* * *
Dagan rematerializedin the village as dusk crept into the area. If he remained with Shae, chances were high that he’d end up taking her right where shestood.
His crude words had put distaste on her face. Better he showed her what abarbarianhe was, then maybeshewould stay away from him, because his resistance had all the strength of fraying cotton. If their paths hadn’t crossed, he could have lived his emptyexistence.
The warriors all lived dangerous lives. Why the hell would Gaia do this tothem?
When he’d first taken his oath to become a Guardian, she’d offered him an array ofdaggers.
Dagan had thought nothing of it, just picked one, and it had glowed. Hell, he’d been too steeped in a blood haze to care why. But a part of her words stayed with him:Your dagger is the embodiment of your one weakness…and something else,he couldn’trecall.
Now he knew. His weakness would be hisdownfall.
And Shaeis.
Damn, he scrubbed a hand over his unshaven jaw in frustration then texted Hedori.Send Shae’s thingsover.
A response came back instantly.Onit.
Dagan made his way into Club Samhain and dropped onto a barstool in the slowly filling bar. The bartender nodded and handed him his usual drink. Humans packed the place. Soon, the sounds of their heartbeats, the tempting rush of their blood flowing through their veins crowded hisears.
He drank deeply of his red wine, barely tasting the rich vintage, trying to shut off the sounds. His mind drifted back to his time inTartarus.
One minute, he’d been fighting off vampiric vultures; the next, a whirlwind of impossible power had sucked him up and tossed him out into darkness—into this world, in the forest of the Tatra Mountains in Eastern Europe…and the horror that followed. Michael had finally found him after another bloody rampage, lying amidst the dead bodies andcarnage…
“We will find a way out of this.”A dark-haired male—no, an angel—squatted beside him, his shattered irises glowing an eerie silveryblue.
“No,” Dagan rasped, his voice rusty from lack of use. “End this—end me. I cannot live likethis.”
With a wave of his hand, the angel incinerated the bodies instead. Then he went motionless, eyes narrowing. “Trouble.”
The coppery scent of sweet nectar drifted to Dagan. The thirst, which never eased, stirred viciously again. His guilt forgotten, his fangs descended. He leaped up and took off like an arrow. The angel thundered afterhim.
Dagan faltered to a halt near a settlement, and froze at the massacre takingplace.
Hysterical screams drenched the night air, along with guttural laughter. Human bodies were strewn on the blood-splattered ground. Except,hewasn’t responsible this time.Demoniis.
The angel dove into the melee. It barely registered that a few males in tattered clothes were already fighting evil. A demonii spun around, his eyes glowing like neon red orbs in the dark. “More food—immortal,too.”
He grabbed Dagan, his blood-soaked mouth snapping open and revealing an orifice of stained teeth and fangs. Dagan punched the evil in the face and clamped his mouth onto the demonii’s neck, his canines tearing through flesh and sinew. He gulped the thick plasma spilling free, and drank and drank. When the demonii stopped fighting and disintegrated into dust, he went afteranother...
His bloated stomach roiled. Bile rushed up his throat. Dagan stumbled through the forest, collapsing near a running stream. On his knees, he regurgitated all he’d drunk.Blackblood.
He lowered his head to the flowing river and gulped water like ananimal.
Vaguely, he recalled, demoniis were essentially dead, living off stolen human souls and blood. Then everything stilled, even the veryair.
Dagan glanced to his side at the tall female standing on the riverbank. He blinked. Somewhere in the back of his mind, it registered that she had hair like the sun, skin darker than his, and eyes the color of leaves. But it was the intricate green patterns running from her eyebrow down to her cheeks that held his attention…they looked like crawling greenserpents.
She stared at him for a long moment before she spoke. “Arise, fallen warrior from the godlyrealm.”
There was a command behind those words, pushing through his dizzy mind. Dagan staggered to his feet as if he were inebriated. The angel with the broken eyes appeared at hisside.
“I am Gaia. You’ve confronted the evil that has taken to pillaging my realm and, in your almost mortal state, you have vanquished them.” Those glowing green eyes held his. “Become the realm’s Guardian, and I will give you purpose. You will regain all powers. In time, you will find what youseek…”
Dagan stared at the wine warming between his palms. Sure, he’d regained his abilities and found a way to resist humans, but now he had to rely on Kaerys’generosityto feed and recharge. He drained hisliquor.
At the itch bearing down his back, he looked up. A young, tattooed human seated across the counter cast him a sultrystare.
