The Guardian (12 page)

A part of him wished that Solin would fail. If he didn’t return with the key, Seth could keep her.

But for how long? Sooner or later, Noir or Azura would find her here and when they did …

He couldn’t even think about what they’d do to her for being here, and to him for concealing her presence

from them.

No, Lydia would have to go home. And his life would go on as it ever had. He winced as he accidental y

brushed his tongue over his damaged bottom lip.

Nothing ever changed. He’d had his one shot at freedom and look what had happened.

Stil …

Heartsick, he got up and went to the bed so that he could stare down at her angelic features. Before he

could stop himself, he leaned over and placed his cheek against hers. The softness of her flesh made him

hard and aching for something he knew he could never have. He inhaled her exquisite scent, treasuring it

above al .

“My name is Seth,” he whispered in her ear, knowing she couldn’t hear him. Even so, he wanted her to

know.

He’d kil to hear her say it.

Just once.

Breathing her in, he placed a kiss to her cheek, then pul ed back.

He final y understood why Solin was wil ing to die for her. It now made total sense now. Beauty and spirit

like hers should be cherished and protected. And he hoped that nothing ever tarnished their loyalty to each

other. That would be the greatest tragedy of al .

I won’t spoil her for you, Solin.
No one deserved to know that pain.

Seth returned to his desk and turned the music off. He didn’t want to see or hear anything else he couldn’t

have. There was no need in torturing himself when he had so many others wil ing to do it for him.

* * *

Solin looked around at the faces of the men and women who’d once been his bitterest enemies. Now they

were joined together to fight a common enemy, again.

They’d done it one time before, when his brother Arik had been under attack. But that was years ago and

now the consequences were even higher.

His clutched his hand around his iPhone, grateful Lydia had written to him. But there was no way he would

leave her there.

Not with that animal.

However, getting into Azmodea was proving extremely tricky. They had an emergency cal in to the

Hel chaser overlord, Thorn. If anyone could sneak them in under Noir’s nose, it was the entity who shared

that realm with him.

While Thorn wasn’t the most reliable or kindest of creatures, he did hate Noir as much as they did.

Solin had no doubt that Thorn would help and back them.

Hang on, baby. The cavalry’s coming.

And his first order of business was to pin the Guardian’s testicles to Noir’s forehead.

Lydia woke up with the strangest sensation. Never in her life had she not dreamt. But not a single dream

had come to her last night. When the Guardian had said he’d stripped her powers, he wasn’t kidding.

He didn’t even know she had that one.

Did he?

Stretching, she rol ed over to find him at his desk where he’d been when she fel asleep. Stil dressed in

his loose black clothes, he’d pul ed his chair around so that he faced the bed and his back was to the wal .

But he wasn’t paying her any attention.

Instead, he held an old-fashioned leather-bound book in his lap with one large, graceful, masculine hand.

He leaned back in the chair with his arm propped on the desk and his undamaged cheek resting on his fist.

His insanely long legs were stretched out before him, and crossed at the ankles. She smiled at the

unexpected sight of his wel -shaped bare feet. They were so cute and she’d never thought that about feet

before. Normal y, they grossed her out.

How strange that the sight of them succeeded in making him seem like any man, anywhere.

Wel , not
any
man. Men this handsome were few and far between. Men this good-looking and ripped

were even rarer. And finding one with his body, hair, and eyes was like finding a unicorn. In fact, she’d never

seen a man with red hair who wasn’t freckled or pale-skinned—not that there was anything wrong with that. It

was just what you expected whenever you met a natural redhead, male or female. But there wasn’t a single

freckle anywhere on his body and even though he hadn’t seen daylight in who knew how long, his skin was

tanned and tawny.

Gah, even bruised and scarred, he made her mouth water.

How could that pose be so incredibly sexy? So lickably luscious?

With the one hand he had on the book, he turned the page without looking up.

She smiled at the sight of al those unruly auburn curls. Shirley Temple had nothing on him. And yet they

stil managed to be unbelievably masculine. More than that, she real y, real y wanted to play with them.

And as she studied his features, she noted that the bruise around his blood-fil ed eye had turned an ugly

shade of dark purple. He had another new bruise on his ear that had been bleeding the night before. The

handprint was also more pronounced today, as were the swol en, fresh bite marks on his neck.

She wanted to weep at the sight of them. Yet there he sat, so used to them that he didn’t even comment

on the pain they had to be causing him.

I’m so sorry I stabbed you.
He was so not what she’d thought him to be when they first met. How could

she have misjudged him so?

But then it wasn’t entirely her fault. In spite of the legion of beatings and insults he’d endured, he carried

himself as fiercely and confidently as any warrior or king. He exuded so much power and authority that no

one would ever suspect he was Noir’s punching bag and, from what she’d seen last night, most likely

Azura’s bootie cal boy-toy.

But then maybe that was his shield. His way of not letting other people know his shame.

It kept them at arm’s length, and in this hel acious place, it probably kept others from hurting him, too. That

thought made her want to wrap her arms around him and hold him close.

If only he’d let her.

Clearing her throat, she final y spoke. “Did you not sleep at al ?”

He shook his head, but didn’t elaborate. “Are you hungry?”

“Not yet. I need to be awake for a few before I eat.” Sitting up, she frowned at the closed laptop. “You

stopped researching?”

“There was nothing to be found and I got tired of trying to decipher a writing form that makes no sense to

me.”

But he’d been so happy when she’d gone to bed … at least she thought it was happy, looking at al the

pictures and listening to her music. Now he was back to that solemnity that seemed to be hardwired into his

DNA.

