Absolute Surrender (37 page)

Flames leapt from his eyes at her silence. His brow cocked up.

“Very well.” He pointed to the floor. The girl knelt. A blur of movement and blood seeped from the gash in her neck that stopped just short of her carotid. Several more slashes appeared on her chest, saturating her white sweater. “Shall I release her from my command and let her feel the full effect of my fun?”

***

Aethan’s eyes snapped open in the darkness. He stared at the familiar rough granite walls of the Catskill Mountains. Power, bleeding out of him, ricocheted against the walls, causing momentary bursts of light. His mind filled with uneasiness. Whatever it was had pulled him out his comatose Grounding for the first time in three thousand years. He scanned the surrounding area but picked up nothing. Then his heart jack-knifed. Only one person could do that to him. Echo.

While he fought the restraints of his Grounding, he tried to mind-link with Blaéz, but the buzzing static electricity hurt his head and wouldn’t allow him to connect. He tried Týr. Dagan. Nothing.

Urias
! He was trapped in a prison of his own powers, unable to get to his mate.

***

Echo glared at the bastard looking around the bar as if he was enjoying a relaxing afternoon and wanted nothing more than a frothy beer. He flipped back the dreads from his face with an impatient hand.

“Hmmn, let’s get another to join in, shall we?” Lazaar glanced around, his flaming gaze settling on Jon. “He’ll do.”

No
! Terror rushed through her as he seized hold of Jon’s hand across the table and stroked his pinkie. “Each time I call and you don’t respond, I will do something to them.”

The sound of a bone snapping filled the quiet place.

“Stop it!” She jumped to her feet. Jon sat there, not a flicker of a response from pain that must be excruciating.

“I’m glad you see this my way,” Lazaar said, standing.

Free will might keep her here, but she’d be damned if she let him hurt anyone else. She reached to the back waist of her jeans and palmed the obsidian dagger.

He laughed. “You think to do
what
with that little weapon?”

She flew at him, fury raging through her. He evaded her attack, swung around, and grabbed her wrist, his arm clamping around her waist. Echo inhaled sharply, gritting her teeth against the puke-inducing reek of sulfur and...coppery
vanilla
?

Her heart pounded with a fresh surge of adrenalin. This was the son-of-a-bitch who’d killed Tamsyn. She didn’t care how he changed his appearance, but his stench didn’t lie. Echo elbowed him in the ribs then head-butted him and, hearing a satisfying grunt, hoped she broke his fucking nose. His grip loosened a fraction. She wheeled around and drove her dagger into his chest.

Crap! She missed.

He snarled and flashed several feet away, sending furniture scattering about. She jumped over the fallen chair, anger charging through her, and attacked. His eyes changed, the brown became the eerie red of
demoniis.
He released the patrons from his hold and the bar came alive again, buzzing with noise and confusion.

Screams started. People got in her way as she hunted for him.

“Echo!” Like a squall, Aethan came rushing toward her. Her heart hammering, she spun around. He grabbed her. “Are you hurt?” The words were a hiss of power.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She pushed away from him, searching frantically for the fiend. “Lazaar, he’s here!”

“No, Echo. He’s gone.”

Before she could protest, a sudden hysterical scream of pain broke from the girl kneeling on the floor.

Don’t move.” Aethan left her and headed for the wounded girl as the ruckus in the bar grew. He crouched in front of her and laid his hand over the lacerations on her chest. Familiar healing light seeped out of his palm and the girl stared at him in a daze. The noise level changed when the other Guardians walked into the bar.

Týr took over from Aethan. The girl transferred her dazed attention to him. At least his beauty would keep her mind off her pain. Echo turned, searching the crowd for Jon. The agony in his blue eyes had her hurrying to his side.

“Oh Jon, I’m sorry,” she whispered. He held his hand against his chest, his pinkie sticking out at an odd angle.

“I broke my finger?” he asked in confusion, his voice thick with pain. Echo did the only thing she could. She held him, offering comfort, while she looked around for someone to heal him. Guilt and anger raged like a whirlpool in her, making it hard to answer.

“Echo?”

At the terse tone, she turned her head and met Aethan’s hard gaze. “Heal him,” she begged. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

“Then you should let him go.”

She stepped back from her friend and reached for the stones in her pocket, her fist clenching around them, but nothing could calm her.

Blaéz came over and nodded to Aethan. “I’ll see to him.”

She was responsible for all this. For pretending everything was normal in her life. By wanting to get away from her pain, she’d hurt others instead.

Aethan drew her aside.

“It’s my fault,” she whispered. “I was waiting for Kira, so we could leave. I didn’t expect any
demoniis
to be out here at this time of the day—” She broke off when she saw all of them were back in a trance-like state. Jon’s expression had glazed over again. “What? What is it now?”

“Dagan. He’ll hold them, while Blaéz and Týr do a mind sweep. We can’t let them retain their memories of this.”

She nodded. Knowing Jon and the girl wouldn’t have any memory of the horrible experience gave her a small measure of relief. Her eyes swept over the still figures of the customers.

“Kira? Where is she?’” Echo broke away from Aethan in panic and stumbled into Dagan. The dark warrior didn’t even look at her. He merely stepped back. She mumbled an apology and rushed past him into the passage leading to the staff bathrooms. Shoving open the door, she hurried inside and looked into each stall.

