying beside the guitar case and crammed the weapons inside. "I know you said guns won't work, but I grabbed a shotgun anyway."
"It'll work. The shells are silver."
She worked her way back to the cockpit. "What's with the guitar?"
"What about it?"
"You never told me you played."
"I don't."
"Oh." She wrung her hands together and sat down.
"It's only an hour to St. Augustine from Daytona. We should be okay, right?"
He answered with a smile that wasn't quite reflected in his eyes. She knew him well enough to know he wouldn't offer her any false promises. So he kept quiet.
Shanna realized she'd never been more afraid in her life. Not even last year when she'd had a gun pressed to her temple and a very noble stranger named Zach had distracted the perp long enough for her to take him down.
"Time to land?" she asked.
"Either that or risk being shot down by a nation in panic."
8:16 p.m.
3 hours and 44 minutes before the fall . . .
The minute they touched down in Daytona, a dozen armed men rushed the plane and hurried Shanna and Zach off the runway. The country was officially in red-alert mode, and all aircrafts were to be either grounded or shot out of the sky. The government was treating the situation like a terrorist attack, and in a sense, they weren't wrong. But all the red alerts in the world weren't going to protect against an enemy they didn't know how to fight.
If Zach knew anything about the Order, they were quickly pulling shit together to keep the humans as safe as possible. That meant bringing officials in on the truth and trying to temper the reactions of the world as they discovered demons and gods weren't just creatures of myth. They were real.
As one of the security guards rushed them toward the exit, Zach adjusted his hold on the guitar case and weapon bag, and grabbed Shanna's hand, unwilling to risk losing her in the crowd outside the gate.
"All of Florida being evacuated or just the south?" he asked the guard.
The overweight man grunted and fumbled with the gate locks. "All of Florida is being urged north. Don't know what's happening, dude, but Florida don't get earthquakes. This is fucked up."
He had no idea.
"But if earthquakes are happening everywhere, where is everyone supposed to go?" Shanna asked, turning her hand so her fingers linked in Zach's.
"Don't know. Sent my family to Carolina an hour ago. Doesn't look like much is happening there yet."
As the guard shoved them through the gate and locked them out, he walked away grumbling, "Just so fucked up . . ."
They started toward the terminal. A golf cart sat abandoned just around the corner, keys inside and just begging to be used. He dragged Shanna toward it. "Let's go."
They hopped in and he maneuvered around the throng of people demanding flights they'd never be granted. A crowd had spilled from inside the airport into the drop-off and pickup lanes outside where Zach drove now. He wound around the thickest part of the mob toward the parking garage, not at all surprised to find it packed. Getting a car out of there would take forever.
He chose a shuttle van instead. The driver stood across the lanes, smoking a cigarette---it was his own damned fault. Together, Zach and Shanna rushed to the vehicle, got inside and took off. The driver chased them down the road, waving his hat and shouting before finally being left in the dust.
"I'm a cop and I just participated in grand theft auto," Shanna said, fastening her seat belt.
"I think that's the least of your problems."
"No shit."
Zach smiled. At least she wasn't quivering in fear anymore.
"How's your chest?" she asked.
"Fine." It was burning, but it was his arm that was really aching. The fight at the Murphys' had required muscles and skills he hadn't used in ten years. The Lychen wound he'd sustained then had forced him to retire from the Order, the infection so bad he'd nearly lost his arm. Any overuse of it carried pain that brought him to his knees, and he had a bad feeling that before he reached St. Augustine, he was going to have plenty of cause to overuse every bit of himself. Including his injured fighting arm.
"I need a damned drink," he muttered, massaging his forearm and fighting the overwhelming urge to scratch the burning itch that ran up the wound's seam.
"You gonna tell me what's in the case?" Shanna asked, ignoring his complaint.
"Guitar."
"No, it's not. I carried it off the plane. It's way too heavy to be a guitar."
He shrugged in response. "Open it. See for yourself."
"Fine," she muttered, unfastening her seat belt. "I will."
She climbed over the seat, into the back where they'd thrown their things, and he heard the distinct sound of the case snapping open.
"It's a sword."
"Yep."
"It . . . looks really old. God, Zach, it's a tetanus shot waiting to happen."
"Rusty, huh?"
"Little bit."
He smiled, imagining her reaction to the big broadsword that had ten years of neglect etched all over it. Wouldn't look like much, but that was just another testament to the cliché about not judging a book by its cover.
"Ow!"
"Touch it?"
"It burned me!"
"Yep."
"Why the hell did it burn me?"
"Because no one can use it but me, that's why."
"Zach, no one uses swords anymore. How is this going to help you? It's slow and---"
"Pass it up here."
"I'm not touching it again!"
"Slide the case up here. Let me show you."
"Maybe you should pull over first."
"No time," he said, reaching behind his seat for the top of the case and clawing at it until he could drag it into the passenger seat. "Open the case for me."
Truthfully, he was excited to show Shanna this part of himself---something he'd never shown another soul outside of the Order. Something that was bound to impress her, because it never failed to impress him.
She flicked open the latches and he glanced down at the sad, pathetic weapon. Without Zach, the once glorious sword had tarnished. The intricate design placed on the blade by Hephaestus was hidden beneath ten years of neglect. The tool that had protected him, allowed him to protect the gods, was now nothing more than a fragile hunk of steel and silver.
"Ready? Keep your eyes on it."
Then he pressed his hand to the hilt and Shanna's gasp of awe made him grin from ear to ear. A soft white light glimmered up from the hilt and onto the blade, lighting up the dark interior of the van. Dirt and rust washed away as the spidery tendrils curled their way to the tip, revealing ancient Greek prayers meant to hold the sentinels safe. The mark of Ares shattered the remaining filth on the hilt, and a jolt of electricity shot through Zach's hand as the sword came alive.
"How . . ."
"It knows its brother when it feels it," he said, still grinning.
"Is that like Excalibur or something?"
Zach laughed. "No. Lance has that one. This one is just . . . mine."
He ached to test it out, to wield the weapon that had once been as dear to him as his life. If he lifted it, it would be weightless now---and only for him---the heavy metal as light as a mere stick, but deadlier than any gun or dagger he might have used. He dug beneath the sword until he felt leather brush his fingers, then dragged out the broad leather belt he'd stored there. He set it on the console, closed the case, then passed it back to Shanna.
"What's that for?"
"For when we stop again. It's time to keep it close to me."
Shanna climbed back between the seats and refastened her seatbelt. She watched him stroke the soft, worn leather.
Feeling like an intruder, she cleared her throat. "So, werewolves, Vampyre . . . Mages. What else is there? I mean, if we're going to come across more bogeymen, I want to know what they are."
"Leeches, which you'd probably call zombies. Ghosts, ghouls, Djinn."
"What?"
"Genies."
"Oh." She wouldn't mind one of those right about now. Three wishes and maybe none of this would be happening. Maybe she'd be snuggled in bed, dreaming sweet dreams instead of living a nightmare.
She watched his profile quietly, unsure about how he'd react to the question perched on her tongue. "And you?"
He held her attention for several long seconds before returning his focus to the road. "What about me?"
"Are you . . ." She licked her lips, "human?"
She closed her eyes, somewhat disturbed at the possibility that she might have had sex with a demon of some kind. She wasn't one of those women who found Dracula sexy. She'd always preferred Jonathan Harker---the sweet, reliable fiancé who'd go to the ends of the earth to save the woman he loved.
"I'm human. Plenty of humans work for the Order of Ancients. Mystics and Seers and sentinels."
"Which were you?" He'd told her some of this, but she'd thought he'd been full of shit and hadn't really paid attention. Now, however, she was all ears.
"Sentinel. I worked for Ares."
She tilted her head, studying him. His strong chin, deep-set eyes, and long nose. He looked human, but there were still things about him that she couldn't explain. "That weird body temperature thing you've always had. That doesn't seem human, now that I know there are other possibilities for it."
"Protection from Ares. Mages like to use temperature against their enemies. Fire, ice. That sort of thing."
"Oh." What else was there to say? It was like she was walking in a novel co-written by R.L. Salvatore and R.L. Stein.
As they merged onto the highway, it was as though someone had erected a wall of cars in their path. Bumper-to-bumper exhaust fumes, created by panicked evacuees.
Horns blared from ahead and beside them. "We're going to have to use back roads. This will take forever."
The parade of bright red brake lights ahead wasn't so much as inching forward any more. Then, there was the sound of metal on metal, and every muscle in Shanna's body tensed.
"Zach?"
The back wheels of the van bounced violently, as if being lifted from the ground, and Shanna lurched forward, bashing her head into the dash.
"Shit!" Zach yelled. "Get out! Get out of the damned van!"
She threw open her door. Her feet barely touched the pavement before he was beside her, snatching the weapons bag and guitar case from the back seat. He threw open the case, wrapped the sheath around his chest and slid the sword inside so it lay pressed against his spine. He grabbed her hand, pulling her around the neighboring vehicle, but as Shanna started to run, the pavement rumbled, throwing her off balance. She caught herself on the hood of a truck just before her knees could smack the pavement.
As she straightened, she got a clear view of what had set off Zach's panic, then shut her eyes against the fear threatening to knock her over. Concrete splintered and the horrific sound of twisting metal filled the air as cars were flipped out of the way like matchbox toys.
Ahead of them, less than two blocks away, the highway was opening up, and Hell was beginning to breathe.
8:44 p.m.
3 hours and 16 minutes before the fall . . .
Shanna lifted her shirt over her nose so she could breathe. From every direction, horns blared and cement dust rained down on them. Zach pulled her beyond the shoulder toward the off ramp, never turning to witness the horror of what was behind them.
"Run!" he yelled. "Don't stop, and no matter what you hear, don't look back."
He didn't give her a chance to argue or to question. He took off at a full sprint, dragging her behind him. The ground rumbled again. Chunks of asphalt gave way and a strange hissing noise muffled the chaotic sounds that had engulfed them.
The hissing grew louder, following them as they raced down the off ramp. A loud roar built until it encompassed everything. It seemed to flow through her body, make her muscles spasm, and cause her blood to swoosh in tune with the chaos.
She glanced back, trying to see what they were running from, but night hung too thickly around her to let her see clearly.
"Don't stop!" Zach screamed, his hand tightening on her arm.
In front of them, the roar exploded outward sending huge chunks of concrete and dirt into the sky. The ground opened. They hit the road hard, rolling toward the grassy shoulder. She'd barely stopped tumbling before she was yanked to her feet and shoved forward.
"Run!"
She was too terrified not to obey. She kept her head down as slabs of roadway rained down on them, tried to focus on the sound of Zach's breathing beside her and not on the panicked screams all around them.
Debris pelted her body, but she refused to stop running, stumbling though she was over roots and holes hidden in the grass by both dust and blackness. She barely saw the huge metal rail that speared the grass two feet away. With a squeal she veered, but didn't make it three feet before Zach tackled her. Her palms and knees scraped against gravel, and it was only quick instinct that kept her head from smacking stone.
For a second, she couldn't breathe. Zach shifted and she pulled in large gulps of air. She buried her face in his neck as the raining debris pummeled his back. She tried to block as much of him with her arms as she could, but he was too broad for her to do much good.
Before she could make her tongue work in her parched mouth, he yanked her to her feet and pulled his sword from its sheath, ushering her toward a small clump of trees about thirty yards away.
They huddled behind small palms, their gazes locked on the roadway. Bodies began crawling from the opening, eerily lit up by the red glow of brake lights from the vehicles that hadn't been thrown. The smell of decay had Shanna gagging, but she couldn't pull her gaze away from the sight of the creatures spilling out of the ground. Creatures---some bearing human-like features, some animalistic and blackened with soot---lifted their dirty faces to the night sky, sniffing the air. They scattered like roaches, closing in on the people still standing on the edge of the road in shock.
"I thought you said we had until midnight!"
"Keep your voice down," Zach hissed. "And your head. You don't want to see what's about to happen."
She dropped her voice to a whisper, but panic wouldn't allow her to box her questions in a cage. "It's not time. We still had time!"
"Hell's already opening," he said. "But it won't be completely open until midnight."
"So there will be more? Than this?" Adrenaline and fear heated her blood, making her skin tingle. To hide the anxiety and terror threatening to choke her, she pulled her cop persona around her like a cloak. "We have to help them."
