Born of Night (The League #1)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

PROLOGUE

“I quit The League tonight.”

Dr. Sheridan Belask paused at the deep, thickly accented voice coming out of the darkest corner of his office. He looked up from the electronic medical files he was reviewing on top of his obsidian glass desk, but couldn’t see even the smallest trace of the man hidden in the shadows.

He was used to that.

As a trained League assassin, Nykyrian Quiakides was literally one with the blackest night. No one ever saw him coming or going.

They only felt the sting of death as he dealt it to them.

Even though Sheridan was a doctor sworn to save any life he could, this brutal killer was the only man he’d ever trusted at his back and with his family.

Or more to the point, the only man he’d ever trusted with the most deeply held secrets of a past he’d been running from his whole life.

“You can’t quit. You can only retire.” A euphemism that meant ritual suicide whenever assassin duties became more than a League solider could mentally bear or their bodies became too scarred or too damaged to carry out their missions any longer.

No one voluntarily left The League.

No one.

Nykyrian stepped out of the shadows so that the dim light highlighted the white blond hair that was braided down his back—an assassin’s mark of honor. His solid, flat black battle suit hugged every sharp curve of his well-muscled body. The outline of daggers were embroidered in dark blood red down the sleeves—the only external designation an assassin bore. Nykyrian’s daggers held a crown above each hilt, letting the universe know he was the most lethal of his kind. A command assassin of the first rank.

As always, Nykyrian was calm and watchful of the shadows as if expecting someone like him to come for him at any moment. Somber. Cold. Lethal. Traits that had been drilled into him as a child. In all the years Sheridan had known him, Nykyrian had never once smiled. Never once broken that staunch military training that had left him emotionally bankrupt.

The most disturbing thing of all was the fact that his eyes were hidden behind a pair of opaque shades, a safeguard used by military assassins to keep those around them on edge, since there was no way of telling where they were looking or what they were thinking.

Or, more precisely, who the assassin was targeting.

Nykyrian’s handsome features were as stoic as his rigid stance. “I refuse to complete this mission.”

Sheridan frowned in confusion. This wasn’t the steadfast, merciless man he knew. The one who didn’t hesitate at any brutality.

“Yeah, right. You have to complete it.” Harsh though it was, it was the law of the world in which they lived. Once a target was given, it was given. Succeed or die. There was no third option.

The last thing Sheridan wanted was to see the only brother he’d ever known ruthlessly hunted and executed. Better someone, anyone, else die than Nykyrian.

“They sent me after a child.” Nykyrian’s tone was flat, deadpan.

Sheridan’s blood ran cold as he finally understood the one line neither of them would ever cross no matter the necessity. The one line that had once saved Sheridan’s life when Nykyrian would have killed him.

Sheridan glanced at the holocube a few inches from his hand where his own infant son smiled out with an untainted innocence neither of them had ever known.

Nykyrian continued, “The League wanted an entire family swabbed.”

That was icy cold, but far from unheard of. It should probably bother Sheridan that his best friend killed for a living, but then, given his own brutal past, it didn’t affect him at all.

The world was harsh and it was bitter, especially to those who couldn’t protect themselves. He had firsthand, intimate knowledge of that fact, and it’d left as many scars on him as it had on Nykyrian.

Besides, he knew the side of Nykyrian that no one else had ever seen. The side of him that wouldn’t harm a child no matter the cost to himself.

Nykyrian was nothing like the monsters in their pasts, and neither was he.

“If you don’t kill them, The League will kill you.”

Nykyrian cocked his head at a sudden noise outside. It sounded like the whisper of a patient lift whizzing by. He didn’t speak again until it’d passed and he was sure no one was coming into Sheridan’s office. “I swabbed the father before I realized there was a child in the house. She was asleep in her mother’s arms when I went for her.”

“And you refused to kill them?”

Nykyrian gave a subtle nod. “The mother and child are safe in a place where The League and their enemies will never find them.”

“Are you . . .” Sheridan didn’t bother finishing the sentence. Of course Nykyrian was sure. He didn’t make those kinds of mistakes. Sheridan’s current life and safety were living proof of that. “What are you going to do?”

“What I’ve always done. Stand and fight.”

Sheridan let out a bitter laugh. How easy Nykyrian made it sound, but he knew what The League was capable of. They both did. “They’ll come for you with everything they have.”

“And I will fight them with everything they taught me to be.”

A chill went down his spine. What they had taught Nykyrian to be was a predator of the first order of insanity. May the gods help them all. This was the one man who wouldn’t go down without a costly head count. Nykyrian was the best they’d ever trained and The League had no idea exactly what it had created.

But Sheridan knew. He’d looked into the eyes of Nykyrian’s madness and seen the horrors those shades concealed. He knew the rage that they both kept under a tight leash for fear of what it could make them do.

The lengths they would go to, to make sure no one ever hurt them again. They might appear calm on the surface, but inside, their battered souls screamed for vengeance and release.

Most of all they screamed for appeasement.

Nykyrian moved forward and placed a small silver disk on his desk. He pushed it toward Sheridan. “I’ve erased every trace of our friendship and every part of your past. You won’t see me again.” For your protection and for the protection of your family. Nykyrian didn’t have to say the words. Sheridan knew the unbreakable bond they shared.

Brothers to the end, even through the fires of hell and beyond.

Nykyrian took a step back toward the shadows.

“Wait.” Sheridan rose to his feet.

Nykyrian hesitated.

