Under His Wings (5 page)

Shit.

Rage streamed through him in a hundred swirling ribbons,
snaking around his organs until he breathed it. A human female. Evander stalked
a human female.

Nico folded his wings to his body and swooped, bulleting
through the air as if shot from a high-powered rifle. Seconds from impact,
Evander lifted his head, and in his dark face Nicolai caught delight rather
than fear or anger.

Whether in human form or in his beast, he was fucking crazy.

And he would die tonight.

Nicolai summoned every emotion that had carried him on this
mission of vengeance—fury, grief, resentment—and crashed into Evander head-on.
The collision reverberated like a clap of thunder.

Flesh split open under Nicolai’s talons and grim
satisfaction rushed through him when Evander’s blood spattered his breast,
staining the gray feathers like an oil spill. The rogue shrieked and the two
rammed into the building next to them. Brick and mortar cracked and showered
dust onto their feathers and hides.

Fire sizzled along his neck. The bastard had stabbed him.
Rearing back on his hind legs, Nicolai used the momentum and heaved Evander off
him. Their harsh breath filled the night as they faced one another. Then the
rogue’s head cocked to the side and an instant later Nicolai detected what had
snagged Evander’s attention. Police sirens in the distance. Maybe five minutes
away. Fuck.

“’Til next time, Nico,”
he said.
“I left you a
gift.”
The hippogryph wheeled around on his rear legs, took several loping
strides then soared into the bruised sky. A shimmer like a falling star
twinkled before disappearing.

Now he uses his damn
gyges
.
Nicolai shifted to
his human form and scowled. He stared at the black, cloudless skyline for
another long second before turning his attention to the limp bodies on the
sidewalk.

Horror slid into his chest, between his ribs, like the
razor-sharp tip of a rapier. Two women. The soft limbs of the woman closest to
him were splayed like a broken Barbie doll. He crossed the small distance on
swift feet and called on the magic within him to clothe his body in a black
shirt, jeans and boots. The cops drew closer with each passing second and it
wouldn’t do to have a naked man hovering over the bodies of two attack victims.

“Damn,” he whispered, hunkering down on his haunches next to
the body. The woman hadn’t died easy, though Evander hadn’t taken as much time
with her as he had with his previous victims. From the awkward angles of her
arms and legs, Nicolai surmised they were broken, most likely upon impact.
She’d been eviscerated like the other women, but her chest and abdomen had been
torn open with brutal gashes, her entrails hanging in a tangled, bloody mess
outside her body. This had been a slash ’n’ dash while before Evander had
carved them open with careful slices worthy of a practiced surgeon, taking the
intestines and organs with him—probably consuming them. The crushed bones and
the terror on the woman’s face…those signatures remained the same.

So why the rush? Nicolai rose from his crouch. His gaze
swept the sidewalk and landed on the feet and legs of the second woman. Two
quick strides brought him to her. The pale-yellow illumination from the
streetlight didn’t reach her, but he had no trouble seeing in the dark as he
lowered next to her still form, balancing his weight on the balls of his feet. She
had been alive when he’d sighted Evander, and though her legs and arms lay
limp, they weren’t bent unnaturally or damaged. Beneath the long-sleeved yellow
shirt her chest rose and fell in shallow but even breaths. Relief flooded
through him. At least this one had been spared the gruesome death of the other
woman.

Had that been the reason behind Evander’s hack job? To get
to this female before she escaped? As soon as the explanation came, Nicolai
discarded it. Evander could have easily subdued both women, even carried them
off to play with them at his leisure.

“So what is so special about you that he couldn’t wait,” he
murmured, his perusal rising to the woman’s face. A roar like a thousand tidal
waves converging and crashing filled his ears. His heart stuttered then raced. “
No.
”

Shock, a freezing cold fist to his throat, squeezed the air
from his lungs. He felt encased in ice, the bitter chill spreading to every
extremity, numbing him from the inside out. His knees hit the pavement and he
was surprised he didn’t shatter into a million shards.

“Pria,” he rasped.

His bondmate.

His dead bondmate.

