King of the Damned: A League of Guardians Novel (25 page)

He couldn’t finish the thought.

The key wasn’t really a key in the normal sense but more like a medium-sized trinket that fit inside a device next to the entrance. Azaiel inserted it, and his heart beat in anticipation as the doors slid back in silence. He and Kellen dragged the bodies in with them while Toniella followed on their heels.

“Holy Mother of God,” Kellen said quietly, as Azaiel straightened, and Rowan’s brother took in what was undoubtedly one of the most spectacular scenes he’d ever had the pleasure to witness.

The interior was a lot larger than it looked to be from the outside. Overhead lighting was muted, but it was enough to illuminate the vast, seemingly infinite number of items Seth had on display.

Kellen walked toward a massive ship and shook his head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Azaiel stood next to him and gazed up at the large craft. USS
Cylops.
“It’s a boat.”

Kellen snorted and shook his head. “This isn’t just a boat. It’s a famous boat from World War One, though it sure as hell isn’t famous for combat.” Kellen walked forward and reached for the hull.

“Don’t touch anything,” Toniella whispered. “Are you stupid?” She glared at the two of them, but Kellen ignored her.

“This boat disappeared with a crew of over three hundred and was never found. There were crazy stories about its disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle, but . . .” He fell silent as he gazed to his left and saw five small planes parked in formation. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered. “Flight 19. This is the Bermuda triangle. Unbelievable.”

Azaiel was irritated. “Grimoire?”

“Grimoire? That’s what you’ve come for?” Toniella looked confused. “Whose grimoire and why?”

“None of your business.” Azaiel thought for a second. “Where would Seth keep such a thing?” There were hundreds of thousands of items to sift through, and they didn’t have the time.

Toniella shrugged and remained silent, but he knew by the tilt of her chin and the slant of her lips that she knew.

He flipped the dagger into the air, caught it, and pointed it at the woman. “I warned you earlier.”

Her eyes narrowed, and the stubborn set of her mouth didn’t change. She wasn’t going to make this easy. “I’ll ask again. Whose grimoire, and why do you need it?”

“It’s my grimoire,” Kellen said.

“Yours?” Her brows knit together. “I don’t sense magick in you.”

“No,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose you do, but that doesn’t change the fact that it belongs to my family, and we need it.”

“Why?”

Azaiel strode toward her. “No more questions. Where would it be?” The anger inside bled out in his words, and she flinched as he glared at her. “Toniella, I swear on the soul of your father—”

“Enough.” She nodded to a location behind him. “There’s the room where Seth keeps parchment.”

It was of course not just a room, but at least there was order here, with parchment, codicils, ancient scriptures, and bound books all grouped together. They found the grimoire, a leather-bound large volume, on display on a gold pedestal. An ornate lock of burnished copper held it closed, while the worn-leather binding was varying shades of amber, orange, and brown. The name
JAMES
was etched across the top.

“I’ve never seen it up close,” Kellen said quietly, as they stared down at the large tome. He reached for it and paused. “Shall I?”

Azaiel nodded, suddenly wary as the silence once more weighed on him. His skin was hot, and the danger meter that he’d learned long ago was never wrong, suddenly erupted, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Let’s go,” he barked. He turned, took a step forward, and froze.

A half second later an alarm erupted and filled the room with a heavy reverberating song of vengeance.

Chapter 25

“W
e’re here, Rowan.”

Rowan woke suddenly and glanced at the clock on the dashboard of the Suburban. It glowed an eerie green—5:15. They were home.

She took a minute, rubbed sleep from her eyes, and slipped from the SUV. They’d been out all night patrolling, killing and cleaning up one demon mess after another. Abigail nodded from across the yard. She’d pitched a tent and was about to turn in. The Black Cauldron was officially filled to the brim with both human and otherworld, all of them there to help. There was some comfort in that.

“Everyone’s back, Ro. We’re all good.” She glanced at Priest and nodded.

