Read Deliver Me from Darkness: A Novel of the Paladin Warriors Online
Authors: Tes Hilaire
Deliver Me from Darkness: A Novel of the Paladin Warriors (37 page)
“Thanks.” Logan yanked his knife from the creature’s heart and plugged it into the eye socket of the skull Roland held.
“This clears up our scoreboard again. All debts are paid,” Roland said, then casually reached out to grab the fumbling body of the second merker and tossed it to the ground. She watched as Roland placed his foot on the merker’s chest, but she had to turn her head away when it became obvious he planned to carve the creature’s heart from its chest.
She looked back at the red-haired Paladin and the Logan look-alike to see how they were faring. The demon was gone and they were both bent over, arms resting on their knees as they tried to catch their breath. She’d seen that man before. Where? The other man in the study at Haven?
His head lifted, his gaze locking onto hers. She didn’t know why, but her heart started hammering in double-time.
The man pushed up. “Logan, take care of that other merker. Alexander.” The man made a cutting motion at Roland.
Karissa sucked in a breath, watching as the giant red-haired Paladin straightened, took a step forward, then halted, lowering his knife.
“What are you doing?” the man demanded, his anger obvious that the red giant would disobey him.
“Karissa, I believe you’ve already met Elder Calhoun.” Roland came up behind her, leaning down to whisper the next bit close to her ear. “He has a thing against vampires.”
“Is that so?” She bared her fangs at the man who she was now sure had reamed Logan out in the study. “I guess that means he won’t be interested in pairing me off anymore.”
The man’s eyes widened, the blood draining from his face. His nostrils pinched as he snapped his gaze to Roland. “What have you done to my daughter, you bastard!”
Her eyes flew back to Roland, shock causing her vision to blur for a moment.
“Oh yeah. And he’s your father. Though he never told anyone. Not even Logan.”
Holy crap. A flash of light in the corner of her eye told her that the man was stalking toward them, knife in hand. She hissed, placing herself between Roland and her…nope, she couldn’t even think it. A real father wouldn’t have abandoned her the moment she was born. A real father wouldn’t have clinically talked about pairing her off. “You stay away from us.”
The man hesitated, his face inhumanly cold as he stared at her. No, not cold. Disappointed. Well, too bad. That made two of them.
His grip firmed on his knife, his face set into lines of determination as he started forward once more. Roland sucked in a breath, one arm reaching in front of her in an attempt to put her behind him again.
“Stop that,” she snapped. “What’s he going to do? Drive that knife through me to get to you?”
Then Logan was there, stepping between his father and them both. “Not unless he plans to go through me first.”
“Get out of the way, fool.”
“Why? So you can kill her like you did her mother?”
Karissa gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
The man’s eyes flitted to her then narrowed back on Logan. “Her mother died the moment she was bitten. As now has my daughter.”
“That’s my sister you’re talking about, old man. I’ve been a sucky brother until now, but I’m going to make up for it. You’re not to harm her. Or her bond mate.”
“They can’t be bond mates. They have no souls.”
Karissa shook her head, old wounds and new wounds spreading out and melding together. In an instant, she was made an orphan—again.
“Uh, hate to interrupt this riveting family reunion, but—”
They all looked to where Alexander was pointing at the decapitated body crawling across the forest floor toward its blinking head.
Roland grunted, stepping away from Karissa to grab up the head by the hair, the creature’s heart still beating in his other hand. “Can you send these to His realm?” he asked, holding them out to her.
She recoiled from the sight of them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The place of light.”
She looked up at Roland’s face. “That’s His realm?”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Where did you think you were going,
mon
chaton
?”
“I had no idea. I called it the netherplane.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. The important thing is that the light of that realm will burn away the presence of pure evil. Can you either send this there or bring them there and come back?”
She looked down at the bloody heart and the dangling head he was holding out to her. “I’m not touching those things.”
“How about you bring me there, then. Works either way.”
“As long as I don’t have to touch them.” She stepped forward, laying her hands on his upper arms, but pointedly keeping a large amount of space between them. She didn’t want to accidently touch his bloody trophies either. Then she concentrated, shifting her being and everything she touched into that “other” place which was here and nowhere at the same time. The moment they passed through the line of here and now and there, the heart started shriveling in Roland’s hand, and then the head. She shuddered. Sparks popped within the skull, the bright white light of…His…planes burning the brain out through the eye sockets.