"It's too late, Shanna. One sword in an army of Dark Breed isn't going to make a difference."
She didn't know what the beasts were doing to the people they descended upon, but the screams of agony tearing through the streets were enough to keep Shanna frozen. Part of her was grateful she couldn't see clearly. She hated herself for her fear, wanted to move, to pull some to safety. But her feet wouldn't obey.
"They're being . . . being . . ."
"Eaten."
The word was so final and yet so matter-of-fact, all Shanna could do was bury her face in the grass and weep.
Zach wanted to give her time to adjust, to try and get a grip on what was happening, but it wouldn't be long before their secluded brush started filling with people looking to hide. A crowd would draw unwanted attention. Attention that could get Shanna killed.
"We gotta go." He helped her to her feet, but before they could move, a dark figure rushed by, and the stench that wafted off it wasn't human. Zach grabbed Shanna's hand and dragged her back into the shadows behind a tree. He pulled the shotgun from the weapons bag, loaded it, and pressed it into her hands. "Stay here. If anything comes near you, shoot."
He gripped her shoulders, shaking her slightly to snap her out of her stupor and make her remember she was cop. "Do you understand me?"
When she nodded, he pressed a quick kiss to her lips, pulled his sword from its sheath, and raced after the Dark Breed. The Leech descended on a woman and pinned her to the ground. It lowered its filthy head toward her face as the woman screamed and thrashed unsuccessfully to get away. Zach kicked out, sending the mud-encrusted creature rolling into the road.
He yanked the woman to her feet. "Run!" he ordered, never taking his eyes off the demon.
The sword pulsed in his hand, as if sensing the danger and welcoming it. He tightened his grip on the hilt and slowly backed up. Leeches rarely fought alone. He didn't want to find this one's friends. Lucky for him, though, Leeches were incapable of rational thought. Driven solely by hunger, it raced at Zach, ignoring the sword that he raised and lowered, directly into the bastard's gut. He slipped the weapon out, then sliced it across the Leech's neck, the head rolling beneath the bush behind it.
The sword cleansed itself as he raced back to Shanna. She was lying flat on her belly beside the tree, using the shotgun to slow Dark Breeds chasing a group of people a few yards away.
He grabbed her hand, pulling her to her feet, and as they made their way to the safer back roads, he finished off the injured Dark Breeds.
"You all right?" he asked, scanning the streets as they went.
"Yeah. I think I'm fine."
And judging by the stubborn lift of her chin, she looked determined to stay that way. It was a good sign. It meant she was shaking off disbelief and returning to the fighter he'd once fallen in love with. The fighter he still cared for more than he was willing to admit.
9:02 p.m.
2 hours and 58 minutes before the fall . . .
Zach led Shanna a mile or so down the road to a CVS where the parking lot was half full of cars begging to be borrowed. The store, like most of the other buildings in the area, was completely vacant. After rummaging through the upturned shelves for a couple of bottles of water and bags of chips, they went in search of yet another mode of transportation to get them the rest of the way to St. Augustine.
He zeroed in on a dark SUV in the next row of cars, hoping his hot-wiring skills hadn't gone rusty. "Hold this."
He handed her the bag of weapons and the snacks, then shattered the driver's window with his elbow. He popped the lock on the back door and opened it so Shanna could stash the goods inside, then shut it and grabbed her before he could second-guess his intentions. Tilting her chin, he forced her to look him in the eye. "We're going to be okay, Princess. Believe me?"
She shook her head but gave a contradictory half-smile. "Not sure anything's going to be okay again. But I'm a big girl." She lifted the hem of her t-shirt to dab at his bloodied elbow. She pulled out a piece of glass and winced before continuing. "The rest of the world is going to have to figure out how to deal---and I will, too. It's not the first time in my life my world's been turned upside down."
At first he thought she was referring to losing her parents when she was a kid, but something in her eyes made him wonder if she was referring to what had happened between them.
Before she could protest, he leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her mouth, and in an instant, he was in an all-too-familiar place that he didn't want to leave. It took all of his strength to pull away and open the driver's door---all his concentration to get the SUV running and pretend the kiss hadn't affected him at all.
"Get in," he said, somewhat pleased to see she looked as dazed as he felt.
He twisted in his seat to rummage through the bag of weapons, passing her the knuckle rings. She'd won the women's division of the local boxing tournament last year, and he was pretty sure she'd be more comfortable with her fists than with a dagger.
"Thanks." She took them, slid them onto her fingers, and made a fist. "I really hope I don't get close enough to one of those things to use it."
So did he.
He put the SUV in reverse. "Ready?"
"No," she answered. "But I don't suppose I have a choice.
"It'll be all right."
Her smile was faint, but at least it was there. "You keep saying that, but you never were a good liar."
And yet, when it had really counted, she hadn't been able to believe him.
He brushed the hair from her cheeks and pressed his mouth to her forehead. It was all the comfort he could offer right now. As he pulled onto the road, he slipped one hand over hers and gave a light squeeze, watching as she set the knuckle rings in her lap, closed her eyes, and pressed her head into her seat.
Occasionally, he found his gaze wandering back to her, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest as she fell asleep, and his desire to keep her safe only intensified. He'd allowed whiskey to fill the void she'd left inside him six months ago, but sober now, having her so close to him, he was remembering every perfect inch of her, every flaw that he'd adored.
If anything happened to her, he was a goner.
They'd only been on the road for about twenty minutes when she woke with a start, gasping for air as though she'd been held under water, and scaring the shit out of Zach. He swung the SUV off the main road and let it idle at a stop sign so he could reach for her.
"You all right?"
She nodded. "Nightmare. I was hoping all of this was."
This was the reason the Order worked in secret. Humans weren't meant to know that the creatures living in their fiction were real. Hell, he'd grown up with the knowledge and it was difficult for him to accept sometimes.
"We're definitely going to have to stick to back roads now," he said, turning down the volume on the radio that had been keeping him company and up-to-date on what was happening outside their little bubble. "Road blocks are popping up all over the interstate, redirecting evacuees around hazards. Could get a little rough."
"Okay." She pulled her hair back into a sloppy ponytail and he couldn't help but notice how badly her fingers trembled as she tried to work the elastic around her hair.
Twenty minutes later, when they should have arrived in St. Augustine, they'd only traveled another ten miles. Lines of traffic forced Zach off the road they'd been traveling and onto a route he wasn't too sure about. It was far more secluded, but looked to be pretty deserted, so he stuck with it. He had less than three hours to get Shanna to St. Augustine before Hell opened up and swallowed half the world whole. The fewer road blocks he encountered, the better.
As they merged onto a vacant two-lane road lined with forest on one side and cow pastures on the other, the debris of broken concrete hung in the air so thick, he had to strain to see. It was like driving through thick, choking fog.
From somewhere within the trees, an eerie howl shook the leaves. It might have been a wolf, but just as likely, it was a Lychen. He glanced at the scarred arm that had reduced him to an "in case of emergency only" member of the Order. Never in his life had he endured such pain---the paralyzing agony of the saliva in his blood, slowly stilling every organ he had until help had arrived. The thought of encountering that again would have sobered even the meanest drunk.
He turned the radio up to help drown out his thoughts and ease the uncomfortable silence. Shanna didn't feel like talking, and until they were off these damned dark, unlit roads, neither did Zach. He glanced at her, quietly staring out her window and into the trees, and when he next looked back at the road, he saw tail lights flashing in the distance. He slowed, suspicious of what might be causing the other driver to stop on an empty road. He eyed the van as they slowly passed, noted the dented hood pressed against the guardrail.
"Zach, look out!"
He turned his gaze back to the windshield to find three large, winged creatures blocking the road. He smashed the brake, throwing the SUV into a skid around the Hatchlings and into the ditch behind them. He hit the lever to lock the vehicle into four-wheel drive, but the back wheels spun out, stuck in Florida mud.
"Fuck."
The Hatchlings were approaching, slowly, knowing their prey was trapped inside like tuna in a can.
"What do we do?" Her eyes wide, Shanna dug her gun out of her back pocket.
"We sure as hell don't sit here and let them take us. Grab the bag!"
As he flung open his door, Zach pulled the sword from its sheath. He braced his feet and held the weapon in front of him. He moved to his left, away from Shanna and any survivors who might be trapped in the van, drawing the attention of the beasts. Hatchlings were born and bred in Tartarus. Spawns of the dragons and demons that resided there. If they'd crawled out of the only place they'd ever known, they wouldn't stop until they'd fed or were dead.
"Zach? No!"
Not breaking eye contact with the demons, he held out his hand to stop her from moving.
The largest of the three sized up Shanna, but its grunted command and nod were directed at Zach. The three soared high in the air, dipped low over Shanna, then dropped to the ground a couple feet in front of Zach. He didn't have time to size them up before they circled him, blocking any direct path to safety he might have had.
He was sorely outnumbered, but if they wanted to play, he'd play.
Zach drew back his sword and attacked.
9:25 p.m.
2 hours and 35 minutes before the fall . . .
Zach swung the sword at the Hatchling closest to him. The big beast dodged, grabbed Zach by the shirt, and threw him into the disabled van. Shanna's breath locked in her throat as she reached for her gun, but before she could free it from her waistband, Zach was on his feet again. He sliced the beast from shoulder to hip, and the dismembered monster fell to the ground with two distinct plops.
Zach's sword glowed bright as he seemed to find his groove, slicing it through the air and depositing another winged creature on the asphalt. The third, however, wasn't going down so easily. With each punishing blow that caused Zach to stagger, Shanna inched a little closer toward the fight, easing the gun back into her waistband and sliding the silver knuckle rings on instead.
Flexing her fist, she glanced down at the spiky points jutting out from atop her fingers. The injury the weapon could cause probably wouldn't be fatal, but maybe the silver would give Zach time to regain his footing.
Holding her breath, she made a mad dash at the creature's back. Just as she leaped with the intent of wrapping herself around its back, it spun, grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off the ground.
Shanna found herself staring into blood-red eyes. She tried to scream, but the beast was holding her throat so tightly, it was all she could do just to breathe. From the corner of her eye, she saw Zach grow smaller and smaller, and the overwhelming urge to vomit rose within her as she realized the demon was flying with her clutched in its claws.
She could hear his voice but couldn't understand the words he was yelling. Black drool dampened her neck as the demon smiled at her and dove toward the trees.
Never let your attacker take you to the second location.
All her self-defense lessons rushed through her head, but all she could hang on to was that one. A branch slapped at her cheek and it gave her hope. If she was low enough to see the ground between the trees, then there was a chance she might survive the fall.
Raising her arm, she swiped at the paper-thin skin beneath the beast's wing. It roared, screeching in pain. It teetered like a bird with a broken wing and spiraled toward the ground. She wrapped her arm around its neck and sliced the knuckle ring across its throat.
The next thing she knew, she was on the ground beneath the demon, her head pounding and her leg throbbing. She turned her head, the crackle of leaves making her ears feel as though they bled from the pain, but she was alive. And there were blessed footsteps headed in her direction.
"Zach!" Though she'd tried to scream it, her raw throat barely released his name in a whisper.
Then she saw him. Saw him raise his sword, saw him lower it at lightning speed, as she fought desperately to roll out from beneath the demon toward safety. But Zach's aim didn't go astray. It sliced through the beast's neck, sending its nasty head rolling down the sloped ground to land with a splash in the nearby creek.
She barely had time to find her breath again when Zach grabbed her by the arm.
"What the fuck were you thinking!" he screamed, yanking her to her feet so violently she thought her arm might pop out of its socket.
"The silver . . . I wanted to weaken him---"
"My sword is silver! Didn't you see the other two die? Damn it, Shanna, you could have been killed!"
She jerked free of his clutches, rubbing her arm and sinking back to the ground where the world was more stable. Her leg hurt like hell, but she was pretty sure nothing was broken. Just bruised like a bitch.
"You said silver would make them vulnerable to death. I was tr-trying to help!"
And she had! She'd saved his sorry ass and he was yelling at her?
Shanna tried to muster the energy to feel real anger, but it wouldn't come. He was right. She hadn't truly thought through her actions. She'd seen him in trouble and had acted as her instincts had bidden her to do. But her instincts knew nothing of this world in which Zach lived.
They could have died today. There was a very real possibility that they still might. If so, it would be nice to have someone who belonged to her when it happened. She had no family anymore. No friends close by. Zach didn't belong to her anymore, either. She'd ruined that thoroughly when she'd called him insane and walked out.
