Alpha Guardians Books 1-6

Chapter 12

12

Asher’s selfishness had truly reached epic proportions today. Years of denying himself his mate had accumulated, and the reward had been too sweet to resist. A conversation had been the tipping point, actually.

“We could start over,” Kira told him, tracing a pattern on his bare chest with her fingertip. “Somewhere too far away for anyone to find us.”

“Yeah?” Asher asked, humoring her.

“Yeah. A bolt-hole. We create the perfect place. We go in… we never come out. Simple.”

“And what is this perfect place like?”

“Somewhere by the sea, but with seasons. I like to have fall and spring as much as anyone,” Kira said.

“I think you’ve forgotten something in this clever plan. Or someone, I should say.”

“Who?”

“Mere Marie. Hiding from your father is one thing. He’s only a terrifying archangel of doom and death. Mere Marie on the other hand…” Asher said. He was teasing… but only halfway. He gave Mere Marie his word, and he couldn’t leave until the debt was forgiven.

Kira gave a grunt of disapproval, shaking her head. But her solution wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, and the idea took root in Asher’s skull and wouldn’t go away. Or perhaps it gave him a reason to hope, which was as good as hanging Asher and Kira both by the neck until dead.

As it turned out, hope had been Asher’s Achilles’ heel. It lulled him, made him stupid.

Asher closed his eyes and let himself drift. When he opened them a few minutes later, sunlight flooded his bedroom. He sat up, realizing that a few minutes had actually been quite a few hours. He also realized that Kira was gone, her side of the bed cold as ice.

“You’d better be downstairs, playing backgammon with the f*****g cat,” Asher said aloud.

She wasn’t.

Nor was she anywhere else in the Manor, and Asher looked everywhere. He actually roused Gabriel and Cassie from what looked like some fairly spectacular and gymnastic pregnancy s*x, not that Asher gave a crap.

In the end, everyone stood in the living room, trying to figure out where the hell Kira could possibly be.

“Could Pere Mal have gotten access to the house again and kidnapped her?” Cassie asked, her eyes going wide. “He did that to me, you know.”

“Doubtful.” Cairn, Mere Marie’s furry little familiar, jumped on the conference table and addressed Asher.

“While you were sleeping the whole day away, your mate was asking a lot of questions, poking her nose in a lot of things,” the cat announced.

“Like what?” Rhys asked, giving the cat a stern look. “Come out with it.”

“She wanted to know where Pere Mal might be holed up. She seemed to think that he might know how to summon Rezeal. She also asked me for some particularly nasty attack spells. I told her it was a bad idea,” Cairn said with a lusty sigh. “She wouldn’t listen.”

“And you didn’t think to tell anyone?” Asher shouted, his bear rising.

“You know… I didn’t,” Cairn said, turning and taking a running leap off the table when Asher leapt forward with a menacing growl.

“That f*****g cat…” Asher hissed.

“Did Kira say anything, do anything strange the last few days?” Gabriel interrupted.

“No. She…” Asher paused. “Shit.”

The insistence on being marked, even though she knew it was dangerous… The way she’d talked about it…

No matter what happens, she’d said. Now, while we’re together.

“f**k. f**k!” Asher said, shaking his head. “I should’ve known. I just thought she was finally happy.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Echo said with a sigh. “None of you Guardians do well with knowing what women are thinking.”

Gabriel snorted, a sound of agreement. Rhys scowled at his mate.

Asher was barely aware of the exchange, mentally scrambling.

“What are we going to do? Where the hell do we find her?” he asked, agonizing.

“She’s the most powerful thing in the city, and she barely knows how to shield herself. I think we’ll find her just fine,” Mere Marie said. “It’s what we’ll do when we get there that I’m worried about. Suit up and let’s go get her.”

As it turned out, Mere Marie was right about finding Kira. It would have been almost impossible not to find her, because she and Pere Mal were fighting, and subtlety never entered the equation.

Kira and Pere Mal stood at opposite ends of the French Market, a huge open-air structure covered by a green tin roof. The French Market was a half-mile of broad cement floors crammed with vendors selling every imaginable tourist knickknack or trinket on the planet, a boisterous and packed venue.

At the moment, it was eerily empty, a few stragglers sprinting away from the Market like their hair was on fire. Out of the corner of his eye, Asher saw the bright blue flash of a spell and a t-shirt stall go up in smoke. No wonder everyone had cleared out; neither Kira nor Pere Mal had even bothered to mask their magic, and they were lobbing some very dangerous spells back and forth, not to mention making a lot of noise and mess.

“Think we found them,” Gabriel uttered.

“Kira!” Asher shouted, trying to spot her. He cringed when she popped up from behind a table of macramé jewelry, stared at him, and then had to fling herself out of the way of a nasty-looking fire spell.

