Arik
It didn’t take long for the peace to fade and the panic to rise. Lying on the couch, Kat dozing off in my arms, felt…right. Too right. And anything too right in my life either disappeared or died. With Kat, the chance of the latter was even higher than most.
Not to mention, the closer I got to Kat, the harder it would be to use her. With the lust momentarily abated, my brain threw that fact up at me. Sex was fine; feeling was not.
How the hell did this woman threaten to make me forget my purpose over and over again?
I managed to hold on till Kat fell back asleep in the big bed I’d carried her to, but as soon after as I was able to throw on clothes and weapons, I was at the door. In the hours since, as I rode the air currents in animal form, the ghosts of my parents rose, haunting me, accusing me of faithlessness, their severed heads floating above lifeless bodies, gaping mouths crying out for justice. I couldn’t allow everything I’d worked for to be destroyed because of my dick.
How cliché would that be?
As if my parents’ memory wasn’t enough, my griffin had spent the time making his displeasure over the separation from Kat known. My animal had been possessive before, but now? Now he’d had a taste of her, a taste of what she could give us, and he refused to quiet; his female slept back in the lair, unguarded, alone. But the male in me had needed the separation, needed to escape, to understand what the hell kind of spell Kat had woven from day one to break my singular focus so easily.
I slapped down my animal with a roar of my own. A deep anger began to bloom in my soul—at myself, my griffin, Kat, the whole damn world. I let it fill out my hollow skin and wash away the weakness I would never have believed a piece of ass could engender. That’s all it was, all it could ever be, but I was treating it like some damned romance.
Surveillance was familiar, automatic. The opposite of emotion, which was exactly what I needed right now. I easily fell into the pattern I’d established in the last few days, the griffin reluctantly obeying. The run-down, industrial area where I’d hidden Kat just after her attack had been a beehive of Anigma and Archai activity. The two sides seemed to be following each other, chasing their own tails in the process without making any actual progress in finding me or Kat. I planned to keep it that way until Maddox made his appearance and I could bait my trap.
And from the look of the street below me a half hour later, it appeared as if tonight might just be my lucky night.
Gliding silently above the slick black ribbon of road curving toward the lair, I watched six black-clothed figures leapfrogging their way through the shadows of buildings, shallow doorways, dumpsters, and trash-filled alleys. The precision of their movements told me I was watching Maddox’s pack; no way those were barely trained Anigma grunts. The big one had to be Baer—he surpassed Maddox by quite a bit in the size department, even if the shifter didn’t have the balls to get his brothers away from the Mad Hatter running their dysfunctional little family. Or maybe he did, but as far as I could see, he’d never made the attempt. For whatever reason, Baer stayed under Maddox’s thumb, and where he stayed, so did his four brothers. Before tonight only the five werewolves had made an appearance, but now I counted six.
Guess Maddox finally had his intestines secure inside his gut.
Careful not to alert the shifters, I furled my wings and arrowed my animal’s body straight onto a low rooftop directly above my temporary lair’s entrance, pulling up at the last second. Werewolves preferred the ground, where their noses and claws could do more good; I preferred to drop in uninvited. And clothed. I made quick work of shifting, then dressing before I moved to the edge and glanced over.
The team filtered into the alley one by one, taking position at varying points. I let everything else drop away—the night with Kat, my uncertainty and anger, everything—and focused in on the tableau below me. Once the group of shifters surrounded the door, the youngest member of Maddox’s pack directly below my position, I dropped silently into the shadows, just behind the shifter.
A quick grab ’n’snap and the werewolf fell like garbage onto the filthy pavement, a shallow scream all he could get out with his neck broken. Not dead—no, he was a far more effective distraction if the others had to guard against anything that might sever his spine for good. The short sword I palmed fit the bill, but I wouldn’t use it. Yet.
Instead I stepped casually over the fallen Anigma as the rest of Maddox’s pack swung around, their red-tinged eyes zeroing in on me. The shhck of multiple knives pulled from their sheaths rang from every corner of the alley.
The door to the lair opened.
Sun walked calmly into the alley, four males wearing Archai insignia on their chests following, blades already in hand.
So did that make this eleven against one or even numbers?
Baer didn’t seem to care about the newcomers. One look at his fallen brother and his roar shook the brick walls surrounding us. He charged me, and the fight was on. Grunts and moans and curses, the heavy thud of flesh striking flesh, the clang of metal striking metal filled the alley. I caught glimpses of the Archai engaging the rest of the Anigma team—even numbers, then—but all my attention centered on getting through Baer to reach Maddox.