Even if they couldn't be together again, she'd get him to finally forgive her for not believing him . . . and maybe then she'd be able to forgive herself.
"I don't think I can do this anymore," she whispered. "The world's gone crazy, Zach."
He knelt beside her, giving her a clear view of the blood splatter sprinkled across his neck and face. She prayed it didn't belong to him.
"Yeah, it has, Princess. So we've got to stay sane for each other. We have to stay alive for each other. You can't do stupid shit like that anymore."
The anger in his eyes stilled her frustrations. He'd been worried about her. He'd chosen to get her out of the Keys. No one else. Six months hadn't completely destroyed what they'd had. If it had, he wouldn't be yelling at her now.
She felt a faint smile coming on but kept it hidden.
"Thank you, Zach," she whispered. And as he stared at her in question, she quietly made her way back to the road without further explanation.
Between struggling to get the SUV out of the mud and a quick stop for showers and food at a truck stop, getting to St. Augustine took another hour. By the time they finally rolled into the city limits, it was almost ten thirty and Zach's eyes were burning. His instincts were beginning to dull, as was evident when he nearly ran right over an old woman darting across the street.
He let out a yawn, envious of Shanna, who'd been sleeping for the past forty-five minutes. He took in the sights of the city that was meant to be their salvation. Most of the places seemed to be without electricity, and where some still existed, the sizzle of broken and frayed live wires danced in the air.
Traffic lights swung in the wind, no power reaching them. A few stray horses had abandoned their carriages and masters, and roamed the walk around Matanzas Bay, neighing in the night as though calling out to one another. Streets that should have been teeming with tourists were quiet and empty, though he'd expected the exact opposite. Wasn't this where the evacuees were being sent? Or had the Order purposely directed them elsewhere to avoid chaos at their headquarters?
He swerved the SUV around an abandoned trolley, his muscles screaming in protest as the sudden movement made his body sway. But it was almost over. All he had to do now was get Shanna inside the Castillo de San Marcos and he'd finally be able to breathe again.
"It's too quiet," Shanna muttered, startling him. He hadn't realized she'd woken up.
He watched her rub at the smear of blood on her jeans as she had been before she'd fallen asleep. Zach had hoped letting her take a quick shower at a rest stop might make her feel a little better---clean the blood off and maybe wash away some of her panic. But it hadn't seemed to do much good. Her clothes were still stained and so, apparently, were her thoughts.
"Where are all the people? I thought it would be safe here."
"Safer," he corrected. The only true safety in the world right now would be found in other realms. But he sure as hell wasn't going to try to explain that to her now.
She didn't say anything for a moment, intent on rubbing that damned spot like she was Lady Macbeth. The tightness around her mouth had deepened. As had the stress in her eyes and the shaking of her hands. She was holding it together, but just by sheer willpower---probably to keep from cracking completely in front of him.
"Where do we go from here?" she finally asked.
He drove slowly past overturned carriages and vehicles, and turned into the Castillo---steering the SUV directly to the small wall that separated the fort from Matanzas Bay---then cut the engine.
Zach was immediately relieved at the sight of the Order's sentinels patrolling the bastions. "I need to answer my summons. Get clearance to bring you in."
For the first time since all this had started, he felt a tiny bit of the tension drain from his neck and shoulders.
He stepped out and waited for her to insist on coming with him. When she didn't, he knew without a doubt that she was approaching her breaking point.
"Don't get out until I come back for you. And if anything happens, take off. Do not stop. Got it?"
"Yeah. Got it. I get scared, I leave you. Sure."
Even her sarcasm sounded tired.
"Just do it. I'll be right back."
She grabbed his hand. "If something does happen, get your ass back here."
He smiled before closing the door. When she locked it, he turned and made his way across the old wooden bridge. Before his feet touched the crushed coquina leading to the now-working drawbridge, two sentinels appeared out of nowhere to block his path.
"I've been summoned." He turned slightly, allowing them to see the sword strapped to his back. "I'm retired Order."
"Reveal your beacon."
Zach dug beneath his shirt and dragged the chain out, cursing when the small sphere didn't appear, too. He must have lost it along the way.
"It's gone."
10:40 p.m.
1 hour and 20 minutes before the fall . . .
Sensing the sentinel was about to deny him access, Zach glared. "Look. I've been through a lot of shit trying to get here to answer Ares's summons. The beacon must have gotten ripped off my damn neck when I was slaughtering Dark Breeds. How would I know all that shit if I wasn't one of you?"
The sentinel shrugged but didn't budge. "No beacon, no entrance. You'll have to wait for verification."
Zach was tempted to slide out his sword and force the issue, but he wasn't stupid enough to try it when there were so many others to watch the sentinel's back.
Ares would have to make an appearance before midnight. He'd be right in the thick of things when Hell finally finished unraveling. All they had to do was wait, and Zach would be cleared.
"I have a human with me. I need to get her to safety."
Though the guard's stance didn't relax, his tone softened. "If you've truly been summoned, you'll be given access soon enough. Your friend can enter with you when the Witches and Mystics have finished casting their spell on the entrance. Till then, rest up, my friend. We've a long night of battle ahead of us."
"Spell?"
"To make certain all those who look human when we let them in truly are."
"How long?"
"Before midnight. They have to prepare the fort's foundation for the shattering first. Then they'll complete the entrance magic."
Lovely. They'd finally made it and were being turned away.
Zach named off several sentinels he'd served with who might be around to vouch for him, but none sparked a glimmer of awareness in this one's eyes. It wasn't surprising. Sentinels tended to serve ten to fifteen years within the Order, max. Being human, they could only take so much pain and injury before being forced into retirement.
Like Zach had been.
The guard jutted his chin toward the SUV. "That yours?"
Zach nodded. "Yeah, the woman's inside."
"Fetch her. Bring her to the Ravelin. Since it's not technically inside the fort, I'll see to it that you can stash her safely in there until you get clearance. It'll be dark, but it should only be for a short while. At the very least, it will keep her safe and warm while you wait. I truly am sorry, but we can't allow anyone in without clearance. This is all I can offer. Well, that and an assurance that you'll be fetched when Ares arrives or the entrance is cleared."
Zach shook the guard's hand in thanks, cursing himself for losing such a valuable item as the beacon. If not for that mishap, he'd already have Shanna inside, safely escorted to the portal that would take her to the realm of Below, free from this chaos surrounding them.
Already the winds whipping off the bay were broken by the howls in the distance and the cries of humans unable to fight. Shanna wasn't going to be happy about being closed in a dark space where they wouldn't be able to see what was going on, but it would be better than remaining in the car like a sitting duck, and they'd be warned if danger approached.
He turned to head back to the car when one last name popped into his head. She was a bitch, but she was local. "Kyana Aslan?"
The guard sneered. He definitely knew that name. "She'll return before midnight as well."
Zach knew when he was being dismissed. "If she arrives before Ares, will you point her in my direction?"
The guard agreed and Zach made his way back to Shanna. He eased onto the hood, staring out at the water as he considered his options. He didn't really have any. He couldn't get into the fort without clearance---couldn't get Shanna inside until the protection spells were completed. He was going to have to wait it out. There was just under an hour and a half until midnight. Hopefully the Order would be ready by then.
Behind him, he heard the car door open, heard it shut again. "So, do we get to go inside or what?"
Forcing the tension from his face, Zach smiled. "I lost my beacon. They're going to let us stay beneath the Ravelin until we're permitted inside."
"Great."
"Grab the weapons. They promised to let me know when Ares arrives. They'll let us in, then."
As she stepped around him, he explained about the spell being performed, knowing she wouldn't be happy about the humans who'd likely show up for protection as soon as they caught wind of what the fort had become, being turned away, too. She listened, scowling, obviously as unhappy about relying on strangers as he was. She pulled the weapons bag from the car and he took it, slung it over his shoulder before reaching for her hand.
As they passed a group of sentinels, the one who'd spoken to Zach stepped forward to escort them to their holdings, a blanket in his arms. He passed it to Zach, opened the tiny Ravelin door, and ushered them inside.
"Here," he said, handing Shanna three white candles. "They'll offer you light and maybe a bit of warmth."
Shanna silently took them, and by the time the door was shut behind them and Zach made his way through the low-ceilinged structure, she was already curled up under the blanket, shivering like they were in minus-thirty-degree weather instead of a Florida winter.
He lit the candles, hoping they'd offer more light than the small loopholes near the ceiling did. "Come here," he whispered, stretching out beside her and pulling her chest against his. He pressed his chin to her head and rubbed her back.
She rolled away slightly, staring up at him. "It just hit me that things are never going to be the way they were, are they?"
He shook his head. "But that doesn't mean it won't be okay."
"Okay? It's not okay for the people out there dying. For the kids who lose their parents in all this, or worse: the parents who lose their kids. How is that okay?"
He didn't know what to say to that. Mostly because, growing up in the foster care system, he'd never had parents. And he most certainly didn't have kids---who'd be born dedicated to the Order whether they chose that path or not. But he did have people he cared about. A lot. And the one foremost in his mind at the moment was staring up at him with such pleading in her eyes, he died a little.
"Shanna, I---"
She pressed a finger to his mouth and shook her head. "Whatever you're going to say . . . just . . . don't."
Shanna sat up, slipped her shirt over her head and lay back down---on top of the blanket this time---teeth chattering. She pressed as tightly to Zach as she could get, needing far more than his warmth to get her through what was to come.
Even when they'd been apart she'd never been able to let her feelings for him go so she could move on with her life. That was one mistake she couldn't repeat this time. She didn't belong in his world. Didn't want to belong in it for a second longer than it took for those he trusted to make things right again. And this journey---the things she'd seen---had proven to her that he didn't belong in her world either.
She didn't know what tonight would bring or what they'd feel tomorrow. But right now, she was going to tell him she loved him in the only way she could. With her body.
10:55 p.m.
1 hour and 5 minutes before the fall . . .
Shanna kissed Zach with all the longing and all the regret that had been living inside her for the past six months. She traced his lips with her tongue, saying all the things in her head she wished she had the courage to say to him.
His arms tightened around her waist, but when he tried to ease her onto her back, she stopped him. She wanted to take her time, to explore every inch of his body. To burn him into her memory in case it was the last time she saw him.
Fisting his shirt, she tugged it off, then pushed him onto his back. She straddled his waist and ran her hands over his smooth chest before following with her lips. Though his skin was hot to the touch, tiny goose bumps danced across his chest, causing her hands and lips to tingle.
She unsnapped the button of his jeans and tugged slightly. Zach lifted his hips, allowing her to pull the denim off his body. Revealed to her, she drank in the sight of him---the scars she knew as well as her own, the bruises he'd sustained over the last few hours. All visible, even in the dark, cramped quarters they'd been given.
She kissed each mark, loving them tenderly with her tongue. Not even the ragged scar on his arm missed her ministration. He tensed as she tended the puckered flesh, but he didn't pull away. She didn't know how he'd gotten it, but knew it had been the reason he'd left his old life behind. She loved the wound as much as he seemed to hate it. Had he not been hurt, she never would have met him.
When she moved to a scar on his ribs, Zach sighed her name. She smiled, empowered by the tiny quivers of his muscles and the faint perspiration dampening his skin that she was sure had nothing to do with their confined space.
Satisfied that she'd found every tiny wound, she worked her way back to his belly. His hands gripped her shoulders, the graze of his callused thumbs sending spirals of heat all the way to her toes.
Zach tightened his grip on Shanna's shoulders and pulled her up his body so she covered him. He knew exactly what she was up to---taking power in a situation she could control, unlike the one raging outside. But he wasn't going to play her game. She was going to receive as much as she was giving---whether she liked it or not.
He ran his hands lightly over her back and cupped her ass. He wanted to fill her, claim her, brand her forever as his.
He stroked her ribs, the side of her breasts. Tiny shivers of desire caused her to quake. He pulled her legs forward so she rested on her knees, then leaned in to capture her nipple. Her soft whimpers were like fire to his blood.
Tightening his arms around her waist, he rolled them so he was cradled between her thighs. She rocked against him and he cursed the denim that kept him from losing himself in her heat.
Zach claimed her mouth. There were so many things he wanted to tell her, but with the world literally crashing down around them, now wasn't the time. Instead, he gripped the snap at her waist and slid the fabric down her legs, kissing the milky white skin he exposed. Once he had her naked, Zach took a moment to drink in her beauty.
