Stricken (The War Scrolls Book 1) (2 page)

“No kidding.” Abriel jerked a black tarp from his pack before slinging it to the floor. He reached inside the bag again. “What are they after out there?” A length of thick rope joined the tarp.

Now
that
was a good question.

As far as Killian knew, the nearest Elioud line still capable of producing a shifter was in hiding two states away. Where had these three come from? And how many more of them were out there?

One, at least.

Killian felt the diseased shifter out there as if he had a direct connection to the creature.

“I say we find out what they’re after, don’t you?” Killian glanced between Dom and Abriel.

“Oh, hell yes.” Dom grinned, his white teeth flashing in the darkness.

***

“Get up, and run,”
Aubrey whispered to herself, straining to hear the conversation inside the old house. She cowered behind an overgrown bush beside the sagging front porch, her teeth chattering from the cold. Fear locked her muscles tight, preventing her from even breathing too deeply, let alone getting up.

Where was she supposed to go, anyway?

For all she knew, the wolves chasing her had some built-in Aubrey-finding radar, and fleeing for her life wouldn’t make a difference. So far, running hadn’t worked in her favor. She was being hunted down like a rabbit.

She didn’t much like being prey.

She didn’t trust the men inside the house, either.

There was something…unnatural about them. Three times now, the wolves had backed her into a corner, and each time, the three men inside appeared out of nowhere to save her life. They killed the wolves and carried them off, never even noticing Aubrey. But she wasn’t stupid.

Strange men didn’t appear out of nowhere to save the damsel anywhere except in movies.

So why were these three making a habit of it?

She didn’t know, and that made her nervous. They were virtual ghosts, appearing in the dark van currently idling at the corner and disappearing by the same means just as quickly. She saw little more than blurs—snatches of color and large frames—when the men showed up. If they even
were
men.

Aubrey would stake her life on the fact that they weren’t human. She knew enough about the angel and demon races hiding among humans to know better. But that didn’t tell her what the three were, now did it?

Vampires?

Werewolves?

Something worse?

She shivered at the thought of
something worse
than the weak demons prowling through the dark in cities far and wide. Some of those demons were decent. They didn’t harm the humans who lived beside them. But the others? They were worse than foul—hunting and murdering without regard for human life.

Stop cowering, and run
,
Aubrey demanded of herself.

Her muscles screamed in protest, refusing to unbend and move.

Her shoulders slumped.

Who was she kidding?

If another wolf appeared, she wouldn’t last five minutes. So she stayed put, too scared to creep from behind the hedge and ask the men for help and too tired to make a run to safety.

Sure, give up
, a little voice complained from its corner of her mind.
Maybe your heroes will kill you quickly when they find you lurking around out here.

“They won’t kill me,” she muttered, praying she was right.

From the little bits and pieces of their conversation she’d heard, the men were more concerned with being found than with committing murder. Knowing that didn’t make her feel any safer, though. She’d seen them kill one of the wolves with nothing more than knives.

God. The wolves. Were they wild, or were they—?

A sharp scent wafted toward her, halting that painful thought in its tracks.

Too late to ask for help now
, the little voice observed.

A familiar growl sounded behind her.

A bloodcurdling scream tore from her throat, terror and fury winding together and ripping through the still night before she could stop herself.

Aubrey leaped to her feet and ran full tilt toward the rotting house and her mysterious knights. A part of her mind warned her that she was being careless. But she couldn’t stop screaming any more than she could stop herself from pounding up the decaying steps and plunging headlong into the pitch-black of the condemned property.

She made it an entire four feet into the murky darkness before slamming into a wall.

No, not a wall. A person.

“Oh!”

She bounced off his chest and sat down on the floor so hard, her teeth clacked together, jarring her.

“What the—?” Strong arms reached out and plucked her from the rotting wood. Warm hands wrapped around her upper arms. “Who the hell are you?”

“Outside,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes closed. “There’s another wolf outside.”

“Another one?” One of the men swore in alarm.

A thud sounded somewhere beyond the voice, followed by a more colorful curse from a third voice and the hiss of steel leaving a sheath.

“Dom!” The man holding her upright spun around, his grip on her not wavering. “Hold her!” He let her go before she stopped spinning.

Her arms windmilled wildly as she scrambled for balance.

“Got her.” Another set of arms grabbed her before she could fall on her face.

Her head smacked into something hard—an arm, a chest, she didn’t know—and the man hissed between his teeth. “Damn, girl, stand still!”

He shifted her around, his large hands like vises on her upper arms. Her back thumped into a wall before she felt the man spin, putting himself between her and the wolf outside.

Her heart pounded as she waited for the wolf to tear through him and gobble her up like a pig in a straw house. For long moments, her breath rasping in and out of her throat and the chattering of her teeth were the only sounds in the oppressive darkness. Then a howl ripped through the air, seeming to bounce around the house. Chills raced up and down her spine as the distorted, eerie sound echoed in dark corners.

Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, fear and exhaustion overwhelming her.

A second howl started as soon as the first began to fade, followed by wordless shouts and the sounds of a brawl. A curse rang out and then a heavy thump.

The animal’s howl faded into a whisper and then dead silence in the blink of an eye.

Aubrey’s heart broke a little as the whimper died. As much as the wolves scared her, she didn’t wish for their deaths. Something was obviously wrong with them, and she wasn’t callous enough not to care about that.

