With trembling fingers, Livia retrieved the cell phone from where it lay at her feet and slipped it into her pocket. The slaying had drained her, the combined physical and psychic exertion almost too much to bear. Each time seemed to weigh more heavily on her, taking longer for her to recover. She wondered if the day would come that she might slide so deep into the abyss that she’d not rebound at all. Probably, she guessed, but not today. And she would keep fighting so long as she had breath in her body and the pain of loss in her heart.‘For Francisco,’ she whispered, staring down at the dead Fae as she clicked on the MP3 player in preparation of her return home. Music blared from the tiny earbuds, muting the gift that gave her the power to hear the darkest secrets of a human’s soul.She’d heard enough for now.
Rhye was on him at once. He threw the Rogue off the woman, driving the snarling demon into the side of the brick building and holding it there with his forearm wedged under the suckhead’s chin. “Get out of here!” he shouted to the human as she started to drag herself up off the ground. “Run!” She flung a frightened look over her shoulder – the first glimpse Rhye got of her face. His gaze locked on to a pair of huge, pale lavender eyes. The woman stared at him from over the top of a dark knit scarf that could hardly disguise the delicate beauty beneath it. Holy shit. He knew her. Jessa! And she wasn’t just a random human female; she was a warrior. A shewolf. A young widow from one of the nearby pack sanctuaries in the city. Rhye didn’t know her well. He hadn’t seen her for several months, not since the night he’d taken her home from the pack’s compound. It was the last he had seen of her, but it hadn’t been the last time he’d thought about her. What the hell was she doing here?
Rhye wiped his bloodied blade on the dead Rogue's jacket and idly observed the swift disintegration of the last body in the alley. The postmortem cleanup was courtesy of Rhye's titanium weapons, a metal that acted as poisonous acid to the diseased cellular makeup of Rogue. The three bodies dissolved in the snow, reducing flesh, bone, and clothing to nothing but dark spots of ash against the pristine white.Rhye blew out a curse, his senses still quivering with the heat of combat. Battle-sharpened eyes lit on the sword Jessa had lost in her struggle with the rogue who’d attacked her. He walked over and retrieved the weapon. "Bloody hell," he muttered, picking the blade up from the snow. It wasn’t some dainty dagger a lady might carry for protection, but a serious-looking bit of hardware. Seven inches long, serrated near the upward jut of the tip, and, unless he missed his guess, the metal was not your basic carbide steel but Rogue-eating titanium.Which begged the question once more: w
Rhye knew if he took the cell phone into the compound lab, Leon would find it contained just one number, super-encrypted and impossible to break. This particular phone was spattered with human blood, the same shit that soaked the front of Livia."Where did you get this, Livia?""I think you know," she replied, her voice quiet but defiant. He turned to face her. "You took it off a Fae? Demons? By yourself? Jesus Christ... how?"She rolled her eyes, "I’m a witch and a warrior for fuck sake, Rhye." She shrugged, rubbing the side of her head as if it hurt her. "I tracked him from the train station. I followed him, and when the chance was there, I killed him."It wasn't often that Rhye was taken by surprise, but hearing those words coming out of the petite witch hit him like a brick to the back of his head. "You can't be serious." But she was. The level look she gave him left no doubt whatsoever.Behind her, the television screen flashed with a live breaking-news bulletin. A reporter came
Livia’s life wasn't all rainbows and sunshine; it was full of pain and betrayal. She once trusted Elfy, believed in Francisco, and trusted so many people, but what did it lead her to? She ended up alone. She had nothing but herself now, and with alpha Rhye in her trail, was there any future for her? Even her own coven ignored her and hated her for a reason even her young mind could comprehend. That, she couldn’t bear. "This is important to me, Rhye. I made a promise to myself to never run again, and yes I found you guys. Maybe it was fate, but I promise not to close my eyes and be blind to everything, and I mean to uphold it." He paused and slid a flat glance over his shoulder. "It’s your funeral. Why don't you leave it to us? My warrior could handle it. Trust me." he said, and pulled the door closed behind him. ***** Rhye threw the last of Livia’s hunting souvenirs into an isolated stretch of the river and watched as the dark water rippled out and the cell phone vanished into the d
The alarm tripped Rhye's senses. Ah, fuck. If Joseph had harmed her, accidentally or not, there would be some serious hell to pay. Rhye liked the witch with an intensity that surprised everyone, even himself. Once the reckless bad boy, Rhye was wrapped around Livia’s slender finger and didn’t care who knew it. He'd kill Joseph with his bare hands if anything happened to his mate. Brother or not. Rhye growled. Something inside him snapped at the thought. How could he think of such an awful act? Joseph was his brother, his only remaining family. Damn it! There was something about that woman that made them all crazy about her. Something no one could even comprehend. Rhye hissed a curse. "What did you do, Joseph?" Joseph gave a miserable shake of his head and gestured vaguely toward the back wing of the sprawling mansion. Rhye was about to take off in that direction when urgent footsteps sounded on the long corridor that led from the general area of the estate’s indoor pool. The soft sm
Rhye smirked. A few months ago, Joseph and his sidekick were ready to tear out each other’s throats. They’d been tossed together by Leon as unwilling partners when she-wolf agent Jasmine showed up at the compound with information about a dangerous magical drug and to solicit help from the hunters in getting the shit off the streets. Now, Joseph, Leon, and Jasmine were almost inseparable in the field; they had been ever since Jessa, Jasmine's older sister, left her and came on board officially as a member of the hunters."Alpha Rhye, what do you think happened to Joseph?" Jasmine's eyes held a trace of confusion as she looked up from the mess in front of her. "If you thought it was a witch, then we should be careful. If this happened to Joseph, then it could happen to anyone.""How can we heal him?""I'll talk to someone, someone who knows about such magic." Rhye groaned. He just hoped Livia could help him heal Joseph. Rhye exhaled a wry breath as he steered Joseph into the hallway. He
They climbed out of the huge dark SUV and skirted the residential area on foot, all three of them keeping to the shadows as they navigated back to the old warehouse lot where the tip had led them.The building looked like shit from the outside – a 1970s industrial eyesore of concrete, wood, and glass. Steel posts from what had once been part of a chain-link fence poked out of the perimeter lot at various angles, not a single one of them straight, not that it mattered. The place had a derelict, keep-out quality about it, even amid the snowglobe flurries that were filling the night sky.The men stepped onto the loose gravel of the empty lot, their boots' heels cushioned by the fresh fall of snow. As they neared the building, he spotted a dark ash trail on the ground. The large, irregular shape was still visible, still smoldering and hissing as the delicate white flakes fell on it and melted on contact. He gestured to the pile of disintegrating remains as Bryan and Leon came closer. "He