Baer feinted. His short sword reflected the light as it sliced the air beside my cheek, but I refused the invite to drop my guard and blocked the werewolf’s return strike instead. Our skills were evenly matched, but Baer’s extra inches and massive frame gave him enough advantage to keep me occupied. I played mouse to Baer’s cat until a bright flash lit our left side. Baer turned, a short, tortured sound escaping his lips when the male left standing wasn’t his pack mate. I used the distraction to slam Baer’s temple with the butt of my knife, the full-force blow knocking him down and out.
I turned for Maddox—and froze.
Maddox stood at the end of the alley, arm locked around one of the Archai warrior’s necks, machete at his throat. The chill night air filled with the Anigma leader’s laugh.
“What’s the matter, Arik?” He stroked the lethal knife edge along the shifter’s smooth cheek. “It’s not like you care about any of them, is it? Come and get me.”
No, I didn’t care. I didn’t even know this warrior’s name. The prisoner’s death would serve my purpose, I knew—nothing could incite a war faster than murder. But the warrior had fought, if not for me, then at least alongside me, and even I wasn’t enough of a bastard to hasten his death. Let Sun’s team prevent that if they could.
Step by cautious step, I moved closer, gaze locked with Maddox’s. The hostage would make it or not, but Maddox was the key to either outcome. Better to focus there and not give Maddox reason to believe I cared.
When no more than a couple of yards separated us, Maddox slid the barest tip of his blade lightly along the Archai’s jawline. A bright red stripe shone in the dim light—a warning.
I went still.
The warrior choked back any sound. I had to give it to him. He looked young, but he wasn’t pissing his pants like most sane shifters would.
I sneered at Maddox over the warrior’s head. “Still needing a safety blanket, I see. You haven’t changed.”
A second flash behind me, then a third signaled the end of two other males, Anigma or Archai, I couldn’t tell. The sudden appearance of Sun and another Archai warrior on his flanks suggested the former.
Maddox ignored my jibe, instead fixing his eyes on Sun. “Glad you could finally join us, Prince.”
“Wish I could say the same,” Sun said. “I never expected to see you again, Maddox.”
A shrug scraped the knife against the hostage’s throat. “That happens when someone’s dead.”
“Or you think they are,” I added. “Clever.”
“It was, wasn’t it?”
The massive warrior to my left hissed, the sound reptilian, full of fury and fear. “Let him go!”
Maddox backed up a step, keeping out of the shifter’s long reach. White teeth gleamed as he smiled. “Hmm, let’s see… No.” The tip of his knife sawed back up the line along the warrior’s neck. Blood spurted.
“Thomas!” The big guy lunged.
“Uh-uh-uh.” Maddox leaped back, taking his prisoner with him, the knife digging deeper at the retreat. The big Archai froze, desperate eyes locked on the male in Maddox’s grip.
The younger male held out a calming hand, struggling to speak. “It’s o-okay, Basile,” but his face said differently, showing the sick inevitability he must feel in his gut. That expression curdled my stomach, reminding me of everything Maddox had cost me.
My rage from earlier began to crack at the wall I’d built around it, dangerous in the midst of battle. My breath quickened, my eyes casting a gold shine in the dim alley as I stared my enemy down. The moans of my dead parents sounded once more in my ears, and I found myself unable to resist the chance, standing here face-to-face, to finally, finally ask the ultimate question.
“Why?” I bit out against my will.
Maddox understood immediately. “Why not?” The absence of emotion in his eyes, his voice, struck harder than his words. “The head of the Archai army and his helpless little wife. What good were they to me except as proof to the Anigma that I had what it would take to be a part of them?”
The wall inside me shattered. “They took you in! They sheltered you when your own family was dead, murdered by the very entity you now serve.” I leaned forward, hands fisted at my sides. “They deserved your gratitude, not your betrayal.”
“They deserved nothing!” Maddox roared, eyes flashing their red wolf glow. “You were their son, not me. And you never let me forget that.”
The statement hit me like a slap in the face. I rocked back, my confusion morphing into understanding, then fury. “Jealousy? This was all about you being jealous?” A bitter laugh drifted into the freezing night air. “You took two lives, to do what? Prove they didn’t matter? You raped my mother because she loved her son?”
Pleasure filled the single word Maddox uttered: “Yes.”
I leaped forward, knife in hand, aimed at the heart of my enemy.
“No!” Basile grabbed me, forcing me back, clearing the killing rage and reminding me of the current victim in Maddox’s hands.
Maddox grinned and trailed his tongue along the line of blood carved into Thomas’s neck, but the knife never moved and his gaze stayed on his opponents. “Somehow I expected more from you, Arik. Teaming up with the prince? Do you think I don’t know what they did after I left—after I set…you…up.” With every word, he twisted the point of the knife deeper into his prisoner’s neck. Thomas held his lean body still, silent, lips white with the pain he fought to hold back, eyes black with shadows. “They believed me, Arik, and here you are fighting right alongside them.”