“Good enough,” Roland prompted when the skull stopped sizzling.
With a nod, she popped them out of the plane and back to the same place they’d been before. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimmer light, but when she did, it was to find Logan smiling and Elder Calhoun standing mouth agape as he stared at the empty skull and the ashes in Roland’s hand where the heart had once been.
“You can get rid of those now,” she told Roland.
With a shrug, he turned his hand over, ashes spilling onto the ground. The skull he tossed over at her father’s feet, the empty eye sockets staring up at the stubborn Elder.
“Isn’t that interesting?” Alexander asked, folding his arms across his chest. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Elder, but doesn’t that prove that both Roland and Karissa here can’t be evil?”
Karissa slid her arms around Roland. “Of course Roland’s not evil. He’s my soul mate.”
***
“I think that’s the last of them.” Roland brushed the ashes off his hands, tossing the merker’s empty skull onto the pile of others. It thunked up against another, making a sound reminiscent of a hollow drum. Karissa visibly shuddered.
“Thank God.” She gestured at the pile. “I mean, can I just say
eww
? That’s just gross, really gross.”
Roland smiled, shaking his head. “I adore you.”
“Good.” She stepped up into him, linking her arms around his back. “Because you’re stuck with me. Especially now. And just so you know, there will be no biting of necks other than each other’s.”
Biting necks. He was hit by yet another pang of guilt, the one of many that he’d been having since the moment he’d sunk his teeth into her down in that cavern. She seemed to be taking it all in stride but he wondered how long it would be before the full import would hit her. He only hoped she’d still want him when it did.
He squeezed her tighter. “I’m sorry, Karissa. I never would have turned you, I just couldn’t…”
She squirmed, freeing an arm so she could place her finger over his mouth. “Hush. You did what you had to. And I for one am glad. I’m not sure my soul would have survived waiting an eternity for you to join me.”
“But it would have been an eternity in heaven.”
“You big fool. You are my heaven.” She snuggled in closer, her sweet scent drifting into his senses and turning him hard. “Why else do you think He made sure I found my way to you?”
Maybe she was right. But damn, he couldn’t help feeling that he’d stolen something from her.
Karissa pulled back, her eyes narrowed as she grabbed onto his hand, placing it over her heart. “Can’t you feel it, Roland? It beats for you.”
She took the same hand, slid it down her front until the heel of his hand was settled over the pulsing heat of her core. He sucked in a sharp breath, his cock throbbing in rhythm against his leather pants.
“And this,” she rubbed his hand over her mons, a soft moan parting her lips, “this throbs for you.”
Holy fuck, she was killing him. “Oh yes,
mon
petite
peste
, I can feel that. And if you don’t stop doing that, I’m going to conveniently forget we’re less than a dozen yards from both your father and your brother.”
She smiled. Her small hand slid around his, linking through his fingers as she pulled it behind her back, jerking him as close as humanly possible.
“And this…”
He felt the caress on his mind, the slight shift as he was pulled with her to the edges of His realm. The blinding white light was as stunning as always, but all he felt was a sense of ease.
“Why would He allow us this, if not to show that within us both lies a soul in His keeping?”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Of course I believe that. I believed it before.” She lifted their linked hands up, kissing his knuckles as she dropped them back into the real world. “The sunlight might be a miracle, but His place is truth. And the truth is, even when you feared you’d fallen, you were still welcome there. Remember your loft? The first time we met?”
He did. Now that she brought it up, he recalled that first time she dragged him through the other plane. He’d been terrified and shocked that he’d survived breaching a barrier he’d thought off limits to the likes of him. Yet, he’d come out whole at the other end.
“It’s about time you showed up. I was about to send a search party in for your body!”
Logan’s voice brought Roland out of his ponderings. He twisted Karissa around, his gaze honing in on the Paladin who had re-formed on the edge of the ridge.
“Huh. I think I’m starting to get used to that,” Karissa said.
“What?” Roland asked, studying the taut pull of the skin around the Paladin’s nose and mouth. His pulse accelerated, not liking what the seriousness of the look suggested.
“Valin. Poofing out of the air like that.” She bit her lip, gnawing on the plump flesh. “And really, he’s not half bad to look at naked.”