* * * * *

From his perch atop the pharmacy roof, Evander chuckled.

The shock on Nicolai’s face. Priceless.

And to think he’d almost ruined this moment with his impatience.

The dark excitement that had poured through him as he’d
stared down into Tamar Ridgeway’s upturned face had nearly jeopardized his
ultimate goal. Anticipation and hunger for her pain and death had consumed him.
He’d forgotten the plan, revenge and Nicolai. All he’d lusted after was her
blood and agony. After four weeks stalking her, the wait had proved too much.

He supposed he had Nicolai to thank. If not for his former
commander’s timely arrival, Evander wouldn’t have Nicolai’s suffering and
torture to look forward to. The irony was just too good to be true.

The frenzied activity on the street below electrified him.
The crimson blur of the ambulance lights, the gathering of busybodies outside
the yellow police tape. The scurrying of paramedics and law enforcement as they
scraped the blonde’s body off the ground and hoisted Tamar Ridgeway onto a
gurney to be transported to the hospital. And off to the side, hidden from
human eyes, lurked Nicolai, his attention glued to the woman who was a living
replica of his dead mate.

Evander smiled, grim satisfaction pounding within him.

Unlike humans, he could see through the
gyges
. And on
Nicolai’s face he spied shock, pain and—glee leaped in his chest—longing. Such
longing.

Pleasure coursed through him, the power so strong it neared
sexual.

He backed farther into the shadow of the rooftop in case
Nicolai sensed his delight or one of the
krinos
still searched for him.
The Fates had handed him this victory on a silver platter—or rather, a news
segment.

Several weeks ago, holed up in another motel room, he’d
glanced at the muted television in time to catch a news piece. But the vapid
red-haired reporter hadn’t snagged his attention. That honor belonged to the
picture flashed across the screen. Pria. His breath had stalled in his throat,
disbelief and astonishment had knocked him back to the bed.

As his ass hit the mattress, he’d snatched up the remote and
adjusted the volume. The broadcast had been about a lone survivor of a plane
crash from three years earlier. The woman, who could have been the twin of
Nicolai’s dead mate, resided in a Massachusetts town called Grace Crossings.
Immediately, the possibilities of how he could use her to torment Nicolai
amassed in Evander’s head.

Bastien’s death had torn Nicolai apart. This woman—Tamar
Ridgeway’s death—would destroy him.

And Evander’s hand would deal the final blow.

* * * * *

The hospital’s stringent smells of disinfectant, ammonia and
floor wax singed Nicolai’s nostrils. He couldn’t decide which was worse—the
industrial-strength cleaning fluid guaranteed to destroy everything from urine
to flesh-eating bacteria or the stench of human grief and hopelessness.

Both scents would remain with him long after he left the
controlled chaos of this emergency wing.

Yet standing over the bed of the unconscious woman who
resembled the mate he’d lost five hundred years earlier, his mind acknowledged
that she couldn’t be Pria. He was a being of magic, had witnessed things in his
nine-hundred-year existence that defied reason, but reincarnation wasn’t one of
them.

Once the soul left the body it traveled to Eirene—a place of
peace and eternal rest. To rip a spirit from that beautiful land was considered
deygm
a
, an abomination. Not that it hadn’t been done. Out of
grief, greed or evil, souls had been called back from Eirene and forced into
the world of living. But that was reanimation, not reincarnation. And the
beings—for they were no longer free-willed, free-thinking people—didn’t
resemble in appearance or soul the individuals they’d once been. They came back
empty-eyed, mindless…hungry.

No, this woman with Pria’s bright coloring wasn’t one of
those vapid creatures.

Besides, Pria had been more than his mate—she’d been his
bondmate
.
While hippogryphs could take another mate if their chosen partner died, they
had only one bondmate. And his had been Pria.

And therein lay the difference. Mates were
chosen
.
Bondmates were
fated
. A hippogryph could take a partner and enjoy a life
filled with love, children and happiness. But for those rare males and females
who found the other half of their soul—the one who shared their heart and
gift—the bond went much deeper than the union that resembled human marriage.
The bonded pair experienced an enduring love, a passion and desire that
intensified as the centuries passed.