“We did believe you. I believed you.” Sun allowed one corner of his mouth to lift in what might have been a smile if not for the sharp, gleaming canine revealed, and took a step away from Basile and me, penning Maddox in. “You did your job well.”
“Oh-ho! A compliment from the future king.” Maddox bowed, forcing Thomas into the blade, and laughed again. “Should I be flattered?”
Several inches of the machete were buried in Thomas’s throat, and the male began to choke on his own blood. Desperation radiated from the shifter beside me, a low hiss escaping his mouth.
“Give it up, Maddox,” I growled. “You and I both know I don’t give a shit about him”—I jerked my chin at Sun—“him”—the male bleeding at the end of Maddox’s knife—“or him”—Basile. “All I care about is revenge. Drop the kid and face me like you should have nine hundred years ago.”
Maddox shrugged. “Okay.” Fast as a blink, Maddox shoved the blade in and back, straight into Thomas’s spine. A bright flash of light, an agonized roar, and the Archai male disintegrated before our eyes. I shot toward them, hitting Basile head-on as the male made a futile grab for Thomas’s disappearing body. By the time I rounded the big warrior, Maddox had leaped the drainpipe on the wall behind him and disappeared to the rooftops.
When I turned back, Sun was on his knees, chest covering Basile’s shaking form. The male lay, facedown, in Thomas’s ashes. “No!” Basile cried, over and over, the word warbling with pain and disbelief. The memory of my parents’ ashes scattered on the floor of their home seared through my brain, almost bringing me to my knees.
Sun glanced up, face grim. “Gone?”
I nodded.
Sun grunted in response. The faint scuff of a boot against pavement pulled my attention to Baer. The werewolf didn’t even have time to sit up before Basile was on top of him.
“Where did he go?” the Archai hissed.
Pain sliced through my eardrums as the frequency of the words fluctuated through the air. Shit, a basilisk. A wet trickle of blood dripped from my ear to hit my neck as I ran toward the pair. “Sun!”
The prince was already moving. “Bas, stop.”
“Tell me where,” Basile demanded, the words followed by a hiss that tore through my brain like a serrated blade through flesh, driving me to my knees. The trickle became a stream.
Sun crawled forward, one hand pressed to his bleeding ear. “Bas, no. Secure him, now.” He threw a look farther into the alley. “James, Cale, come.”
The two males stepped forward, but Basile didn’t even look up. “Tell me!” he roared.
Baer’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped in Basile’s hold, blacking out.
“Damn it!” Sun lunged, grabbed Basile’s fists, and forced them to open. He threw the werewolf hard toward the opening of the alley. “Cale, secure the bastard,” he commanded. A black-capped warrior rushed forward, pulling Baer’s hands behind his back to secure with titanium bands. Sun spun back to Basile, capturing the shifter’s plunge toward the enemy. “No. Basile, no! We need him,” he yelled into the male’s beefy shoulder, feet sliding as the basilisk plowed forward. “We need answers. Listen to me!”
And all at once, the shifter crumpled, hands fisted in Sun’s black shirt, knees hitting the ground as sobs overtook him. I was aware of the one called Cale moving from Baer, past me to the shifter whose neck I had broken, securing him like his brother. The metallic scent of blood, fear, and the dry scent of death enveloped the alley. Warmth at my side told me the last of Sun’s warrior had joined us, but it was Basile’s massive form that filled my vision, even from several feet away, the male’s grief at once disturbing and all too familiar.
See, my parents’ ghosts screamed in my mind. See the devastation he causes, the pain? See what happens when you get distracted? It was like watching a tornado headed for someone’s house after your own has been annihilated, and knowing there is not a damn thing you can do about it—except it wasn’t a house that had been destroyed, and Maddox wasn’t Mother fucking Nature by any stretch of the imagination.
And yet…this was what I wanted, wasn’t it? For both sides to die?
The Archai next to me, tall, lean, and tough, spoke. “Thomas—” His rough voice cracked, broke. Wet tracks streaked his cheeks, glistening in the moon’s pale light. “Thomas was his adopted son,” he stated quietly, and another piece of my soul caved in.
“James,” Sun said to the warrior, “contact Demetri. Get a vehicle here. Have them ready a room for interrogation.”
The words pulled me back to reality. Baer and his brother held valuable information. The location of Maddox’s compound, I already knew, but Baer could help me get inside. Without his brother, though, there’d be no leverage to get the big guy to talk. “You’re not taking them anywhere.” I gestured to the door Sun had exited such a short time ago. “Question them here.”
“Forget it,” Cale barked, walking over to stand next to Sun.
“You are not leaving with those males. Maddox is mine, and they”—I pointed at the prisoners—“are going to lead me to him. So back off.”
The warrior’s voice filled with venom. “They should’ve killed you years ago when they had the chance.”
“What the fuck do you know about it?”
