THREE
Aiden burst through the door of the compound. There was no need to open it. His body simply dematerialized as he passed through the solid material and rematerialized beyond in a process too fast for the human eye to analyze. All it would see was a man walking straight into a door or a wall, the process behind it remaining a mystery. It was a power unique to Stealth Guardians; no demons known to them had a similar skill.
He charged down the hallway. The massive building consisted of three stories above ground and two below. Its walls were thick, like those of an old English castle, build the way their ancestors had built their own strongholds. Their past was imprinted on the structure: ancient runes decorated the walls and floors, and charms to ward off evil hung over each door and window.
There were many Stealth Guardian compounds dotted all over the world, places where the brothers, and the few sisters, lived together. All compounds were protected by the collective power of the Stealth Guardians, their virta, and might as well have been invisible. An ancient hypnotic-like spell ensured that the buildings went unnoticed by humans.
Inside, no humans were allowed. Not even the charges of Stealth Guardians could be trusted to keep its location secret. There was always a chance that one of them would turn against them and eventually betray them to the demons.
Within the walls of the compound, Stealth Guardians could recharge their energy after each mission, energy they expended as they cloaked their charges from detection by demons.
Weapons long forgotten were stored in the vast underground vaults, weapons that could kill even an immortal Stealth Guardian. While no human weapon such as a gun or a knife could permanently injure Aiden or his brothers and sisters, any weapon forged during the Dark Days had the power to kill Stealth Guardians and Demons of Fear alike.
As Aiden rushed into the large kitchen that was the center and indeed the hearth of the house he called home, his eyes scanned the assembled quickly. Manus was busy raiding the fridge, clad only in a pair of tightly fitting leather pants, his scarred chest bare, while Logan poured himself a drink. His dark hair hung loose over his shoulders and it looked as if he’d just only risen.
Enya, the only female in their compound, lounged in one corner of the large couch in the adjacent great room. Her long blond hair was braided and pinned up in circles on the back of her head. She rarely wore it open, and Aiden could only suspect that it had grown down to her waist by now. Instead of watching the football game that blared from the giant TV mounted on the wall, she had her nose stuck in a book.
Aiden cursed. “Where the f*ck is he?”
Heads turned toward him. Manus slammed the fridge door shut and placed a bunch of plastic packages of cold cuts on the kitchen counter.
“I’m afraid that my mind reading capacity isn’t worth shit, so toss us a name, will you?” Manus exchanged a look with Logan who kicked back his drink in one gulp.
“Somebody’s in a pissy mood today,” Logan added as if wanting to provoke him.
Aiden felt his temper flare and squared his stance.
“Manus kinda has a point,” Enya suddenly interjected not even looking up from her book.
“I’m talking about f*cking Hamish!” Aiden felt the air rush out of his lungs, the anger about his second’s failure to back him up growing with each moment.
Logan grinned and lifted the whiskey bottle once more. “Had no idea you guys were that close! But hey, if you wanna f*ck Hamish, go—”
Aiden had Logan by the throat before he could finish his sentence and slammed him against the oven door. “I’m not in the mood for your f*cking jokes. I’m asking again: where the f*ck is Hamish?”
His captive pushed against him, shaking off his hands with more grace than a man of his massive build seemed capable of. As Logan carefully straightened his T-shirt and rolled his shoulders, he lashed an angry glare at him.
“I haven’t seen Hamish in two days. He was supposed to be with you. So piss off, and let me enjoy my game.”
Logan turned and walked to the couch, plopping down in the corner opposite to Enya. When the weight with which he’d let himself fall jolted her and almost made her lose her grip on her book, she only raised an eyebrow.
“Testosterone,” she mumbled under her breath.
Logan narrowed his eyes. “And you know exactly what to do about that, don’t you? But no, you’re not gonna spread your legs for any of us, are you?”
“Shut it!” Manus’s response came before Enya could even reach for the dagger that always sat at her hip, even when she was relaxing.
“A*shole,” she hissed.
Manus glanced at Aiden. “As for Hamish. If he isn’t with you, maybe he got ambushed.”
“Then we should trace his cell and find him,” a voice from the door added to Manus’s sentence.
Aiden whirled his head to the new arrival: Pearce.
“It’s not like him to neglect his duties,” Pearce continued as he stepped fully into the room.
Aiden nodded. Pearce was right.
“I was outnumbered.”
A soft hand touched his arm. His head snapped to the right. Enya had approached him without him noticing. “What happened today?”
Aiden braced one hand against the kitchen counter. He squeezed his eyes shut. “I called Hamish, but he didn’t show. I couldn’t hold them off any longer. I killed two of them, but the third stayed within the protection of the vortex. He was too strong. He had complete power over her.” So much so that she’d tried to kill him, and instead . . . “My charge killed an innocent child. I had to terminate her.”
“F*ck!” Manus cursed.
“Not another one!” Logan added.
“Damn it, what the f*ck did you do, Aiden, sleep on the job? Why wasn’t she cloaked?” Manus ground out between clenched teeth.
Aiden allowed the fury to blaze from his eyes as he faced Manus. “I protected her as best I could!”