They were true equals in spirit…and form.

For only the love of a bonded pair triggered the female
hippogryph’s latent ability to access her beast.

Pria had been ripped from him so soon after their mating
they’d missed experiencing this miracle and physical manifestation of their
bond. Another regret that stained his soul and conscience.

Nicolai reached out to touch the sleeping female’s smooth
golden cheek, but at the last second his fingers curled in on themselves. The
skin over his knuckles blanched white as his fist tightened then fell back to
his side. The uncanny likeness sent chills skating over his skin.

This must be the woman Evander had taunted him about the
previous night. The image he’d forced into Nico’s mind.

Curls the color of wet gold haloed her head, scattered like
ropes of sunshine across the white pillow slip. Though pale from her ordeal,
her skin gleamed like the sweetest caramel under the harsh fluorescent track
lighting. He’d been fascinated by his bondmate’s skin. It reminded him of the
fields of wheat stalks that danced in the breeze of their Greek homeland.
Sorrow that had been dulled by the passing of time traversed the years and
settled in his gut.

This time when he reached out, he didn’t pull back.

He traced the impudent slope of her nose, the lush curves of
her mouth and, finally, the shallow indent in her chin. His touch lingered
there even as he stared at her closed eyes.Would they be the same hue
of precious amber?

Her lashes fluttered…then lifted. And he had his answer.

Tawny eyes clouded with drugs and pain stared up at him.

“Nico,” she murmured.

His hand dropped away and he reeled back, the low whisper of
his name—the name only those closest to him used—was an electric bolt that
crackled and spit over his skin.

“This way, detectives. She’s in trauma one,” a firm,
feminine voice echoed from the other side of the drawn privacy curtain. “But I
have to warn you. The patient has suffered a head injury. She may not be
responsive at this time.”

“Will she be okay?” a solemn voice rumbled.

“She should be,” the woman Nicolai assumed was a doctor
assured the detective. “We’ve run a few tests. CT and x-rays are negative so
far, but we’re holding her overnight for observation due to lack of
consciousness when they brought her in.”

Nicolai moved back from the gurney, his feet soundless over
the waxed floor of the small bay. His gaze remained pinned to the bed and the
female whose lashes had lowered once more. As the curtain swung to one side,
revealing a plump dark-skinned physician in light-blue scrubs flanked by two
men in dark suits, Nicolai cast his invisibility net.

The doctor tugged the heavy material back in place, strode
to the head of the bed and checked the confusing machines that blinked and
beeped. The taller of the men stood next to her and the other stationed himself
across from his partner. An almost inaudible moan sounded from Tamar and
Nicolai stiffened. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, his body
vibrating with the force it required not to bolt across the floor and place
himself between her and the men.

The beast inside him roared in outrage, demanded he cover
and protect. The primal urge to rip the detectives away from her churned and
whipped like the destructive tail of a tornado. The stinging pain in his palms
jerked his attention down to his hands. Or claws. The tips of his fingers had
elongated and curved into black-tipped talons that had punctured his skin.
Blood seeped from the deep pricks.

He hadn’t experienced fear in a long, long time—not since
he’d lost Pria. But he recognized the dark emotion immediately as it twisted
and coiled inside his heart and the pounding organ pumped it into his blood
stream.

“Ma’am,” the shorter, older detective said softly.

The woman who wore his dead bondmate’s face and drew such an
overwhelming visceral reaction from his soul emitted another moan of pain.
After a moment, she opened her eyes, blinked and regarded the people around her
bed with a confused frown.

Nicolai backed farther into the corner, away from the gripping
need to go to her. He didn’t understand this…this intuitive, fierce compulsion
to defend. He was the
Dimios
—it was his job to protect his people, their
laws, the secrecy of their existence. Yet that didn’t explain this longing to
be by her side, to be a shield between her and the world.

“Ms. Ridgeway,” the physician said, her voice a soothing
cadence, “my name is Dr. Brenda Conway. You’re at Grace Crossings Memorial.”