Michael lowered to his haunches, arms braced on his heavily muscled, leather-clad thighs, staring out at the frozen sea. His expression harsh, as if he carried a great weight. “I regret that you were all trapped in Tartarus—”
“No need to bear our guilt. My responsibility, my fault. As protectors,wepossessed the ultimate powers to safeguard the Goddess of Life. We failed. You weren’t a part of that.”
Michael lifted his head, those shattered blues burning holes in him. “You’re too close to the edge.”
Nik shrugged. Being with Shadow wasn’t making it easy, but he didn’t dare leave her alone. Years ago, he’d done so with another, and she now lay six feet under. “I can hold on for a while longer.”
“No.”
“The damn blood moon hasn’t appeared,” Nik snapped, his tenuous hold on his mind shields shuddering. “Why do you even want me around when you know how dangerous I am? I couldn’t die permanently in Tartarus, butyoucould have ended itthatnight, millennia ago, when you found out the truth. You didn’t. It won’t be a few people who will die this time, Arc. I’ll infect this city—theentirerealm with the evil I house! After we destroy this fucking trafficking ring, I want out.”
“No—”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“Dammit.” Michael dug his fingers into his temples as if wanting to gouge out his brain. “You’ve endured for millennia, just hold on for a while longer. You will find your peace—”
“I’m not interested in absolution.”
“The others found their mates in the last year and a half.” The Arc seemed determined to drive his damn point home. “You will, too.”
He wasn’t fit to be a mate to anyone.
Nik picked up a flat stone disc and hurled the thing. It bounced over the frozen sea. “You would sentence an innocent to her death, so I’ll be happy? No.”
“Hell,” Michael growled, glaring skyward. “Just when I thought the most intractable of you all were mated, I find another hardhead, and you don’t even want a mate.” He rose to his feet. “Only you can make this work, Nik. No one can walk destiny’s path for you.”
“How can I contemplate a mate with the shit that’s in me?” he demanded, even as thoughts of Shadow crept into his mind. “I never left Tartarus behind. It still lives inside me. It’s always going to be inside me, ripping at me. There is no fucking peace inside here—” He stabbed a finger to his skull.“None!”
Breathing hard, Nik glared back at the ice-covered sea, struggling for calm. No need for Michael to know the paralyzing truth of his imprisonment. The unseen torturers who’d brutalized him, just because they could.
His fury dissipating, he let a sliver of power escape him. The ice melted, and the sea reverted to it smooth, undulating motion once more.
“You brought Shadow back to the castle?” Michael asked after a minute of silence.
“Yeah.” Nik picked up another stone and flung it, and it skipped across the undulating waters. “We got trapped by a horde of demons underground sent directly from the Dark Realm. I dealt with them, but one marked her.”
His teeth ground down, remembering the wound on her chest and the node the bastard had tried to dig out.
Michael nodded. “She’ll be safe here. I’ll have Aethan and Blaéz check out the underground. Give them the coordinates of the place. Anything on the trafficking?”
“No, nothing yet.”
“It makes it damn hard with these demon abductors always one step ahead of us,” Michael muttered. Then those laser-sharp eyes pinned him. “Get yourself back to Romania. I’ll have one of the other unmated Guardians keep an eye on Shadow while we deal with this problem.”
“Race,” he said coldly.
“No. Another. You haven’t met him yet. He’ll get here fast enough so you can leave.”
Damn fucking angel. “Don’t,” Nik snapped, a surge of power shooting out, sending the waves crashing again. “I know what you’re doing.”
Michael arched a brow at the turbulent waters then back at him. “Shadow isn’t your responsibility—”
“I’m what she needs.”
“Then let me lay this out upfront.” The archangel’s hard stare allowed no argument. “Considering your territorial stance over her, make sure this is what you want. You cannot keep her without claiming her, mate, or not. And if she is your mate, and you go through with this, be prepared for the Absolute Laws. She is mortal.”
Fuck, he couldn’t think beyond the rampaging darkness inside him, save holding onto his sanity. And the Arc would shovel out more shit for him to wade through. Right then, every fucking thing irritated him.
