Darkness Avenged (Guardians of Eternity) (7 page)

“Styx believes you could help us locate Gaius.”

She returned her attention to her plate, hiding her expression as she dipped her wing into the blue cheese dressing. “I’ve told you everything I know.”

“You said Gaius was different when he returned to his lair. What did you mean?”

She shrugged. “I had a few errands to run and when I came back Gaius was just standing in the hallway like a zombie. For a minute I thought his carcass had been stuffed and left there as some kind of sick joke. But when I actually stepped into the hallway he reacted like a feral animal. It was creepy as hell.”

Roke frowned. “Was his intent to kill you?”

“I wasn’t stupid enough to remain around long enough to find out if he wanted me dead or just injured.”

“And you claim he didn’t recognize you?”

She ate her wing and reached for another. “He acted like he didn’t. I suppose he could have been pretending, but I don’t see the point.”

“And you suspect he had someone with him?”

“Someone or something he was protecting.”

“Why?”

She doggedly kept her head down, replenishing her energy as he put her through the Inquisition. The only thing missing were the whips and chains.

“Why what?” she said with a full mouth.

He shifted with impatience. “Why do you suspect that he was protecting something?”

She trembled at the memory of the malevolent energy that had surrounded the house, repulsing her spell and contaminating the very air with evil.

Not that she was going to confess her true reason for suspecting that Gaius had a new and very powerful ally.

Not when she would have to confess she’d used dark magic against a fellow vampire of Roke’s.

She was in enough trouble as it was, thank you very much.

“He was behaving like a wild dog guarding his favorite bone,” she at last hedged.

She felt his gaze boring into the top of her head like a laser.

“You’re lying.”

With an effort she tilted back her head to meet his fierce glare. “I am not.”

There was enough truth in her words to make him hesitate. “At the very least you’re not revealing everything you know,” he at last accused her.

“You’re a mind reader?”

“One way or another I’ll discover the truth, little witch,” he growled, turning on his heel to head out of the cell.

Briefly startled by his departure, Sally rose to her feet. Her strength was returning, but what good would it do her if she couldn’t use it to escape?

She needed someone she could manipulate.

Someone who wasn’t a powerful vampire who made her think of sweet, forbidden things.

“Does it have to be you?”

Halting, he glanced over his shoulder at her abrupt question. “Me?”

“Can I have a different guard?”

“Why?”

“I should think that was obvious.”

“Indulge me.”

Her chin tilted. “I don’t like you.”

His body went rigid, his eyes darkening with something that might have been outrage. “In case you didn’t notice, you’re in the dungeons,” he snarled, his power nearly suffocating. “You’re lucky the keys haven’t been thrown away and your luscious little body left for the wolves. Literally.”

What the hell was wrong with him? He acted as if she’d insulted him . . . Wait—did he just call her body luscious?

Sucking in a deep breath, she refused to back down. “Even a condemned criminal gets a last request, Roke. And mine is that I don’t have to see you again.”

 

Nefri allowed Santiago to lead her from the house, resolutely maintaining her air of detachment while deep inside she was an emotional mess.

That room . . .

It wasn’t just the blood and guts.

She was an ancient vampire who’d witnessed just about every depravity that demons and humans could imagine. It was the lingering evil that seemed to cling to the air. Like an oil slick that polluted everything it touched. Dear lord. She wanted to stand beneath a shower and scrub herself from head to toe.

And just as confusing were the violent emotions the vampire walking at her side inspired. He was infuriating, illogical, stubborn, and so typically male that she wanted to scream. He was also wickedly charming, unexpectedly intelligent, and intensely loyal to his clan.

One minute she wanted to have him muzzled, and the next she wanted to wrap herself in his raw power and kiss him senseless.

Which terrified her.

Granted, it’d been a long time since she’d last taken a lover, but she knew that this extreme awareness of Santiago had nothing to do with sexual frustration. Or even a brief bout of lust.

She wished it was.

Lust she could easily satisfy. Either with Santiago or with one of her own clansmen.

But this restless craving that was spreading through her body wasn’t going to be ended by a swift, discreet tumble.
Not that Santiago would ever be swift or discreet in bed
, a renegade voice whispered in the back of her mind. He would be fierce and dominant and outrageously demanding. No doubt he would leave a female feeling thoroughly ravaged . . . in the most gratifying way.

Her hands clenched as she banished the image of Santiago poised naked above her, his hips nestled between her parted thighs.

Had she gone mad?

There was something out there that terrified even the Oracles. Now was not the time to be reacting as if she were a silly foundling still at the mercy of her passions. With an effort she hid behind the cool composure that allowed her to pretend a control she was far from feeling.

“Where are we going?” she asked as Santiago headed up the narrow path. With the thick canopy of trees and creeping moss it looked more like a tunnel to some weird Land of the Lost than a main road to the nearest town.