Nothing.

She dashed back into the corridor. Aethan grabbed her arm, stopping her. “Echo, slow down. Breathe. She’s all right.”

Meeting his steady gray eyes, she closed hers in gratitude. He’d know. She didn’t resist when he pulled her into his arms. The strength of his embrace steadied her. His earthy scent calmed her. But his hand caressing her back had desire flaring again.

She gritted her teeth and stepped back. “Where is she?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw at her retreat. “In a room farther along this corridor.”

She hurried to the locker room and found Kira humming an off-beat tune while she swapped her black work shoes for her fur-lined Uggs.

A smile lit her face. “Hey, I’m almost done here and we can leav—Hi, Aethan,” she said, looking over Echo’s shoulder. A wry smile curved her mouth. “Guess this means you’re not coming home with me.”

She grabbed Kira in a fierce hug. “Yeah. Something’s come up. I have to leave, but I’ll walk out with you.”

Echo watched the tail lights of Kira’s cab disappear. “I did this,” she said, standing on the busy roadside as the sheer horror of what had happened crashed over her, adrenalin finally flat-lining. “Go ahead tell me what a fool I am for insisting on having something that was never mine.”

“You’re not a fool for wanting normalcy or for caring, Echo. Just human.”

“And now I want to kill him so bad, make him hurt for what he did in there.”

“I know,
me’morae
, but he’s an old one. They’re much harder to kill. It will take time, but we will get him, make no mistake.” He dropped his hand to her lower back. “Come, let’s get out of here.”

“Aethan, wait.” She stepped in front of him and frowned as she looked him over. His shirt and jeans had dirt smears. His hair was freed of its tie and hung limp on his shoulders. The scent of earth clung to him as if he’d rolled in soil.

“Where were you?”

“Detained.” A nerve kicked up in his jaw.

Her chest tightened when she realized the truth. He went to Ground because of what happened between them this morning.

She pushed aside her troubled thoughts, took a deep breath, and continued. “This demon
,
he looks like the one from the subway, but he’s not the same. This one killed Tamsyn.”

“You sure?”

“It may have been five years ago but I can’t ever forget his stench. He smells like blood and ice-cream. The one from the subway smelled like honeysuckle and his eyes weren’t those of a
demonii
.”

“Echo, you can’t go after him.”

She already knew that, had it drilled into her in the worst possible way, and hated that she could never avenge her friend. Her gaze held his. “But you will, right? For Tamsyn?”

“Yes.” No hesitation.

She didn’t have to be the one to kill Lazaar. As long as the bastard died, that was all that mattered.

***

Echo made her way to the kitchen the following afternoon, after a restless night.

Now she was without a job or she soon would be. Tomorrow, she’d hand in her notice at the gym. She couldn’t put anyone else at risk and give that fiend, Lazaar, another way to use the people she cared about against her.

She exhaled a rough breath when she thought about Aethan. He’d been out all night on patrol. He didn’t come to bed. Her heart dipped at the reason why. The crushing weight in her chest came back when she thought about yesterday morning.

This was just so damn hard
!

Pushing open the door to the kitchen, she heard the sound of clattering dishes. Hedori had started on the evening meal. She wandered over to the island counter that separated the kitchen from the dining room and watched as the butler set aside lobsters in the prep area.

“Can I help? I’m not good at cooking and stuff, but I can clean, peel, and stir,” she said, eyeing the shellfish, hoping he wouldn’t ask her to...well, she had no idea what to do with
that
.

Hedori smiled. “No. I enjoy this. Not something I would have thought to do had I been in Empyrea. But I find human culinary arts to be quite relaxing.” He nodded his head to a small television where
The Food Network
was on.

Okay, that was far beyond her skills, she decided, watching the chef on the screen. Chopping stuff up that fast, she was surprised the man didn’t dice up his fingers along with the vegetables.

“My lady? I’ve been known to be a good listener to whatever troubles a soul.”

Echo met his understanding look. “I’m all right, Hedori.”

He nodded then set out the ingredients for a salad and began slicing up the carrots as fast as the chef did.

Týr sauntered in, winked at her, and dropped his jacket on a chair. He nabbed a carrot stick from Hedori’s stash and popped it in his mouth. Then he opened the fridge and took out a can of Red Bull. He came over to lean on the opposite side of the island counter, his dark eyes grave. “You okay after yesterday?”

She nodded. “I’m fine. I guess I just forgot a key factor: that there are
demoniis
who move about during the day when the weather’s gloomy.”

“Yesterday wasn’t dull or overcast, Echo. The bastard flashed into the bar. We found his point of entry. He’s desperate to get you. You cannot leave the safety of the castle. But there’s not much a
demonii
can do if he gets you now,” he said, smiling. “You’re mated. Your soul’s bound to Aethan’s, so—”

Echo’s mouth tightened.

He stared at her. Shock then understanding filled his face. Echo dropped her gaze to the beautifully diced vegetables, unable to take his pity.

“Damn, I’m sorry, Echo. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay,” she said, in no state to talk about the thing that pained her.

Hedori moved over to the prep area to work on the lobsters, probably to give them privacy. Týr cracked open the Red Bull, bringing her gaze back to him.