“If you need me, aridos,” he said, his voice tight with sincerity as he used the Ritadarion word for brother, “I will be there for you.”

Nykyrian’s tone was still deadpan and emotionless. “If I need you, aridos, I’ll be dead before I can make the call.”

And then he was gone like a ghostly whisper on a harried breeze.

Ill with what his friend had done, but understanding it completely, Sheridan sat down and pulled the disk to him. He cracked it open to find the small chip that all assassins had embedded in their bodies. It was what The League used to keep track of them. Nykyrian must have dug it out of his flesh and crushed it to keep them from finding him. The final act of severing himself from their ties.

An act that in and of itself was a death sentence.

He cringed in sympathetic pain, remembering the day when he’d dug a similar device out of his own young body. The blood, the pain . . . There were some memories that never faded over time. They were too brutal to be forgotten.

And what an eerie memento given the fact that this chip was what had led to their friendship . . . He would think his friend sentimental if it wasn’t for the laughableness of that.

Closing his eyes, he held the chip in his fist, wishing things had been different, that they had been different. That they had been born one of those normal people Sheridan treated in the hospital wings every day. People who had no idea of what horrors truly existed in this universe.

Yet he was proud that, given all Nykyrian had been through, he’d still retained his soul.

That through it all, the monsters had never taken his will or his decency. Everything else had been stripped out of him just as it had Sheridan.

Everything.

And because of Nykyrian, he was living a life he’d only dreamed of having. He owed everything to that man.

A man who most likely wouldn’t live to see the coming dawn.

He released a long, disgusted breath. Life wasn’t fair. It was something he’d learned at the back of his father’s fist in early childhood. All he could hope was that Nykyrian would finally find the peace that had always eluded them both.

Even if he had to die to find it.

CHAPTER 1

Nine years later

She’d been kidnapped!

Kiara Zamir came awake with indignant anger riding her hard. Even now, she could feel the cold, rough grip on her arms and mouth, feel the bite of the injector as the drug sped through her bloodstream and quickly rendered her unconscious. Her abductors had moved so fast, she’d had no chance to call for help.

Or better yet, fight.

Crippin’ cowards! She hated people who attacked like that. At least be a man and face her. But no . . . they’d resorted to the lowest means of capture. Sneaking around in the dark to take her while she slept.

There was nothing in the world she hated more than those who hid in the shadows, waiting to prey on people. Assassins, kidnappers, muggers, ra**sts, etcetera, they were all worthless, soulless scum who deserved nothing but pain and death.

Now, her head ached terribly as the last remnants of the drug wore off. An acrid smell filled her senses, choking her with its stench. Her throat was so dry, she could barely swallow as she tried to lick her dry lips to keep them from cracking.

She tried not to breathe deeply as she opened her eyes to confront who or whatever held her prisoner.

To her relief, she was still dressed in her pink nightgown, lying face down on a rotting mattress.

Ew, nasty . . .

There was no one else in the room and no sound warning her there was anyone nearby. Thank God for small favors. It would give her time to plot an escape or at the very least a counterattack.

With a grimace of distaste, she pushed herself up and nearly fell as a wave of nausea and dizziness buzzed through her head. She caught herself against the wall next to her, a roughened spot of rust scraping the palm of her hand.

“Great,” she mumbled. “So much for equilibrium. Bloody bastards.” At least they hadn’t bothered to bind her hands or feet. No doubt they assumed she’d be like other women of her station, too terrified and docile to fight them.

But if they thought she was going to blithely wait around for them to return to kill her at their leisure, they were sorely mistaken. She may have been born a princess, but docility wasn’t in her blood and neither was patience. Not to mention, she’d learned many tricks over the years while living with her overprotective military father, including the ability to pick a good lock.

As well as how to beat an attacker into the ground.

A determined grimace settled over her face as she headed toward the door on unsteady feet. True, it’d been years since she’d bypassed the intense security and picked the locks on her house to sneak outside and meet her friends after curfew, but she was sure she would remember how.

She had to.

Besides, the chance that this rusted-out junker had the latest in security was slim to none. If they couldn’t afford a clean mattress and repairs, they surely couldn’t pay the exorbitant fees a security company charged to update their systems.

Reaching the door, Kiara ran her hand over the smooth keypad. Very old indeed. How quaint. It reminded her of the locks on her grandfather’s house from twenty years ago.

She looked around for anything that might give her a clue about the key code, but there were no numbers listed anywhere. Nothing personal about her attackers other than what they ate and how filthy they were.

Ugh! There was no use in simply guessing random number sequences since that could very well lock her out completely and trap her here. It might even gas her back into unconsciousness.

Or death.

One could never be too sure what tricks a lowlife might use.

“I’ll have to rewire you.” If she could find a means of unbolting the lock from the wall . . .

With a sigh, Kiara glanced about the room, noting the inordinate amount of garbage strewn across the floor. She wrinkled her nose in distaste of the disgusting odor. The thick, steel walls were covered by huge spots of rust and corrosion. How in the universe had this craft ever passed space inspection? It wasn’t fit to carry the stinking garbage offending her, let alone human occupants.

They must have greased a major palm.

“Suck it up, baby,” she said under her breath. “You have to find something for that lock and get out of here.” Surely there was an escape shuttle or pod she could find and launch.

Heck, at this point, she’d be willing to eject herself into space and float home—at least if she could find a suit that would protect her from the vacuum of space.

She curled her lip at the nastiness as she kicked at a pile near her, looking for something she could use on the door. I’d rather be eaten alive than call this place home . . .