Prince of Shadows (24 page)

“How?” Feeling as if she were poking at a scorpion, she gingerly fingered the lump through the thin material—her hand closing around the object she already knew was there.

“This can't be right.” She lifted her gaze to Valin's, her heart thumping again at the simple pleasure of seeing the familiar mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Oh it's right. Welcome to the club, cookie.”

She shook her head, unable to comprehend or believe. How could she know this was real?

“Go ahead, test it out.”

Well, she supposed that was one way.

Taking a deep breath she pulled the knife from the holder on her thigh, lifting the jewel-encrusted weapon before her face. It was a curved blade, symbols etched into the blade itself. And when she blew out a breath, thinking of the serenity that had embraced her after the purging, energy throbbed through the blade, the glow of His light pulsing in rhythm with the one that lay on the floor beside them.

Her gaze flew to Valin's. His mouth curled up in a broad grin. He leaned close, his words but a warm whisper across the side of her face. “Smile, Gabby. This is a happy moment, don't you think?”

Her lips curved upward, but stopped partway there. Something was different. Very much so. Practically hyperventilating, she rubbed her tongue over her front teeth. Her hand snapped over her mouth.

“Holy crap,” she said, the exclamation muffled by her hand. She felt her teeth, the evenness of them. “But I'm not…I didn't actually die, did I?”

He shook his head. “Technically, neither of us did.”

“You didn't? Because, uh, you seemed pretty dead to me.” No heartbeat. For what? Four? Five minutes?

“I
tried
to make a bargain, but He didn't much like it and kept me waiting while He sent Angeline to see if He had a better one…yours, to be precise.”

“But I had nothing to give, nothing but my life.”

“Oh Gabby, you're so wrong.” He pushed a lock of hair back from her face, his bourbon eyes deepening with emotion as he looked into hers. “Luckily He's smarter than the both of us combined.”

“So He took my life and made me a warrior?”

“You're still you, Gabby, warrior or not. But you'd bargained a life for mine. You just didn't specify which life, so He made an executive decision.”

“Which life?”

“Your Paladin life, your life as a succubus, or your one as a vampire. Guess He picked to get rid of the life that had tainted you with the most darkness.”

As if his words called to it, darkness edged in against the halo of light cast by the blades, memories both new and old tumbling through her mind.

“Oh, baby.” Valin reached for her, his despair flooding her from across their bond. And wow, that was going to take some getting used to. This mate bond thing was far more intense than a simple blood bond.

“I'm sorry those couldn't be taken from you too,” he said. “Sorry you ever had to go through that.”

She wasn't. Not when those horrors had led to this moment. To them. She would not let those memories hurt him through their bond though, their
mate
bond. Ruthlessly she cut the streaming feed of horror off, wrangling them up into one ranging bonfire. But old habits, or in this case nightmares, died hard, and she needed something to smother all that hate and pain, to replace those emotions and shut those memories away for good.

She grabbed his shirt, pulling him close enough to smash her lips against his. He growled, his arms tightening around her back as he, too, sought to get closer. Yes, this is what she needed. His mouth on hers. His hands touching her. His mind caressing hers. And his soul…Light engulfed them, a great sense of peace taking over as their passion burned away the remaining darkness.

When they were both breathless, she pulled away, knowing now that she was going to be okay. No, better—she was finally free. This—a Paladin—was who she'd always been meant to be. And though the journey to now had frankly sucked, both dark and light had been needed to get her to this point.

Her smile faded, her gaze taking in the residual horror of the room. Darkness still lay like a blight here and would for so long as the man responsible lived. “Christos and his followers are still alive.”

“Does it matter?” Valin asked. She could feel his concern and knew that he worried that what Christos had done to her still affected her, that she still might lose sight of the important things in life while searching for her revenge.

“No. Not in the way you mean.” She shook her head, tipping it up to his. “Christos can't touch me anymore. Not when I'm with you.”

He pushed back a tendril of hair, his dark eyes hot on hers. “You'll always be with me. Now that I've found you, there is no way I'm letting you go.”

She raised her brow, wondering if she should sucker punch him again. “You sound kind of possessive, don't you?”

“I
am
possessive. You're mine, Gabby. My heart, my lover, and my partner.”

And, all right then…she leaned against him, sighing. “I can live with that.”

“Good.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Now let's get out of here.”