Everyone was accounted for. No injuries other than a few nasty cuts and bruises. It was something to be grateful for.

Rowan said her good-nights—which was odd since it was going to be daylight soon. But the threat of Mallick’s legions had turned all of them into creatures of the night.

She trudged toward the house, each step more heavy than the last, and paused at the bottom of the steps. She glanced back toward Hannah and Nico. They were beneath the oak tree out front, their bodies mere shadows among the wakening dawn. Their voices were low, but they carried, and it was obvious they were deep in what seemed to be a very intense conversation. Hannah stepped closer to the shifter, and he didn’t move when her hand reached for his cheek. In fact it seemed as if he leaned into her touch.

Her cousin moved closer, and Rowan’s breath caught at the intimacy of the act. She tore her gaze away and stomped up the stairs. Her chest was tight, and she felt the unexplainable urge to punch something. Anything.

With a sigh, she pushed open the front door and tossed her ruined jacket onto the coatrack tucked into the corner. A tired smile claimed her lips as she spied the large crystal vase on the Queen Anne’s table. It was filled with fresh sunflowers, and the guest book was back in place. Cedric no doubt.

She glanced down at the open book, a lump forming in the back of her throat as she saw the new signatures. Priest. Vicki. Terre. Even Nico had signed the damn thing.

Her fingers traced the names, and she closed her eyes. God, she was so tired. Voices drifted from the kitchen out back, but she wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, and though she knew she should eat, all she wanted was her bed.

And Azaiel.

The unfamiliar ache was back, inside her heart . . . across her chest. She cleared her throat and turned. What was up with that? Only then did she know she wasn’t alone.

“You look like shit, James.”

Her heart leapt, and for a moment she was dizzy. The dead feeling inside her chest fizzled and broke as a smile crept over tired features. “I could say the same for you.”

Azaiel stood before her, shirtless, with those damn jeans that had a habit of lying so low on his hips you couldn’t help but look
down.
He sported his own assortment of cuts and bruises, and someone had stitched up his left bicep. A bandage above his right eyebrow gave him a rakish, sexy air—which he so didn’t need. She swallowed and nearly choked because her mouth was suddenly bone dry. Like middle-of-the-Sahara kind of dry.

His eyes glittered, their freaky otherworld coloring amplified by something other than the muted lighting in the foyer. It came from within.

She attempted to clear her throat. “What happened to you?” Damn, when had she started sounding like Marilyn Monroe? Her cheeks burned in embarrassment, but she refused to look away. Rather, she
couldn’t
look away.

“We.” He paused and rubbed the back of his head—which only emphasized his exquisite abs and muscular shoulders. If it were anyone else—Priest maybe—she’d think he’d done it on purpose. But it was Azaiel, and he seemed pretty damn oblivious to how incredibly attractive he was.

“Had a few issues getting out of District One.”

“Oh, right.” She didn’t know what else to say, mostly because her eyes were still stuck on the abs. Christ, they looked like they’d been spray painted on. And then there was his stomach. And the freaking low-riding jeans.

“Kellen’s fine by the way.”

Her eyes flew back to his, and she bit her lip in irritation. At herself. “Good. Um . . .” She couldn’t think. He was literally sucking the thinking machine that used to be her brain right the hell out of her head.

“The, ah . . .” Oh God, she even sounded like an airhead.

“Grimoire?” His voice was soft, and she detected a hint of weariness.

“Yes.” The strange notion of exhilaration persisted, but suddenly the clouds parted, and her faculties returned. “Yes, the grimoire. Did you get it?”

“Piece of cake.” He nodded. “Kellen has it.” Azaiel took a step forward. “Look, I’m exhausted and could sure use a bed. I just don’t know where . . .”

“Oh, sure.” Rowan took a step back and swore as her hip grazed the corner of the Queen Anne’s table. She glanced toward the stairs.

