Deliver Me from Darkness: A Novel of the Paladin Warriors (16 page)

Oh, yeah. That would be the bomb.

<>

“Argh!” God damn, Christos! With a growl Gabriella pushed away the presence that had slipped in under her defenses. It soon became a test of wills: her determination to kick her maker out verses his indomitable need to prove that she couldn’t.

She stumbled to a stop. Beads of sweat broke out over her skin, making her clammy cold in the pre-dawn air. Christos tried to slick around her wall of determination, but she countered, filling her mind with imagery of a bright golden sun, filling all the dark spaces where Christos could hide to spy on her. It burned her, scorched her right to her core, but not as much as it burned him. He would relent first. He had to.

Her body began to vibrate with the need to prove that she could do this. Just when she thought she’d managed to illuminate every shadowy recess within her, a dark curtain of evil slammed down upon her, smothering her image of light.

Gabriella cried out, her knees buckling. She was going to die. He was going to snuff out her essence.

With a laugh, Christos suddenly disappeared, the oppressive weight of his will lifting and leaving her adrift. She stood there, gasping with her eyes closed, back pressed against a lamppost, and fingers curled into the chipped iron paint in an attempt to tether herself to her surroundings.

Damn. She panted. She should have known Christos would be checking up on her routinely. Should have been prepared. Or at least kept her homicidal thoughts tucked away for a time when she knew he’d be preoccupied with something else. Like after he had found the woman they were searching for. Everyone—Christos, Ganelon, even Lucifer himself—was hankering after the girl who got away. Well, they could look all they wanted. Gabriella had a feeling about where the woman was, and she wasn’t telling.

And
if
you’re smart, you won’t even think about that, Gabby.

Yeah, good idea. Though it was hard not to when she’d been sent out to prowl the streets for signs of the girl. She wasn’t stupid enough to disobey Christos. Christos was on a bender. Screw up and you better hope your will was in order.

That suited Gabriella just fine. She was sick of this life anyway. Still, there were worse things than death. And if she didn’t want to become intimately aware of them—she pushed off the lamppost, heading back down the street—she should probably get back to work.

It was the whispering that stopped her—the hushed sound of two angry men who were both trying to gain the upper hand while not raising their voices. Karissa had managed to make it down what seemed a never-ending staircase and had been following the wall around, searching for another set of stairs going down—or a door, a big wide this-is-the-way-out door—when she was scared shitless by the sound of others…close by.

Go, Karissa, ignore them. For God’s sake, don’t stand here like a fear-paralyzed mouse.

Only she wasn’t the mouse. She was the cat. And undone by her curiosity—had she really heard them say her name?—she found herself trying to peer down the black hall before her. It, like the rest of the building, refused to give up any secrets. Previously, she relied on the vague memory of the outside of the building. Which was not much. She’d been blindfolded for secrecy’s sake, and when Logan finally announced they were there, she pulled off the blindfold to find they drove deep into the warehouse section of the city and were idling beside a chain-link fence behind which stood a graveyard of shipping boxes. He punched in a code, drove through…and whamo, gone were the boxes. In their place a cobbled yard filled with fountains and statues appeared, each monument highlighted by spotlights in the dark.

She was so engrossed by what had to have been some sort of protective illusion that she hadn’t zeroed in on the massive structure behind them until Logan had stopped the car. By then they were so close to the building that her gaze had immediately been drawn to the gargantuan center structure. With its multiple peaked roofs, turrets, and carved marble, she was positively awestruck. Vaguely, in a shadowy, knew-it-was-there kind of way, she recalled that there were long wings stretching out to each side, rising perhaps to half the height of the tallest peak. Baring the top floor, she could be anywhere in one of those two wings.

Skimming her hand along the wall, she made her way down the dark hall. This hall was riddled with crevasses, recesses where cool, marble statues resided, other doors that led to God knew where, and…what was that?

Fighting the urge to whoop in celebration at her first sight of light in who knew how long—okay, maybe it had only been a couple minutes—she forced her forward progress to miniscule. Finally, she made it to the door bathed in a slim halo of light and squatted down to stare through the glowing beacon of the keyhole.

As soon as she got a good look at the occupants of the room, she sucked in a breath. Logan, and a man who resembled him too much to be anyone but a blood relative, were facing off behind the expanse of an old oak desk. Neither looked happy, their eyes boring into each other as they both refused to back down from whatever argument they’d been participating in.

I
should
go. Now.
She started to straighten but stopped when the other man dropped his gaze, his eyes seeming to hone in on the keyhole. Oh damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Was she found out?

The man sighed, looking back to Logan. “Your only job is to keep her safe in that room until it’s decided. That is all I’m asking.”

Logan’s hands fisted at his sides, the only tell that he seemed ready to go for the other man’s throat. “I won’t let you do it. I promised my protection.”

“I am sorry, Logan. But it’s a bond mate’s right to protect her. Not yours.” The man laid his hand on Logan’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze as if to temper the words. The action was that of a father to son, though this man looked nowhere near old enough to be anything more than a brother, or perhaps a young uncle. It made her wonder. Logan had never mentioned anyone else but his dad, at least not within the ranks of Paladin.

“She has no bond mate.” The way Logan said this sounded almost bitter. “You said a minute ago that you sensed no possible bonds between her and any who were present in that room.”