He blinked down at her, a bit taken aback by her laid-back attitude until he remembered that she wasn’t aware enough back in the tunnel to remember who Valin had chased after.
“What the heck?” Valin exclaimed.
Roland looked back up to find the Paladin staring at him and Karissa, shocked.
“Remember that vision Roland’s dad had?” Logan asked, dragging his T-shirt off to hand it to Valin.
Valin nodded, then took the T-shirt and pulled it over his head all the while keeping his incredulous gaze on the pair of vampires “lounging” in the sun.
“Seems Roland’s dad was right,” Logan explained. “Karissa is the child of light. Literally. One sip of her blood and presto. A vamp can stand the light of day. Though not His light. Suckers still fry in that.” Logan’s gaze turned back to Roland and Karissa. “Unless they have enough of a soul left to still be His, I guess.”
“Gabriella?” Roland asked.
“I couldn’t find her, and then the light…” Valin’s gaze drifted back to the entrance to the mines.
Roland’s heart howled. It shouldn’t hurt this bad, the kid had been more annoying than anything else. But damn, she’d been plucky. And over the years he’d come to think of her as his.
Karissa squeezed his hand, offering comfort. “I’m sorry, Roland.”
Valin looked back at them, down at their linked hands. His head snapped back up. “She drank Karissa’s blood. So she
could
be alive, right?”
Roland sucked in a sharp breath. Gabriella had taken Karissa’s vein? Impossible. The girl would rather die than give in to her nature. “Gabby did what?”
“I found her chained up in one of the warehouses. There was an IV bag next to her. She said she could find Karissa and the indication was that she’d been given some of Karissa’s blood.”
The tightness in Roland’s chest eased. He squeezed Karissa closer into his side. “Then she’s okay. The light won’t hurt her now.” Because of Karissa. Another gift. Another miracle. And another affirmation that Ganelon and Christos had had no idea what his father’s vision had actually meant. He tipped his head down and brushed his lips against her temple. “Thank you.”
Karissa turned her face up, her lips pulled in the most delectable pout. “Is that the best you can do?”
“No. Not nearly.” He leaned down and took her mouth, kissing her with everything he had to give: his body, heart, and soul.
Coming Soon…
Book Two in the
Paladin Warriors Series
Logan’s and Alexander’s booted feet thundered down the littered sidewalk as they worked to catch up with the distant figure stumbling along on four-inch heels.
She was good. Or rather
it
was good. Three times the succubus had slipped through their net, starting the chase all over again. It had taken him a while to figure it out, not being familiar with all the side streets in this seedy part of town, but Logan had come to realize something over the last two blocks: they were being led in one very big, very maze-like circle.
She’s playing with us. Or this is a trap
.
Flashing his hand up in the universal symbol for stop, Logan eased into the shadows of a basement apartment stairwell. Alexander followed, eerily soundless as he shifted into stealth mode.
“What’s up?” Alex asked, voicing his confusion in a hushed whisper.
“Hold on. I’m going to try and contact Valin.” He closed his eyes, centering himself and reached out on the other plane. Calling Valin when the Paladin was ghosting was never easy and rarely fruitful, but sometimes if he did it just right, a light caress across the other plane… <<
Valin?
>>
<<
You guys all tuckered out?
>>
Valin’s voice, clear as a bell, had Logan jerking his head back into the rusted iron railing that flanked the stairs leading up to the first level. He rubbed the already sore lump, silently cursing the other Paladin.
Deciding his injury was nothing more than hurt pride, Logan got to the point. <<
What is the succubus doing?
>>
<<
Not sure. When you guys backed off, she ducked into an abandoned building. I’m perched on the roof, covering the exits
.>>
Logan figured the minx would do something like that. This proved that she was playing them. If she’d really wanted to get away, she would’ve bolted at the first opportunity. The question now was how far she was willing to take their little game. And whether they could turn the tables somehow.
<<
I want you to draw back. I think she’s sensing you
.>>
<<
Really…
>>
Logan could feel the doubt in Valin’s thought. Understandable. When Valin was doing his ghost thing, no one knew he was there. He was invisible to any sort of mind-gifts, undetectable to any paranormal creature’s nose, and unseen by even the most keen-sighted vampires. Yet each time Valin had drawn near she’d bolted. Once or twice could be coincidence, but three times?