“I don’t know where there’s an empty bed. I grabbed the sofa in your living room the other night, but it’s occupied.”

“You can sleep with me.”

Holy Mother of God, did I just say that?

“I mean, not with me like sexually or anything. I just um, you know, I have a big bed, and . . .” He was staring at her as if she had two heads.
Stop talking
. “Because we can’t go
there
”—she laughed nervously—“like what happened the other night kind of there . . . not here.”
Oh God, stop talking.

He was quiet for a moment though a hint of a smile played with the corner of his mouth. “That would be great.” He nodded toward the stairs. “After you.”

Rowan swept past him and practically ran up the stairs. Her room was the last one on the left, and she flipped the light switch as she entered, grabbing her dirty clothes from the day before off the floor and tossing them into the basket beside her dresser.

Her room was ridiculously feminine and juvenile, but she ignored the pink and white and bent over the bed. Aware that he was behind her. Aware that his silent gaze was unnerving at best. Aware that every cell in her body was on fire with the need to do something other than what she was going to do.

Which was sleep. Catch zzzz’s. There would be no hanky-panky.

She pulled down the cover. And no touching.

Heavy petting leads to sinning.
Christ, why was Reverend Beamish’s voice in her head? She shivered and mentally quieted the voices. It wasn’t that hard to do since Azaiel had managed to replace her brain cells with new and improved dumb-ass airhead ones.

She moved to the side, careful to avoid Azaiel, and nodded toward the bed.

“Take whichever side you like. I’m going to go and clean up.” She took another step toward her bathroom. “I don’t snore, so . . .”

Oh my God. Shut the fuck up.

His hooded eyes watched her in silence, and he didn’t say anything. She swallowed thickly and closeted herself inside the bathroom, resting her head against the door until her heart slowed. Her hands trembled, but that was more from fatigue rather than nerves.

You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.

“God, stop thinking,” she rasped as she locked the door and whirled around. She grabbed a fresh towel from the shelf, turned the water on, and seconds later slipped beneath the hot spray. It felt like heaven, and for twenty minutes she was able to forget about pretty much everything, though as she cleaned herself, she was careful not to linger at her breasts or down south. No sense in getting worked up and yet . . .

Why not? Why couldn’t she give in to the fantasy that Azaiel represented? She knew he wanted her. She wanted him. What had happened in the Witches Brew was only an amplification of their real emotions. It wasn’t synthetic. It was organic. Real.

And damn, but it could be so, so good.

But you hardly know him.

There was that pesky voice again. She knew enough. She didn’t need to know his secrets to have sex with him. In fact it would probably be best if she didn’t know anything beyond the fact that he was totally, one hundred percent lickable, and she was pretty damn sure she’d never again meet another man like him.

Besides, when all was said and done, she’d either be Mallick’s whore, or if she managed to win this war, she was pretty sure Azaiel would be gone before the dust settled. Men like him didn’t stay in small towns like this. Hell, she was pretty sure they didn’t stay anywhere for long.

Rowan stared at herself in the mirror as she towel dried her hair. Mason had called every day, and she’d finally answered him the day before. He’d wanted to know when she was coming back and as she’d held the phone to her ear, and looked out the window at the odd assortment of otherworld—at her family . . . Frank. At the damn cat. As she listened to her mother moving about in Nana’s rooms. As Cedric gathered the vegetables from the garden out back, she knew . . .

She was never going back. She suddenly realized she’d been running for years only to find out that the end of her journey was here. Right where she had started.

She’d politely told Mason as much and while he’d protested loudly . . . he’d not protested loudly enough. In the end, he’d agreed to keep her gerbil, and she promised to stop by for a coffee when she made it back to clean out her apartment.

Her large blue eyes stared back at her as she wiped the steam off the mirror. If she survived Samhain.

All the fight seemed to go out of Rowan at once. She dropped the towel and bit her lip as she stared at the bathroom door. Her feet propelled her forward, and before she could stop herself she unlocked it. Blood rushed through her veins, exhilarating tired cells and filling her brain with all sorts of erotic images.

