Stephanie Rowe - Darkness Unleashed (8 page)

Ryland nodded. "She's fine. She bonded with Ian Fitzgerald, one of my teammates. They seem good."

"She bonded with a man?" Catherine's legs started to shake, and Ryland caught her as she crumpled to the ground. She sat heavily on the dirt, staring at the man still kneeling before her. "Is...is he a good man?" She could barely whisper the question, the thought of Alice being bound to a man was so terrifying. Dear sweet Alice. What had happened to her while Catherine had been locked up by the wizard? "Will he betray her?"

Ryland raised one dark eyebrow. "She is an angel, Catherine. If he wasn't a good man, I would have killed him before I allowed him to bond with her."

The unhesitating violence in his words made her shiver, but at the same time, hope sprang in her chest. She could feel his intense loyalty, his absolute determination to protect Alice. Yet at the same time, the fact he was prepared to kill his own teammate painted a picture of a man who could not be trusted. What if she was the one he decided to sacrifice to save someone else? "Well, thanks for telling me about Alice." She struggled to her feet. "I need to get going—"

"No." He stood up, looming over her again. "You're coming with me."

And just like that, her fear vanished, replaced with a rising anger. No longer would she let a man intimidate her. How dare he try to command her? Catherine set her hands on her hips and glared at him. "I'm not going anywhere with you." But even as she protested, fear ran cold through her veins once again. How could she stop this man from taking her?

Irritation flashed through Ryland's dark eyes. "Warwick was trying to destroy the Order by killing the trinity of guardian angels that protect us. We're bringing them home where we can keep them safe. Alice is our angel of life, and we already have the other. You're the only one left."

She stared at him as she processed his words. "You think I'm one of the Order's trinity of guardian angels?"

"Yes."

She started laughing then, the bitter, ironic laugh of someone who didn't really think things were all that funny. "Well, you're wrong. I'm—"

"You're the angel of death. Our angel of death."

She didn't bother to ask how they knew what she was. If Alice had fallen in love with one of them, she would have told him. Catherine knew what happened to a woman when she fell in love, and she would never blame Alice for spilling her secrets. God, she hoped Alice had been lucky enough to have made a good choice. "I am an angel of death, but trust me when I say I'm not yours."

"Catherine!" Annie came jogging down the alley. She was wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a heavy jacket, a slight hitch in her gait from the heavily loaded backpack over her shoulder. Around her throat was a black cord with a dove on it, carved out of what looked like ivory. "You ready?"

"Yes." Catherine ducked past Ryland and hurried over to her guide, not looking back.

"You need to wear one of these." Annie handed her a necklace like the one she was wearing. "Put this on. It will help protect you from some of the negative energy we'll be encountering."

Catherine took the necklace and started to fasten it behind her neck, only to have Ryland snatch it out of her hands. "Where do you think you're going?" he said, his voice edged with tension.

"Hey!" She whirled on him, furious. How dare he try to stop her from going after her daughter? "Where I go is none of your business. I'm not the Order's guardian angel, so what I do doesn't matter. Leave me alone—"

"No." His voice was soft but lethal. "The other two angels didn't know they were our protectors, either. Just because you don't know that you're ours doesn't mean you're not."

Annie's jaw dropped. "You're an angel?"

"Dammit, Ryland!" Catherine shoved at him. Her identity was not for shouting out to the world. She smiled at Annie, trying to feign innocence when all she wanted to do was scream with frustration at Ryland for interfering when she had things finally worked out. "I wish I was. That would protect us, right?"

Annie nodded, but her eyes were flitting back and forth between them. "It would help," she agreed. "Or damn us forever."

Ryland stepped between her and Annie, cutting off their conversation. "Listen, Catherine, I don't have time for this. I have to get back to my team to protect them. They have no tools against what happens here at night, and neither do you. We're going back—"

"No! I'm not going anywhere with you!" Catherine noticed Annie was starting to ease backwards, and she hurried over to her. "No, wait, please don't go—"

"He brings bad blood," Annie whispered. "Can't you feel it?" She looked at Catherine, her eyes getting wider. "And so do you. I didn't feel it before, but it's stirring now."