She smiled. “You ready to go kick some ass, partner?”

“After, but first…” He stood, scooping her up in the process, and carried her like some sort of helpless bride toward the doorway.

“Valin!” she yelped as he bumped her feet against the jagged doorframe and maneuvered them into the hall. “Put me down,” she insisted, but oh, gee, it was strange she couldn't find an ounce of willpower to put up any sort of fight. And whoops, those were her arms wrapping around his neck, weren't they?

“Not on your life, cookie. You might run away.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why would I run away?”

“We have a honeymoon to go on.”

“That doesn't sound so bad…”

“After we attend to the little detail of our formal bonding ceremony, that is.”

“Hmmm…” She gnawed her lip. “I imagine that's not going to go over too well with your stuffy council.”

“They're your stuffy council now too. And you think I care?”

“No.” She tightened her arms around his neck, pecking his chin with a light kiss. “And that's what I love about you.”

He stopped, his feet posed on the threshold of the mansion as he closed his eyes and drew in deep breath.

“Valin?” she asked, concern making her heart skip as she scanned the grounds. “Is ther—”

“Say that again.”

She looked back at him. “What? That I love you?”

“Yes, that.” He opened his eyes, his heart, no, his very soul burning into hers through his gaze. “You don't know how long I've waited to hear those words.”

Her chest warmed, filling every dark corner and crevice she'd ever housed and burning away the last of the coldness that had touched her for so long. He loved her, and because she'd been brave enough to love him back, they had their whole lives to figure out just where their faith in each other would take them.

“I love you, Valin,” she told him, letting him see all the way into her heart. “You're mine too. Heart, body, and soul.”

“Ah, cookie, you were so worth the wait.” And with that he carried her out into the falling twilight. Her black knight. Her beacon of strength in their dark and often crazy world. Her partner.

Christos fell to the cave floor, his kneecaps cracking against the blackened stone. Ignoring the pain, he lowered himself further, head against the rough surface, arms stretched out in supplication. There was no amount of too much in the groveling he was about to perform.

Lucifer stepped down from his thrown, paced around him, the dark caress of the shadows that enfolded him licking at Christos like ice-cold fire. Christos resisted the urge to plead, knowing that his failures would only be judged more harshly for such a weakness.

“Well, my son? Do you wish to try and tell me what went wrong?”

Christos clenched his teeth, his fury rekindled despite his precarious situation. What went wrong was that somehow the freak of a Paladin had overcome Christos and Gabby's blood bond. No, not overcome; somehow the Paladin had purged the blood Gabby had drunk from Christos's vein, making her his.

Shadows pulsed around Lucifer as he stared down at him, the oppressiveness of his lord's inaction setting every one of Christos's nerves on edge. The silence went on for so long that when his master finally spoke, Christos felt like he'd been severed.

“But your blood, you say it transformed her, obliterated her light.”

“Not well enough, obviously.” And didn't that burn. He'd thought, finally, that he'd found the one. The prophesied one, his queen. Born of light and dark; her Paladin heritage, his blood in her veins. It should have worked, for wasn't he, short of Lucifer himself, the epitome of dark? Beyond that other freak, Karissa, there had been no other who had come close to meeting the criteria. And since that experiment had backfired in all their faces, Christos had been born anew, sure in the knowledge that his original instincts that Gabby was the one had been correct. But no. He'd been wrong. Again. And now he'd be kowtowing to Lucifer and his general until he could live this failure down.

“Hmm…obviously you
are
correct.”

Christos held his breath. Above him Lucifer rolled his shoulders, his wings unfurling to wrap around Christos's prone form. Black. Suffocating. The burning smell of smoke and charred flesh. Christos's ribs locked down, the putrid air trapped in his chest. A single thought was all it would take to end him.

The wings eased back and Christos worked hard not to gulp at the fresh air. A clawed finger stroked across his cheek, the action almost comforting if not for the indifference stamped in Lucifer's nightmarish face. “It did work though, for a while, yes?”

“My lord?” Christos asked, unsure whether to be hopeful or worried by his liege lord's question.

“Ah, my son…child of Lilith. How blind I have been.”

Before Christos could fathom what he meant, Lucifer plucked a transparent blade out of nothingness and plunged it into Christos's gut. Christos screamed, his hand clenched over Lucifer's on the hilt as his lord and master began to chant. Christos watched in disbelief as his blood wicked up the blade, seeping into it and staining it black.

