They reached the last landing. The lycan guard in front of them pushed open the heavy metal door, and Adrian slipped sunglasses over his eyes before stepping into the Arizona sunshine. He watched the guard recoil from the ovenlike heat, then heard a complaining growl from the second lycan, who brought up the rear. As base creatures of instinct, they were susceptible to physical stimuli in ways the seraphim and vampires were not. Adrian didn’t feel the temperature at all; the loss of Phineas had chilled his blood.
A helicopter waited on the pad in front of them, its whirring blades churning the oppressively dry and gritty air. Its rounded side was emblazoned with both MITCHELL AERONAUTICS and Adrian’s winged logo.
“You have doubts.” He focused on the details because he couldn’t afford to vent his fury now. Inside, he was shattered by grief over the loss of his best friend and trusted lieutenant. But as leader of the Sentinels, he couldn’t appear diminished in any way. Phineas’s death would send ripples through the ranks of his elite unit of seraphim. The Sentinels would be looking to him for strength and guidance.
“One of his lycans survived the attack.” Despite the roar of the aircraft’s engine, Jason didn’t need to raise his voice to be heard. He also didn’t cover his seraph blue eyes, despite the pair of designer shades perched atop his golden head. “I find it a bit…
Adrian had been utilizing the lycans for centuries as both guards for the Sentinels and heeler dogs to herd the vampires into designated areas. But recent signs of restlessness among the lycans signaled a need for him to reevaluate. They’d been created for the express purpose of serving his unit. If necessary, Adrian would remind them of the pact made by their ancestors. They could have all been turned into soulless, bloodsucking vampires as punishment for their crimes, but he’d spared them in return for their indenture. Although some of the lycans believed their debt had been paid by their predecessors, they failed to recognize that this world was made for mortals. They could never live among and alongside humans. Their only place was the one Adrian had made for them.
One of his guards ducked low and pushed through the air turbulence created by the helicopter blades. Reaching the aircraft, the lycan held the door open.
Adrian’s power buffered him from the tempest, allowing him to proceed without effort. He looked at Jason. “I’ll need to question the lycan who survived the attack.”
“I’ll tell Damien.” The wind whipped through the lieutenant’s blond locks and sent his sunglasses flying.
Adrian snatched them out of the air with a lightning-quick grasp. Vaulting into the cabin, he settled into one of the two rear-facing bucket seats.
Jason occupied the other one. “But I have to ask: is a guard dog that can’t guard worth anything? Maybe you should put him down to reinforce that by example.”
“If he’s at fault, he’ll pray for death.” Adrian tossed the shades at him. “But until I know otherwise, he’s a victim and my only witness. I need him if I’m to catch and punish those who did this.”
The two lycans dropped onto the opposite row of seats. One was stocky, a bruiser. The other was nearly equal in height to Adrian.
The taller guard secured his seat belt and said, “That ‘dog’s’ mate died trying to protect Phineas. If he could’ve done something, he would have.”
Jason opened his mouth.
Adrian held up a hand to keep him quiet. “You’re Elijah.”
The lycan nodded. He was dark haired and had the luminous green eyes of a creature tainted with the blood of demons. It was one of the points of contention between Adrian and the lycans that he’d transfused their seraph ancestors with demon blood when they’d agreed to serve the Sentinels. That touch of demon was what made them half man/half beast and it had spared the souls that should have died with the amputation of their wings. It also made them mortal, with finite life spans, and there were many who resented him for that.
“You seem to know more about what happened than Jason does,” Adrian noted, studying the lycan. Elijah had been sent to Adrian’s pack for observation, because he’d displayed unacceptable Alpha traits. The lycans were trained to look to the Sentinels for leadership. If one of their own ever rose to prominence, it might lead to divided loyalties that could spark thoughts of rebellion. The best way to deal with a problem was to prevent it from occurring in the first place.
Elijah looked out the window, watching the roof recede as the helicopter lifted high into Phoenix’s cloudless blue sky. His hands were fisted, betraying his breed’s innate fear of flying. “We all know a mated pair can’t live without each other. No lycan would ever deliberately watch their mate die. Not for any reason.”
Adrian leaned back, attempting to ease the tension created by restraining wings that wanted to spread and stretch in a physical manifestation of his pained rage. What Elijah had said was true, which left him facing the possibility of a vampire offensive. His head fell back against the seat. The need for vengeance burned like acid. The vampires had taken so much from him-the woman he loved, friends, and fellow Sentinels. The loss of Phineas was akin to severing his right arm. He intended to sever far more than that from the one responsible.
Knowing his sunglasses wouldn’t hide the flaming irises that betrayed his roiling emotions, he shuttered his gaze…
… and almost missed the glint of sunlight on silver.
He jerked to the side by instinct, narrowly missing a dagger slash to the neck.
Comprehension flashed.
Adrian caught the arm reaching around his headrest and snapped the bone. A female scream pierced the cabin. The pilot’s broken limb flopped against the leather at an unnatural angle; her blade clattered to the floorboard. Adrian released his harness and spun around, baring his claws. The lycans shot forward, one on either side of him.
Without a guiding hand at the stick, the helicopter pitched and yawed. Frantic beeping sounded from the cockpit.
The pilot ignored her useless arm. Using the other, she thrust a second silver dagger through the gap between the two rear-facing seats.
Bared fangs. Foaming mouth. Bloodshot eyes.
A goddamned diseased vampire. Distracted by Phineas’s death, he’d made a fucking major oversight.
The lycans partially shifted, unleashing their beasts in response to the threat. Their roars of aggression reverberated in the confined space. Elijah, hunched by the low roof, pulled back his fist and swung. The impact knocked the pilot into the cyclic stick, shoving it forward. The nose of the helicopter dove, hurtling them toward the ground.
The wailing alarms were deafening.
Adrian lunged, tackling the vampress with a midsection hit and smashing her through the cockpit window. Free-falling, they grappled.
“One taste, Sentinel,” she sing-songed through froth, her eyes wild as she struggled to bite him with needle- sharp canines.
He punched into her rib cage, rending flesh and splintering bone. Fisting her pounding heart, he bared his teeth in a smile.
His wings snapped open in a burst of iridescent white tipped in crimson. Like a parachute deploying, the thirty- foot expanse halted his descent with teeth-rattling abruptness, ripping the beating organ free of the writhing vampire. She plummeted to the earth, trailing acrid smoke and ash as she disintegrated. In his hand, the heart still pumped, spurting viscous blood before losing life and bursting into flame. He crushed the fleshy organ into a pulpy mass, then tossed it aside. It fell in burning embers, billowing away in a glittering cloud.
The helicopter whined as it spiraled toward the desert floor.
Tucking his wings in close, Adrian dove toward the aircraft. One lycan peered out the windowless cockpit, his face blanched and eyes glowing green.
Jason shot out of the damaged helicopter like a bullet. He circled back, his dark gray and burgundy wings a racing shadow across the sky. “What are you doing, Captain?”
“Saving the lycans.”
“Why?”
The ferocity of Adrian’s glare was the only answer he deigned to give. Wisely, Jason banked and came around.
