Fear the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity #9)(46)
Author: Alexandra Ivy

“Levet,” he muttered.

Oblivious to the distinct lack of welcome, Levet blew them both kisses. “Ah, mes amis, have you missed me?”

Styx snorted. He’d missed the gargoyle like he missed a hot poker shoved in his eye. “What are you doing here?”

Levet’s delicate wings, shimmering in shades of crimson and blue and gold, fluttered in confusion. “Where else would I be?”

“I thought you were searching for Yannah?” he reminded the beast, referring to the peculiar demon who had a habit of appearing and disappearing without warning.

“Bah.” Levet rubbed his stunted horn. “She is making me nutmeg.”

“Nutmeg?”

“I think he means nutty,” Viper said dryly.

“She pops here. She pops there.” Levet waved his hands. “Pop, pop, pop, pop. How can I catch her if she will not stand still?”

Viper snorted. “Females rarely make the chase easy. In fact, I’m beginning to suspect they’re born to make men utterly and completely nutmeg.”

There was a brief silence as the three males nodded in rare agreement. Then, with a sharp shake of his head, Styx pointed toward the door. “Go keep Darcy and Shay company,” he commanded. “I have business to discuss with Viper.”

“As much as I prefer the company of your charming mates, I need to speak with you.”

“Later.”

“Non.” Levet stubbornly held his ground. “This is important.”

Styx clenched his hands. As much fun as it would be to mount the damned creature over the marble fireplace, he knew Darcy would never forgive him. Dammit.

“Fine.” His lips curled back to display his massive fangs. “Spit it out.”

The gargoyle’s tail twitched, but he wasn’t so stupid as to challenge Styx’s patience. Not tonight.

“You know that I keep in contact with Darcy and her sisters?”

“Yes, you use some sort of telepathy.”

“Not exactly telepathy. It’s more a portal that I form inside their mind. . . .”

“Do you have a point?” Styx interrupted, not giving a shit how the creature managed to speak mind to mind with his mate.

Levet sniffed. “Darcy asked me to try and contact Cassie using my powers.”

“Clever,” Styx murmured, his pride in his wife swelling through his heart.

“Clever, but, unfortunately, my efforts did nothing but give me the aching head,” Levet admitted.

“So you failed?”

“Not so much a failure as a . . . misfire.”

Levet wasn’t the only one with the aching head, Styx silently conceded. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I could not contact her, but she did manage to contact me.”

A sudden tension filled the air as both vampires stared at the tiny demon in astonishment.

“You spoke with her?” Styx bit out.

Levet gave a lift of one shoulder. “Only a brief moment.”

Viper stepped forward. “What did she say?”

“Nothing, but she sent this.”

Levet held out his hand to reveal a small piece of paper. Styx leaned forward, taking the paper and unfolding it to study the squiggle of odd lines.

“What is it?” Viper demanded.

“A prophecy.” Styx lifted his head to stab his friend with a worried frown. “Get Roke.”

Gaius’s lair in Louisiana

Gaius sat in a leather wing chair in his office, holding a history book that glorified his battles as a Roman general. He might not remember his human days, but he took pleasure in the knowledge he had been a brilliant commander feared by all. Usually, it was his favorite way to spend a quiet evening in his lair.

Tonight, however, he found no peace.

Not even several hours of rough sex followed by a deep feeding had eased the sense of foreboding that had haunted him for the past two weeks. Tossing aside the book, Gaius surged to his feet and paced toward the window, his brocade dressing gown brushing the floor.

He knew what was troubling him.

After following the Dark Lord’s commands to protect the wizard spirit, he’d then returned to the mists along with Dolf. He perhaps shouldn’t have been surprised to discover the master had been resurrected into the child. But he’d been frankly unnerved by the sight of the powerful deity in the body of a teenage girl.

Thankfully, he’d concealed his growing apprehension—unlike Dolf, who had managed to incur the anger of the Dark Lord—long enough to escape out of the mists.

There was no way he was going to hang around to bear the brunt of the Dark Lord’s frustration when he couldn’t use his new body to return to the world. Drained or not, she was still powerful enough to turn Gaius into a puddle of screaming pain.

Now he was left to stew in his own doubts, caught between the urgent need to hear from the Dark Lord so they could finish their deal and he could demand the return of his beloved mate, and a growing desire to be forgotten by the evil bastard. Or rather . . . the evil bitch.

Sensing the approach of a male cur, Gaius was careful to mask his emotions as he slowly turned to watch Dolf step into the room. In the candlelight the dog was looking distinctly worse for the wear.

In the past two weeks his hair had grown past the buzz cut and had acquired several streaks of gray. Worse, he’d dropped nearly fifty pounds, leaving his face gaunt and his stomach sunken.

Not at all the cocky mutt that Gaius had first met just a month ago. But then again, they’d all lost a bit of their cock.

“You disposed of the body?” he demanded.

Dolf nodded, his eyes glittering with a hectic light. The cur was hanging on to his sanity by a thread. A thin thread.

“It’s rotting deep in the swamp with all the others.” His lips curved in a gruesome imitation of a smile. “You have quite a collection out there. Thirteen, isn’t it?”

Gaius stiffened. He didn’t like being reminded of the whores that he’d killed over the past few nights. Not because of his conscience. That had died along with Dara. But it was a nasty reminder of his loss of control.

It was happening far too frequently.

“Don’t presume to judge me.” His words were coated in ice. “My hungers are instinct, not a perversion of nature like some I could name.”

Dolf snorted, indifferent to Gaius’s disdain. “Hell, I don’t care if you drain every whore from here to Timbuktu, but the locals are starting to get itchy about the girls who’ve gone missing. Unless you want an angry mob, complete with torches and pitchforks, on our doorstep, you might want to dial back on your feedings.” He paced to study the books that lined the shelves. “Or at least import your meals from farther away.”