“That is why we have to choose for her. They won’t wait for her to choose. They’re going to choose one for her unless we pick one first.”

“An elder could claim the right to protect her.”

The man tapped the desk beside him, his brow creased into a sharp V that aged him considerably. “Times are desperate. I’m not sure even a father could protect her.”

“Coward.”

The man jerked away, his head snapping back as if Logan had physically slapped him.

Logan went on. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about her. If I knew who she was I wouldn’t have—”

“Wouldn’t have what? Cozied up to her like a dog sniffing out a bitch in heat?”

Karissa stiffened, heat suffusing her cheeks. Had he just called her a slut? Of all the nerve, he didn’t know anything about her!

“That was beneath even you, Father.” Logan’s tone was low, deadly.

“But true nonetheless,” Logan’s father—his freaking father!—snapped back, his fists slamming down on the desk. “Damn. How is it that she’s in heat?”

In heat? What
were
they talking about?

Logan started to shake his head, then hesitated, drawing his father’s sharp gaze. Logan shook his head again, more adamantly this time. “I don’t know.”

His father sighed. “I guess it doesn’t really matter. Though it does make it more vital that we choose an acceptable partner as quickly as possible.”

“You cannot force a bond.”

“No.” The man lifted his gaze, looking back to his son. “But one can force a pairing.”

Oh God, Roland was right. No one here could be trusted. Not even the man her grandfather had said she could trust.

“Who, Papa?” the little girl in her memory asked. “Who would take me away?”

Papa’s brown eyes became shadowed and he shook his head. “Any of them, all of them. Something happens to me, you go to Logan Calhoun.”

“He’ll protect me?”

“God, I hope so, child. I hope so.”

Her vision blurred, and that woozy she’d-spun-on-the-merry-go-round-too-much feeling spiraled down through her body. She fell forward, her hand slapping against hard wood.

“What was that?”

The barrier holding her up disappeared. Karissa did an elegant hand plant onto the floor. Light spilled from the room, shadowed only by the tall figure standing before her. Karissa raised her head and rapidly blinked away the memory of Papa’s rounded face and tickly, white beard. In his place were the hard planes of Logan’s aristocratic face as he stared down at her.

“Karissa?” His face twisted into a look mixed with confusion and horror.

“I trusted you,” she managed past the tightening in her throat.

If he said anything in his own defense she didn’t know; she was already scuttling backward into the hall’s offering of darkness.

***

Roland lifted his tumbler, swirling the amber liquid so it ran up and around the sides of the cut crystal. He wasn’t sure whether it was his forth or fifth. Didn’t matter. The point was to keep drinking. Maybe if he consumed the alcohol fast enough he could drink himself into oblivion.

Karissa was right. Somewhere in his gene pool was the propensity to become an alcoholic. Now, if only his vampire physiology would take a backseat to his real heritage.

He took another sip of the room-temperature scotch, frowning down at the amber liquid. Too clear. And though it was filled with layers, it was still too…contrived.

Blood. Thick, warm, bursting with flavor. Nothing less would do.

***

“Karissa!” Her name echoed through the maze of halls, farther away this time. Faint, barely a pin drop in the oppressive blackness she had escaped into.

From the moment she’d gained her footing she’d been running. Had to get away. Couldn’t let them catch her.

But it was dark as shit in here.

She stubbed her toe on something, slipped on a patch of floor that had been polished to deadly levels, and barely managed to stay upright by grabbing onto what turned out to be an armless statue. Behind her, she could hear Logan calling for her still, zeroing in on the sounds she was making. And somewhere, she knew, his father would be stalking her too. Too bad for them. She’d jump to the netherplanes and stay there before she let them catch her.

That was a last resort. She was a fighter, not a lamb. Even if fighting in this case meant getting the hell away from them.

She skidded around the corner, nails digging into the molding that lined every corner on this level. To the right was another dark hall, and to the left…There. A light in the distance, a tease of temptation in the dark. Only it wasn’t safe there either. There were other Paladin. Other men who would “claim” her.

She turned down the dark hall instead.

***

The
doors
to
the
sanctuary
swung
open, revealing a woman in flowing cherry-red robes. The rich robes clashed ostentatiously with her eye-popping, pumpkin-orange curls. Still, the velvet was sinful rubbing up against the creamy skin of her nicely muscled arms.

A
warrior. A queen. A woman men should lower themselves to their knees for.

She shouldn’t be here.
The
thought
was
like
a
distant
buzz
tone
in
the
back
of
Roland’s mind, spreading a slick sensation of unease along his spine. Then she dropped her shoulders back, breasts pressing forward against the blue silk gown as a wide smile formed on her luscious burgundy lips. The slick unease turned into a shudder.

Damn. Switch roles. With a mouth like that, she should be the one kneeling.

“Well, well, well.” The words rumbled up like a purr from beneath her perfect bust to drip like silken honey from that perfect mouth in a husky and full cadence that was…Mon Dieu! Perfect for fucking. “Christos said you’d be the one to come. I didn’t believe him.”

Christos. He should know that name. But damn, names seemed inconsequential compared to the stunning woman who was currently running her fingers across the top of her low-cut gown. He’d never seen a more beautiful woman. Something about her…the seductive elegance of that slight movement of hand, the drowning quality of her heavy-lidded, ocean-green eyes.