“When you fell to the ground-” He exhaled harshly, his lashes lowering to hide the sudden flaring of his brilliant eyes. His arms crossed his chest and his feathers ruffled, giving so much away with his restless movements. “Yes, I was worried.”
“You shouldn’t care so much. You don’t know me.”
“Speak for yourself. You risked your life for me.”
He was right. A hard-driving fear of losing him had spurred her into charging a vampire holding a shotgun. It had been a suicide run for anyone, especially for a weak human. But he was… Well, he was invaluable to her.
In such a short time, he’d given her a sense of belonging. He knew the worst and best of what she was, and passed no judgment. As much as her father loved her, Eddie Gibson didn’t know the truth of what she’d seen the day her mother died or how she hunted because of it.
Lindsay tossed the covers back and swung her legs off the side of the bed. Her
The clicking of the door latch told her Adrian had already left the room.
Vash raced through the forest, darting through dappled sunlight and around bald cypress. Ahead of her, she could hear the harsh and heavy breathing of the lycans she pursued. Flanking her, three of her Fallen captains gave chase with the same penetrating focus she did. The underbrush rustled beneath their feet as they traversed miles in minutes, the fire of vengeance scorching their veins.
One of them would tell her what she needed to know about Nikki’s death.
She heard one stumble, then fall. The lycan’s roar of frustration brought a smile to her lips. Reaching over her shoulder, she gripped the hilt of her katana and slid it free of the scabbard slung across her back. The whisper of the blade against the sheath was thunderous to her ears, as she knew it would be for the lycan. The sudden kick of his heartbeat made her fangs extend in anticipation.
Leaping over a fallen pine tree, she closed the distance between them-close enough to smell the fear underlying the lycan’s natural scent. It was her favorite fragrance, sweeter even than the smell of their blood.
The charge from the left caught her completely unawares.
Vash was tackled into the trunk of a nearby tree, her blade flying from her hand to spin madly through the debris of vegetation littering the forest floor. The massive old-growth pine shuddered in protest, leaves falling around her like rain.
Dazed by the ambush, it took her a moment to register the threat. The red wolf was lunging toward her again before she even had a chance to summon her blade.
She could only tense for the blow and pray it didn’t kill her.
Then she’d be able to kick his ass.
Adrian stood at the window overlooking the Las Vegas Strip and struggled with the roiling emotions he shouldn’t be feeling. When the door opened behind him, he turned, expecting Lindsay. Instead he found Raguel Gadara entering the penthouse suite as if he owned the place-which he did. The world-famous Mondego Hotel and Resort was the archangel’s property. Regardless, Raguel ranked far below Adrian’s station in the angelic hierarchy. He should show more respect.
“Raguel.”
“Adrian. I expect you are comfortable.”
“You would know if I wasn’t.”
The archangel hesitated a moment, then dipped his head with the expected deference. His smile was dazzlingly white within the framework of skin as smooth and rich as the finest milk chocolate. There was a smattering of tight gray curls at Raguel’s temples, but that telltale sign of aging was an affectation to disguise his immortality. Unlike Adrian, the archangel embraced the media attention that came his way.
Raguel withdrew a cigar from his pocket and offered it to Adrian.
“No.”
The archangel’s grin widened. He was dressed in a loose guayabera and linen pants, but the man-of-leisure appearance was as much of a guise as his gray hair. Like the other six archangels, Raguel was intensely and ruthlessly ambitious. “That minion you brought along with you… He is sick.”
Foaming mouth. Reddened eyes. Nearly mindless. The infected were like zombies. The nest had been partially filled with them-the diseased living alongside the healthy. Adrian had interrogated the vampress with the shotgun, questioning her about who was responsible for the attack on Phineas the day before. How many of the Fallen were feeding them? Only a few of the members of the nest had been photosensitive. The rest of the group-a rough guesstimate of nearly one hundred minions-had been able to charge into the light of day.
The woman had laughed for long minutes, gasping for breath. Then, with her amber eyes bright with malice, she’d hissed, “How does it feel to be hunted, Sentinel? You’d better get used to it.”
In the end, she’d revealed nothing at all. He’d severed her head with frustration eating at him and fear for Lindsay still riding him hard. The sight of her crumpling to the ground had broken something inside him. He remembered nothing of what he’d done between her collapse and the moment he determined she would live. If Lindsay Gibson died before Syre, the cycle of Shadoe’s reincarnation would continue-another round of waiting for her return and the numbness that accompanied it. But more than that, watching Lindsay fall had elicited a different kind of horror. He’d just discovered her, just begun getting to know her, just started envisioning a few years of hunting with her at his side. Faced with losing the myriad possibilities that lay between them, he’d found a unique hell.
It was nothing short of miraculous that Lindsay Gibson had matured into the woman she was-strong and sane, determined and compassionate. It was one of the many great ironies in his life that the woman who was his downfall was also responsible for restoring a little of his tarnished faith. She proved that redemption was always possible, no matter how dire the circumstances or how insurmountable the odds.
And so with his heart racing with fear, he’d joined her in the backseat of the town car and gingerly lifted her unconscious body into his lap. Her decimated arm had lain across her chest, the bone exposed and tendons flayed. The flesh sizzled as the blood he’d squeezed out of a slice in his palm worked its miracle, mending the rent tissues and rebuilding what had been blown away by the shotgun blast. Had she been hit directly, he wouldn’t have been able to save her arm. He couldn’t give her back a lost limb; he could only heal what was still alive.
“He’s not the first diseased minion I’ve seen lately,” Adrian said, forcing his focus back to Raguel. “I need to figure out what’s wrong with him and how widespread the illness is.”
“Perhaps the vampires’ time has finally come. Jehovah does love his plagues.”
“I considered that and I can’t rule it out, but I think it more likely that they’re trying to combat their photosensitivity with a new drug that has horrendous side effects. There were too many minions in that nest capable of tolerating sunlight.” Another alternative was that Syre had sent large quantities of Fallen blood to Hurricane. Considering how close the nest was to the Navajo Lake pack, it was a very real possibility. But that wasn’t a speculation he would share with Raguel at this time, if ever.
“Would you like me to have his blood tested?” The glimmer of avarice in the archangel’s dark eyes belied the altruistic nature of his offer.
“Yes.” Adrian intended to have a full blood workup done at home, but he still had to make the trip up to Navajo Lake. Meanwhile, he needed answers and he needed them now. Although it had been proven to be a vampire attack that killed Phineas, it was still necessary to finish the lycan population reduction the lieutenant had started.