Asher started forward, but Mere Marie surprised him by stopping him with a hand.

“Allow me,” she said, strutting right into the middle of the fight.

Pere Mal and Mere Marie engaged each other at once, and soon flashing spells were flying everywhere, blowing up piles of decorative Mardi Gras masks and leather flip flops. Asher edged around until he was closer to Kira, separated by a few folding tables covered in jewelry and t-shirts.

Kira shot Asher a questioning glance, and he scowled.

“You thought I wouldn’t come after you?” he called, ducking to avoid a spell that hit a few feet to his right.

“I need this to be settled,” Kira said with a wince, crouching to hide under a table. “I want us to be together, but I can’t just hide out forever and hope that my father doesn’t kill you.”

Asher dropped down and belly-crawled over to join her under the same table.

“You should have talked to me about it,” he said, grabbing her wrist to get her full attention.

“You wouldn’t have let me come here,” Kira said with a snort.

“Damn right.”

“Asher…” Kira sighed, shaking her head.

“We’re mates, Kira. That means something to me. A lot, actually. If you wanted to take on Pere Mal, we would have found a way to do it, together.”

“Ash, I’m not taking on Pere Mal,” Kira said, pulling an exasperated face. “Pere Mal is just a pawn in this game. I’m using him to summon my father.”

“The hell you are,” Asher growled.

“You can’t stop him,” Kira said, looking a little sad. “Rezeal is going to come after me sometime, and I’ll be damned if he’s going to hurt someone I care about in the process. I’m not running and hiding anymore. I’m doing this now, on my terms.”

Before Asher could say any more, a spell hit the top of the table, sending Kira and Asher flying back in opposite directions. Asher landed hard on the cement, thankful for the still-smoldering pile of cotton dresses that broke his fall. When he scrambled to his feet again, Kira was running full-speed toward Pere Mal, holding a blazing golden ball of light in her hands.

She lobbed the spell at Pere Mal, who deflected it at Mere Marie instead. Mere Marie gave a yelp and dove under a table, leaving Pere Mal free to turn and launch himself at Kira.

A guttural roar ripped from Asher’s throat as Pere Mal formed a massive ball of crackling black energy, tossing it at Kira. It caught her from a dozen paces away, expanding in a flash to trap her whole body, freezing her on the spot.

“Revelos!” Pere Mal cried, throwing another spell at Kira.

Asher actually felt the sizzling wave of energy and heard a distinct pop as Mere Marie’s cloaking spell fell away. The sense of Kira’s power was instantly palpable, the strength and clarity of it giving him goosebumps. She was a beacon, beaming her presence into the sky. Beckoning.

Asher knew all too well just what would come calling in response. He opened his mouth to shout to Mere Marie, but then he jerked to a stop.

White lightning lit his veins, power surging through his body. All at once, a hundred different creatures filled the space inside him, crowding in with his bear. His bargain with Mere Marie was torn asunder, his shape shifting abilities returned.

The sensation overwhelmed him, dropping him to his knees. He clutched at his head, trying to calm the chaos, but there was no silencing what came from within himself. A scream pierced the suddenly-still air in the French Market as Asher fought to control the raging, seething tide inside, fought to stay in his human form. He barely knew his other forms any longer, and controlling them would be next to impossible if he gave them free rein.

Outside the Market, darkness descended. The sun seemed to recede, the sky fading to an eerie dark gray, and lighting crackled and split, lashing the ground around them, close enough that Asher could feel the heat of it.

A strange thrumming sound started, soft at first before increasing to a roar. It was hail, heavy sheets of icy rocklike hail falling from the sky. The wind picked up, rushing and ripping at Asher’s clothes, scattering the debris from the Market. Asher groaned and lurched forward, trying to gain his footing again, trying to beat back the creatures within.

He needed to get to Kira, protect her…

Mere Marie appeared at Asher’s side, putting a hand on his shoulder. Instantly his mind quieted and cleared, and he looked up at her with gratitude.

“I can quiet them for a little while longer,” she said, her face lined with concern. “A soothing spell, nothing more. You might need them, because I think—”

Her last words were swallowed by a ghastly screech, metal on metal, impossibly loud. The wind howled, nearly knocking Asher over. He snaked an arm around Mere Marie to anchor her to the ground, afraid that her slight weight might let the wind carry her away. The world went completely and utterly black for a full, breathless minute.

Slowly, gray light crept back into the world, and with it a new energy filled the air. Power, dark and malevolent. Asher felt it on his skin, thick, creeping and invasive.

Lightning struck, revealing a lone figure at one end of the market, outlining the man’s massive, raven-black wings.

Rezeal had arrived.