“Yes!” The man holding her to the wall cheered. “Got him!”

Aubrey felt him turn toward her.

She pressed herself farther into the wall, holding her eyes open wide against the darkness. If she closed them again, would she have another chance to open them?

Don’t be ridiculous. He shielded you with his own body, didn’t he?
the rational part of her mind pointed out.

He’s going to kill you
, the hysterical part screeched in response, refusing to listen to reason.
Probably hide your body in a suitcase in the wall, never to be seen again! Aunt Mel won’t know what happened to you.

The man shifted positions, moving so close his warm breath blew across her temple.

She flinched away from him, startled.

“What’s your name, beautiful?”

“Aubrey,” she whispered, not particularly soothed by the pleasant tone of his voice or by the implication that he saw well enough in the darkness to think her pretty. She certainly couldn’t see anything.

“Aubrey,” he murmured. “Cute. I’m Dahmiel, but you can call me Dom. You’ve heard of me?”

“N-no.”

“Well,” he huffed, sounding more amused than offended. “Spend your time saving the world from ravaging hordes of infected things and do you even get a thank-you? Of course not. They don’t even know your name.” Another soft huff left his lips. “Bloody rude, if you ask me.”

Aubrey listened to his rant, her eyes wide. A choked laugh bubbled up in her throat, followed by another. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound, afraid Dom would think she was laughing at him. Which she was, sort of. He complained about not being famous while her life unraveled around her.

The irony wasn’t lost on her.

Dom chuckled.

The knot in her throat began to loosen.

“Well,” that first man she’d heard—and smacked into—said from somewhere near the gaping front door. He had a beautiful voice. More lyrical than the Southern drawl she heard day in and day out. Kind of lovely, actually. “Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, perhaps you could ask her what in the hell she’s doing here?”

Okay, so maybe not that lovely. Slightly condescending, really.

She narrowed her eyes in his direction but couldn’t make out anything more than a thick shadow standing right inside the missing front door.

“I could,” Dom said, making no move to step away from her, “but I won’t. I prefer to believe she came to sweep me off of my feet and was rudely interrupted, first by the thing outside and then by you taking up the entire hallway and forcing her to bump into you. She’s working up to confessing her undying love for me as we speak.”

“I am not!” she protested. Did he actually believe the things he said, or did he simply like to hear himself talk? “I was chased here.”

“By the thing outside?” the condescending one asked.

“No, by the one you killed inside,” she muttered, irritated by his antagonistic question. He didn’t have to be so rude.

“The one we…” Dom whistled.

“How do you know we killed it?” The rude one moved closer, his shadow still little more than a heavy mass in the darkness.

Aubrey gulped at the threat in his question. “Lucky guess?” she whispered, her voice shaking.
Never need rescuing again
, she demanded of herself. It was terrifying and exhausting and pretty much a huge pain all the way around.

“Try again,” he said, softer than before. Oddly, with his voice pitched low like that, he sounded even more dangerous.

Aubrey couldn’t think of a single suitable lie.
I’m omniscient
would have sounded just as false as
I guessed
. Both were equally true, which was to say not true at all. And she wasn’t nearly stupid enough to tell the truth with his threat hanging in the air around them. She closed her mouth instead, licking her lips nervously.

“Did either of them bite you?” Dom asked, saving her from trying to come up with an answer she didn’t have.

“What?”

“The wolves,” the rude one snapped. “Did they bite you, drool on any open wounds?”

“Um, no?”

“You’re sure?” he demanded.

“Yes. I’m sure.” One of them had clawed her up a little, but no bites. Luckily. She didn’t want to consider how that might have ended. The leg the animal had clawed hurt enough, thank you very much.

“That’s good,” Dom said.

“How do you know we killed the wolf?” the first asked a second time, apparently not willing to let that question go.

Aubrey said nothing.

“Still waiting,” he reminded her.

“I’m sure this is all very fascinating, but we’ve got to go,” the third man broke in. He didn’t sound as though he found the conversation particularly riveting. He sounded tired. “The entire neighborhood heard her screaming, and the police will be on the way soon if they aren’t already. I’d rather not have to break out of jail.”

“Hell,” the first man swore again.

Did he know any other words?

Who was he?

“Dom, take the girl. Abriel, grab the shifter outside. I’ll get this one.” A faint thud sounded.

“Sure, Killian.” Dom snorted. “Just remember you said that when you decide to try to steal her away.”

“Oh, shut up,” the other two, Killian and Abriel, said simultaneously.

Dom’s laughter echoed around the decrepit house.

Take the girl, my ass.
Aubrey pushed away from the wall and squared her shoulders, ready to do battle. “I’m not going with you,” she warned Dom, holding up her hands to ward him off in case he made a grab for her.

“I’m sorry,” he disagreed, “but you have to. You don’t seem the jail type, and since we’re lugging around a couple dead bodies and the police have no clue about infected shifters, that’s exactly where you’ll end up if you stay.” He paused. “Feel free to argue if it makes you feel better, though.”

“Infected shifters?” Her voice trembled, and her thoughts seemed stuck on those words. “
Infected shifters?
” That was not good. Not good at all.

“Infected shifters,” Dom repeated. “Elioud shapeshifters, the distant human descendants of angels.” He paused. “Are you going to puke?” He sounded more curious than concerned.