Shanna reached for him, but he kissed her palms before turning his kisses to her body, loving every cut and bruise she had sustained on their journey. The scrapes on her ribs, the skinned knee, the bruised ankle, and every mark in between. Just as slowly he made his way back up her body, pausing to circle her navel with his tongue. He trailed his lips over her belly.
"Zach," she panted his name as she reached for him. She rocked her hips against him. "Please, Zach. Now."
He wanted to love her as thoroughly as she'd loved him, but he couldn't deny her the release she begged for. He gripped her hips and buried himself inside her before she could utter a single protest.
Her sigh warmed his lips. Her nails raked his back. All he could think of was her name and the way it felt when his mind spoke it to his soul. He moved in a rhythm that was both intense and slow, thrusting with each buck of her hips only to ease back out torturously slowly. Burying his face against the pulse at her neck, he breathed in the scent of her, the scent of them together, so perfectly fit and wet and hot.
"Faster," she breathed against his ear.
Zach obeyed. She cried out, gripped his hips as her legs wound more tightly around him.
When she came, her scream made his ears ring, but the fact that it was his name she called out eased the pain. He slowed, this time diving so deeply he could barely breathe. Shanna gripped his shoulders, her teeth sinking into his lower lip as once again, she called out his name.
He came with a rush he hadn't felt in years. He collapsed on top of her, his body spent yet still ready for another round.
"You all right?" he whispered, rising onto his elbows so she could breathe more easily.
"Don't move." She kissed his nose, smiling the first real smile he'd seen in hours. "Just . . . stay. A minute more."
No problemo. He wasn't any more eager to separate than she was. It felt amazing, being nestled so deeply inside her. Still hard as steel yet satisfied.
Not having had sex since they'd broken up, Shanna was tender in places she'd nearly forgotten she possessed. Still, no amount of swollenness was going to push her to request he exit her body any time soon. It felt too right, holding him there. With all the craziness going on around them, this, of all things, felt normal. Perfect.
Yet, still temporary.
Even if she could imagine herself as part of this cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs world he lived in, which she couldn't, if she told him right here and now that she was still in love with him, that she wanted to marry him and have his babies, he'd think she was out of her mind. He wouldn't necessarily run---Zach had never had a problem with commitment. But he did have a problem with trust. In particular, trusting Shanna. She'd already broken that precious gift once. She didn't think she had it in her to ask him to give it to her again.
But what if she could find a place within his world, protecting people as she'd always done, the same way he did?
Was she really cut out for more of the shit that had been chasing her all night?
She loved him. That much she knew. But the question was: did she love him enough to change her entire life and belief system for him? And if she did, would he even want her to do so, after the way she'd walked out on him?
If only God---or the gods . . . she wasn't even sure about that part of her life anymore---could show her some proof that this was the course her life was meant to take . . .
But judging by the screams in the distance, the gods had more important things to take care of than offering people signs. She was going to have to figure this one out on her own.
11:51 p.m.
9 minutes before the fall . . .
It felt like only minutes from the time Shanna allowed herself to close her eyes to the moment the sound of ripping whistles woke her. She was hesitant to pull herself out of the cozy contentment of lying in Zach's arms, but she pried open her eyes, immediately regretting the decision as she caught a glimpse of raining fire, visible through the loopholes in the Ravelin's walls.
"Wake up!" She reached over to shake Zach, but he was already struggling to pull on his jeans. She felt around the dark quarters for her own clothes.
As she dressed, she scooted her body around so she could see out the partially open door where Zach stood, watching in frozen fascination as the midnight sky lit up with bright orange fire and black smoke. He pressed a button on his watch, lighting up the cave-like cell with bright green digital numbers. 11:51. Hell was going to officially open in nine minutes.
Fear seared Shanna's lungs as she fumbled with her shoes, her hands shaking so badly she couldn't work the laces. The ground beneath the Ravelin was rumbling and the sentinels all around them were shouting, making her blood pump in anticipation of what was to come.
Burning arrows, hundreds of them, whistled and sang as they soared over the fort toward the grassy hills surrounding the front side of the structure. Zach seized his sword, his gaze steady on the very thing that had Shanna's heart pumping. The streets in front of the Castillo were no longer vacant. Hundreds of shadows inched their way toward the fort, making Shanna realize how freaking vulnerable they were sitting right outside the shadows' destination.
"There are so many," she whispered. She was getting ready to fall into a full-fledged panic, her skin slowly coating with sweat even though she was freezing. "Zach, they have to let us into the fort! We're defenseless here."
His gaze turned from the doorway to stare at her. For an instant, she thought she saw fear in the dark depths of his eyes, but he looked away before she could be certain. "Stay put."
"I'm not waiting here for them to find me."
If they'd have opened their doors sooner, none of those people would be in such danger. Shanna ground her palms against her temples, and before she could focus again, Zach had slipped out. Not able to see anything from the doorway, she moved to peer out one of the loopholes, quietly calling Zach every name she could think of as she tried to see which direction he'd run. She finally spotted him among a row of guards blocking the old wooden bridge, each holding a weapon similar to his.
Lights flickered to life around the top of the fort, casting the grounds around it in a faint glow that made it a little easier to see what the hell was going on, but that didn't bring much comfort. Not when she was completely alone.
Zach had left her there while he went to fight with the other guards---had assumed she'd be safe in the damp, dark Ravelin. He was out of his ever-loving mind.
Their stances proclaimed their priority was to protect those already inside the fort, not those trying to get in. They might open the doors, but not if it meant jeopardizing those whose lives they valued most. What kind of Order of protection was this? It was bullshit!
Anger and frustration sent her back into the shadows of the Ravelin. She dug through the weapons bag, slipping the silver knuckles on before setting the shotgun in her lap. The silver stakes went into one back pocket, the daggers into the other. She loaded the shotgun and stuffed the remaining shells into her pockets.
Satisfied that she was as prepared as she'd ever be, she moved back to the tiny cutout windows. There were shadows cresting over the small hills in front of the fort. She checked her watch. 11:54.
Six minutes until everything Zach had threatened would arrive at their door.
Already there were dozens of shadowy, blurry creatures rushing toward the fort, but all too soon, there would be hundreds. Maybe thousands. Shanna didn't know. Didn't want to know. Right now, all she did know for sure was that for every person running toward her, there were two creatures chasing them. Her gaze shifted to Zach. He and the guards moved with a speed that shocked her, shoving people aside to get to the demons behind them.
She aimed the shotgun at the closest thing she could identify as the enemy and squeezed the trigger. The demon staggered, putting distance between it and the person it was chasing.
She aimed again. Fired again. The Ravelin filled with smoke, choking her and making her eyes water, but still she continued to reload and fire her weapon.
"One minute! Man your positions!"
The roared demands were her orders to move as well. She wasn't about to get trapped in the tiny room, away from Zach, waiting for monsters to descend upon her.
Taking a deep breath, she moved to the door, checking for the quickest, least congested route to Zach's side. There wasn't one. She sent up a prayer, then opened the door.
The cold air sucked the breath from her lungs but cleared her vision from the haze of gun powder. The instant the world came into view, detailing the death and destruction around her, she wished for the blur to return.
She stood frozen in place and watched the carnage around her. Watched men and women being taken down one by one---running at full speed and then suddenly disappearing, taken into the shadows where God only knew what was happening to them. Blood painted the faces of those who did manage to run past, their features distorted in expressions of terror. Mouths agape. Eyes wide. The stench of death and blood hung so heavy in the air she was sure, if she had the ability to move, that she could reach out and touch it.
But it was the children that spurred Shanna into action. The sound of their screams were so distinct from the adults, they cut straight through her ribs to tear at her heart. She had to make the Order open the gate, if for no other reason than to stop those horrifying screams so she could breathe again.
She stepped outside the Ravelin, her heart pounding as she searched for Zach. In the few moments she'd turned her attention away from him, he'd disappeared, and now real panic was making her want to throw up.
"Shanna!"
The sound of Zach's cry managed to clear the haze of shock from her blood. She stood, searching for him, locating him a dozen feet away, sprinting in her direction.
"Behind you! Run!"
As if the world had tilted to slow motion, she turned. A demon, its long claws curled into weapons, reached for her.
Shanna relied on instincts and punched. The long, silver spike on her ring embedded in its cheek. Red and black spread out from the punctures, as if the thing was on fire from the inside out. Lashing out, she sliced its throat, then kicked it backward to give herself time to run.
The minute she reached Zach's side, his free arm closed around her. As one, they backed toward the fort and the raised drawbridge. Something on the bastions caught Zach's attention and he released her to turn around.
"Give me clearance, Ares!" he roared, and Shanna turned to see a tall blond man above them, dressed from head to toe in silver and white armor. There was no time to be awed by the fact that she was staring at a real and true god. Ares shouted something to the guards at the gate, and to Shanna's immense relief the drawbridge slowly lowered.
She clung to Zach but her gaze remained locked on the massive steel and wooden planks, praying that those she could hear manning the cranks could make it go faster.
Forcing her gaze back to the fight going on in front of her, she peered around Zach. A semi-circle of bodies stood beside him like solid stone, offering one last line of defense, protecting those already inside their headquarters and those literally dying to get in. Shanna tried not to think of what was about to happen to her world. She gripped the daggers in her sweaty palms, wishing she'd kept the shotgun and not just its useless shells in her pocket.
Sword-wielding guards stood shoulder to shoulder inside and around the dry mote. The Ravelin was lined with bowmen trying to slow down the blur of shadows running across the sloping hills surrounding the fort, and protecting the people who'd taken up refuge there.
The drawbridge cranks stopped and so did Shanna's heart. If they didn't get that bridge lowered right now, she and Zach and a hundred more humans were going to be devoured.
And then, they stopped coming. In unison, the demons approaching the fort froze on the hill, gazing up at the sky. The majority were shot down in an instant, and as Shanna felt herself filling with hope that this whole nightmare might be over, she heard Ares shout one more time.
"Now!"
The ground began to quake and rubble fell from the walls of the fort as Shanna watched dozens of cloaked figures step onto the fort walls and point what looked like wands toward the ground.
"Subsisto stabilis quod validus!" They chanted the words over and over again, and while tiny white lights lit up their sticks, nothing else seemed to happen.
"Thirty seconds!"
"What the hell are they doing?" Shanna demanded, her pulse racing and her body swaying as the ground beneath her feet gave a brutal tremor. "We need to get inside now!"
"Subsisto stabilis quod validus!"
"Protecting the fort and the portals to Olympus and Below! Hell's about to open and they can't risk losing the fort---"
The ground shifted, and her gaze fell over the short wall and onto the Matanzas Bay, she watched the water bubble, watched a palm tree splinter and fall.
"Subsisto stabilis quod validus!"
It was impossible to keep a steady stance, and Shanna clawed the small crevices in the coquina wall, looking for support. But it was like being on a violent carnival ride, and she wanted the hell off!
"Let us in!" she screamed.
But her pleas were lost as a loud, inhuman growl filled the air, and fire lit up the sky. On the other side of the bay, buildings folded in on themselves right before her eyes.
And as she felt Zach lift her into his arms, the unstable ground beneath her feet nearly toppled her over the bridge. She watched in horror as the streets of St. Augustine were lit up with fire.
It was done. Hell had fully opened.
Midnight
The Fall . . .
It wouldn't take long before the archers' arrows were no longer able to keep up with the influx of bodies pressing down on them. Hell was officially open, and bodies were swimming across the bay to attack as hundreds spilled from the cavities created beneath the crumbled buildings behind them.
On the walls of the fort, Ares and several dozen of his soldiers leaped down into the dry mote surrounding the area. He looked magnificent, his army intimidating as hell. But they were outnumbered ten to one.
"What is he doing?" Shanna screamed. "We need him here. He can stop all this!"
"No," Zach said. "He can lead the fight. That's where his power is. If he gets in trouble, he can port out, but right now, he's offering us one last line of defense so as many humans as possible can get inside."
"Is the spell ready, then? We can go inside and they can make sure we're all human?"
What if they got inside only to be murdered because they'd let the wrong sort in?
Zach pointed at the wall above the entrance where the Witches who'd been chanting earlier now stood, their intense concentration focused on the entry. "Looks like it. If they succeeded, they'll be able to warn against any intruders as they pass through."
