The Dark-Hunters (795 page)
Authors: Sherrilyn Kenyon
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal, #Vampires, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Paranormal & Urban
Seth couldn’t believe what he was hearing. They were willing to stay here to protect him?
Were they out of their minds?
“What about Verlyn?” Seth asked. Noir would only set him loose again to find him. And now that Lydia was pregnant, she would be in more danger than ever.
Lydia smiled. “Don’t worry. We have a place to take you where you’ll be safe from his reach until all of your powers return.”
“How can you be so sure?”
It was Ma’at’s turn to laugh. “It was what I was working on when you were taken from my temple. I promise you, you’ll be safe there. It’s the one place neither Noir nor Azura, nor any of their servants can reach you.”
Still, he wasn’t convinced.
Until he looked into Lydia’s eyes. “I won’t leave you here alone, Seth.” She kissed the cartouche she wore, then pulled it off over her head to hang it around his neck.
At first, he thought it was the one he’d left with her, knowing it would keep her safe once she came out of the spell he’d placed on her to make her appear dead. But as he looked at it, he realized it was different.
She smiled at him. “It’s ‘I love you’ in ancient Egyptian … Just so you know. Now, please, come home with me.”
He stared at the raised, golden hieroglyphs that spelled out words he hadn’t known.
Not until Lydia.
His throat went dry.
Home. He’d never had one of those before either. He wasn’t even sure what the word meant.
But when he looked into her eyes, he saw the one thing he couldn’t deny.
The only woman he’d die for. So if he was willing to die for her, the least he could do was live for her, too.
“Take me home, Lydia.”
EPILOGUE
Lydia lay on the bed, watching as Seth fed their son for the first time. He was still terrified he was going to hurt the babe, even though she’d promised him he wouldn’t. He was far too gentle for that.
“What are we going to name him?” she asked.
Seth looked up with the most beautiful smile she’d ever seen. “Ambrose?”
His choice surprised her, but it made total sense. The Malachai had kept his word after all.
Not the elder Malachai, Adarian, who’d made the pact with Seth. It’d been Adarian’s son who had honored his father’s word and kept them safe in his home in New Orleans until Seth’s powers had returned. But for Ambrose, Noir would have found them.
“You don’t want to use Nicholas?” It was Ambrose’s human name.
Seth shook his head. “It’s too common and there’s no one else like our son.”
That was certainly true. He was a rare, rare breed.
Watching the two of them staring at each other with equal wonder and adoration, she smiled as she remembered what Seth had said when she’d asked him why he made her forget him when he’d left her with her father.
“I couldn’t bear living if I knew I’d caused you pain. I’d rather you not know me at all, than to think of me and cry.”
He looked up and frowned. “Did I do something wrong?”
Lydia smiled through her tears. No matter how much she tried to explain it, he didn’t understand that people could also cry when they were happy. “No, sweetie. I couldn’t be happier than I am right now.”
Seth swallowed at those words that meant so much to him. He still couldn’t believe, after all he’d been through, that he had her in his life, any more than he could believe this tiny little being had come from something like him.
His son was perfect in every way from the top of his bald head that was dusted with auburn hair, to his topaz eyes, to the tiniest toes Seth had ever seen.
And he would never deny him. No more than he could deny Lydia anything she asked of him.
Even the world.
But what scared him was how close he’d come to not having any of this. How many times he’d lain himself down in defeat.
Had he not tried that one last time … had he not found the courage he needed when he thought he had none at all …
He didn’t want to think about that. He couldn’t. Because in the end, this one perfect moment was worth every bit of pain he’d been dealt.
For this life, he would gladly sell his soul. And honestly he had.
Lydia owned it and he was ever, eternally, hers.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE GUARDIAN
Copyright © 2011 by Sherrilyn Kenyon.
All rights reserved.
For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
ISBN: 978-0-312-55005-9
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / November 2011
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
eISBN 9781429995658
First eBook edition: February 2014
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[email protected]
TIME UNTIME
SHERRILYN KENYON
Contents
For my husband, for too many reasons to count.
For my boys, who make me laugh and fill my life with joy.
For my friends, who keep me sane.
And for my readers.
Thank you all for being a part of my life and for filling my heart with love.
PROLOGUE
In the distant, unrecorded past
It wasn’t fun being the gatekeeper to hell. The only thing worse was being evil’s bitch, and Makah’Alay Omawaya had been that, too.
Willingly.
A tic beat in his sculpted jaw as the harsh winds whipped his long black hair, flogging him while he stood on top of a high precipice, his muscled body and sheathed weapons silhouetted by the Hunter’s Moon. Soul-sick and weary, he surveyed the red canyon that was awash with moonlight and dancing shadows that reminded him of his past.
How could one man ruin so many lives?
No, not ruin.
Destroy.
He no longer had a right to live. Not after all the blood he’d greedily spilled with his knife and arrows. Not after all the atrocities he’d committed. Yet here he stood. Alone.
Ashamed.
Undead.
A twice-designated guardian to a world he’d done his damnedest to annihilate. Yeah, it didn’t make sense to him either. The spirits were ever a mystery. He couldn’t even begin to fathom their reasoning in allowing him to return here.
But then the one lesson he’d learned through all of this was the truth in the old saying—
man has responsibility, not power.