She slid off the bed and went to see what he was reading, but she couldn’t understand
his
alphabet. It

definitely wasn’t Egyptian, but it kind of looked like it. “What is that?”

“Bilgames.”

Whoa … that was a new one on her. “What people spoke Bilgames?”

He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

Wel , at least she wasn’t the only one in the room lost. “What kind of language is Bilgames? Where does

it come from?”

“It’s not a language. It’s the name of the story.” Then his features relaxed as if a thought had occurred to

him. “I think your people know it as Gilgamesh.”

“Oh…” Now she knew how he’d felt last night when she kept using computer jargon. She had half the

puzzle. But the other half was even more intriguing. “What language is it written in?”

“Akkadian.”

Holy snikes. She was floored by his disclosure. She didn’t know much about history, but she was

extremely old and that predated her living knowledge … In fact, she’d barely heard of it, it was so old. “And

you can read that?”

His eyes snapped fire at her. “I’m not
that
stupid, nor am I il iterate.”

“Obviously not. No one who can read something that complicated in an alphabet that is basical y

scribbled nonsensical lines could ever be cal ed stupid.”

That seemed to soothe him. “It’s not that hard.”

“For
you
. If you’re as lost looking at my alphabet as I am with this one … it says a lot.” She continued to

study it, but it was like trying to read Brail e. “So are you Akkadian?”

“Egyptian.”

“Real y? You don’t look Egyptian.”

He arched his brow at that comment. “Been there a lot have you?”

“Wel … no. But I’ve seen pictures. They’re usual y dark-skinned and certainly not redheaded.”

“Shows what you know. We traded extensively with many nations and had people who came to live in

Upper Egypt from al over the known kingdoms.”

“You’re feisty in the morning, aren’t you?” she teased. But it did explain why his skin tone was so dark,

given his blue eyes and red hair. “So you can read hieroglyphics then?”

“Of course.”

“I bet you’re a hoot in a museum. Have you ever walked past a mummy, looked down, and said, hey Uncle

Imhotep, how you doing?”

He didn’t show even a glimmer of amusement. “A museum?”

That was what he fixated on? “Never mind. What other creepy old languages do you read?”

“Greek and Sumerian.”

“What about Latin?”

He frowned. “What’s Latin?”

Her stomach lurched. Did he predate Rome? That was probably the most terrifying thought imaginable.

Because if he did, he’d been locked away here for more than three thousand years. “You know Rome,

right?”

“No. I was never al owed to roam. It’s forbidden.”

“Not roam around. The Roman Empire. You know, Nero, Octavian, Caesar, other people with funky

names…” Names she should have paid more attention to in school. “That giant fearsome empire that

conquered the world and subjugated everyone, even Egypt.”

“I’ve never heard of this place you describe.”

Yeah, he was older than dirt. She’d ask him what year he was born, but that would be worthless. His

calendar, if they even had had one then, wouldn’t be the same as hers.

And he’d been under Noir’s fist al that time.

Damn.

She frowned as another random thought hit her … did they have books then?

Surely not. But then … She studied the brittle pages and the worn leather binding.

“So how did you get a book written in a language that old?”

His mood turned dark as an air of profound sadness engulfed him. “Noir used to give them to me

whenever I pleased him.”

Desperately, she wanted him to elaborate on what pleasing Noir entailed, but her animal senses told her

not to pursue it. Whatever it meant, it was obvious it caused him a tremendous amount of pain to think

about.

Noir must have bound the original scrol s into books. That would make sense.

“Is this the only one you have?”

He shook his head. “I managed to save five of them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Noir also destroyed them whenever I made him angry, which has always been a lot. I hid as many as I

could, but he eventual y found al but the five.”

“That bloody wanker bastard.” The profanity flew out of her mouth before she could stop it. But honestly, it

infuriated her that he would destroy something so priceless. And take from her demon the only thing that had

most likely ever given him any kind of pleasure in this hel hole of an existence.

Seth was stunned by her outburst. The fact that she was angered over what had been done to him …

No one had ever cared before.

She’s faking. Don’t be stupid.

But it didn’t feel like that. It felt … real.

She cleared her throat as her face flamed bright red. “I’m so sorry.”

That confused him even more than her outburst. Anger he always understood. But her incessant need to

say that one word al the time … “You apologize a lot and for things you haven’t done. Why?”

“I’m not apologizing because I did something. It’s a conveyance of emotion that means I hurt
for
you or

with you.”

He stil didn’t get it. “Why would you ever hurt for me when I’m nothing to you?”

“Because that’s what people do. They sympathize with others and try to help them.”

If he were capable of it, he’d laugh at the absurdity. “Obviously you haven’t met the same people I have.

I’ve never known anyone like you describe.”

“I’m not talking about demons. I’m talking about humans.”

“And they are even worse. You expect cruelty from demons. They’re open with their treachery and make

no attempt to conceal it. Humans … they lure you in, and just when you make the mistake of believing in

them, in trusting the lies they spew with conviction, they stomp al over you.”

Lydia’s head spun at the heated emotion in his voice. What had been done to him? “No one ever helped

you? Real y?”

“No.”

“Not once? Ever?”

“If they did, I paid for it eventual y with my flesh, bone, and my blood. So no, I don’t count that as help. It’s

even crueler than doing nothing. Trust me.”

She would give him that. But man …

In that moment, she was even more grateful for Solin. Without him, this would have most likely been her

fate. “I wish I could make it better for you.”

“Make what better?”

“Your life. Your memories. My past isn’t perfect and I’ve had people who have hurt me. Bad at times. But

not like you describe. Not to the point that they poisoned my very soul. For that, I’m sorriest of al .”

Nothing would ever ease the pain of his past, she realized. He was as broken as anyone she’d ever met.