The blade was yanked free. Christos gasped, falling back to the floor. With his hands clutched over the wound, he watched Lucifer raise the black knife over his head, twisting it this way and that as he mounted the carved steps to his throne. Christos squinted, trying to see through the dimming fog of pain, but it was so hard to see, the light around the knife seeming to seep right into the hungry blade.

“Oh yes. How blind indeed.” Lucifer reverently placed the black knife down on the arm of his throne before turning back and descending the stairs.

“Father?” Christos implored, his hand still clenched tight against the seeping wound. Surely his lord master would see to him now. Surely he would forgive him this simple mistake.

A flicker of annoyance crossed Lucifer's face, his steps faltering, but then he grumbled something under his breath, waving his hand negligently at his son as he stopped before him.

The pain eased, the skin knitting back together beneath Christos's hands. “Oh, thank you, thank you, my lord,” he gasped, struggling back to his feet despite the dizziness that still swept over him.

“Come, my son,” Lucifer said, stretching his right hand out to Christos. “There is much work to be done.”

The significance of Lucifer offering his right hand was not lost on Christos. Elation rose in his blackened heart, giving him the strength to grasp the offering. It wasn't until Lucifer's hand closed over his own, dragging him to him, and a second knife drove into his newly healed wound that he thought, perhaps, he should have questioned such a gift.

“Fear not, my son,” Lucifer attempted to soothe as he drew out the second blade and raised it over their heads. “I have finally discovered the purpose of your existence, don't you see?”

And as Christos lifted his eyes he did see…Unfortunately, what he saw made him weep. Five blades after that, he'd stopped, but only because his efforts had changed to something new: wishing he'd never been re-born.

Read on for an excerpt from book one in the Paladin Warriors series

Deliver Me from Darkness

Shouldn't have opened the door.
Roland instinctively knew the fragile-looking burden draped over Calhoun's arms was going to wreak all kinds of havoc on his well-ordered life.

To hell with the door; he shouldn't have answered the damn phone. Then he wouldn't have been swayed by the rare frantic tone in Calhoun's voice when he'd called begging for a favor. 'Course, even if Roland hadn't picked up the phone, Calhoun would have assumed Roland to be in at this time of the afternoon and come pounding anyway. And yeah, Roland could have ignored that too, but doing so went against every ingrained fabric of his being. At least the being he'd once been.

This is what I get for remembering my manners.

“Thanks for this.” Calhoun brushed by Roland, twisting so as not to bump the head of his precious cargo on the master bedroom door.

Roland grunted and moved into the bathroom in search of a towel. Best to keep his opinion to himself.
Get that scrawny thing and your sorry ass out of here
would not go over well.

Mumbling a string of curses, Roland yanked on the faux-antique glass knob of the teak cabinet and searched the handcrafted shelving for a sacrifice. All his towels were new. Everything in his loft was new. He liked new. Crisp, clean.

Unsoiled.

The tension in his shoulders crept down his back. With senses as heightened as his, any tainting of his personal belongings made relaxing difficult. It was going to take him weeks of cleaning and nighttime airings to remove the urchin's scent: like a friggin' garden…fresh-bloomed lavender, dewy mornings, and dirt. The dirt would only ruin his sheets, but the other smells had him spiraling down toward crazy.

Eyeing his choices, he grabbed one of the pristine white towels that didn't still have a tag on it and headed back to the bedroom. His efforts were wasted. Calhoun had already pulled back the sleep-rumpled blankets and was laying the filthy jumble of scraped elbows and dirty denim on Roland's clean sheets. Roland sighed and tossed the towel on the nearby dresser.

The bed was officially ruined. He hoped the cost of his newfound kindness would be limited to the bed. He hadn't even been here a week and his new sanctuary was being unsanctified. It had taken him months to find a New York City loft without any stains of violence, another to have it remodeled to his exact specifications, and still another to purge it of the stink from the contractors who had redone it. He suspected the lingering presence of this…girl…would take far longer to expunge.

“How long are you going to be?” Roland asked, trying to keep his displeasure from sliding into his tone. Calhoun was right; Roland did owe him a favor—a big one too. Roland just wasn't sure if this qualified. This wasn't big; it was colossal, and not only because of the cost of his Stearns & Foster.