"No, wait—" Catherine tried to grab her arm, but Annie ducked out of her grasp.

Annie spat at her. "Get out of this town. Both of you!"

"But my daughter—"

The woman's eyes glittered. "I know what it's like to lose a loved one," she said, "so I'll give you time to run. A concession from one mother to another, but that's all I can do. Twenty minutes is all the head start I can give you, and then they'll come for you. So,
run
."

Then she turned and bolted down the street and around the corner, taking Catherine's last chance of hope with her—

"Oh, shit," Ryland moved closer to her, as if to protect her with his body. "Not now."

"Not now, what?" But even as she asked it, Catherine felt the walls of the building beside her begin to ripple. She whirled around and saw the wood undulating, as if it were steam rising off a hot sidewalk on a blistering summer day. "What—"

"So much for a twenty-minute head start. Come on!" He grabbed her hand, but Catherine twisted out of his reach. "No, I can't leave, I need to find—" A loud shriek tore through the air and a small, black creature leapt off the wall right at her. As it reached for her, its body elongated into a black, sinewy funnel, like a serpent coming to life. She yelped and stumbled back as its mouth opened to reveal six-inch fangs—

"Enough!" There was a crack and a flash of black light, and then Ryland swung his machete, decapitating the creature. "Now, Catherine,
run!
" Even as he commanded her, another serpent leapt off the wall at them. Ryland had just cut it down when another one came, and then another. "Catherine! This way!"

He grabbed her hand and this time, she didn't argue. She just ducked her head, followed his lead, and ran as hard as she could.

Ryland and Catherine sprinted down the alley, heading toward where he'd left his team. He knew they had minutes, at best, before every building in the town was alerted to their presence and rose to attack.
Thano!
He thrust the call into his teammate's mind, hoping they were recovered enough to hear him.
Zach! We gotta go! Meet me outside. Now!

There was a ripple of foggy acknowledgment in his mind.
The pedicure just started. You want to go now? Really?
But even as Thano said the words, Ryland felt the burst of energy from Thano as his teammate sprang to action.

"What is it?" Catherine looked over her shoulder as the alley behind them pulsed with life...or death.

"A protection grid woven into the fabric of the city when it was built. It's designed to ward off any creatures from the nether-realm that escape to the earth's surface. Between the two of us, we set it off." Another serpent came streaming at them from the right, and Ryland hacked it with his machete.

There was a wave of despair from Catherine, an agony so brutal that Ryland almost stumbled. But to her credit, she didn't waver. She just put on a burst of speed, running right down the gauntlet, never hesitating or slowing. Admiration coursed through him as he cut down another serpent going for her head. "Turn left up ahead," he commanded her. "Then take the first right and straight on out of the city."
Thano, meet us at the top of the stairs.

You got it.

Recognizing a self-preservation instinct when he saw one, Ryland released Catherine's hand so he could fight with both machetes. He no longer feared that she was going to play any tricks on him or ditch him. She was too intent on getting the hell out of the town alive. "Can you shroud yourself right now?" He wasn't sure if it would work, but if she could cast them all into shadows like she'd done in the graveyard, it might grant them safety.

"No. Not without a graveyard or some sort of burial ground— Ryland!" She skidded to a stop as a great snake sprang up in front of her. It snapped at her hand, but Ryland grabbed her in time and yanked her back. The snake lunged for her, and Ryland killed it, its head dropping to her feet less than an inch from her toe.

"Dear God," she whispered. "What is it?"

"Go!" They were coming out of everywhere now, ghostly serpents with poison more deadly than the talraks. One bite and there was no chance. It cut down on drunken nighttime brawls since the protections would respond to any kind of bad energy, but a tidy late-night bar scene wasn't really a selling point right now. "Come on!"

