“We aren’t sure yet. Dagan’s on it.”
She nodded then motioned toward the corridor with her hand. He followed. She turned to him, her mismatched gaze uneasy, but a dull flush rode her cheeks. “I’m sorry I told Darci about you that day—she looked so devastated, I just wanted to help.”
Blaéz shook his head. That was the least of his problems. “It’s all right, the fault’s mine. I should have told her—” He broke off at the sounds of heavy boot steps echoing in the corridor. Aethan appeared seconds later, his gaze fixed on his mate.
“You’re up and you didn’t call me?” Grasping her shoulders, he examined her. Echo might be immortal now, but she still took too long to recover after a healing. Aethan brushed the shallow dimple on her chin in a tender gesture. “You okay?”
She rolled her eyes. “After nearly four days of sleeping? I’m more than fine. Before you blow a gasket,Icalled Lore so I could keep busy until you got back.”
Aethan sighed, pressing his lips to her brow. “Echo, don’t push it, we have eternity,me’morae.”
She slid her arms around his waist. “I know.”
Soft, distant footsteps caught Blaéz’s acute hearing. He moved toward it with preternatural speed. And stopped dead. Everything that was right in his life appeared down the corridor. Darci walked toward him wearing a navy skirt and a pale yellow strappy top over her black swimsuit. He’d never seen anything sexier or more beautiful.
She glanced up. Her steps faltered when she saw him, then she smiled, warming the barrenness inside him. He closed the distance between them and ran his hands down her bare arms in a slow caress, breathing through the tightening in his chest that touching her brought, and tenderness filled him.
“I didn’t expect you back so quick,” she said, her gaze searching his. “Blaéz, we have to talk.” She grasped his hand and tried to tug him with her.
“In a minute.” He pulled her back and took her mouth in a desperate kiss, wanting to forget his shocking discovery. She shifted in his arms and pressed closer…
“Celt?”
At the sound of Aethan’s voice, Darci hastily pulled back, a blush darkening her cheeks. Blaéz growled. “Dammit, Aethan, whatever it is, can’t it wait?”
“Not this. Don’t you feel it?” Aethan stopped beside him and seemed to be concentrating on something. Echo stood at his side, rubbing her arms as if she sensed it, too.
“What is it?” Darci asked.
“I’m not sure.” Eyes narrowed, Blaéz scanned on the psychic plane as he stroked her back. An icy malevolence slithered across his psyche. “What is it with those fuckers attacking us here again?”
Several months ago, when Echo had first come to the castle, demons had come chasing after her. What the hell where they after now?
* * *
Darci glanced around, she could see nothing, yet the hard-eyed expression both men wore worried her. “Blaéz, what’s going on?”
He didn’t answer but stepped away from her. As the air around him shifted, his gaze met hers. The tattoo on his biceps shimmered and slid down his arm to manifest into a six-foot-long sword.
Darci hastily stepped back, knocking into an armored statue behind her. Wide-eyed, she watched in wary fascination as the symbols tattooed on Blaéz’s skin disappeared to merge into the hilt and the black blade of the sword. “It’s real.”
His gorgeous features realigned into a cold and dangerous one. “Yes. And Darci, no matter what happens out there, don’t step outside.”
That didn’t sound good, but she nodded.
Blaéz grasped her chin, kissed her hard then dematerialized along with Aethan, who possessed exactly the same kind of sword. Turning to Echo, still in shock, she repeated, “That sword is real?” Blaéz had never explained what it actually was.
“It’s a gift from Gaia.”
Darci’s mouth fell open. “What? As in Mother Nature?”
Echo laughed wryly. “You’re handling it much better than I did, but yeah. Come on.” She grabbed Darci by the hand and hauled her down the corridor.
“Why did Gaia do that?” Darci huffed, trying to keep up. She seriously needed to up her sporadic bouts of jogging.
“When they—the warriors—were freed from Tartarus, they landed on this realm. Banned from the pantheons, they had nowhere else to go. So Gaia recruited them as her Guardians, and in exchange for their allegiance, she gifted them with those mystical swords. It’s her way of always making sure they’re armed in the never-ending fight against supernatural evil. Of course, evil is more focused now on what it wants, mostly to end the Guardians, so they can have free rein and take over earth—” Echo pushed open the library door and hurried for the French windows. The faint sounds of grunts and clashing swords reached Darci.
“Oh, hell,” Echo muttered.