Calhoun glanced up at him absently from where he'd been carefully tucking Roland's new, unwanted guest into the vast California king bed.

Damn. I loved that bed.

Calhoun blinked as if he had to think about what Roland had asked, his concentration obviously still on the woman currently soiling Roland's new silk sheets.

“I hope to finish by dark. If not, soon after,” Calhoun finally said when he got his head out of his ass—or maybe that was his head out of his dick.

“Make it dark,” Roland said, his breath hissing through clenched teeth in an effort not to inhale anymore of
her
scent. Not that it mattered. All he succeeded in doing was altering the girl's heady pheromones into candied sugar on his tongue.

And this was why he didn't allow humans, especially females, into his home. The seductive scents, the gentle whoosh of blood pumping, and the soft murmurs she'd make as she tossed and turned in
his
sheets. Roland fisted his hands. The call to rut, to feed, was like a rabid animal clawing at his insides. He'd kept that animal carefully caged, would keep it caged. Yet something of his internal trauma must have shown in his eyes. Calhoun's gaze snapped from Roland to the skinny slip of a girl he'd so lovingly tucked in bed, and then back to Roland again, his expression becoming increasingly alarmed.

Calhoun stood to his full height, which at a towering six foot five put him nose to eyebrow with Roland. The air in the room began to tingle. Roland could feel the gathering of power. See the aura shimmering around his supposed friend. That faint light singed Roland's skin.

Roland hissed, hastily giving ground until he was across the room and practically pressed into the panel that hid his walk-in closet. Fury mounted within him and he had to work hard to suppress the vicious beast from awakening. He would never hurt Calhoun. His best friend, the only one who'd stood by him, the one Paladin who'd seen enough humanity left in Roland to take the chance to try and save him…to let him exist. But even Roland had his limits, and even for Calhoun he would not quiver like some cowed dog in a shadowy corner.

“You're teetering on the edge, Calhoun,” he snarled, letting the fire spark in his eyes to emphasize his words. It might burn him, but he could have Calhoun's throat in his hand before the Paladin could draw enough heavenly light to turn him to ash.

Calhoun stopped glowing, but even so, Roland could sense the barely contained power bubbling beneath the surface.

“Is this going to be a problem for you?” Calhoun asked, his eyes flint gray.

“No.” Roland rubbed his face. The skin was tender, but no real damage. “But it's been days.”

Calhoun took a step forward, a lion ready to lunge into battle. “You won't touch her.”

“I never said I would,” Roland ground out from between clenched teeth. “She's safe from me.”

Calhoun's eyes narrowed to slits.

“Jesus, Calhoun. I haven't taken an innocent since—”

“Since when?”

“Since you came after me,” Roland finished. A flash of memory: the red haze of the bloodlust, the loss of self. How many innocents had he taken? He didn't know.

“She's safe with me. Regardless of when you return,” Roland said, then curled his lip in distaste. “I have some emergency supplies in the freezer.”

Pig blood and Red Cross discards. Lucky for him he was immune to illness. Though sometimes he wondered if contracting some horrific disease would have been a better way to go than this interminable hell he lived.

The tension in Calhoun's body eased. He clamped a hand on Roland's shoulder. “Thank you. After this, I'll owe
you
one.”

“Get back here by dark and we'll call it even,” Roland told him, annoyance making his voice sound as if it were being dragged over gravel.

Calhoun chuckled. Turning back to the bed, he gave the slumbering girl one last long gaze. The softening in his eyes alarmed Roland. Calhoun was tough as nails. Hell, even his dry humor was rusty. What was she to him?

“She's special, Roland,” Calhoun stated, his awed tone confirming Roland's fears. Calhoun was already half gone. “Take care of her.”

“Special how?” Roland hoped Calhoun meant special in the gifted kind of way, not special in the till-death way. Humans and Paladin didn't mix. It was that whole mortality thing. “You said yourself that she passed out within seconds of showing up on your doorstop.”

That's about all he'd gotten from
Calhoun. Some woman had shown up at his door and passed out. Moments later the reason for her flight had become apparent as Calhoun's sensors all went off. Rather than face an army of Ganelon's underworld fiends, Calhoun had grabbed his new burden and abandoned ship. And come here.

Why here? Why not to Haven? And who was she that she'd attracted the attention of Ganelon's minions?