Well that was all fine and dandy, but the fort was going to get overrun unless someone came up with a way to stave off the enemy for a few minutes, giving the guards a chance to finish lowering the drawbridge to let them inside in the first place.
An idea niggled her mind. Reaching into her pocket, Shanna pulled out one of the shotgun shells. As the crank began turning again, she shoved her way around Zach, acting on her barely-formed plan before sanity could talk her into staying huddled behind him.
Sprinting to the Ravelin, she ignored Zach's yells for her, dodged his clawing hands as he tried to keep her at his side.
"Give me your shirt!" she screamed, jogging up the steps as he followed.
"What? Get back to the fort, Shanna. Now!"
"Give me your fucking shirt!"
Instead of waiting for him to obey, she gripped the V below his throat and yanked, ripping the fabric down the middle and off his body. She dropped the fabric to the ground and fumbled to set the shotgun shells in the middle of the cloth. Turning, she looked for something she could use as shrapnel. Spotting a quiver, she yelled at Zach---who stood screaming above her, his words unheard---as she concentrated, thought, planned . . .
"Get me that quiver!"
He grabbed her arm and tried to pull her to her feet. "You're going to get yourself killed, damn it!"
"I can help." Shanna fought against his hold. "There are too many of them, Zach. We need something to slow them down. This will give us all a chance to get inside."
He released her and returned with the quiver. His gaze doubtful, he watched her empty the quiver and stack the arrows on top of the shells.
"Here!"
She looked up to find Zach holding another quiver and a handful of lethal-looking knives. Shanna didn't allow herself to think about what might have happened to the owners of the weapons. She placed the items on top of the others, then began rolling the shirt as tightly as she could.
Shanna looked around, hoping to find some kind of detonation device. Another round of flaming arrows whooshed overhead, and she couldn't force herself to look away as they avoided the terrified humans to find their targets.
She faced Zach. "What are they using to light those arrows?"
Zach grabbed the archer closest to them. "What do you need us to do?"
"Cover this in whatever you're using to light your arrows. Then throw it at that mass heading this way so they'll slow long enough to let the guards lower the bridge." She glanced at Zach. "And a few prayers to your gods that this doesn't kill anyone human wouldn't hurt either."
The archer turned to retrieve a container of foul-smelling goop. He covered the bundle, then slotted an arrow. He nodded at Shanna. "Find shelter with the others."
Like hell. As if sensing her determination to stay at his side, Zach eased her behind him. "Let's do this," he said.
When the archer drew back on his bow, and the tip of the arrow sparked to life, Zach took two steps and tossed the parcel into the air. He didn't wait for the arrow to fly; he grabbed Shanna's hand and began running toward the drawbridge. The clank of it settling in place was instantly followed by the pop-pop-pop of shotgun shells igniting as a burst of fiery light filled the sky.
Zach grabbed her around the waist, lifted her off the ground, and carried her inside. Only a dozen or so people had made it in before the barrier began to rise again. The anguished cries of humans pleading for entrance filled her ears, as others were once again locked outside with the monsters.
"Open the damned gate!" she screamed.
"Shanna!" Zach grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her away from the guards glowering down at her. "They're going to help as many as they can, but if they open that gate again, it won't just be the innocent they let inside. The safety of the fort will be breached!"
"Already has been, asshat."
Zach turned at the sound of the faintly familiar voice and inwardly groaned when he saw the leather-clad Vampyre/Lychen Half-Breed approaching him. Kyana Aslan. She pointed at the walls around them.
"They're everywhere." She moved her pointing finger to the plaza courtyard where bodies lay still and covered in blood. "Already killed several that made it in the last time those gates were opened. So if you were hoping your girlfriend would be safe here, you might want to rethink that---"
"Lychen have passed through!" Kyana's rant was cut off by the shrill warning from the Witches.
A black form crashed into Kyana's back. With a grunt, she went down, a mass of fur covering her from head to toe. In wolf form, the beast was clawing into Kyana's ribs, making it impossible for her to flip him and gain the advantage.
Sentinels moved forward, swords raised, but Zach's reflexes weren't so fast this time. Of all the Dark Breeds that could have scaled the half-risen drawbridge, the last one he wanted to see was a damned Lychen. His arm throbbed in protest even as he clenched his sword tighter in his fist, willing himself into action. More Lychen came, bounding through the small opening just seconds before the gate banged completely closed. They pounced on the sentinels trying to free Kyana, and Zach shoved Shanna behind him.
Kyana bucked madly, finally loosening the Dark Breed's hold on her long enough to flip over and kick out at its face. It was then that he saw the long gashes in her sides, and remembering what those gashes had taken from him ten years ago finally spurred him into motion.
The Lychen lunged just as Kyana managed to find footing, knocking her back onto her ass. Before it could take the advantage again, Zach swung his sword, impaling the Lychen's belly. He tried to pull it free, but it wouldn't budge, trapped in place by the beast's ribs.
"Fuck!" He needed his sword back. Without it, he was virtually useless against the enemy's strength and speed.
A cry of pain sent him spinning around to find a sentinel bleeding out beneath another wolf. Shanna was desperately prying at the creature, but she was no match for its strength. He couldn't waste any more time trying to free his sword---the sentinel was going to die. He rushed the pair, knocking Shanna over as he used all his body weight to shove the beast off the guard's jerking body. He rolled with the wolf until they crashed together against the sharp coquina walls. Zach's head burned and bled as the shell dug into his flesh, but he kept his grip on the beast's body, holding out his arms to keep the fucker's teeth as far away from his throat as he could.
From the corner of his eye, a blur of black moved into view. Kyana was pulling Shanna away from danger, and Shanna, of course, was fighting her. As one of the other Lychen noticed the same situation, it took advantage and preyed its way toward the women. Kyana whipped out a dagger, leaped into the air, and came down upon the creature's back, stabbing its spine. She waited a moment for the silver to kick in, then broke the wolf's neck.
Zach's arms were beginning to tremble from the struggle of keeping the last Lychen away from his most vulnerable spots, but he was already starting to feel woozy. His ribs and thighs burned like a bitch, and no matter how they tried, the sentinels weren't able to separate the beast from him.
"Kill the fucker!" he yelled, knowing that if he so much as wiggled a finger to try to kill it himself, he'd be a goner.
The miserable weight of defeat was slowly overtaking his mind when he saw his sword still protruding from the other wolf's belly. If only he had it . . .
The slick feel of drool splattered his face. The beast was winning. Zach was going to die.
As Kyana approached them, her dagger raised, he held her gaze. "You make sure Shanna gets to safety. Understand?" he panted.
She reached for the Lychen's neck and lifted, but even a Half-Breed as strong as Kyana wasn't able to free Zach from the crushing weight of the monster. She drove her dagger into its throat. It yelped and whipped its head around, seizing her arm with its massive teeth, sending Kyana to her knees.
A bright silver glow blinded Zach for a moment. His vision was blurry, but he could have sworn he'd seen the magic of his sword hovering overhead. Could have sworn that the howl emitting from the Lychen was caused by his own sword slicing through the creature's belly. Could have sworn the Lychen finally fell limp against him at the mercy of a weapon that only he could wield.
But he hadn't done it.
Shanna had.
January 11, 1:06 a.m.
1 hour and 6 minutes after the fall . . .
"Is he going to wake up?"
The sound of Shanna's voice pulled Zach from the thick fog of sleep.
"They had to double the potion to keep him from fighting."
"I just want him to wake up."
He could hear the tears in Shanna's voice, could feel the slight tremble of her cool fingers on his brow. For her, he wanted to open his eyes, but no matter how he struggled, his eyelids were heavy bricks, mortared into place by magic.
"Kyana, if we can get a little more of your blood . . ." An unfamiliar voice said from somewhere above Zach.
"What good is her blood going to do him?" Shanna's voice rose an octave. "She was bit by that thing, too."
"A Lychen's bite doesn't affect one of its own," Kyana said. "In fact, it cancels it out. My blood will help clean Zach's."
Shanna rubbed her eyes, trying to take it all in. None of this made sense. The Lychen had barely punctured the skin around Zach's ribs. She didn't understand why such a minor wound would knock him out. Not that she understood much of anything at the moment. Like why Kyana had brought them through the strange swirling light---which had threatened to turn her insides out---to the place they were now, which looked like something straight out of a Greek history text: everything marble and bright and cobbled.
And Kyana, whoever the hell she was---whatever the hell she was---wasn't exactly eager to answer any of Shanna's questions, either.
Zach would. If he ever woke up again.
No. She couldn't think like that. He had to wake up again. She had to tell him what Kyana had told her---the reason she'd been able to wield the sword created from Zach's blood . . .
She forced herself to look at Kyana. "Is Zach--- Is he going to become one of---"
"That's a bullshit myth," Kyana said, sneering. "We have bacteria in our wolf-form's saliva and claws, but it will only kill you---not Turn you."
Shanna swallowed, realizing Kyana had said "we." That was what she'd meant when she'd said the Lychen bite wouldn't affect one of their own. She was Lychen.
She took a hesitant step back.
"Relax," Kyana said, half-smiling. "I don't bite. Much." She knelt and pressed her hand to Zach's forehead. "He's still burning up. But I think we got him to the Healer in time. He should be fine."
"I am fine."
Shanna gasped at the sound of Zach's voice and jerked around to find him staring at her through bleary eyes. Her heart lurched with relief. He was alive! And there was so much she wanted to tell him before he could pass out again, but she didn't dare. How much could he take in his current state? Better to wait until he was stronger . . . until she figured out what she wanted to do.
"You scared me," she whispered.
His smile was pathetically weak. "My bad."
Zach's gaze hovered on Shanna's face as she leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. An enormous question had smacked his brain and had given him the will to break through whatever subduing potion the Healer had given him. Shanna should never have been able to wield his sword, much less make it glow as it had, and kill the Lychen. It was crafted from Zach's blood. Only his blood would make it work.
That meant Shanna had to have his blood inside her. A few hours old or not, their reckless encounter in the Ravelin had left her with far more than a memory to take away. It had left her pregnant.
That thought should have made him sick to his stomach. Avoidance of fatherhood had been a mission throughout his life. Yet as he stared up at Shanna while she rained kisses on his cheeks, it wasn't his stomach that knotted. It was his chest. The thought of his child growing inside her made him feel strong enough to take on the world.
But that child would be marked for a life in Ares's army---the main reason he'd been adamant about never having kids. Even if the world righted itself, their child would be dedicated to the Order of Ancients, whether he or she wanted to be or not---until that child came of age and was granted the right of free will. That meant Zach would have to remain dedicated, too, since he'd never abandon his child to the Order. He'd have to find a place for himself back within the Order's permanent ranks.
But what about Shanna? If he told her what was growing inside her, she'd never get over the fact that he'd just made damned sure she could never have a normal life.
Would she walk away from him? From their child?
"Shanna---"
"Shh." Her kisses moved back to his mouth, light and gentle and soothing. "We have a lot to talk about, but not until you're on your feet again."
He lifted his hands to push her far enough away so he could look her in the eye. "You need to know why you were able to use my sword."
She smiled down at him, her eyes glassy and dark. "Kyana already told me. I . . . wasn't sure you'd know . . ." She averted her gaze. "Or how you'd feel."
"How do you feel?"
"Like I might have ruined any shot I ever had with you. You told me a long time ago that you never wanted kids. I didn't think I did, either."
He swallowed and struggled to sit, easing her onto his lap as the Healer pulled Kyana away to grant them privacy. "They won't let you terminate. Even if you tried, they'd make sure it wasn't successful. They're pretty big on free will around here, but not when it comes to taking a member of their Order."
Her eyes widened and a flash of anger lit up inside them. "They can't control me like that! Who the hell do they think they are? I---" The fire in her eyes faded. "Who am I trying to kid? I couldn't do it anyway. Are you okay with that?"
"I think I am, yeah. But, Princess, that means you're stuck with me. I can't walk away from my kid---and most certainly not from you. I let you go last time, but this time, I'm going to fight. There's still a little warrior left in me."
"There's a lot of warrior left in you, Zach. If you can find a way to trust me again, I swear to whatever gods are out there that I won't betray it. But I can't spend a life with you if you're only hanging around for the baby."
He smiled, touched her cheek, and closed his eyes. "Shanna, I was ready to spend my life with you the day we met. That hasn't changed."
