CHAPTER 20
Marek stalked through the industrial neighbourhood, slipping between the shadows as he tracked his prey, dark hunger licking through him. Stars twinkled above him, the lights of the city centre dim this far from it. In the distance a car horn sounded, and his prey twitched, one of the males twisting towards the source of the noise.
Marek leaned deeper into the shadows, using his senses to track the vile creatures instead as he waited for the male to move on, following his comrades through the huge crumbling warehouses.
When he had picked up their trail and tracked them to this area in the outskirts of Madrid, he had expected them to head towards one of the grim high-rises. They had surprised him by breaking off the main road and heading over the tall fence that surrounded the industrial complex.
His fingers closed over the blade sheathed against his hip and he stroked the worn hilt, the leather smooth beneath his fingers from years of use.
He itched with the urge to break cover, to attack the group before it reached the warehouse, but held himself back, aware that a greater prize would be his if he had a little patience. They would lead him to the others, and he would attack them then, dealing with them before they could raise the alarm and scatter like rats.
When the small group moved on, he slipped from the shadows and along the side of one of the buildings, keeping close to it and using the boxes and dumpsters as cover.
He reached the next warehouse and paused, assessing the route ahead of him.
His smile was slow as the group banged on the door of the next warehouse along. It opened, revealing another of their kind, one who greeted them with jibes he didn’t pay attention to as the hunger swirling inside him grew stronger, pushing him to attack now.
Soon.
He would drench his blade in blood soon enough.
Would scratch this itch that wouldn’t leave him alone, had been irritating him for close to a week now, telling him that he had gone too long without a fix.
Gods, he needed it.
The group moved inside, and he almost groaned as he finally broke cover, awareness of what was to come, that his patience had paid off, sending a hot jolt of pleasure through him.
Now.
He stalked towards the corrugated steel building, his heart pumping harder with each step, muscles coiling tighter. He grinned as he pulled the curved blade from his black combat trousers and it flashed silver beneath the lights mounted on the sides of the warehouses.
His senses reported twenty of them. No, thirty. He did groan now, a low moan of pleasure as he quickened his pace, the hunger to get started overwhelming him now that he knew so many of them were in one location.
His for the killing.
His lips stretched into a broad grin, flashing his emerging fangs.
The bastards wouldn’t know what had hit them.
It was going to be glorious.
Thirty of the rats against him, the odds in their favour because he would stick with his vow to use only his blade, this blade, against them.
Marek looked down at it, at the beauty of it as it curved from his palm, the metal nicked in places, worn from centuries of use.
Centuries of eliminating their kind.
He lifted his boot and slammed it against the door, sending it flying off its hinges. It smashed into one of the creatures and it went down with a groan, the scent of its blood swamping the air.
Sickening him.
Close to thirty pairs of eyes whipped his way.
Glowing red in the darkness.
Fucking vampires.
He launched into the middle of them, his blade gutting one before it even saw him coming, and as the creature hissed in pain and the silver devoured its insides, a cacophony rose around him.
Music to his ears.
He grinned as he lashed out again, blood spraying over him as he swiped the blade across a throat, and then twisted it deep in the chest of another vampire, and then plunged it behind him, stabbing one in the thigh as it tried to get the jump on him.
They swarmed him then, their shrieks and roars ringing in his ears, and he grunted as two big males hit him from behind, knocking him forwards. The sound of his shirt ripping filled his ears, and fire swept through him, blazing along the tracks of the vampires’ claws. He didn’t give them the satisfaction of hearing his pain as he shook them off, as he dispatched one of them and drove the other back. He made no sound as he blocked and parried, shoved his blade into the heart of another, and then cut a female’s throat and kicked her away from him.
One latched onto his arm, sinking fangs deep into his flesh, stealing his blood to weaken him.
Marek kicked him in the knee, breaking it, and then brought his knife down into the back of his skull as he crumpled. He yanked it out, twisted to dislodge a second vampire before their fangs could pierce him, and swiped the silver blade across the chest of a male who appeared before him.
The male hissed and leaped backwards.
Marek launched after him, catching the flicker in his crimson eyes that said he was going to run.
Not on his watch.
He caught the bastard by his shirt and pulled him back, grinned as he shoved the blade deep into his side and the male jerked in his arms, his keening cry rising above the growls and hisses that surrounded him.
More claws slashed at him, and another vampire managed to sink her fangs in while he was distracted with shoving a male away. He grabbed her by her head and ripped her away from him, and when she tried to break free, snarling like a wild animal at him, he squeezed.
Hard.
Her skull gave under the pressure, and blood sprayed over his chest, coated his hand and splattered up his arm, hitting his skin through his shredded dark shirt.
He growled and shoved her corpse away from him, and turned, bringing his blade up as he spun on the spot to face his next opponent. The vampire leaped back to dodge, but didn’t run. He roared, his eyes wild and wide, and lashed out.
