The Blood Gospel (22 page)

Behind Nate’s shoulder, shadows shifted to reveal a pair of red eyes, shining with bloodlust.

The night’s hunt was not yet over.

She cast her will to her bond mate, a desire summarized by one word.

Fetch
.

October 26, 8:37
P.M
., IST

Desert beyond Masada, Israel

Jordan scanned the sand and rocks one more time, seeking a place to hide, but there was no true cover, especially from the air.

Overhead, the chopper closed in, its blades cutting through the night. He studied it, recognizing the sleek silver nose and smooth lines. He’d only seen pictures of the EC145 online, advertised as the most luxurious helicopter that eight million dollars could buy. It was basically a Mercedes-Benz with rotors.

Whoever was backing Korza had money.

The priest moved to the side to meet the helicopter.

If Jordan remembered correctly, the aircraft could seat up to eight, including a pilot and a copilot. So he faced a potential of eight opponents with no defensible ground. Recognizing that hard truth, he holstered his pistol. He couldn’t fight and win, so he’d have to hope Korza wasn’t lying and they wouldn’t be harmed.

He turned to Erin. “Can you stand?” he asked quietly. He wanted her on her feet in case they had to move fast.

“I can try.”

When she stood, she winced and shifted her weight to her right leg. A wet patch of blood darkened the left leg of her pants.

“What happened?” he asked, kicking himself for failing to note her injury earlier.

She glanced down, looking as surprised as he was. “The wolf. Scratched me. It’s nothing.”

“Let me see.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m not about to take my pants off here.”

He freed his dagger from its ankle sheath. “I can cut your pant leg just above the wound. It’ll ruin your pants, but not your dignity.”

He smiled.

She returned the smile as she sat back down on the boulder. “That sounds like a better plan.”

Jordan sliced through the seams with his dagger, careful to keep the blade away from the soft skin underneath. He tore the fabric, then threaded the pant leg down over her sneaker. It was an intimate gesture. He focused on getting it off without hurting her, and keeping his hands from lingering on her bare leg, which looked fantastic in the moonlight. Not that he noticed.

He turned his attention to her injury. The wound ran down her thigh—not deep but long. He stared suspiciously at it and called over to Korza, yelling to be heard as the helicopter reached them.

“Padre! Erin got scratched by that grimwolf. Anything we need to know about that kind of wound?”

The priest glanced at Erin’s bare leg, then back out at the desert, clearly uncomfortable. It was the most priestlike thing Jordan had seen him do in a while. “Clean it properly, and you need have no concerns.”

Erin wiped at her thigh with the scrap of her pant leg.

Before he had time to dig out his first-aid kit, the sleek helicopter landed. Rotor wash pushed sheets of sand in their faces. Jordan cupped his hand over the wound on Erin’s leg to protect it.

Crouched at her side, he stared back over his shoulder.

Three figures, all dressed in black, jumped out of the chopper’s cabin, exiting before the skids had even settled to the ground. Hoods obscured their faces, and they moved impossibly fast, like Korza did in battle. Jordan wanted to run, but he forced himself to stand still when they swept up and surrounded them.

The trio conversed with Korza, whispering in a language that sounded like Latin. Jordan noted the Roman collars of the priesthood.

More Sanguinists.

Erin stood up, and Jordan stood by her.

One of the priests came forward. Cold hands slid across Jordan’s body, taking away his guns. The man didn’t notice Jordan’s knife, or he didn’t care. Either way, Jordan felt grateful that he left it.

Another figure retreated a few paces into the desert with Korza.

The third crossed to the grimwolf’s body. He splashed liquid across the dead bulk, as if baptizing the beast in death. But it was not holy water. A match flared, got tossed, and the body ignited in a huge swirl of flames.

The smell of charred fur smoked out across the dark sands.

The first priest stayed to guard Jordan and Erin. Not that she seemed capable of putting up much of a fight. The spunk seemed to have drained right out of her. Her shoulders sagged, and she swayed on her good leg. Jordan moved toward her, but the guard raised a palm in warning. Jordan ignored the silent command and slid an arm around Erin.

Out in the desert, Korza and his companion argued fiercely, likely about the fate of the two surviving humans. Jordan kept a close watch on that outcome. Would they abandon Erin and him here in the middle of nowhere, or worse yet, send them to the same fiery end as the grimwolf?

Whatever their specific words, Korza seemed to win the argument.

Jordan didn’t know if that was good or bad.

As if sensing Jordan’s attention, Korza turned and locked gazes with him. He pointed to the helicopter and gestured for him and Erin to board.

Jordan still didn’t know if that was good or bad. He knew the skill with which military black-ops teams could make a man disappear. Were he and Erin about to suffer the same fate?

He ran over various scenarios in his head and figured their best chance of surviving lay in getting into that helicopter. He’d fight if he had to, but this battle wasn’t one he could win.

Yet.

He helped Erin limp toward the open cabin door, the two ducking under the swirling blades.

He waited for the others to board, gave one last look toward the open desert, and weighed the option of running. But Erin had only one good leg.

Korza remained at his shoulder, as if silently reminding him of the impossibility of escape. He had retrieved Jordan’s jacket from the sand and handed it to him. That simple gesture went a long way toward making Jordan feel less anxious.

“After you,” the priest said politely.

Jordan draped his coat around Erin’s shoulders and helped her into the chopper. She paused, crouched in the hatch.

The inside of the helicopter’s cabin was as opulent as he expected. Soothing blue light fell on polished dark wood. The smell of expensive leather filled his nostrils. Smooth lines shouted luxury. It was far from the utilitarian crafts he usually flew in. He wished he were in one of them now.