"Then marry me."
He opened his eyes. "Think real hard about what you're saying. Marrying me means marrying yourself into the Order. It's a crazy life, Princess. It means accepting shit you never thought you could and being strong enough to stay even when you're scared out of your mind."
"I'm scared out of my mind right now, but I'm not going anywhere. You're stuck with me."
"You two lovebirds want to wait for a more appropriate time to finish this vomit-inducing moment?"
Zach shot a glare at Kyana, who was making her way back toward them, a small vial in her hand. "Go away, Kyana."
She handed him the bottle. "Drink it, asshat. Your wounds are almost sealed, and if you really want to live out this horrifying happily ever after, you need to finish sealing them or she'll be burying you before you buy her a white dress."
Shanna gasped and helped him open the bottle. "You heard her. Drink!"
As Zach drank the vile liquid that seared his insides like rocket fuel, Kyana chuckled.
"She's a keeper, Merchant," Kyana said. "She saved your sorry life."
Shanna leaned down and kissed him, her lips curled into a smile. "No, Kyana. He saved mine."
"Oh, gag me. I can't watch any more of this shit. Enjoy your stay Below, you sad, lovesick fools. I have Chosen to track and blood to drink."
Shanna winced, pulling slightly away from Zach. "Blood?"
"She's half Vampyre."
"Oh. Okay." She grinned. "Look at me. Accepting such an out-there statement. Progress, I think."
"Yeah," Zach said. "Progress."
He gently eased her from his lap and stood, the world turning on its head as he fumbled for balance.
"Whoa!" Shanna grabbed his shoulder. "Where are you going? Sit back down!"
"Can't. Gotta go find a white dress before you change your mind."
The hand on his shoulder squeezed. "I'm not changing my mind, Zach. I'm here to stay."
"Good. Then let's go find Aphrodite and have her perform a proper Order wedding." He looked down at her, watching her closely for any signs of doubt. He saw none, but he had to make certain. "If you really want to, that is."
It felt surreal to be talking about such normal-life things when war was still rampaging in the world outside whatever realm this was. But sometimes a little normalcy was what kept a person alive. Together, they'd be stronger, could help fight the odd form of terrorism that had taken over her precious world. She could still get the bad guys, whether it was for the KWPD or the Order of Old People, or whatever they were called.
"Shanna?"
"Hmm?" She breathed a sigh against his neck, enjoying the brief moment of contentment while she could.
"I asked if you really want to marry me."
She smiled, stretched onto her toes, and threw her arms around his neck, nearly sending him back on his ass. "I do, Zach. I do."
An hour later, Shanna repeated those exact words and meant them with every fiber of her being. She watched with a stomach full of nerves as Ares strode toward them, a folded uniform in his arms. He offered it to Zach, held out his hand and shook Zach's.
"Welcome back, soldier."
Zach grinned and Shanna allowed herself to exhale.
Married to the man she loved, carrying his child, and trying to figure out a way to exist in a world she no longer understood.
The world had gone crazy, but for her, life was perfect.
If you enjoyed Before the Fall, don't miss out on Sable Grace's Dark Breed series, in which the gates of hell have opened, and only one woman can stop the ultimate chaos.
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St. Augustine, Florida
Despite the chaos of war around her, she couldn't help but hum Queen's "We Are the Champions" in her head. Of course, we had become I as she'd twisted it to fit her mood for the night. She had an irresistible urge to flex her muscles, or strut, or . . . something equally tacky.
It had been a long night, but a successful one. Most of the Chosen were safely tucked Below. The one her minions, Farrel and Crag, now carried was the last of the living on her list. The rest would be found . . . and buried . . . at daybreak. But what had her feeling as smug as a pig in dog shit was not the number she'd managed to find and save, but the who.
Jordan Faye. One of the most crucial finds on the Ancients' list of Chosen.
Kyana slipped her daggers back into the sheaths at her back and boot and reached for the flare gun tucked in its holster on her hip. Behind her, Farrel and Crag grunted and whined about the burden they carried. Every Vamp within the Order of Ancients had minions to assist with the grunt work. Sadly, Farrel and Crag were hers. One look would shut them up, but she was in too much of a hurry to bother.
When they neared what had been the Castillo de San Marcos's pay station only a week ago, she fired the flare gun and waited for the fiery burst to explode overhead and dissolve into a flurry of white dust that would alert the sentinels manning the gate. Like tiny puffs of smoke, the name Kyana slowly formed in the night sky, and the newly working drawbridge lowered in recognition.
The Castillo was the oldest piece of stonework in North America. That it had held up against so many attacks over the years had made it the best choice for the Order to set up headquarters in the southeastern United States the moment the war between Hell and Earth had begun seven days ago. Sentinels walked the bastions, ready to fight to the death at any sign of trouble, and in the old storerooms beneath the sentinels' patrol, Mystics had opened a portal to Below where the Chosen were taken for safety.
The night Tartarus opened and unleashed masses of Dark Breeds onto Earth, the residents of St. Augustine and neighboring cities had flocked to the old fort. Most of the Order argued to save as many as possible, but Kyana saw the folly in such emotionally driven suicide. Sure, she didn't want the world wiped clean of innocents any more than the gods of Olympus did, but there was no way they could all be saved. Wiser to focus on the Chosen first, make sure they had a safe place to lay their heads. Then the Order could see to the everyday, average Joes and Janes.
Behind Kyana, wails and shrieks, both human and non, had become the city's soundtrack. There were Dark Breeds nearby. She could smell the scent of urine emitting off the demons, feel the blighted Vamps, and taste the sulfuric, restless souls that had been uprooted from their earthly graves to become what humans called Zombies and the Order referred to as Leeches. Kyana's body itched to return to the streets and hunt, but she couldn't. Not until she'd safely placed her catch inside the fort.
"Take her in," she said, waiting impatiently for Farrel and Crag to adjust the weight of the woman they carried and shuffle up the walk toward the gate. Her gaze didn't waver from the unconscious body they toted. Other tracers had declared Jordan's trail cold days ago, but Kyana had been too stubborn to admit defeat. There was a reason she was the best at her job. She had something other tracers lacked---the ability to hold on to a scent for days without it losing its potency. Jordan hadn't been home in days, her trail had grown cold . . . for the others. But Kyana didn't rely on tracking perfumes and other unstable, common odors. She clung to a particular pheromone and could follow it to Hell and back, no problem. One tiny trace of leftover fear in Jordan's bed had led Kyana all around St. Augustine, and finally to the damned garbage bin behind St. George Street that had smelled so foul it had nearly tripped Kyana up.
Though there was no tangible reward for doing their duty, competition among the tracers to find those at the top of the lists was high. Only one other tracer had ever come close to besting Kyana. But not tonight. She couldn't wait to see Geoffrey's face when he learned she'd been the one to find and rescue Jordan Faye.
As though summoned by her smug anticipation, Geoff stepped into Kyana's path at the gate and cast a glance at the body in Farrel's and Crag's arms. "Another wee Mystic, I'm guessing?"
The spotlights bordering the walls of the fort cast him in an eerie glow. His small fangs glinted like freshly sharpened daggers and his dark blue eyes danced in the moonlight. At well over six feet, and broad enough to strain the threads of his black T-shirt, Geoffrey oozed danger. Her hormones kicked into overdrive. He reminded her of those exotic dancers at an all-male revue she'd stumbled across once while on the hunt---hot and ready to deliver on a girl's fantasies. As usual, Kyana was torn between strangling him and shoving him against the wall to see if he was just as thrilling naked as he was clothed. But sadly, Vamp-on-Vamp action was forbidden by the Order.
Geoff might be off-limits for her sexually, but taunting him was its own form of entertainment.
"Actually, it's Jordan Faye," she said, keeping her gaze on him to watch his reaction.
His pale face strained with shock.
Kyana smiled, offered him a sarcastic salute, and followed her quarry down the stone steps and into a hollow room. Jordan's new quarters looked more like an ancient jail cell sans the bars, but the cauldron of glowing blue ointment glittering in the corner smelled bad enough to make any prison piss pot proud. Farrel and Crag clumsily placed Jordan's limp body atop a dusty blanket spread out on the floor. She was a pretty thing, with an elegant, long pale neck that brought a hollow ache to Kyana's belly. Eighty years since she'd fed on fresh blood, yet the desire was no less than it had ever been.
When Farrel and Crag left the room, Kyana addressed the Mystic kneeling at Jordan's side. "Looks like she's been shot. Tend that wound first."
Too many of the Chosen they'd found had been shot by the very police they'd hoped would save them. Cops had been ordered to kill on sight, not taking the time to make certain those they targeted weren't human.
Kyana forced her gaze away from Jordan's throat and settled it upon something far more interesting. At first, Kyana thought it merely a shadow falling on the white breasts hidden beneath Jordan's lacy black bra, but as she stepped in for a closer look, her night's victory took on a whole new level of triumph.
"I'll be damned." She knelt and pushed down the bra to get a better look. Because Jordan had been at the top of Kyana's list, Kyana had known the human was important. But now that she'd seen this specific mark, Kyana suspected Jordan was far more valuable than any of the other Chosen she'd brought back this week.
"Please don't disrespect my patient." With a slight shove of her hip, the Mystic scooted Kyana away from Jordan.
Kyana growled. Rather than cower, the Mystic glowered right back. Slightly impressed by the lack of fear, Kyana readjusted Jordan's bra and stood. "Someone stays with her at all times, understood? I'll be back shortly."
In long, determined strides, she made her way around the plaza courtyard to a larger room where war memorabilia from colonial times were stored for peppy little tourists to examine. Two sentinels stood on either side of yet another hole cut into the coquina walls, but rather than lead to another cell, this one was hollow. Should someone try to enter without permission, he would spend eternity spiraling through a black void.
"Let me through," Kyana said, staring up at the towering men. They stubbornly blocked her passage.
"Hands, please," the sentinel on the right said, holding out his own hairy fingers in her direction.
She grumbled and placed her right hand in his, offering her left to his partner. "I'm in the bloody fort. How could I be in the bloody fort if I'm not already cleared?"
"It's the law, Dark Breed."
She gritted her teeth. Yes, technically, she was a Dark Breed. But her decades of loyalty to the Order should have earned her the respect not to be addressed so degradingly.
Kyana snatched her hands away from the sentinels and sneered. "Are you done? You smell like cow shit."
The sentinel's cheeks grew as pink as his bald head. "It's a poultice for my stomach pains."
"Whatever. Am I clear or not?"
The one on the left stepped aside. "Go. I hope you linger on the other side, Dark Breed. The lot of you should never have been brought into our circle."
She jerked her head toward him and flicked her tongue over her fangs. She leaned toward him, flaring her nostrils as she breathed in the scent of him. "You don't smell like cow shit. You smell like dinner."
He stumbled backward and clasped his hands over his thick neck. "It's forbidden by our laws!"
Kyana smiled and straightened. "Lucky for you I'm not in the mood to break the laws. Who knows how I'll feel when I return, hmm?"
She fanned her fingers in a silent farewell and stepped through the portal.
Below wasn't technically below anything. More like sideways or parallel to the other two realms---Above, where the humans resided, and Beyond, a.k.a. Olympus. But Below was where nonhuman creatures did their daily business. Though some, like Kyana, preferred to live Above, smack in the middle of the action, most lived here. This was where magical herbs were tended, where lesser gods and demigods resided, where the Order's Vamps hid from daylight. It served as a mirror to the Earth, so to speak, where the sun burned hot and bright, but was merely an illusion, just as were the sea, the moon, and the stars. In other words, Vamps could sunbathe Below without becoming a spectacular fireworks event.
The portals leading from Above to Below had become revolving doors for Order members since the breakout, but right now, in the predawn hours, the alcove and streets around it were blessedly quiet. Moonlight bounced off the white marble buildings, disorienting Kyana. She squinted and made her way past the small marketplace that, come morning, would be busy with the hustling herbalists peddling their wares to Mystics and Witches.
A little farther down the narrow street, a butcher shop was ablaze with lights, busy in its late-night workday for Vamps who came in for sustenance before sleeping the day away in their chosen shelters. As Kyana passed the building, she closed her eyes and breathed in the sweet aroma of fresh blood. Not nearly as rich and decadent as human blood, but still quite addictive.
She turned away from the intoxicating scent and pressed on.
