Chapter 2
An hour before sunrise,Dagan reformed on the castle’s portico on their island estate just off Manhasset Bay on Long Island Sound. Not because he would poof when caught in sunlight, but because it was time to knock off frompatrolling.
He opened the giant wooden front door into the foyer. The recessed orbs highlighted the floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows on his right. As he headed for the grand staircase, Blaéz appeared at the top, his mate tucked to his side. At her flushed face, it didn’t take a genius to know where the warrior’s first stop had been on his return frompatrol.
Once from the Celtic pantheon and now a fellow Guardian, the warrior’s precognition was unequaled. Blaéz nodded at him. It was still a shock to see those cobalt blue eyes when they were once the color of glaciers after losing his soul while imprisoned in Tartarus. But finding his mate had changed allthat.
Darci smiled in greeting, her hazel eyes a startling contrast to her tan face. The rare times their paths crossed, she was friendly.Always.
He didn’t get that. Echo, Aethan’s mate, had avoided him like the plague when she first met him. Not this female. So he merely nodded and joggedup.
“Dag, wait,” Blaéz calledout.
He glancedback.
“Anything unusual occur tonight at ClubNocte?”
Dagan narrowed hiseyes.
“I don’t imagine I’ll get a straight answer.” A smirk rode Blaéz’s face—one Dagan didn’t care for. “But I’ll hazard a guess that tonight was different. Later.” The warrior strode off with his mate, his heavy boots thudding in the marble hallway like a deadlyomen.
A pair of wild, gray-gold eyes set in a pale face surrounded by wavy, coppery-red hair seeped into hismind.
Damn the Celt and his annoying mindgames!
That female wasnotan anomaly in his night’swork.
Jaw clenched, he strode for his quarters on the third floor, in the wing oppositeAethan’s.
There, in his dimly lit cavernous bedroom, Dagan shut himself away from the others—and the damnworld.
Undrawn, ebony drapes revealed the bank of windows opposite and the still dark sky. The wall sconces cast an obscure light over the circular turret living room, dimly illuminating the single couch and a flat-screen TV—one he never used, which for some reason Hedori, their butler, seemed to think he needed. The gloomy, silent quarters suited hismood.
He opened the door on the far side of the fireplace and entered the darkened room. The earthy smell of wood hung heavy in the austere space as he trampled across the wood shavings and sawdust to the small fridge near the window. Snagging a bottle of water, he gulped down half the contents, his gaze roaming theplace.
The room held nothing but a bench, a table with assorted tools, and a few blocks of wood. Several completed sculptures of varying sizes depicting animals and birds took up space on the floor. He didn’t bother with shelves since they all eventually becamefirewood.
Gulping down the last of the water, he tossed the empty bottle into the trash bin. Despite the thick walls and the fact he was three floors up, voices carried to him from the kitchen, along with femininelaughter.
Since their escape from Tartarus, he’d never joined the warriors at meal times. Didn’t see the point when he didn’t consumesolids.
Restlessness crawling through him, he changed into sweats and a t-shirt and swapped his boots for sneakers. He jogged down the narrow side stairs, cut through the rec room to the terrace, and took off in a hard run across the manicured gardens, past the lake, and into the dense evergreens edging the estate—the shadowy canopy of trees taking him back to another dark time…in Tartarus.Gray skies, sweltering heat and endless wastelands—impossible hunger shredding hisbelly…
Breathing hard, Dagan shut off the dark memories, no good would come fromremembering.
At the burn in his calf muscles, he slowed to a stop on the pebbled shores just off the north side of the soaring cliffs bordering the estate, and inhaled deep lungfuls of the cool, briny air. Minuscule waves fell in a gentle swish on the shore. Hedori’s sleek white sailboat moored farther down, bobbed on the calm waters near theboathouse.
As the night skies gave way to splashes of orange and pinks as dawn approached, a low disembodied voice reached him.Dagan?
Kaerys.
His lips flattened. He swiped the sweat from his face with the back of hisarm.
He’d called her several days ago, and she’d ignored him. He knew why, too. The last time he fed from her, she’d been all over him, but he’d stopped her, simply wanting to eat and get back on patrol. She’d beenfurious.
“You would deny me again, after all I’ve done—after I saved you?” she cried. “You broke our betrothal, yet I forgave you. I waited five centuries while you wereimprisoned...”
Kaerys always used the guilt card. Her cold-shouldering him wasn’t anything new either. Despite her being a minor goddess of chaos, vengeance would have been a more suited title. She could be callously vindictive when things didn’t go her way and took delight in making him pay. Tied to her as he was by his blood need, he didn’t have manychoices.