After all these years, he finally understood what that meant.
I will not fail them.
Or himself.
I am resolute.…
He lived his current life by conscious decision, not random chance. The spirits hadn’t chosen him for this task. He’d volunteered. With no more excuses to blind and impede him, he would make changes for the better.
This time, he would be motivated to excellence and not manipulated by evil. He would be useful and not used. Excel rather than compete. From this moment forward, he would trust his own inner wisdom and ignore the counsel and opinions of others. His worthless self-pity finally spent, he would endeavor to learn self-esteem.
To live the life of honor he should have had all along.
His gaze skimmed the deep cavern below where he’d once battled a powerful immortal for a year and a day. He still didn’t know how or where he’d found the strength for the fight. But then his adrenaline and years of a humiliating past that still stuck in the craw of his throat had kept him from feeling any pain. It had kept him from feeling any fatigue or injury. That unleashing of decades of caged fury had succored him better than mother’s milk.
If only he had that solace now. But with the fight done and the blood on his hands, he felt tired and sick. Disgusted. He wanted to blame someone else. Anyone else. Yet in the end, he couldn’t run from the one simple truth.
He, alone, had done this to himself. He’d made the decision and allowed his thoughts to be controlled by another.
Now it was time to make amends.
You’re not free, Makah’Alay. You will never be free of my service. And now I have you for
all
eternity.
“No, you don’t,”
he shot back in his mind loud enough for it to carry from this realm into the West Land where the Grizzly Spirit was imprisoned.
Hopefully for all time.
The Grizzly Spirit had owned Makah’Alay Omawaya.
“Makah’Alay Omawaya is dead.”
Killed by his own brother’s trickery. And that, too, had been justified.
Now he was reborn as Ren Waya—the treacherous wolf—and his soul was in the hands of an immortal from a faraway land.
Art-uh-miss. She had spun the magic that had brought him back into this realm. And he’d sworn himself to protect this world from her brother’s creatures, who preyed on the souls of mankind. The symmetry and irony of that wasn’t lost on him.
But then his people had always believed in cycles and circles—
Be kind to all, for you will meet each other again.
It was why his clan didn’t believe in ever saying good-bye. People were ever the same, but circumstances did change.
And Artemis owning his soul after all he’d done seemed right. Not to mention, it allowed him to watch over his own brother to make sure that Coyote didn’t scar the land even more than Ren had when he’d been its overseer.
Even so, he couldn’t deny that while the Grizzly Spirit was trapped in the West Land, that bastard still possessed a part of him that was forever corrupted.
A part he hoped was sealed as tight as the gate that held the Grizzly Spirit.
Yet deep inside with the powers Ren had cursed since the hour of his birth, he saw what was to come. Those gates would be weakened. And while he was strong, a man, even an undead one, only had so much strength within. Grandfather Time was ever marching forward and as he spiraled across the lands, he forever changed them.
His strong hands molded and shaped this earth.
Like Ren, he scarred it.
One day, Grandfather Time would come for him and demand an accounting for all he’d done.
For all he
hadn’t
done.
May the good spirits of the earth help them all when that day came. Change was never without dread and sacrifice. And while he knew his strengths, he also knew his weaknesses.
So did the Grizzly Spirit and his handmaiden Windseer. They had already claimed him once as their own.
When next they battled, Ren would fight with everything he had. But he knew it wouldn’t be enough.
They would have him again, and then …
Ren winced at his visions of the future and what awaited this hapless world that had no idea about the things men like him kept at bay.
It didn’t matter and it changed nothing. He would fight for good even harder than he’d fought for evil. If he won, all would be well. And if he lost …
Death wasn’t without its benefits.
CHAPTER 1
December 10, 2012
Las Vegas, Nevada
3:00
A.M
.
“The feathers are forming in the heavens and the Cold Moon is almost upon us. Soon Father Snake will open his eyes, and with them, the seven gates.”
Ren tilted his head down as he heard Choo Co La Tah’s deep proper British accent disturbing the solemn darkness where he sat, listening to the silence around him. Those feathers were the crown on the head of the Snake constellation that ruled their ancient calendar. When the feathers were in full plumage and the winter solstice aligned, the gates between this world and others would open. And into this world would spill all the evil that had been driven out by not only his people, but those from the other six continents as well.
Eleven days.
12/21/12. 11:11
A.M
. At that precise instant the heart of the universe would cross through the tree of life. The head, heart, and body would be aligned for the first time in centuries.
How perfect was that? If anyone had ever doubted the balance and cycles of the universe, that should be proof enough to convince them that while everything might seem random, it wasn’t. No one, except the Great Creator, could have timed this so perfectly.
Eleven days to the Reset.
Ren could hear the clock ticking. Every heartbeat brought them closer to the inevitable. Closer to all hell busting loose.
Be a good time to call in sick to work.
If only. But such luxuries belonged to humans, not to immortals such as he. For creatures like him, there was never a sick day or even a lazy one. Win, lose, or draw, they would fight to the bitterest end and take as many of their enemies with them as they could.
United we stand.
United we die.
And for an immortal, death was much scarier than it was for a human. When you died without a soul, it was utter agony for all eternity.
Hell had nothing on the existence that would become his should he fall.