Along the cobbled streets, tiny alcoves carved out of alabaster led to different locations within the human world Above, as well as a very potent, magically guarded portal alcove to Olympus where gods could come and go to do their duties. But the one Kyana sought, however, led directly to the River Styx.
She headed to the end of the street, enjoying the stillness of the city. Soon, other night dwellers would be wandering the curving roads, loud and bawdy as they boasted of their latest feats and accomplishments, but for now, the quiet was the first bit of peacefulness Kyana had experienced in a week. She entered the cave nestled between large marble boulders, her keen eyes having no trouble finding the path in the dark. Down. Down. Down. The carved steps spiraled like a snail's shell, and soon she was able to hear the faint whisper of water lapping at sand.
The darkness shifted, giving way to a faintly glowing gold light a short distance away. As her foot made contact with the soft sand, she breathed in the scent of death that always came with entering the River Styx, and made her way to Charon, the ferryman. Flipping two coins at the haggard old spirit, Kyana stepped onto the long, flat boat and braced her feet for balance.
She loathed the River Styx. She hated the smell of death and the low wails coming from Tartarus below that chilled even her icy Vampyric blood, reminding her of her fate should true death ever find her. While some of the spirits waiting for eternal placement roamed visibly along the banks of the river, some remained unseen, and those she hated most of all. It was as though they passed through her, each of them pleading quiet demands to her soul as she tapped her foot impatiently at the torturously slow ferry.
"Can't you make this thing go faster?"
Charon didn't acknowledge her request. He stood at the helm of his little ferry, not needing to do anything more than stare in the direction of their destination to make his vessel obey.
If threatening, intimidating, or shoving him off his damned ferry would get her there faster, she would have done it. But Charon didn't scare easily. In fact, she wasn't sure he felt anything . . . ever. He was just a cold, transparent, expressionless being that almost . . . almost . . . evoked her pity.
Having no other choice but to bear the slow journey, she focused on the distant cave and turned her thoughts toward Jordan Faye and the strange mark on her breast. There were thousands of Chosen, but only three were branded with that mark. Two others were still out there. Perhaps safely Below. Perhaps discarded like all the other meaningless humans littering the mortal roads. Only time would tell.
When the boat docked, she snarled at the ferryman before stepping onto the rocky beach. Dark water licked her boots, but no tide touched the path leading to the stone chamber in front of her.
Kyana heard the faint sobbing before she made out the shadowed silhouettes of the three women huddled at the end of the cave. Their forms hunched over a smoking cauldron, the scent of which stirred within her a fresh hunger. She'd never learned what, exactly, the contents of that cauldron were. The scent seemed to change depending on the person smelling it, becoming intoxicating, reminding them of something they desperately wanted but usually couldn't name.
For Kyana, the longing made her woozy and slightly sad. For what, she didn't know. Desperately trying to place the desire kept her occupied as she made her way down the passage, but she couldn't remember a time, living or undead, when she'd been as melancholy as the nostalgic sensation that aroma evoked in her now.
As she approached the women, they stepped away from the cauldron and lifted their hoods in greeting. The middle woman wiped a tear from her cheek, her shaky smile not quite genuine.
"Kyana," she whispered. "You've come unannounced."
Much lovelier than Shakespeare's interpretation of them as the Wyrd Sisters, the Moerae, also known as the three Fates, peered at Kyana with youthful eyes. Their entire beings glimmered with golden dust, though that dust was nowhere near as bright as it had once been.
Kyana nodded in greeting. The beacon she refused to wear burned in her pocket. She was being summoned by an Ancient. More than likely, Artemis. But the Goddess of the Hunt would have to wait. Kyana wanted answers before she went anywhere. "I'll only need a minute."
Clotho adjusted her long golden braid over her shoulder and fixed Kyana with a cold stare. Vamps were still considered outsiders, even those who'd proven their allegiance over and over as Kyana had. She prided herself on her ability to stare others down, to intimidate them with the quickest of glances, but Clotho's penetrating blue eyes forced Kyana to avert her gaze.
"Speak quickly, Kyana," Clotho said. "It takes us far longer to tend our souls these days."
"I would think your tending wouldn't be so tiresome, given the lack of human life Above. So many are dead."
Tears welled in the Fate's eyes. "We don't need a Vampyre to remind us of our failures. We are faced with them every day."
At least she hadn't called Kyana Dark Breed.
Uncomfortable with the tears, Kyana blurted out, "I found Jordan Faye."
"We know." Atropos, the eldest of the three sisters and by far the most menacing, tossed something green into the cauldron and gave it a quick stir.
For a blessed moment, that taunting, mysterious scent vanished and all Kyana could smell were the rotting waters of the River Styx.
"Of course you do." If Jordan had died, Atropos would have known before anyone else. She was, after all, in charge of death, and guided those newly deceased to the river where they'd await their eternal fate.
"I want to know about the mark on her breast. Is she what I think she is?"
Scowling, Atropos raised a black brow. "You demand answers from us?"
"Not demanding. Asking." Kyana softened her tone. "Is she one of you?"
The sisters looked to one another. The middle sister, Lachesis, began weeping again. Atropos and Clotho wrapped their arms around the beautiful redhead in quiet comfort. Again, the scent rose from the cauldron and twisted Kyana's belly. What the hell was it?
"You think we enjoy knowing we are to be replaced?" Atropos hissed. "That we are to hand over the duties we've been charged with for ten thousand years?"
The very walls shook with their combined anger. Kyana held her ground and remained silent. No one wanted to be replaced, but the Fates couldn't deny that their time had come. For more than two centuries now, Oracles had been professing that the power of the gods would soon wane. Since then, the Fates had been marking Chosen, making certain strong bodies were born on Earth, capable of absorbing the enormous powers of the gods when the time came to transfer them into newer souls.
That demons and other Dark Breeds now walked the earth was proof that the power of the Fates and the gods no longer held the strength it once had. Their era of reigning was over, and hope rested on the shoulders of their replacements.
Time stood still as the Sisters whispered comforts to each other. Kyana strained to hear the hushed conversation but her head was full of the powerful scent, the unknown ache, the wanting. The heat of the beacon seared her thigh, pulling her mind back from the hypnotic effects of the cauldron's aroma. Artemis's impatience over Kyana not arriving at the god's temple Below was burning a hole in her leather.
"Are answers the only thing you came for, Kyana?"
She flinched. Her skin itched. She needed to get out of here. Needed to clear her head. "Yes. No. I want to protect her if my suspicions are right."
The Fates studied her, then one another, as though sharing a conversation she could not hear.
Lachesis, the weaver of destiny and the keeper of truths, dried her eyes with a lock of her fiery hair and addressed her sisters. "She is honest. Though I suspect her offer is not completely unselfish, she means no harm."
To Kyana, she said, "You are correct. Jordan Faye is one of us. When the time is right, she will take my place. With her and the others like her, the Order will have a chance of winning the war you fight Above. But not until the time is right."
Kyana shook her head. "And when will that be? The Order is outnumbered. We're getting---"
Clotho fingered her golden braid. "She must learn her way. Learn of who she is. Of what she is."
"Who will teach her?"
"That is not your concern."
"Then what is my concern? To follow orders? To fight battles we can't win? To save those you deem important, then sit on my hands and do nothing?"
Atropos's black gaze silenced her. "You will do your duty, Dark Breed." A twisted smile contorted her face. "No, not Dark Breed. You're even more vile, are you not, Kyana? You're a foul Half-Breed who forgets her place."
"Enough!" Clotho pressed a hand to her sister's chest, lightly pushing Atropos backward, out of Kyana's reach.
"It's all right, Clotho. I know your sister disdains my kind." Kyana narrowed her gaze on Atropos. "Both of my kinds. Yes, Half-Breed suits me well, but it is both breeds within me that make me Artemis's best tracer. Without my Lychen half, I would be forced to wait until dusk to hunt like all your other Vamps. I go where they can't, when they can't, faster than they can. So we play nice with each other, don't we, Atropos? Whether we like one another or not, because we're both vital to saving your beloved humans."
Atropos swung her gaze away, but her pinched face was proof that Kyana had struck a nerve. Even more than Atropos hated Vamps, she loathed Lychen. She thought the werewolves lacked the ability to control their animalistic instincts, and if there was one thing Atropos couldn't stand it was the lack of self-control. And since Kyana was both, the two of them would never get along. Kyana was the last Half-Breed of her particular kind, and the Order couldn't afford to lose her. That gave Atropos even more reason to hate Kyana. Aside from breaking a major Order commandment, there was nothing Kyana could do that would allow Atropos to get rid of her.
Checkmate.
Looking to the more reasonable, less bigoted sisters, Kyana pulled the conversation back to the task at hand. "What will become of Jordan Faye?"
Clotho sighed, weariness etched in the pocketed shadows of her eyes. "She and the others on our lists will be protected at all costs."
"They should have been brought in when they were born," Kyana grumbled. "We could have kept them safe until the time of the exchange."
Atropos narrowed her dark gaze, the shadows of the cave making her look momentarily haggard and worn. "If they have not lived amongst humans and learned the importance of humanity, then they would never become fair and just to those who worship them. Humanity. Humility. They are foreign concepts to you, Kyana. I do not expect you to understand, but I do expect that you do not question our ways."
Thinking very little about either concept, Kyana rolled her eyes. "I want Jordan Faye's guardianship."
"We have another task for you," Lachesis said, digging noisily through a golden chest behind her as Kyana turned a murderous stare to the other sisters.
"No way. I found the one that everyone else had given up on. It's my right to be her guardian."
"Because you think such a post will give you power?"
"No. Because she is my responsibility."
"Liar," Atropos hissed. "You're as power hungry now as you were when you first came to the Order."
Lachesis turned back to the group. In her hands, she held a golden chain with a flat, square hunk of obsidian the size of Kyana's hand dangling from the end of it. Lachesis turned the block of glossy ebony so that Kyana could see a roughly cut pentagram-shaped hole in the center.
"Sisters, I think the choice belongs to our tracer." Lachesis held out the stone pendant, her lips curving into a sly smile. "You found our Chosen, and you may guard her if you wish."
Satisfied, Kyana started to nod in acceptance, but the gleam in Lachesis's eyes stopped her. "What's the catch?"
Lachesis looked to her sisters before turning back to Kyana. "You may play guardian to Jordan Faye or you may take up a more important job."
Her curiosity piqued, Kyana reached out and touched the sharp edges of the cut stone. "What job?"
Lachesis slipped the chain around Kyana's neck. The thing weighed as much as a small hippo.
"A simple task, Kyana." A smile lit Lachesis's tearstained cheeks. "We want you to save the world."
Kyana Aslan shook off the exhilaration shivering under her skin and tossed a grin at Ryker. The demigod smiled back, his teeth blindingly white in the shadows of Matanzas State Forest.
Becoming a goddess certainly had its perks. Like running fifty miles in under five minutes without the smallest hint of exhaustion. She'd only been the new Goddess of the Hunt for a day, and while she didn't yet have most of Artemis's powers, the little she did have made her old pacing look like . . . well, it was like trying to compare a wild Mustang to a sleek, gorgeous black Arabian. Both got you where you wanted to go quickly, but the Arabian got you there in style.
"Ky? You ready? We'll have to take them by surprise."
Ryker looked so incredibly yummy in his camos, it was difficult to concentrate. Wind-tousled blond hair fell over his silver eyes, casting a shadow across his well-sculpted profile making him look more like a statue of his father, Ares, than the half human he was.
This was only a scouting mission, an exercise to practice the few skills Kyana had inherited from Artemis. And she was loving every minute of it. Being allowed off Olympus for the first time in days was like being let out of a cage. Flying off with Ryker, whom she was coming to like more than she should, was just icing on the cake. That he was wearing those yummy camos was the creamy filling.
Ryker's expression of concentration was broken by the tiny smile teasing the corner of his full lips, the small fangs bestowed on all demigods glistening in the moonlight. He obviously knew what she was thinking, knew she was probably remembering what he looked like out of those camos, but he was gentleman enough not to mention it. Instead, he pointed to the meeting they'd come to intercept. She studied the clearing as he spoke instructions into her ear, though in all honesty, her blood was pounding too loudly to hear anything else.
If the informant who'd come to Artemis was right, this meeting was being held by those who supported the resurrection of Cronos, an ancient god who'd committed the ultimate sin of trying to off his sons, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. If they could catch one of these bastards and bring it in alive, maybe they'd be able to find and stop the person who was trying to bring Cronos back to life.