<<
I have a theory I want to test. Draw back a few blocks and wait for my signal to join in. Alexander and I are going to do a little bait and hook
.>>
He felt Valin’s internal shrug, <<
Your skin
,>> then he was gone, ghosting again.
Logan turned to Alex, who had an expectant look on his face. “Valin is going to drop back and then you and I are going to split up. Not far, just enough to give her a chance.”
“A chance to what?”
“To come after one of us.”
Alexander scoffed, shaking his head. “You think she’d be that stupid?”
“Not really, no. But she’s not acting normal. I think she has an ulterior motive here.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not sure, but she certainly seems to be trying to lead us somewhere.”
“And you want to try and lead her?”
“Exactly.” Logan jerked his head toward the sidewalk. “Two blocks down parallel streets. Then we’ll meet back up.”
Logan took off.
He had just passed the first major intersection and was creeping up on the next when he heard the sound of a scuffle. Swearing, he bolted toward the side street, following the source of the disturbance. Muscles burning, he rounded the corner just in time to see the spandex-clad backside of their succubus take off down a side street.
Alex was crouched against the brick wall of another apartment building. He jerked his head in the direction the succubus had fled. “Go. I’ll be…right…behind you. Just need to…get my breath.”
Logan squinted down at the bent-over warrior. Alex’s skin favored the color of a freshly peeled cucumber and he was still making gasping, hissing noises through his clenched teeth, but there was no blood. Nope, the only thing that seemed to be wrong with the big guy—based on the awkward vertical fetal position of his body and protective cup of his hands—was some injured pride.
Guess it was going around tonight.
“Catch up when you can.”
With a grunt from Alex, which Logan took as assent, Logan went after the creature. As soon as Logan rounded the corner and bolted into the side street their little minx had ducked into, he was greeted with an expected sight. The narrow street was empty.
He took a tentative step forward. A whisper of sound had him twisting, but not before a blast of pain erupted across the back of his head, his brain flaring with light as someone—no, something—stabbed into his mind.
Logan slammed up a barrier of mental shields, but they did nothing to counteract the effects of the first, unexpected attack. His ears rang. And when he blinked it was to the sight of his hands gripping the gritty pavement. Talk about bringing him low. The succubus, or someone with her, was proficient with mind-gifts.
Not cool.
When the pain finally subsided enough for Logan to lift his head, he was alone in the alley. Which meant she was out there. With Alexander. And Valin was incommunicado.
<<
God damn it, Valin. Where the hell are you?
>>
Logan pushed himself to his feet, stumbling around the corner. Ahead of him, illuminated by a lone streetlamp, Alexander struggled with the succubus. Not even half the size of him, the little minx was putting up an awesome fight, her small fists landing faster than humanly possible, each one eliciting a grunt from the large warrior. Then all of a sudden she stopped fighting, her well-aimed punches turning to floppy hand slaps, her silent efforts of escape broken by small whimpers of fear and pain.
WTF?
Alex doubled over, allowing the succubus to bolt again.
Shit, shit, shit. This bitch was too damn good. No way was she just a succubus. Not with her ability to take down Alexander. Not with her ability to stab into Logan’s mind.
With a push of speed, Logan roared, his sights zeroing in on the succubus as she whimpered and scrambled up the street.
He had no idea what happened next. One second he was sprinting down the sidewalk and the next, he tripped. His hands flew out, absorbing the worst of the fall, but not enough to stop the umph of pain as he smashed into the unforgiving pavement.
Tonight was really not his night. What had he tripped on? His own feet?
“Hey, asshole. Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” A woman’s voice lashed out.
Nope. Not his feet. Goddammit. He did not want to have to deal with a Good Samaritan civvy right now.
He rolled over, ready to spin a story, and came face to nozzle against a can of pepper spray. Better than a gun, he supposed. Still, one little squeeze and he’d be worse than useless for the foreseeable future. And given the trembling state of the hand that was holding the bottle…
He lifted his gaze, following the trembling hand up the shaking arm to the shivering halo of blond curls that framed the most stunning set of wide blue eyes.
Angel
.
Startled by the force of the thought, he shook it away. Pretty, yes. An angel…no. More like an inconvenient pain in his ass.
He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and drawing in a deep breath. Why, oh why, couldn’t he catch a break tonight?