“If you’d cloaked her properly, she wouldn’t be lost now!”
“What are you saying?” Aiden bit out.
“You know what I’m saying!” Manus countered and moved in. “If you wanted her properly cloaked you should the f*ck have been touching her the entire time.”
Aiden knew exactly what Manus meant. He and his fellow guardians had two ways of cloaking humans: by the power of their minds, or by touch. The first needed more energy, but just as a cell phone signal could be intercepted or interrupted, it was possible to break the connection and inadvertently uncloak a charge. The second brought with it other problems. A Stealth Guardian’s touch could be perceived as intimate even when it was not intended as such.
“Like you touch them? Like you pretend to feel something for them so they trust you? That’s not protecting them! It’s against every single rule in the book,” Aiden snarled.
“I don’t care about the f*cking rules. Rules are for people who can’t think for themselves.”
“And you break them all.” Aiden felt his chest heave. He couldn’t be like Manus, who pretended to love each woman he had to protect, so he’d have a surefire way of making certain the woman was at all times cloaked. He, on the other hand, preferred not to touch humans when it could be avoided. Other than having the occasional one-night-stand with a human woman, he wasn’t interested in them. Not anymore. Not after what a human had done to his family.
“You f*ck them so you don’t have to expend any extra energy!”
The accusation only earned him a smirk from Manus.
“I wouldn’t exactly say that. I’m expending plenty of energy doing that.”
Before Manus could turn away, Aiden landed a punch in his face, wiping the grin right off it.
Damn, it felt good to hit someone!
It felt cathartic to beat the crap out of Manus, to unleash his anger and frustration on him. Maybe it would dull his mind.
An uppercut to his chin whipped Aiden’s head back. He tasted blood an instant later, but ignored it to answer Manus’s blow. Leveraging his right leg against the kitchen counter, a bar stool crashed to the floor as Aiden swung against his fellow Stealth Guardian. The strike knocked Manus against the fridge, which groaned under the impact.
“Jerk!” Manus spat. “This isn’t about what rules I’ve broken. Don’t pretend you haven’t thought of it yourself . . . how sweet it is to break a rule once in a while.” He gave a devilish grin.
“F*ck you!” There were plenty of willing women in the bars Aiden frequented. He didn’t need to screw his charges. Sex was sex—and as long as the woman was reasonably hot, what did he care who she was? He had no interest in getting involved with a charge. He kept his distance from them, emotionally and physically, knowing that the day might come where he’d have to kill one of them, just like tonight. He couldn’t allow his emotions to get in the way.
“And stop blaming me for your failures! I’m not playing scapegoat today,” Manus growled, interrupting Aiden’s thoughts and making him focus on the issue at hand.
He had only himself to blame for what had happened tonight. Well, and Hamish. But once he tracked down his errant second, there’d be hell to pay.
Beating Manus to pulp wouldn’t bring his charge back, wouldn’t make it undone.
“Ah, shit!” Aiden cursed and lowered his fist. “I failed.” He raised his eyes to meet Manus’s gaze, but instead of a mocking glare, he recognized a flash of compassion.
Manus pushed himself off the fridge and brushed past him. “Get used to it.”
Aiden grabbed his shoulder and turned him around. “What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you seen the reports come in from the other compounds?”
“And when do you think I would have had time to read stupid reports?” He’d been on this assignment for several weeks and barely had time to rush back to the compound for urgent updates.
Aiden wiped the blood from his mouth and looked at the others in the room.
Pearce cleared his throat. “The demons are getting stronger. The other compounds are reporting more and more . . . losses.”
Aiden shook his head in disbelief. “How?”
“They somehow seem to know where our charges are. Despite them being cloaked, they find them.”
“That’s not possible,” Aiden protested and looked at Logan and Enya. “They don’t have those capabilities. They can’t sense our charges when they’re cloaked.”
Enya nodded solemnly. “That’s right, but what if they don’t need those senses? What if they have another way of knowing where our charges are?”
Not wanting to follow Enya’s thought process, Aiden took a steadying breath. “You can’t mean that.”
Logan huffed. “And why not? Our own emotions aren’t that different from those of the humans we’re protecting. So what makes you think all of us can resist temptation?”
“But that’s what we’re trained for . . . ” Aiden’s voice died. He swallowed past the dryness of this throat. His next thought came out of nowhere. “But Hamish. You can’t mean that he . . . and the demons . . . ”
“He wasn’t there to back you up. And how did the demons find your charge anyway when you say you cloaked her?” Logan asked.
“Who better to know where you are at all times than your second,” Manus added.
“A traitor? You think Hamish sold me out to the demons?”
When the words left his lips, his heart clenched painfully. Aiden sought support from the kitchen counter, his knees buckling under the strain. It couldn’t be possible. Hamish was like a brother to him. A brother he occasionally butted heads with, but a brother nevertheless.
“We have to find him.” Aiden glanced at Pearce. “Find his cell. Maybe he’s hurt somewhere.”
He put all his hopes into his last words. It was better that the reason why Hamish hadn’t come to his aid was because he was hurt. The other possibility—that he had gone over to the demons—was too awful to contemplate.