Her fingers grazed her nipples. They were hard, her breasts full and sensitive. An ache erupted between her legs, the throb relentless as she visualized Azaiel in front of her. As she remembered what he felt like. What he smelled like. What he sounded like as she’d taken him into her hands and mouth.

She’d been aching for days. It had been more subtle, riding beneath the surface but there nonetheless. She bit her lip, hand hovering over the door handle.

Screw it. She wanted him. The whole world was going to shit, and her future wasn’t written in the stars. She had no way of knowing if she was going to survive Mallick’s coming assault. This might be the only time she’d have to take something for herself. To be selfish and not worry about the consequence.

Was it a smart thing to do? Probably not, but at the moment the airhead brain cells were talking, and she didn’t give a rat’s ass about consequence. She turned off the bathroom light and pushed open the door to her bedroom.

Goose bumps erupted across her flesh, and she shivered—her skin was still damp, and water dripped from the ends of her hair. Her chest constricted, the muscles tight and nervous, and the ache between her legs intensified at the thought of Azaiel—of his hands and mouth.

Her heart beat hard and fast, the sound echoing in the rush of white noise that filled her ears. She took a step forward and blinked as her eyes adjusted to the muted lighting. Azaiel had flipped the switch, and it was only the gray dawn that broke through the window to touch him.

He was facedown on the bed, arms pillowed for his head, long legs hanging off the edge. His feet were bare, and for a moment she stared at them. They were big and, like everything else about him, rough and male.

She took a moment to study him, and a smile touched her mouth as she realized how ridiculous he looked. He was a warrior, made of hard lines, raw masculinity, and strength. To see him floating amongst pink and white was wrong, and yet, somehow so right.

If anything, it made him all the more dangerous. And sexy.

Rowan crept toward the bed, her tongue peeking out from between wet, trembling lips. He didn’t move as she approached, and it wasn’t until she was inches from him that she realized he was sound asleep. His long, even breaths indicated he was well under the spell of Sandman.

A small “meow” sounded, and she saw the orange tabby curled into a ball on the other side of Azaiel’s head. The cat blinked slowly, its amber eyes wide and clear. It meowed again, stretched, and settled back into a purring ball of fur.

“Traitor cat,” Rowan whispered. “How did you get in here?”

The tabby didn’t answer of course, and long moments passed as Rowan stood there, naked as the day she was born, staring at a man who wasn’t really a man. Not on this planet anyway. However, he was more perfect in form and in spirit than anyone she’d ever met before.

And she knew nothing about him.

Rowan bent over him and studied the wings that had been etched into his flesh. They were hauntingly beautiful and painful to look at. Who had done that to him? And why?

He murmured something under his breath and turned—Rowan’s heart nearly beat right out of her chest, and she covered her breasts, a reflex action of course, but it didn’t matter. Azaiel was still out cold.

His face was younger in repose, and she saw the young, adorable boy he must have been . . . however many thousands of years ago. Or longer. It was in that moment that Rowan knew she was going to learn everything she could about Azaiel. Priest hadn’t given anything up—he’d said it was the Seraphim’s story to tell, and maybe it was time for her to ask.

She brushed back a lock of hair from his forehead and pulled the coverlet from the bottom of her bed over his still form. The urge to kiss him, to touch his mouth was so strong that she actually bent forward. She was inches away when reality hit, and she stepped back suddenly.

A shudder wracked her body, and she hugged herself, not liking the loss of control or the wild notions filling her head. She was in the middle of a freaking war, for God’s sake. Her ass was on the line, and here she was mooning over Azaiel as if he mattered or something.

Nothing should matter except Mallick. She needed to live and breathe the bastard because if she wasn’t careful, her future would never happen.

With one final glance at the hard candy in her bed, Rowan turned away. It was probably a good thing that the Seraphim was asleep.