Nik studied her pale, delicate features. Faint purplish circles shadowed her eyes as if she didn’t sleep, then he frowned at the fading yellow bruise marring her cheekbone. Someone would dare harm a fragile woman?
You failed one.
Right. His mouth thinned.
Just as well this female was Týr’s and Kira’s responsibility.
He only fucked up things.
Nik headed for the door, clenching and unclenching his fingers, the sensation of her warmth lingering on his skin. He glanced back at Kira. “What’s her name?”
“Shadow.”
“No, her true name.”
“I don’t know…” Kira scrunched her brow. “If she has one, she’s never said.”
Nik nodded and walked out.
There was something—hell, so many things about her puzzling him.
No mortal or immortal had ever affected him, because nothing penetrated the innate coldness inside him. Yet, she’d dragged him over by her scent alone. But she was human, and yet she didn’t feel like one…but something more.
He didn’t like paradoxes.
No matter, he’d find out the truth soon enough.
Chapter 2
Five months later…
Summer heat rosefrom the backstreet in lower Manhattan. The stench of piss and garbage stung Nik’s sensitive nose, the downside of patrolling the alleys.
He hunkered down near the grimy wall of a brick building, arms braced on his leather-clad thighs, and bolted his mind shields against the growing ruckus of the dark souls inside him. His thoughts back on the dark-haired female, Shadow.
It had been several months and still no sign of her after she’d left the castle the very next day. Hedori had said he’d driven her to the Lower East Side, where she asked to be dropped off near a Starbucks—which didn’t help much.
He’d searched the alleys, since it was where she’d been shot, and nothing. Hell, he should just forget her—but she’d caused a chink in his armor, drawn him, and he needed to understand why.
The space near him shimmered. At the familiar brush on his psyche, yup, his days of solitude had ended.
Dagan, his fellow warrior and friend, took form a short distance away.
The Sumerian strolled over, his warrior braids flowing down his back like black whips. Yellow eyes skimmed him. “Haven’t seen you around recently.” He crouched next to Nik. “You okay?”
“Are we ever?” Nik asked, watching a homeless man wandering along the opposite side, looking for a place to bunk down.
Dagan exhaled roughly. “None of us came out of that hellhole unscathed, so I get you. You need me, I’m here.”
Nik caught his tongue piercing with his teeth and remained silent.
“Is it the souls?”
Damn. He rubbed his inked biceps at the Sumerian’s persistence. “Let it go, Dag.”
Sure, they all had their own demons to live with. But admit to his friend he was teetering the edge again—a walking threat they let around their precious mates? Yeah, no. “I’m good.”
“Tartarus altered us all in one way or another.” Dagan’s mouth thinned briefly, revealing the tips of his fangs, his own changes, courtesy of the Creator-forsaken place. “I more than anyone know this.”