Cale pulled the black knit hat from his head before gesturing to his hair. “Take a good look, asshole. I know all I need to know about it.”
My breath choked off in my throat as faint light shimmered across the male’s white-blond hair. Nine hundred years had passed since I’d seen a male with hair the color of mine—nine hundred years with no family, no connections. And now, here, was a shifter obviously of my line.
Figures he’d be as ready to kill me as everyone else was.
Catching my stare, Cale allowed his griffin to surface, eyes glowing with deadly purpose as a warning growl rumbled out. Drawing his blade, he stalked toward me, seeking to force me back and away from the werewolves.
Idiot.
I watched the swing of the Archai’s walk, waiting until the closest arm hit the top of its arc, and lunged. My blade slashed across Cale’s undefended ribs in a swift drive-by. Cale jumped back to avoid losing his intestines and hit the brick wall.
I surged forward, spinning my knife blade out in midstep to extend my reach. Before I could follow through, clawed hands dug into my shoulders and jerked me onto my back.
I flipped back onto my feet the instant my spine hit the concrete. I crouched and spun, blade slashing toward my attacker’s ankles, hoping to catch an Achilles tendon. The male—Sun—leaped up and back. “Damn it, Arik, there’s been enough death tonight.”
“I doubt we’d care as long as it’s his,” Cale said, one hand clutching his bloody side. “Go ahead. Save us all some trouble.”
“Now that just wasn’t nice.” I lifted a brow. “How’s your ribs?”
“We can’t, Cale,” Sun said, ignoring my jibe. He sent me a searing look. “He has something we want.”
I glared right back. “Kat.”
Sun considered for a moment, then nodded. “I think we could work out a deal. What we have for what you have. Kat for the info.”
I laughed. “I don’t think so.”
Sun eyed my grip on my knife. “There are four of us, with reinforcements on the way. Wanna try those odds?”
True. I knew I was fucked, at least for tonight. If Maddox would risk going after anyone, it was probably Baer, but if they were in the Archai lair? Forget it.
I tucked my blade away and shrugged. “Keep your info. Kat is off the table.” I stepped toward the alley’s dead end. Time to go.
Sun blocked my way. “Kat is not a bone you can bury and just hope we forget,” he snapped. “She’s an Archai female, with rights, and one of those rights is freedom. She deserves more. She deserves help and compassion. You used to know what that was, Arik.”
“Between you and Maddox, compassion was beaten out of me a long time ago.”
“And yet you didn’t kill anyone tonight,” Sun pointed out. “Why is that?”
I kept my shrug and my glance around casual. “Just lucky, I guess.”
Sun stared, those rainbow irises seeming to dig deep into my soul. “Did she even make it, Arik? Can we trust your word if you say she did?” Sun blinked those knowing eyes. “Is she healthy, happy…safe?”
A hot flash of anger licked across my body. “From me? Is that your polite way of asking if I raped her?”
“Did you? I can smell her on you, you know.”
I let my animal loose, let my body expand as I jumped at Sun—and froze when a blade appeared directly in front of my nose. “Give me a reason, griffin,” James growled. In his eyes I saw a white flash of ancient power as his animal stared back, meeting me strength for strength.
I locked eyes with Sun once more, and saw then just how much I’d revealed. A captor didn’t care about his victim—they’d seen that tonight with Maddox. A captor didn’t get pissy when someone implied you’d hurt your victim. Possessive, yeah, but not like this, not like the possessive shit I was struggling with. Any emotion toward Kat except ownership, control was a weakness I couldn’t afford, and I’d just revealed that emotion to the enemy.
I kept my head up, kept staring, refusing to acknowledge my mistake. Moments later the sound of a van pulling up to the mouth of the alley rumbled toward us. Pounding footsteps poured out of the vehicle and into the alley. I clamped down on my frustration and eased to the side, away from James, away from the approaching warriors.
“You can’t hide her forever,” Sun said, watching me circle around him toward the dead end.
“I don’t need her forever, just for a little while. You can have whatever’s left.”
Sun stood rigid, his face closed. “You can’t use Kat to get your revenge. She’s a female, not a weapon.”
“She’s an Archai, and she’ll do what I tell her to. She has no other choice.”
“Because you give her none,” Sun snarled. “We might not have stood with you when you needed us, but we will stand with you now, for Kat if for nothing else. We need her, Arik. We need the females like her. She’s the future of our race, and you’re risking her on some goddamn grudge.”
I stared the prince down. “Then come get her—if you can.” I turned swiftly, my wings unfurling as I prepared for flight.
“Arik! Arik!” Sun called after me. “Damn it—”
Without turning back, without answering, I launched straight up into the dark night sky. The last thing I saw, just as I topped the building, was the gleam of electric-green eyes on the roof, watching us all.