“There are only two open seats left,” she said.

Jordan peeked around and saw she was right. “So, Korza, which one of us is riding in cargo?”

“I apologize. They had expected to retrieve only me, and perhaps the boy. It will be tight quarters, but the flight is not long.”

Erin glanced back, looking to Jordan for guidance.

“We can double-buckle,” Jordan said, and pointed to one of the large luxurious seats in back.

She nodded, squeezed past the others’ knees, and took the seat, scooting over to make room for him.

He followed her and pulled the harness out to its farthest length before he squeezed next to her. “My mom had a lot of kids,” he explained, snapping them in together. “She used to buckle two of us in with the same seat belt. Didn’t yours?”

Her voice was dull with shock. “My mother wasn’t allowed to drive a car. None of the women were.”

He remembered her earlier statement.
I saw the Church used as a tool of the powerful against the weak
. For now, he filed that all away to ask about later.

Korza climbed in last. The priest was smaller than Jordan, and it would have been less snug if he’d buckled Erin in with Korza, but Jordan sure as hell wasn’t going to let that happen.

The priest took the last open seat, directly across from theirs. Hidden within a hooded cassock, Korza’s neighbor leaned to whisper in his ear. Jordan didn’t understand the words, but he could tell the speaker was a woman. That surprised him. Was she human? Or did the Church recruit female
strigoi
to the fold of the Sanguinists?

After that, no one spoke.

The others sat still as statues, which Jordan found more disturbing than if they had been racing at double speed.

As the helicopter roared and rose from the desert in a flurry of sand, he tried to think about anything besides Erin’s warm body tucked against his. At first, she had struggled to keep as much space between them as possible, but she soon gave up on that, trapped together by the harness. As the helicopter droned onward through the night, she eventually relaxed into sleep, too exhausted to resist.

Her head came to rest against his shoulder, and he shifted to the side so that it wouldn’t fall forward. It had been far too long since a beautiful woman had fallen asleep on him. Her blond hair had escaped its rubber band and spilled to her shoulders. This close, he noted the lighter strands woven through the richer honey, likely bleached white by her time digging under the sun.

He wanted to trace a finger along one of those strands, as if following a thread in a larger tapestry, trying to understand the warp and weft that made up this woman at his side. Erin had been through a lot in the past few hours. He intended to get her out of this mess and home safely. He had to. He’d failed everyone else under his command.

Better shut down that alley.

Instead, he turned his attention to the wound on her tanned thigh. Though it was not deep, the puckered edges were a nasty red and dusted with sand. Moving slowly so as not to wake her, he pulled out his tiny first-aid kit.

Freeing an antiseptic wipe, he gently cleaned the wound, keeping his touch soft, moving slowly. Still, she moaned in her sleep.

Every Sanguinist looked in her direction.

With a chill, Jordan moved his free hand toward his dagger and rested his palm there.

“Do not fear us,” Korza whispered, his face hidden again inside his hood. “You are quite safe.”

Jordan didn’t bother to answer.

And he didn’t move his hand.

9:02
P.M
.

Erin’s head jolted forward, snapping her awake. Deafened by the roar of the helicopter, she found herself looking into an amazing pair of eyes, light blue with a darker ring around the edge of the iris. The eyes smiled at her. She smiled back before she realized that they belonged to Jordan.

She had fallen asleep on his shoulder and woken up smiling at him.

A married man.

In a helicopter full of priests.

With her face burning, she straightened in her seat and shifted in the harness to create an inch of space between them. She could almost hear her mother’s disappointed sigh and feel the back of her father’s hand.

She turned to the window, the only safe place to look while her cheeks lost their embarrassed blush. Beyond the window, the lights of a city blazed ahead, drowning out the stars. A golden dome shone brightly amid the urban sprawl.

“Looks like we’re coming into Jerusalem,” she said.

“How can you tell?” he asked, probably trying to rescue her from her embarrassment.

She accepted his offer. “That dark mountain to the east is the Mount of Olives. An important historical site to all three major religions: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. And it’s said that’s where Jesus supposedly ascended to Heaven.”

A few of the Sanguinists stirred at the word
supposedly
, clearly offended, but she kept going.

“The Book of Zechariah says that during the Apocalypse it will split in two.”

“Great, let’s hope that doesn’t happen anytime soon. I’ve had enough mountains splitting in two for one day.” Jordan pointed toward that glowing golden dome she’d noted earlier. “What’s that one?”

“That’s the Dome of the Rock. It sits atop the Temple Mount.” She shifted to give Jordan a better view out the window. “Around it you can see the wall of the Old City. It’s like a ribbon of light, see? To the north is the Muslim quarter. South and west is the Jewish quarter with the famous Western Wall.”

“The Wailing Wall?”

“That’s right.”

He leaned forward, and his body slid along hers.

She glanced across at the priests, their expressions invisible behind their hoods. Except for Rhun, whose face reflected the city’s shine as the helicopter banked into a turn. His impassive dark eyes watched her.

A blush rose again on her face, and she turned back to the view. What must Rhun think of her? What must he think of the view? She tried to picture the sight through the prism of eyes that had been open for centuries. Had Rhun been on the Temple Mount when Mahmud II restored it in 1817? She shivered at the thought—fearful, but also with a touch of awe.

“Are you cold?” Jordan reached over and adjusted his jacket across her other shoulder.

“I’m f-fine,” she stuttered breathlessly. She was actually too warm. Her proximity to Jordan did unpredictable things to her body temperature. For the past decade, she had kept too busy to allow herself to be attracted to a man. It was just her luck that she was now strapped to one who was both damnably attractive—and married.