With a blade.
Marek dodged backwards, but the blade caught him across his chest, carving a shallow line straight across his pectorals.
He glared at the vampire and made him acquainted with his own blade as he came around behind him, faster than the rat could track. He plunged his silver knife into the male’s back and whipped it out again as he flailed and fell forwards, hissing as he tried to reach around to grab it.
Marek launched it at a vampire who was trying to run. It spun end over end through the air, a silver blur, and lodged in the female’s thigh, sending her down. She shrieked and clawed at the blade, her agony palpable as the silver ate at her flesh.
He stalked towards her, pulled it out and stared down at her, feeling nothing as she desperately tried to claw away from him.
He strode after her, watching her suffer, watching that false hope spark to life in her eyes as the pain subsided and she neared the exit.
When she was within a metre of it, he stepped into her path.
She froze, looked up at him and shook her head, her eyes pleading him.
He had no mercy to give her.
He brought the blade down hard, deep into the back of her skull.
Pulled it out.
Wiped it off as he walked back towards the centre of the warehouse, his arms and back stinging from the claw marks and bites, and the only sound in the expansive building his own ragged breathing.
Gods, he felt good.
Alive.
Marek took in the beauty of the carnage he had wrought, the bodies fizzing as they decayed and the blood that covered everything glistening like a sea of rubies in the dim light coming in through the windows.
Satisfaction hummed in his veins.
The hunger sated at last.
With close to thirty kills, it would be at least another few weeks before the need to hunt rose again.
He sheathed his blade at his hip.
He had been a victim of it for centuries now, ever since he had made his vow to hunt and destroy every single one of their kind, despite the fact his father classified them as Hellspawn.
He needed to kill them.
Couldn’t help himself.
They needed to pay for what they had done to him.
A slow clap shattered the silence.
He wheeled to face the intruder, his blade back in his hand and in front of him in an instant, his heart pounding faster as adrenaline surged again and the urge to fight returned, pushing out the pain.
He stilled when he spotted the lone female sitting on top of a group of crates, her slender legs folded and the silver filigree that decorated her thick black knee-high boots catching the light as she rocked her right leg forwards.
Her hands pressed into the crates on either side of her hips, her matching black vambraces covering them from wrist to elbow, and she leaned forwards, flashing cleavage in her silver and black chest-piece that he diligently kept his eyes off.
Together with the ridiculous scrap of leather she was apparently calling a skirt today.
“I thought for a moment there was going to be a war.” The disappointed ring to her regal voice was exactly what he expected of her. “But it was merely a massacre. Do you feel better?”
She studied him, her pale jade eyes bright with interest, surrounded by black make-up that only made them seem even greener.
Her red-painted lips offered a teasing smile.
He huffed, cleaned his blade of every last speck of blood on the body of one of the vampires, and then sheathed it. “They got what they deserved.”
She canted her head, surveying the carnage. “How many times a month do you feel the need to do this?”
Marek rolled his shoulders, because that was personal and he wasn’t in the mood to share. No one was meant to know about his little habit.
“Vampire numbers must be getting low now.” She uncrossed her legs and swung them back and forth, like a damned kid.
Not a several thousand year old goddess.
“I do have to keep going farther afield, but the vermin breed quickly, which is lucky for me.” He stepped to his villa in the hills near Seville.
Wasn’t surprised when she appeared behind him barely a second later.
He strode into his bedroom and stripped off his ruined shirt, dumping it in the trash, and quickly replaced it with a fresh black one, not because he gave a damn whether she saw him half-naked, but because someone else would if they found out about it.
And Marek liked breathing.
“Your aim is a little off again.” He tossed his blade into the drawer of the oak bedside table, and walked back into the living room, pretending not to notice the way she scowled at him now, her beautiful face as dark as the world outside. “Surely you meant to land a few hundred miles north of here?”
She casually seated herself in his dark cream armchair in front of the fireplace and kicked her feet up onto his coffee table, and he would have complained but he was guilty of doing that more times than he could count in Ares’s apartment. He could hardly tell her not to do it when it was another habit of his.
“No.” Her voice was light despite her dark appearance, no trace of nerves or any negative emotion in it as she casually flicked her long black hair over her left shoulder and tucked it behind her ear, revealing the three beaded braids that blended so well into her hair he rarely noticed them in her visits.
He moved around to her right, because he liked keeping an eye on what she was up to, and the way she wore her hair, parted off centre with the left side sweeping across her forehead and partially over her eye on that side, often concealed her face if she turned to her right.
She gave him a dazzling smile. “I am exactly where I mean to be.”
But not where she wanted to be.
He wasn’t stupid. He could read between the lines. Especially when the writing there was written in neon marker.
