“Perhaps it would be better if you came back later?” the Oracle said.
“No.”
“Then you need to calm down, warrior.” She cut him a brief look before spreading out pearlescent stones with hints of lavender around Shadow.
“What are those?”
“To help remove the demon taint,” she explained, then asked, “Which Guardian are you? I met the others, except for Race and Nik.”
“The latter.”
She cast him another look, and a smile tugged at her mouth. “Ah, the antisocial one, I heard. I am Jaden.”
Nik frowned.Antisocial?
Because he didn’t eat dinner with the castle’s residents?
Hell, he took part in all the dares and bets in the rec room sports, even played a game or two of basketball. Nodded when the females greeted him…
No, he couldn’t blame anyone for thinking him aloof, not when it was the only way to keep them all safe from the vicious side of his darker self and the souls trapped within him.
Jaden flicked a hand, and an opaque bottle appeared on the dresser, along with three small vials and a receptacle he recognized containing the healing balms they used.
She crossed to the potions, then glasses clinked. Nik crouched next to Shadow and smoothed back her hair, guilt fisting his gut. This was his fault. He should have just dematerialized with her instead of arguing with her underground. Those demons he’d fought hadn’t been the local Otiums who lived on Earth for a quieter life, but the vicious assholes direct from the Dark Realm.
Anger raged faster. Nik jerked to his feet and stalked out. Because if he remained, he would have punched the walls. And he didn’t dare let his perilous powers slip.
Nik headed downstairs, then dematerialized to the eastern side of the estate, away from everyone, reforming on the beach. Moonlight reflected over the calm waters in a silvery shimmer.
Nik paced the length of the shore, pebbles, and shells crunching beneath his boots, the darkness compressing him tighter and tighter. The ghostly shadows were back and flickered in his peripheral view.
“Fuck off,” he growled. Damn formless shits, always on his ass—looking for a body to inhabit—as if he didn’t have enough crap in his life. He kicked a small boulder out of his path, and it flew into the suddenly churning seas. Waves rose and crashed onto the shores in a roar. The battering inside him grew, shafts of pain pierced his skull, and his tenuous control slipped. Power flew out in a deadly wave, icing everything around him—
Fuck, fuck, fuck!Nik grunted, clamping down on his mind-shields and shutting off his escaping powers. The waves had frozen in motion. Even the ghostly figures had taken on solid shape.
Hell, better his abilities escaping than the souls. It would be a death sentence for humanity, one that would cause inconceivable havoc on this world.
He’d witnessed an inkling of what could happen. A few days after he’d been spit out of Tartarus and into this realm, the demon blood moon, one only he could sense with his ties to Tartarus, had appeared. It had held him helpless in its grips as the malevolent souls tore free, leaving him writhing in agony, then the screams started…
Nik crawled to his feet, searching for the terrified cries. A tall, dark-haired angel appeared in a shower of silvery sparks. “Go get those souls back!”
What? “No-no. Don’t want them—”
“You have no choice,” the angel countered, his eerie splintered blue irises glowing in the dark. “Those souls will seek other humans when their current host dies and cause a supernatural carnage we cannot allow on the mortal realm. Onlyyoucan house them—”
The next second, he found himself stumbling into a small hamlet near the Tatra Mountains, in the middle of a bloody massacre. Snarls echoed. Cries of sheer agony swamped him.
Humans, possessed by the malevolent souls, slaughtered each other with machetes and knives—
Theós.Nik scrubbed his face as if it would wipe away the memories. Yeah, he’d killed the poor, doomed humans tainted by evil and absorbed the souls again. Since then, he’d never let his psychic shields collapse without being contained.
He couldn’t do anything about the past, and he sure as hell didn’t seek absolution for the innocent lives lost—he didn’t deserve it. But he would find the bastard abducting the women and children. No more innocents would perish on his watch.
The air near him shimmered, and the Arc took form. He glanced around the ice-encrusted shore and frozen waters. “Do you need to leave?”
Of course. Time for the abhorrent to be locked up. Again.
Nik rubbed his nape, so fucking tired of this damn curse. Even now, the malevolent souls pummeled him like nails, piercing his mind, his skull, his damn eyeballs in retaliation, looking for ways to escape.