Somewhere overhead Levet was hunting for his evening meal, but the thick foliage made it impossible to sense anything beyond a few feet.

At her side, Santiago pulled his sword from its scabbard, his eyes scanning the shadows. “I left my truck hidden outside town.”

She rolled her eyes. Of course he would have a truck. A heavy bully of a vehicle with a too-powerful engine that wouldn’t be stopped by a mere roadblock. Her lips thinned with annoyance at her unruly thoughts.

“After that.”

He shrugged, his gaze continuing to search the thick line of trees that bordered the road.

“North.”

“North? That’s it?”

“That’s all I got.”

“Are you being deliberately vague?”

“No, I only have a faint sense of Gaius,” he explained. “I told you, once I’m closer I’ll be able to pinpoint his location.”

She believed him, even if she didn’t want to. The bond she’d formed with her own sire had been destroyed several centuries ago, but she did remember that she rarely had more than a vague impression of his direction.

But the thought of spending several nights with Santiago as they searched for Gaius was more disturbing than she wanted to admit.

“We could travel much faster if we use my medallion.”

He hissed, shooting her a startled glance. “No fuc—” He bit off his crude response, but his expression remained resolute. “No way.”

“Why not?” She lifted her fingers to touch the warm medallion that rested just above her unbeating heart. “It would be much quicker.”

“I just regained my bond with Gaius. I’m not going to do anything to risk it.”

She tilted her head to the side. “And that’s the only reason?”

“You want me to admit that popping from one place to another freaks me out?” he growled, clearly still pissed at the last time she’d taken him mist-walking. “Fine. It freaks me out.”

She resisted the urge to tease. Not because Santiago couldn’t laugh at himself. His ready sense of humor was one of his more disarming traits. But because with this man it felt too much like flirting.

“Perhaps it’s for the best.”

His eyes darkened with suspicion. “Why do you say that?”

“The medallion that Gaius possesses is connected to mine.” She allowed her fingers to drop from the metal that always felt alive. Even sentient. “I can’t be certain he wouldn’t sense me if I use it.”

His pace slowed, as if he’d been struck by a sudden thought. “Have you used it since you returned to this world?”

“It’s necessary to travel through the Veil, but I haven’t called on its powers since I’ve been here. Why?”

“It seems more than a coincidence that Gaius would abandon his lair only a night or two before we arrived.”

Ah. Smart vampire. Gaius might very well have sensed her approach if she’d used the medallion. Instead it had been Siljar who’d opened a portal a few miles from the house.

Which meant that she had no answer for why Gaius had abandoned his lair.

“There was a scent of humans in the area,” she speculated aloud.

He nodded. “The witch?”

“Her scent was distinct and fading,” Nefri said, making a mental note to tell the Oracles that there’d been something odd about the witch’s scent. She was more than she seemed. “The humans were more recent,” she told Santiago. “Within the past day.”

Santiago accepted her claim without argument. He was one of the few men who didn’t seem intimidated by her superior powers.

“How many?” he instead demanded.

“Impossible to say, but there were more than a dozen.”

He considered the various possibilities. “A search party?”

“That was my thought. Such a large number of missing humans wouldn’t go unnoticed.”

“Typical,” he growled. “If they’d just waited a few days we would have had Gaius cornered.”

“Maybe,” she hedged, unwilling to fool herself that it would be simple. The Oracles wouldn’t have sent her if it was just a case of finding Gaius and asking him to come along nicely.

He turned to study her with a searching gaze. “I don’t like the sound of that ‘maybe.’”

“Gaius has obviously been altered,” she hedged. “We don’t know what new powers he might have.”

“No,” he abruptly denied. “Not altered.”

Tread warily, Nefri
. . . . “What do you mean?”

“The witch said he acted like he was under some sort of compulsion,” he said, his tone accusing.

She bit back her words of annoyance. The witch was not only more than she seemed, but she was far too observant for her own good.

She needed to be watched. If only for her own safety. “He’s too powerful a vampire to be enthralled,” she pointed out.

“Then you’re saying the witch was lying?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Is he alone?”

“Possibly not.”

His flare of irritation swirled through the air, biting into her skin.

“Let me guess—you can’t tell me anything about his companion,” he rasped.

Her lips twisted into a wry smile. The buzz of insects fell silent and a dozen small animals scuttled away in sharp fear at Santiago’s sour mood. How long had it been since she’d spent time with a man who was willing to stand up to her?

Too long, if the strange sensations sizzling through her veins were anything to go by.

It was one thing to feel a measure of admiration for Santiago after centuries of being surrounded by sycophants who rarely dared to question her decisions, let alone treat her as if he were her equal. And quite another to shiver in sizzling arousal.