***
Rachael stumbled back holding her can of pepper spray out like a gun as the man slowly and silently stood, brushing his black leather pants off as he looked her over. His eyes singed her like hot pokers of flame as they traced every inch of what her mom would have called a power suit. His perusal, executed with a disdainful twist of his lip, was probably meant to send her scurrying away, but that’s not the effect it had on her. All of a sudden and inexplicably, she felt naked. Her clothing completely stripped away. The power suit that had faced down numerous power-hungry board members and allowed her to steamroll over more than one grumpy old know-it-all charity organizer, felt less like armor and more like a negligee under this man’s shadowed gaze.
A very, very skimpy, might-as-well-not-be-there negligee.
Ignoring the rising heat in her cheeks, Rachael planted her feet, tipping her chin up defiantly. No perv was going to make her blush and slink off like a cowed dog.
When his perusal of her finally ended, the man folded his arms across his chest. A vast improvement from attacking her, she supposed. Maybe she wouldn’t be raped and murdered tonight.
Certifiable, Rach. Positively certifiable
.
“And that would be you?” His voice, a rich aristocratic tenor, did not match his seedy-bar clothing or his actions of a short while ago. She was so puzzled by this juxtaposition that it took a moment for his words to register.
What had she said? Oh yeah, pick on someone his own size. Stupid, that. Rachael was pretty tall, standing at five foot eleven in her heels, but this man was still a head taller than her, and the man stalking up behind him was almost twice that.
What she should have done was trip the bastard up and then turned tail and run. The problem was that as she’d drawn closer to the struggle between the giant and the woman, she’d realized the woman wasn’t a woman at all. She’d been nothing more than a teen. Fifteen, sixteen at best. The thought of two grown men, two massive grown men, preying on someone less than half their age and half their size had filled her with such righteous anger that she’d just had to speak her mind.
And now her tongue was going to make her just another violent crime statistic.
Mike and Damon were going to be so pissed at her. At least the girl had gotten away.
Use your brains, Rach. You can’t fight them, but you might still have a chance if you play it cool.
She shifted the bottle farther behind her back. She wasn’t completely stupid, after all. Brandishing an empty vodka bottle at these two men would be akin to waving a red flag in front of a bull. Bad enough she’d tripped one and threatened him with some pepper spray.
She took a step back, lowering the pepper spray to her side, though not removing her finger from the trigger. “I’ll just, um, be going now.”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that.” This came from the big man as he shifted out into the street, ready to block off her escape.
Rachael followed his movement, assessing him for possible weakness. He was younger than she’d first thought, probably close to her own twenty-four, and looked almost boyish with his unruly red hair and a dash of light freckles spreading across a set of cheekbones that could only have come from some Scottish Highlander’s gene pool. On another day, in another place, he might have looked more like a big teddy bear than anything else. But not now. Not with that distinctively pissed-off expression twisting his features into a scowl.
She swallowed hard, her mind rapidly running in circles as she tried to think of a way out. All she could come up with was: stall.
“You can’t do what?” she asked in her best bubble-headed blond voice.
Pretty boy gone slumming took a step toward her, chipping away at the distance she’d opened up with her retreat. “Let you go.”
Guess the time for talk was over. She twisted, bringing up the pepper spray and plunging down on the trigger with her thumb. The big man dodged but some of the spray must have hit home because he roared, his massive forearm rising in front of his face. A flash of movement warned Rachael and, with a screech worthy of a B-movie actress, she swung the heavy liquor bottle from behind her back, aiming for the general region of her other assailant’s head.
He did something with his hand, a negligible wave, and the bottle went sailing. The next moment his body slammed into hers, his arms encircling her like a wrestler.
She struggled, curling her hands pinned between his rock-solid chest and her own breasts into claws. Her screams for aid reverberating off the buildings.
“Hush. Hush.”
No way. She was not going to go down like some meek lamb.
Only she did. His words, so soothing, not only slipped like a blanket of calm over her body, but slipped into her very being, easing her panic. Silence descended as she melted into his hold.
What the hell is this? What is he doing to me?
Hypnotist. It was the only explanation for this lax, out-of-body feeling she was experiencing.
“Look at me.”
Obstinately, she tried to turn her face to the side. And found she couldn’t. Her own body betrayed her, her head tipping back, her gaze lifting…
