He just had to be the one bastard who drew dead demon’ souls like a fuckin’ sponge. It was why he usually avoided standing in direct line of the departing life-forces. With no way of getting rid of them, his body twitched and shuddered. Shit. Nik rubbed his face, struggling to tighten his psychic shields before the ones he already harbored escaped.
As the commotion in the alley died down, Blaéz’s hard voice cut through the endless, agitating darkness consuming Nik. “This is worse than we thought. Someone from those damn gangs is abducting human females and selling them to demons.”
“The Arc’s gonna go batshit,” Dagan grunted.
“A great way to welcome the New fucking Year,” Aethan growled.
“Greek, anything from the asshole you decimated?” Blaéz called out.
“Nothing.” Nik dropped his hand. “Later,” he rasped. Teeth gritted against the malevolent souls battering his mind, he dematerialized before the others sensed something was off.
Hell, he was a walking hazard—a fucking time bomb. And this was why he preferred working alone. If he did shatter, then no casualties.
Nik reformed again. A sharp breeze blew, sending flurries swirling, enveloping him with a chill he didn’t feel. The crisp smell of greenery and fir crowded his nose. Head lowered, his mind held in a haze, he tramped across the snow-covered ground, his boots crunching through the layer of white while he tried to get his thoughts back on track, hoping the silence here would override the perilous agitation within.
Tall trees surrounded him, edging rows upon rows of tombstones. Only two places he ended up after nights like these when his mind felt as if it would explode into fragments. Here at the East River cemetery or the old ruined church in Hudson Valley.
A handful of humans remained huddled near headstones.
Dammit. With him teetering on the edge of his sanity, he needed the place to quiet down—didn’t want to sense their beckoning bright souls when his own was undoubtedly as dark as the ones trapped in him.
Nik slowed his steps. There, in his spot, three rows down, near a gravestone, stood a human.
Go, rip out his sssoul, the cloying voices stroked his mind. Take his light. Feassst—
Fuck off.
Jaw tensing, Nik shoved his fists into the pockets of his leather coat. Only his ingrained Guardian oath kept his feet nailed down as he waited for the mortal to haul ass and get out. But like all prey, he remained glued to the spot, clueless of the danger enclosing him.
The human finally shuffled toward him, pulling the hoodie of his coat over his dark hair. As he neared Nik, he glanced up, revealing wet blue eyes.
No, not a man, but an adolescent. A boy of seventeen or so.
He quickened his pace, shoulders hunching as if sensing danger, which showed he possessed some common sense. Yeah, it was good the boy veered to the side of caution.
A sweet flowery fragrance drifted to Nik, dragging his attention back to the tombstone the human had visited. Fresh roses lay scattered on the pedestal.
As if on autopilot, Nik lowered to the ground, back resting against a monument, and he examined the ornate engraving of the name on the gray marble headstone.
Olivia Montgomery
She shouldn’t have died. Now her blood stained his hands, too.
Help me…
The old echoes plowed through his ice-coated thoughts, dredging up remorse he usually never felt. At his stir of emotions, the insidious souls trapped in him rammed at his psychic shields. His momentary guilt vanished, and he clamped down on his shaky mind shields. As if he’d ever let them free to inhabit humans and cause a bloodbath again.
You think my remorse a weakness? Too fucking bad, you’re stuck inside me forever—
At the stark reminder that he would never be what he once was after being incarcerated in that hellhole, Tartarus, Nik gritted his teeth. He let his cryokinesis abilities freeze his emotions, down to his very own soul.
It made him an emotionless rock. He cared little. He didn’t need feelings to function. His only job was to destroy all evil and keep this realm and its humans safe.
Tipping his head back against the headstone, Nik shut his eyes…
Tingles of approaching dawn brought him back to awareness, the spinning darkness inside him barely tamped down. Night still cloaked the cemetery. A fine layer of powdery snow covered everything, including him. The cold didn’t affect him. He was a living, breathing entity of all that was ice and shadows.
Nik rose from the frozen ground and dematerialized back to the castle on the private landmass on Long Island Sounds, reforming on the portico of the mammoth, ivy-covered fortress, the Guardians’ home base. He did a quick scan of the snow-covered gardens and the surrounding area. All appeared quiet.
He pulled off his skullcap, removed his leather coat, then opened the massive, wooden front door, and strode into the marbled foyer decked with verdant potted plants and old armors. The soft, recessed ceiling lights underscoring the stained-glass windows etched with angels, knights, and their ladies, momentarily pulled him into a utopia where love endured forever.
But not for him.
His path lay in darkness.
Shrugging off whatever miasma had snagged his head within its whimsical clutches, Nik flashed to his second-floor quarters in the north wing. He strode through the small entrance hall and into a spacious, gloomy bedroom, tossed his outerwear on the padded end-of-bed bench, and dropped flat on the mattress. Exhaling roughly, he threw his arm over his eyes, wishing he could simply zone out. But the haze that should take him under remained just beyond his reach as usual, not that he tried very hard.
Mostly, he didn’t care. He simply existed in a space of nothingness.
No sleep.
No rest.
No peace or hope for an effed-up bastard like him.
The roiling within him hiked, and he clenched down on his teeth. He needed to haul ass back to Romania soon. The Arc would figure out he was sliding again and that the isolation he needed for a few days would become imperative. Not much he could do about that.
Faint voices from the ground floor coasted to him, followed by feminine laughter.
Nik shut them out.
His cell beeped. All the Guardians here were mated and currently occupied. Race was back in Romania, and he didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything. Whoever it was could fuck off—
An odd sensation crept over his psyche.
Nik stilled.
Slowly, he lowered his arm from his face. Something had changed in his usually dead as a doornail quarters. A scent wafted to him…no, not the sweet-smelling roses he’d gotten a whiff of at the cemetery, but one that made the block of ice in his chest shudder. A fragrance reminiscent of spring…of wildflowers—
Nik shot up from the bed and flashed out of the room, tracking the scent. He flew down the stairs, scaling over the balustrade to land on the first floor.
Kira, Týr’s mate, emerged from the left wing, shoving back her unbound, springy auburn hair. She cut him a harried smile before hurrying down the grand staircase to the ground floor. Movement snagged his attention. A strange, dark-haired female, wearing an overlong t-shirt revealing an expanse of long, pale legs stumbled out of a bedroom. She lurched along the corridor, dragging her palm on the wall as if to hold herself upright.
Hell, he had no idea what he was doing chasing after a fragrance.
The souls within him stirred, undoubtedly drawn to the shiny bright light in her.