That person happened to be Kyana's closest friend in the world, which made this practice mission even more important.
Her determination settled more firmly in her gut as she peered into the darkness. There was enough of her old Vampyric blood in her to make scanning the trees effortless. Her gaze fell upon rising smoke half a football field away, and while she couldn't see the bodies, the tracer in her could sense them, feel them. She wanted to hunt them.
But the goddess in her wanted answers more than bloodshed.
She wiggled her toes inside her boots. "I'm ready. But I want to listen before we jump in. See if they mention Haven."
She didn't wait for Ryker's protest. A hundred-foot pine fell into her line of sight, almost exactly where she wanted to be. She didn't think her feet ever touched the forest floor as she sprinted the fifty yards, looked up at her branch, and sprang from her toes. When she landed in a crouch on top of the thick limb overhead, she wasn't even winded.
Pressing her belly to the rough branch, she slithered to the end where she could hang her head over, unseen. Pine needles poked through her leather vest and stabbed at her armpits, but she didn't stop to scratch. Soon, Ryker was there, lying flat on top of her as he too pressed himself low to watch.
"This wasn't the plan," he grumbled, his breath fanning her hair.
"Hush."
He'd wanted to strike immediately, to attack before the ceremony had even begun. Surprisingly, she'd been more patient. It went against her normal instincts to wait it out, but she was pretty sure listening and gathering more intel before rushing in was the smarter thing to do. Practice or not, she wanted something to take back to Olympus with her. Something that would help her prevent Haven from doing something too stupid to forgive.
Besides, the gods and goddesses were losing more of their powers every day. Anything Kyana could find out to stop their Chosen replacements from being picked off by Cronos's followers would be a boon.
She wiggled to get more comfortable. Big mistake. Ryker's groin stabbed against the backs of her thighs, and if he hadn't been plastering her to the tree, she probably would have been distracted enough to roll right off the branch and into the middle of the coven below.
His fingers bit into the back of her leg, pinning her in place. "Stop moving."
As a pair, they, apparently, were not built for a stakeout.
"From the fires of the Underworld, I offer you my wings!" The mutterings of the group grew louder and more coherent as a Hatchling lowered its black cloak to the ground and spread its wings to the skies. Thin, golden scales stretched out over spidery veins and bones, and his reptilian face glistened eerily in the shadowed light of the moon.
"I didn't know Hatchlings could speak," Kyana mumbled. "Did you know they could speak?"
Ryker nudged her and she shut up, watching as the being beside the Hatchling also lowered its cloak.
"My loyal offering . . . Take my sight!"
"What are they doing?" she whispered.
"Offering their strongest assets to aid in Cronos's return."
The creature tilted its long neck toward the treetops, its face contorted with agony as blood streamed from its black eyes.
"What the hell is that?"
"Damn it, Kyana, if they hear you . . ." He sighed and pressed his lips to her ear. "It's a Dark Seer. Now please shut up."
Kyana sucked in a gasp before it could escape. Seers weren't demons. They were humans born with the ability to see into the future---the equivalent of Oracles on Olympus but to a lesser, more mortal degree. But this thing didn't appear human. It had black, shriveled skin and looked more like a mummy than anything she had ever seen. Except, of course, for actual mummies.
As the nine others in the circle dropped their cloaks and offered their strengths to the god they prayed would return to them, Kyana listened, waiting to make her move. A hush fell over the group below and the fire blazing in their center danced as though they'd been heard by someone other than her and Ryker.
Cronos hadn't risen, and if she could do anything about it, he never would. But that didn't stop her from worrying. He was dead, yet he'd managed to find a way to circumvent that minor inconvenience and plan his own resurrection. She wasn't dumb enough to underestimate what he was capable of.
Even from the grave, he'd managed to turn Haven, the sweetest, most gentle Witch she had ever met, into a maniacal puppet. The pain of that crime was still so fresh and raw, Kyana wore it like lotion all over. Dead or alive, Cronos was a psychotic, dangerous mother trucker.
Haven was her best friend. That she'd kinda sorta turned Haven into a mix of Vampyre and Lychen to save her life hadn't changed that. Neither had the fact that her blood had driven Haven slightly cuckoo and now she was hell-bent on destroying the world on behalf of the dead-but-still-deadly god Cronos.
It was Kyana's job to hunt her down and bring her back to sanity before she accomplished that goal.
Maybe they should have stopped this meeting before it started as Ryker had wanted to. Maybe it wasn't wise to give them a chance to make progress toward Cronos's plan to come back.
"Can Cronos really accept what these things are offering?"
Ryker adjusted himself and leaned over her other ear. "They're not offering them to Cronos."
"Then who---" Kyana's blood went colder than usual. She didn't need him to answer. "Haven."
As he nodded, his chin rubbed against her hair, making her shiver. He groaned and tightened his hands on her hips to hold her still.
"But I don't think they have a clue what they're doing," he said. "Haven's not a god. She can't accept gifts like this."
Thank Zeus.
Kyana didn't need these buffoons making her job harder. She had only seven days before she'd lose her Vamp/Lychen abilities in exchange for full goddess-ship. Learning to become the new Goddess of the Hunt while trying to bring down the only real family she had was going to suck. Majorly.
Not willing to consider what would happen if she didn't meet her deadline, she focused on the group below her. One of the creatures down there had the information she needed, and she was determined to get it.
"Ready?" she asked, thrusting her butt in the air to buck Ryker off her back. When his weight disappeared, she pushed herself back into a crouch position and leaned her upper body over the limb. The branch was strong, but with both of them standing on it, their weight unevenly distributed, it cracked under their feet. If they weren't ready, the tree was.
"Give me a minute." He pointed down at the circle of Cronos groupies. "They're about to start their closing chant. When you hear the final hum, go. I'll be right there with you."
Before she could ask where the hell he thought he was going, he was gone. She caught a flash of blond hair from the corner of her eye, and watched its trail swing through the tree branches to the opposite side of the clearing.
Tarzan. Me likey.
The branch crackled again. She sucked in her breath and focused on the chanting, waiting for the hum Ryker seemed to think she'd recognize. But then the bottom fell out from under her feet. Instinct brought her hands straight up, and she clawed at the branch hanging overhead just before the broken limb beneath her tumbled into darkness, crashing smack in the center of the coven.
"Shit shit shit."
She swung herself up to a sturdier branch and swore she heard Ryker mimic her curses. There was no more waiting. She dropped, catching another branch in her hands, and swung out and over the coven, swooping down upon their group to land gracefully on her feet. They closed in just as Ryker landed behind her.
Kyana was pissed. Not that her branch had given way, but that they were going to have to kill these traitors before they could force any useful information out of them.
"Can't leave you for a minute," he muttered, pressing his back to hers.
Furious that their ceremony had been interrupted, all eleven Dark Breed drooled and sputtered, practically frothing at the mouth in outrage. Two human-looking cowards fled, disappearing into the darkness, but the other nine stayed put. She tried to take them all in, to see what breeds they were to better prepare for their strengths and weaknesses, but other than the Dark Seer and the Hatchling, they all wore hoods that covered their features.
She hated fighting blind, but she had no choice.
A few of them flew backward as Ryker tapped into his telekinesis. She hadn't had time to learn such a thing and didn't even know if she ever could. It was going to have to be all sweat and fists for her.
She kicked out, catching one under the chin. Its hood fell off, revealing the face of another Hatchling. Black blood spewed from his mouth and his jaw to make a horrific crunching noise before falling open at a disjointed angle. He came at her, his orangey wings open and his claws outstretched like an eagle dipping in for its prey.
She ducked. The Hatchling tumbled over her and as it landed on its back, she slid her dagger from her boot and shoved it between the beast's ribs. It released a long, soft sigh before it stopped breathing altogether.
Ryker sent two more crashing into each other, bashing them together so hard, one's skull split in two before it crumpled to the ground. She glanced at it long enough to see it had been a Lychen, killed mid-transformation with its wolf's muzzle protruding from a human face.
She turned back to her own fight as a dark, Mediterranean-looking man lunged at her. Instinctively, she brought her fist up and it lodged inside the man's throat. As he slumped to the ground, she jerked her hand free and stared in fascination at the sparkling orangish blood coating her hand.
"I think I just killed a Genie!"
Her momentary shock was broken as, from the corner of her eye, she saw the Dark Seer slip around one of his companions.
"Grab him!" she screamed. If they were going to let any of this coven live, the Dark Seer was their best choice. If they were lucky, he'd peek into the future and point them toward Haven, and if nothing else, he had the capacity to answer questions.
The Seer was smart, however, and braver than she'd given him credit for. As Ryker lunged to carry out her request, the Seer whipped a long sword from the pile of cloaks at his feet.
"I will die before betraying my god!" And with that, he shoved the blade into his heart and fell onto the dead Hatchling beside him.
Great.
They were down to three survivors. All of them looked nasty and incapable of speech, let alone conversation. One morphed into a human-looking male, naked and hairy from head to toe. A Shyfter.
Kyana grabbed his nape and shoved him to his knees. He smiled up at her, his yellow teeth bared, then shifted into an adder and slithered from her hold. He disappeared into the forest before she could react.
Two Dark Breed left: another Hatchling and an impure demon. A Half-Breed of some kind that didn't look as though he even possessed a tongue, his mouth nothing more than a tiny hole in his face.
Maybe the Hatchling could--- Ryker twisted the Hatchling's head right off its shoulders.
"Damn it." She thrust her dagger into the remaining Half-Breed's throat and whipped around to face Ryker. "Did you have to kill them all?"
She was so damned angry, she wanted to find something else to kill. They were no closer to finding Haven than they'd been when Artemis's snitch had tipped them off about this ceremony.
"Me?" He pointed at the body that Kyana had just let fall to her feet. "You weren't exactly playing nice."
She scowled, kicked the dead body, and stepped over it. "He wasn't useful. You killed all the useful ones."
Ryker rolled his eyes at her. "Really? We're really going to debate this now?"
She sighed and pointed to the trees. "Let's go. Maybe I can still track the ones who escaped."
Ryker stooped and wiped his bloody hands on the grass. "No, you can't. You're out of ambrosia, and I'd give you maybe . . . ten more minutes before you're out of fuel."
He motioned in the direction of the camp they'd set up at dusk where they'd waited for night to fully envelop the forest. "Wait for me. I'll bring back whatever I can find."
"You're great in a fight, but you suck at tracking and we both know it. I'm not full goddess yet. I'm still eighty percent tracer."
"More like seventy percent," he muttered, gripping her arm and preventing her from marching off in search of the traitors they'd come for.
She snatched her arm away, frustration making her antsy as hell.
"Fine. Then let's go back to Artie's and see what other tip-offs she might have been given," Kyana said, picking a leaf from her hair.
"The Vamp?" Ryker asked, referring to the weaselly Dark Breed who'd come to Artemis yesterday with promises of information regarding Cronos's disciples in exchange for sanctuary. Kyana didn't trust traitors of any kind. If they could turn once, they could do it again, but right now, he was all they had.
"Yeah. Him. If there's going to be another circle like this one, he'll know about it."
"Then let's port out of here."
Kyana groaned. "Can't I just run back with my goddess mojo?"
"Your speed only lasts as long as your ambrosia does. And while you can get from point A to point B quickly, you're still running. You can't just jump from point A to point Z."
"Whatever," she grumbled. "Let's just go."
She waited for him to draw his circle and grabbed hold of his sleeve. She barely had time to brace herself before she was sucked into his wormhole and blinded by white light.
Sable Grace is the writing team of Heather Waters & Laura Barone, long time critique partners and friends who came together by fluke to discover their voices fit together quite nicely during a writing experiment. The story became far too interesting to put down and Sable Grace was born.
Both Heather and Laura reside in Florida, are happily married to their real life heroes, and are, well, complete opposites. Still, there's enough common ground for them to weave their words together in the voice of Sable Grace. You can reach them both at sablegrace@ymail.com or visit their website at www.sablegrace.com
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This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
BEFORE THE FALL. Copyright © 2011 by Heather Waters and Laura Barone. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Excerpt from Ascension copyright © 2011 by Heather Waters and Laura Barone.
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EPub Edition November 2011 ISBN: 9780062117595
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062117588
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