“I can’t because I truly don’t know,” she informed her companion, her voice coated in an extra layer of ice. There was no way she was going to allow this man to sense her growing vulnerability. He was a predator who would pounce on the first hint of weakness. “I’m merely a servant of the Oracles, not their confidante.”

Santiago growled, but before he could express his smoldering frustration, there was the rustle of leaves above them and the pungent scent of granite.

“Gargoyle,” Santiago instead muttered, stepping back as Levet floated down on his fairy wings to land on the path between them.

The gargoyle stuck his tongue toward the male vampire. “I do have a name.”

“I thought you were hunting,” Nefri intruded into the male sniping.

Levet readily turned in her direction. “I was until I noticed the herd of people heading this way.”

Santiago frowned. “At this hour?”

“It could be another search party,” Nefri suggested.

“More like a lynch mob,” Levet corrected, his tail twitching. “
Sacrebleu.
They were shouting and waving their guns like they were overdosed on steroids.”

A lynch mob? Nefri deliberately avoided Santiago’s sharp gaze, a bad feeling growing in the pit of her stomach at the gargoyle’s warning. Not because there was a group of people out there looking for trouble. Humans took a peculiar delight in stirring their passions to a fever pitch. She had a terrible premonition that this was more than just an overabundance of testosterone.

“How far?” she asked.

Levet pointed up the path. “Five miles and headed this way.”

“We’ll cut through the swamp,” Santiago announced, taking instant command. “Once we’re clear of the town we can circle back and pick up my vehicle.”

Nefri didn’t protest. She didn’t have any more desire than Santiago to run across a group of humans looking for blood, even if she was more accustomed to giving orders than taking them.

“Tromp through the bogs? Ewww.” Levet wrinkled his snout . “I am no slimy lizard. I will join you on the other side.”

Nefri reached out to lay a gentle hand on the gargoyle’s shoulder. “Take care, Levet.”

“Merci, ma chérie.”
He offered a low bow, a sparkle in his gray eyes. “You have my promise I will take the greatest care. And if you have need of me you only have to call my name.”

She nodded. “I will.”

With a flap of his wings, Levet was headed upward, dodging the overhanging branches with astonishing grace.

“Thank the gods,” Santiago muttered. “That creature would try the patience of a saint.”

“And you’re no saint,” she muttered, pointing out the obvious.

“Not even close.” With a wicked grin he leaned forward and claimed her lips in a short, bone-melting kiss. Then, before she could slug him, he was turning to jog off the pathway, sliding his sword back into its sheath so he could pull out a large dagger and battle through the overgrown vegetation.

Nefri stoically followed in his wake, pretending that his lethal kiss hadn’t inflamed the sensual hunger that was becoming more than a mere inconvenience. That her lips weren’t tingling with an excitement that she felt to the tips of her toes.

Damn it all. Why this aggravating vampire?

And why now?

Shoving aside the questions that had no answers, Nefri focused her concentration on their shadowed surroundings. With every step away from the path, the ground became more treacherous, a scent of rotting vegetation seeping from the thick layer of moss and duckweed. And while they were moving away from the angry humans, there were just as many dangers in the swamps.

Actually, more.

Cougars and alligators lurked among the dense undergrowth as well as a dozen snakes that might not be able to kill a vampire, but could certainly make one ill for a short period of time. There were also a variety of demons who lived in the bayous, far away from the noisy mortals.

But it wasn’t the lurking hazards that slowly wore on Nefri’s nerves. Or the discomfort of wading into the water that came to her knees.

It was, instead, the strange sensations that crawled over her skin, that made a shiver inch down her spine.

“I don’t like this,” she at last said, breaking the thick silence.

“I can’t say I’m overly fond of the swamps myself, but it’s better than dealing with the rabid locals,” Santiago countered, his dagger slicing through a layer of Spanish moss.

“It’s not the swamp,” she said, shivering. “Can’t you feel it?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Feel what?”

Another shiver. “It’s as if there’s a lingering echo of violence.”

“Magic?”

“If it is, it has nothing to do with witches.”

“You’re right, this is far more primal,” he agreed with a grimace, his head tilted back as he tested the fading tang of aggression. “
Mierda.
It’s no wonder the humans are roaming the countryside with torches and pitchforks.”

She smiled wryly. “Very . . . atmospheric.”

Santiago turned to battle a path through the stubborn vegetation. “Stay close,” he commanded.

 

 

Santiago wasn’t easily spooked. He’d been beaten, carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey, tortured, and taken to the edge of death more times than he could count.

What was left to be afraid of?

Well . . . besides the exquisitely beautiful woman walking behind him. Any man in his right mind would be terrified by a female who tied him into knots even as she left him hard and aching with desire.

But the prickles of violence that hung in the air like a bad memory were as unnerving as hell.

And the fact that they were being followed by at least six glowing orbs that were dancing ever closer didn’t ease his tension.

They had reached the middle of the swamp when the orbs shifted to block their path.