Of Love and Darkness (3 page)

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

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

Damned curse.

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

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

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

“Damn it!” Gavin jerked his hand away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yep.”

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

Gavin rolled his eyes and snagged another grape.

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

“You’re trying to get rid of me.”

“Yes. Now go get the wine.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How so?”

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

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

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

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

“You’re one of them.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why?”

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

“So her father was a Light One?”

“No. He was human. Basically.”

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

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

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

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

“Too late.”

“You haven’t claimed her. Not fully.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Uh-uh,” Gavin countered, folding his arms and leaning against the counter. “This
Light One
isn’t going anywhere. I found my mate, and I intend to stick around and see this thing through.”

“See what through?” Sydney asked. “And stop talking this nonsense about finding your mate. I’m not your mate. I’m not a dog, for God’s sake.”

“
He
certainly is,” William said slyly, as he lifted a tray laden with food, wine, and three wineglasses. “Let’s retire to the living room, shall we? I hate to nibble standing up.” He flounced out of the room, tottering on his fluffy-toed heels.

Gavin lifted one eyebrow. “Your Fate is a piece of work.”

Sydney glanced at the empty doorway. “William is . . . certainly unique,” she admitted.

They talked well into the night, only because Sydney, who seemed to have an endless supply of questions, wouldn’t let up. And every time Gavin answered, she immediately turned to William for clarification. It was annoying as hell.
He
was her mate, damn it. She didn’t need to rely on the Fate any longer.

But she did. She relied on him, she leaned on him, she obviously cared for him. Their relationship went much deeper than the few Chala-Fate relationships Gavin had ever experienced. Of course, most Chala knew what they were almost from birth, and understood a Fate’s role in their lives. And most Chala also understood their importance to all of humanity, and were usually thrilled when they met their mate, and were more than happy to begin the process of begetting children. Children who would pick up the fight against the Rakshasa, perhaps even finally win a battle that had been raging for more years than most could count. Wouldn’t that be something? What an honor to stand around at the local tavern and boast that your children were the ones who finally decimated the Rakshasa population.

Gavin felt the usual stab of guilt at thinking such thoughts. That was the curse talking, he knew, but the curse was more powerful than he was, and the curse insisted he do everything he possibly could to destroy his own kind. Obviously, the curse also gave him a Light One’s impulse to mate with a Chala, even a Chala he wasn’t particularly attracted to.

Although she was, in a sweet, oddly endearing way, sort of attractive at the moment. She leaned back against the couch, snuggled into a corner, with her ankles crossed on top of the coffee table. She’d taken off the thick, puffy coat and changed clothes. She now wore a pair of yoga pants and a slim-fitted, long-sleeve T-shirt with a pair of striped fleece socks on her feet. Her hair was mussed from leaning against the couch, and her eyelids drooped over those big blue eyes. Her pink rosebud lips pouted slightly, which lent her a faintly sensual look.

Gavin wondered what it would be like to kiss her. His cock twitched. Maybe bedding her wouldn’t be such a hardship after all.

He thought back to the beginning of the conversation they’d had once the wine was poured. The first question had barely been out of Sydney’s mouth before William had demanded to know why she’d gone downtown by herself.

“I told you I had to work that convention,” Sydney had said, clearly affronted. “And besides, you weren’t even home when I got up this morning.” She had narrowed her eyes at that point. “Where were you, anyway?”

Gavin had been amused when William’s ears turned red and he became unnecessarily fascinated with the pattern on the curtains on the other side of the room. He had been impressed despite himself when Sydney finally wheedled the truth out of the less-than-forthcoming Fate.