Catherine started running again. They rounded a corner, and Apollo loomed up ahead of them, his majestic body standing tall in the night. Thano was astride, and Zach was on his feet beside him. Ryland breathed with relief to see the color back in Zach's face, and the determined set to his jaw. Both warriors still looked peaked, but they were going to make it.

Thano's eyebrows went up when he saw Ryland and Catherine charging toward him, an army of predatory ghost-serpents on their tail. "Well, then, top of the day to you both," he said.

Catherine hesitated at the sight of the other men, and Ryland caught her hand again, sensing her sudden fear. She was more afraid of the Order than she was of the snakes chasing them? The woman had her priorities seriously messed up. "To the river," he commanded. "It's northeast about five miles. They won't go in water."

"Five miles?" Catherine looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "I can't run this pace for five miles—"

"I can." Before she could argue, Ryland grabbed her and swung her up onto his back without breaking stride. Catherine let out a yelp of surprise, and for a split second, he felt her debate whether to jump off. Then her body twisted as if she were looking behind them at their pursuers. He felt the moment she committed to accepting his protection, as her arms locked around his neck and her legs went around his hips. Satisfaction pulsed through Ryland.
Yes
. This was how it was supposed to be. The rightness of having Catherine wrapped around him, trusting him with her life, felt more incredible than anything he'd felt before.

By the time he reached the stairs where his team had been waiting for him, Thano, Zach, and Apollo were already on the move. The quintet broke for the woods, barely a yard ahead of a shadowy force that Ryland knew was just the start of what lay beneath the surface in this cursed region.

They had to get out of this area, and fast. It wasn't just the town they needed to vacate. It was the region beyond, the heartless and deadly land they were heading directly towards. The place that had once been his home. His prison. His hell.

* * *

Catherine hunched low against Ryland's back, the bitter cold aura of their pursuers brushing over her like the teeth of a demon itself. Dear God, what were they? But even as fear clamped around her, there was also a resounding surge of excited anticipation. Creatures like that were the kind she would expect to see in the nether-realm, so she knew she was getting close to her destination. But how could she find it? Annie had known, but Annie would not be giving any more help.

"There it is!" Ryland shouted.

Catherine peered over his shoulder and saw a raging river of white foam and black depths in front of them. It was at least a hundred yards wide, with whitecaps twenty feet high. The mountain river was so deep that not a single boulder protruded from the surface of the rapids. It wasn't a natural river. It was a boiling cauldron of something not from this earth. There was no way they could cross that. Her fingers dug into his shoulder. "Um, Ryland? I don't know about that—"

Ryland increased his speed. "It's the only way," he interrupted, dismissing her concerns. "Thano! We need a ride!"

Catherine felt a rush of cold air on her back. She quickly glanced back, and then screamed as fangs came down toward her head. Ryland whipped around, took out a huge serpent with a single strike, and then was sprinting forward again with hardly a break in his stride. He altered his path, shifting them directly behind Apollo, barely out of the way of the horse's thundering hooves.

"Apollo's on board with it," Thano yelled. "Grab on!"

Not slowing his pace, Ryland sheathed his weapons. "Swing around to my front so I can hold you better," he ordered her even as he pulled her around his body until they were chest to chest. The intimacy of the position startled her, and she instinctively pulled back.

But Ryland gave her no room to retreat, locking his powerful arm around her waist and hauling her so tightly against him that she could feel the beat of his heart and the expansion of his ribs with each breath. "Hang on to me," he shouted. "This is going to get rough!"

She had a feeling that "rough" was a major understatement, but there was no way they could go back. Forcing aside her apprehension about being in such an intimate position with Ryland, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hooked her feet around his waist.

"Tighter," Ryland commanded her as he lunged for Apollo's tail. Zach did the same, each of them grabbing fistfuls of the thick, black strands just as they reached the bank of the river. Ryland's free arm tightened around her, almost crushing her against him. The heat of his body was intense, his raw power terrifying. But even scarier was her body's response to the intimacy, and her need to burrow into his strength and surrender to his power.