“How is business?” He walked into the kitchen that joined onto the living room, his boots loud on the orange terracotta floor, and grabbed two bottles of water.
He offered one to her as he slumped onto the couch on her right.
She wrinkled her nose at it and waved her hand in a refusal, and a silver flask appeared in it. He cracked open his water as she flicked her thumb up, uncapping her flask, and he caught the scent of the drink it contained.
Ambrosia.
She had vowed she had given it up a decade ago, but clearly she was back on the sauce. Because of what was happening with him and his brothers, and the fact their enemy was finally making itself known?
She was worried about them.
Him.
“So the other day, we all went out and Keras ended up having to protect us from suicide bomber daemons, which is something new.” He eyed her, and didn’t miss the way she clammed up, suddenly fascinated with her flask, as if she had never seen it before.
When she remained silent for more than five minutes, he rose onto his feet.
“What do you want, Enyo? I’m a busy man.” He set his water down and walked away from her, sure she would follow, because he could feel a need to speak brewing in her.
“I could see that.” She trailed after him, out into the night, and drew down a deep breath. “The stars are beautiful here.”
“You didn’t come to stargaze.” He turned, slouched onto the recliner and kicked his feet up, grimacing as his wounds stung. “Spit it out.”
It didn’t do to push a goddess, but he was tired and wanted a shower, and no damn way he could do that with her around.
“Something is brewing.” She kept her eyes on the stars, her head tilted back and her profile to him. “Word on Olympus is that it is coming in hot. Ares can feel it.”
Not Marek’s brother, but the real god of war.
Her brother.
“Our enemy?” He sat up now, needing to know more.
She shrugged. “Ares is not sure, but I believe so. They are strong if Ares can feel them.”
“Stronger than a daemon?” Because that would be bad.
There were plenty of creatures in the world who were stronger than daemons, including the beasts that protected the gates on the Underworld side, and other creatures of the Underworld, and Olympus.
Including Hellspawn and gods.
“He doesn’t know.” She lowered her gaze to him. “I will see if I can get more information from him. I just… wanted to warn you.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
When she didn’t leave, when she lingered and returned to looking at the stars, an awkward air growing around her, he waited for her to speak, because something was on her mind.
She remained silent again.
Typical of her.
She never had been very good at communicating her feelings.
But then, Keras sucked at it too.
“Are you just enjoying my company or was there another reason you came?” he prompted.
She squirmed, very unbecoming of a goddess and very unlike her, and then unfastened the black leather cuff around her left arm to reveal a silver bracelet. She held her arm up and the tiny shield and sword charm twinkled in the light coming from the villa.
“I received a message from Valen.” Her words were low, cautious, edged with the smallest trace of fear. “Something happened.”
Marek knew what she was talking about, because Valen had mentioned it to him too, and all of them were worried.
He sighed. “Valen wanted to face the enemy alone after Esher was almost killed and Keras lost his temper a little.”
Her beautiful face softened, her pale eyes glittering with concern.
“Go to him, Enyo,” he whispered, urging her softly, half of him hoping she would do it even when he knew she wouldn’t. “Speak with him.”
Her eyes closed, and she frowned as she lowered her head away from him, clearly pained by what he was asking. Her black hair fell over the left side of her face, and she turned her head to her right, hiding it from him.
“Keras needs you.” He felt close to getting through to her, close enough that this time he wouldn’t give up.
She was worried about Keras, and Keras needed her. If he could get the two idiots together, even if it killed him, it would be worth it.
She shook her head. “I cannot.”
He wanted to ask her why not, but being so forward with her would only cause her to lash out at him. The last time she had lost her temper, he had come close to losing his arm.
He knew that parting had hurt her and it had hurt Keras too, even when both of them always insisted they were only friends. That was true, but it was utter bullshit too. They had been more than friends, were more than friends, but neither of them had made a move or said a word, and then Keras had been sent to the mortal world with him and their brothers.
Marek also knew what would happen if Keras lost control, and it wouldn’t be pretty. Things had been a little rough when they had first arrived in the mortal realm, before their father had found a way to inhibit Keras’s powers. They would be more than a little rough if Keras lost control and those powers manifested at their full strength. He wasn’t sure the mortal world would survive it.
Keras was under too much strain, was pulled too tight by events and worry for his brothers, and it was only a matter of time before something snapped.
“Visit him.” Marek knew he was pushing his luck when her eyes flicked open and she narrowed them on him. “Just speak with him. I’m sure you can give him the strength he needs.”
“No!” The ground shook with the force of that word, jolting him and cracking the white wall of his villa, and a flash of regret followed by pain crossed her face. She disappeared, her whispered words lingering in the warm air. “It hurts too much.”
He couldn’t understand that. He had never loved anyone that deeply.
His heart called him on that lie.
He had loved someone that much, with all of himself, had given her every drop of him.
And in return?
She had betrayed him.